Techmeme: Inq Mobile, Facebook-phone maker and app developer, quietly shuts down (Michael Crider/Android Police)

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January 31, 2014, 3:35 PM

Top News

Monica Langley / Wall Street Journal:

Nadella in contract talks with Microsoft board, asks Gates to assist with technology, strategy — Satya Nadella in Contract Talks With Microsoft Board — CEO Appointment Could Lead to a New Role for Bill Gates — Microsoft Corp.'s board is in contract negotiations with veteran executive Satya Nadella …

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

Microsoft board set to meet this weekend, CEO choice coming next week — Microsoft Board Set to Meet This Weekend — Just Not During Super Bowl — With CEO Choice Coming Next Week — According to numerous sources, the board of Microsoft will be meeting sometime this weekend to begin …

More: SlashGear, Washington Post, I4U News, TechCrunch, TechnoBuffalo and Guardian

Bloomberg:

Microsoft's board preparing to make Satya Nadella CEO, may replace Gates as chairman — Microsoft Said to Be Preparing to Make Satya Nadella CEO — Microsoft Corp.'s board is preparing to make Satya Nadella, the company's enterprise and cloud chief, chief executive officer …

Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:

Nest Team Will Become Google's Core Hardware Group — Google today sold Motorola to Lenovo for $2.91 billion. While many speculated that Google would release phones after it bought Motorola in 2011, it didn't happen — Motorola remained a partner like other Android OEMs.

Karl Bode / DSLreports:

Aereo Is Out of Capacity in New York City — Last night I started tinkering with a new Roku 3 and Plex, a combination that's delivering a lot of surprisingly impressive (to me, anyway) functionality promised but not delivered by more expensive devices like Microsoft's Xbox One.

More: BGR, Ars Technica, Business Insider, The Verge, TechCrunch, Betabeat, Variety, Bloomberg, Electronista and The Loop. Tweets: @ckanojia

Miguel Helft / Fortune:

Lenovo CEO on Apple, Samsung: ‘Our mission is to surpass them’ — In an interview with Fortune, Yuanqing Yang says that his company seeks to replicate its ThinkPad success with Motorola. — FORTUNE — Fresh from signing a $2.91 billion deal with Larry Page to acquire Google's Motorola unit …

More: Los Angeles Times, The Tell, iDownloadBlog.com, TechnoBuffalo, CNET, AndroidHeadlines.com, pocketnow.com, ZDNet, InfoWorld, Digital Trends, BGR, PhoneArena, Tech.pinions, Canalys Newsroom, The Mac Observer and applefansite.com. Tweets: @whatthebit

Wall Street Journal:

How Lenovo Built a Chinese Tech Giant

More: Bloomberg

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Twitter Acquires Over 900 IBM Patents Following Infringement Claim, Enters Cross-Licensing Agreement — Twitter announced today that it has acquired over 900 patents from IBM, and that it has entered into a cross-licensing agreement with the Internet services and software company.

More: IBM, Computerworld, Bloomberg, Business Insider, Reuters, Digits, Re/code, VentureBeat, TechnoBuffalo, CNET, Gigaom, TheHill, Electronista, Inquirer, AllTwitter, Engadget, Mashable, ZDNet and WebProNews

Brad Reed / BGR:

On BlackBerry 10′s 1st anniversary, BlackBerry's U.S. market share hits 0% — BlackBerry has become the Bluto Blutarsky of the American smartphone market because, as Dean Wormer once said to Bluto, its market share is now “zero... point... zero.” Consumer Intelligence Research Partners …

More: Electronista, Cult of Mac, 9to5Mac, iPhone in Canada Blog, CrackBerry.com, Fortune, Softpedia News, PC Magazine, WebProNews and Global Nerdy. Thanks:@_trendspotter

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft backpedals: Windows 8.1 update hides tile interface by default — Microsoft is once again planning to alter the way its Start Screen works in Windows 8.1 Update 1. While the software giant originally released Windows 8.1 last year with an option to bypass the “Metro” interface at boot …

Michael Crider / Android Police:

Inq Mobile, Facebook-phone maker and app developer, quietly shuts down — UK-Based Inq Mobile Quietly Shuts Down, Remaining Apps Will Not Be Updated — The big news this week was Google selling off Motorola, but there's a smaller company that won't be getting a second chance.

More: TechCrunch, Phandroid, Re/code, PhoneArena, FierceMobileIT News, Pocket-lint and The Next Web

Lily Hay Newman / Slate:

Game Developers Are Trolling the Makers of Candy Crush With Other “Candy” Games — What if a game developer was so concerned about protecting its viral iOS hit that it trademarked the word candy in Europe, and then succeeded in getting Apple to enforce the trademark?

More: Engadget, MacRumors, The Register, AppleInsider, Pocket-lint, pocketnow.com, App Advice, iPhone, BBC, GameSpot, SlashGear, PhoneArena, BGR and Boing Boing

CBC News:

Snowden documents reveal Canadian spy agency used airport Wi-Fi to track passengers “for days after they left the terminal” — Canadian spy agency used airport Wi-Fi to track passengers for days after they left the terminal — Electronic snooping was part of a trial run for U.S. NSA and other foreign services

Reed Albergotti / Wall Street Journal:

Facebook now lets advertisers target users based on purchases in retail stores — Facebook Uses Data to Charm Advertisers — Facebook Refined its Tools that Allow Advertisers to Target Users Based on Spending Habits in Brick and Mortar Stores — To make the journey from underachiever …

Tweets: @joshconstine. See also Mediagazer

Sarah McBride / Reuters:

Exclusive: Wayfair raises around $150 million in funding — (Reuters) - Wayfair, the online home-furnishings site, is raising around $150 million at a valuation of around $2 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter, underscoring the appeal of select online retailers.

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

Mayer is working to bring back search technology to Yahoo, ending reliance on Microsoft — With “Fast Break” and “Curveball,” Mayer Is Aiming to Bring Back Search Tech to Yahoo — According to numerous sources inside Yahoo, CEO Marissa Mayer has ordered up two under-the-radar initiatives …

Brian Fung / The Switch:

The FCC is ‘beta testing’ a next-gen telephone network — Federal regulators have taken their first major step in accelerating the country's move toward high-capacity, fiber optic phone networks. In a unanimous vote Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission approved a program …

More: Inquirer, Engadget, Reuters, Gizmodo, SlashGear, dailywireless.org, Wall Street Journal, The Verge, multichannel.com/rss, toptechnews.com and The Register. Tweets: @stoweboyd

Lucian Constantin / PC World:

Tor-enabled malware stole credit card data from PoS systems at dozens of retailers — Payment card data was stolen during the past three months from several dozen retailers that had their point-of-sale systems infected with a memory-scraping malware program called ChewBacca.

More: Speaking of Security, Ars Technica, The Register, SC Magazine, BBC, Help Net Security, NBCNews, ZDNet and SecurityWeek

Kyle Orland / Ars Technica:

Nintendo offers a vague, confusing, unfocused vision for its future — The briefings Nintendo gives following its quarterly earnings results are usually relatively dry affairs, filled with charts of worldwide gaming hardware breakdowns and canned enthusiasm about upcoming game releases.

More: Co.Design, Guardian, TechNewsWorld, The Verge, Softpedia News and Polygon

Harry McCracken / TIME:

Yahoo to Donna Users: We're Dispensing With Your Indispensable App — Incredible Labs — the company behind smart-calendar app Donna — is being acquired by Yahoo. The app is being shut down, and most of the folks who worked on it will join the Yahoo Mail team.

Tweets: @harrymccracken and @spencerchen

Mark DeCambre / Quartz:

Box has secretly filed for an IPO — Box, the online storage company, has secretly filed paperwork for an initial public offering, according to a source. — That means Box could start trading as a public company before its chief rival, Dropbox. Both are among the most anticipated tech IPOs of this year.

More: Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, MacRumors, Forbes, VatorNews, Android Police, Mashable, Softpedia News, Inc.com, DealBook, The Next Web, GeekWire, Business Insider, The Verge, CNET, PE Hub Blog and Gigaom

Tweets: @dmac1, @jguynn and @m_delamerced

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