Techmeme: The NSA has a new, first time ever, privacy officer (Al Kamen/In the Loop)

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January 29, 2014, 5:05 AM

Top News

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Apple TV graduates from hobby/accessory to product line ahead of major changes — Apple appears to be putting its ducks in a row ahead of major Apple TV changes. Alongside last night's changes to the Apple Online Store to promote Valentine's Day specials, Apple added an entire Apple TV section.

More: Variety, Redmond Pie, Gotta Be Mobile, Apple Bitch, PadGadget, Gigaom, TechnoBuffalo, iPhone in Canada Blog, MacRumors, iDownloadBlog.com, AppleInsider, App Advice, MacNN, iMore, TechnologyTell, iLounge, MacDailyNews, SlashGear, everythingiCafe, iClarified and Softpedia News

Tweets: @monkbent and @markgurman

Thanks:@benjaminzamayo

Re/code:

Medium, Evan Williams's Post-Twitter Media Startup, Raises $25 Million Round — Medium is about to become large. — The collaborative publishing startup has just closed a $25 million round of financing, the company confirmed, marking its first major funding raise since it launched a little more than a year ago.

More: Medium, TechCrunch, VatorNews, VentureBeat, The Verge, Mashable and StartupBook

Tweets: @mikeisaac, @jwherrman, @samfbiddle, @max_read, @kyler, @ricmac and @ericfranchi

See also Mediagazer

Michael J. de la Merced / DealBook:

Alibaba's enormous growth, with $1.8B revenue, $801M profit, helps boost Yahoo's bottom line

More: Bloomberg, Digits, Re/code, USA Today and PandoDaily

Joe Mullin / Ars Technica:

Court: Google infringed patents, must pay 1.36 percent of AdWords revenue — Vringo is a tiny company that purchased some patents from Lycos, an old search engine, in 2011 and then used those patents to sue Google. In December 2012, Vringo won $30 million in a jury trial …

More: PC World and Electronista. Tweets: @danravicher and @rsingel

Naoki Hiroshima / Medium:

How I Lost My $50,000 Twitter Username — A story of how PayPal and GoDaddy allowed the attack and caused me to lose my $50,000 Twitter username. — My $50,000 Twitter Username Was Stolen Thanks to PayPal and GoDaddy — I had a rare Twitter username, @N. Yep, just one letter.

More: VentureBeat. Tweets: @harryh, @davidu, @monkbent, @percival, @aulia, @mat, @panzer, @counternotions, @nzkoz and @timhaines

Alexandra Chang / Popular Mechanics:

New 3D Printer by MarkForged Can Print With Carbon Fiber — Looking for a better way to make racecar parts, Gregory Mark invents a 3D printer that can print in tough, lightweight carbon fiber, the first of its kind. — Gregory Mark co-owns Aeromotions, which builds computer-controlled racecar wings.

More: Gizmodo, Engadget, 3ders.org, TechCrunch, Gigaom, Digital Trends and WebProNews. Tweets: @popmech

Steven Musil / CNET:

Obama proposes creation of six new tech manufacturing hubs — President Obama made a push for an expanded high-tech manufacturing base in the US during his State of the Union address Tuesday night, proposing the creation of six new high-tech manufacturing hubs in the US this year.

More: AppleInsider, MacRumors, The Next Web, The Twitter Blog, Computerworld, Associated Press, National Journal and SlashGear

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

Yahoo Is Shutting Down IntoNow, Nearly Three Years After Acquisition — IntoNow — the second-screen app that Yahoo bought in the spring of 2011, just 12 weeks after its launch — is being shut down by its parent company. As of last week, IntoNow was taken off the Apple App Store and Google Play …

Tweets: @iangertler, @hunterwalk and @caseynewton. See also Mediagazer

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Yahoo Has Closed The Tomfoolery Acquisition, Will Shut Down Anchor, Team To Work For Bonforte — We now have more details about the deal between Yahoo and Tomfoolery, an enterprise app studio co-founded by ex-Yahoo and ex-AOL alums, which we and others have reported is getting acquired by Yahoo.

More: Fortune, VatorNews, Guardian, App Advice and Electronista

Douglas MacMillan / Digits:

Yahoo in Talks to Buy App Developer Tomfoolery for $16 Million

More: CNET, TechCrunch, FierceMobileIT News, Cult of Mac, App Advice, The Next Web and Softpedia News

Al Kamen / In the Loop:

The NSA has a new, first time ever, privacy officer — The National Security Agency, which has come under a bit of criticism of late for violating the privacy rights of just about everyone on the planet, has named its first- ever person to the newly created job of primary adviser …

More: Lawfare, Engadget, ZDNet, Business Insider, Softpedia News and Gizmodo

Tweets: @digiphile and @washingtonpost

Anand Lal Shimpi / AnandTech:

It Begins: AMD Announces Its First ARM Based Server SoC, 64-bit/8-core Opteron A1100 — Around 15 months ago, AMD announced that it would be building 64-bit ARM based SoCs for servers in 2014. Less than a month into 2014, AMD made good on its promise and officially announced the Opteron A1100: a 64-bit ARM Cortex A57 based SoC.

More: Ars Technica, PC Magazine, TechSpot, SlashGear, HotHardware.com News, Wall Street Journal and ZDNet

Andy Greenberg / Forbes:

Bitcoin Investors Ask For ‘Safe Harbor’ Exceptions In Proposed ‘BitLicense’ Regulations — Bitcoin's reputation may have been bruised by its connection to the Silk Road black market and Monday's indictment of Bitcoin Foundation vice chairman Charlie Shrem. But a panel of Bitcoin-focused …

More: The Verge, WSJ Blogs - WSJ, DealBook, CoinDesk, Financial Times, Bloomberg, Examiner, RT, The Snitch, LawFuel, Business Spectator, Bitcoin Magazine and Techworld. Thanks:@lainnafader

Alice Truong / Fast Company:

Following Arrest, BitInstant CEO Charlie Shrem Resigns From Bitcoin Foundation

More: Gigaom, CoinDesk, The Verge and Bloomberg. Thanks:@alicetruong

Brad Molen / Engadget:

Pebble Steel review: at last, a stylish smartwatch — Smartwatches are supposed to be pieces of jewelry that are just as personal as the smartphones they're attached to, yet rarely are they thought of as fashionable. We've seen a handful (or is it wristful?) that are hip, ornate and sporty …

More: Pebble, Ars Technica, Smartwatch Fans, The Verge, CNET, Daring Fireball, TIME, TechCrunch, Tom's Guide, Mashable, Gigaom, Gotta Be Mobile and AppleInsider. Tweets: @jbrodkin

Matt Martin / VG247:

Amazon's Android console to launch this year priced below $300 — Retail giant Amazon will launch a dedicated games and entertainment device this year priced below $300. — Running the Android operating system, the system will compete directly with Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo …

More: Android Authority, Gigaom, Digital Trends, BGR, I4U News, Electronista, Geek.com, TechSpot, Engadget, SlashGear, PhoneArena, Inquirer, Business Insider, AndroidGuys, WebProNews, GamePolitics blogs and Softpedia News

Cliff Edwards / Bloomberg:

Electronic Arts Sales Come Up Short in Console Transition — Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), the No. 2 U.S. video-game maker, posted third-quarter sales that fell short of analysts' estimates and cut its full-year revenue outlook as shoppers spend less on games for old consoles.

More: EA.com, VentureBeat, Financial Post, Associated Press, BBC, Reuters, Tech Trader Daily, Wall Street Journal, Polygon, Joystiq and VentureBeat

Rich Miller / Data Center Knowledge:

Facebook: Open Compute Has Saved Us $1.2 Billion — SAN JOSE, Calif. - Over the last three years, Facebook has saved more than $1.2 billion by using Open Compute designs to streamline its data centers and servers, the company said today. Those massive gains savings are the result of hundreds …

More: Gigaom, Business Insider, ZDNet, The Next Web, TechCrunch, The Register, SiliconANGLE, eWeek, Pulse 2.0, Re/code, The CIO Report, Reuters, Social News Daily, SlashGear and PC World

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Amazon Appstore Now Allows Developers To Charge For HTML5 Web Apps, Promote Them Through “Free App Of The Day” — Amazon is announcing a change to its Appstore today, which will now allow developers building HTML5 (web-based) applications to price those apps to sell, just the same as their natively coded counterparts.

More: Guardian, The Next Web, GeekWire and WebProNews

Roger Cheng / CNET:

AT&T swings to profit, adds 1.2M contract smartphone customers — AT&T swung to a profit in the fourth quarter as it deals with pressure from rival T-Mobile. — The Dallas telecommunications company posted a fourth-quarter profit of $6.9 billion, or $1.31 a share, compared with a year-earlier loss …

More: multimediacapsule …, AT&T, New York Times, ABC News, eWeek, MacRumors, Computerworld, Electronista, The Verge, AppleInsider, Android Central, ZDNet, Re/code, The Verge, Reuters, Tech Trader Daily, BGR and DSLreports

Arik Hesseldahl / Re/code:

IBM Exploring Sale of Software-Defined Networking Business — A week after selling its server business unit to Lenovo, IBM is now exploring the sale of some of its networking assets and may be seeking as much as a $1 billion, sources familiar with the matter tell Re/code.

More: I4U News and SiliconANGLE

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