Techmeme: Amazon Acquires Video Gaming Studio Double Helix Games (TechCrunch)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News

February 6, 2014, 10:10 AM

Top News

TechCrunch:

Amazon Acquires Video Gaming Studio Double Helix Games — Amazon has acquired a gaming studio called Double Helix Games, TechCrunch has learned, and Amazon now confirms. The deal was for both talent and IP, we understand. Financial terms have not been disclosed.

Robert McMillan / Wired:

Apple pulls popular Bitcoin wallet app Blockchain from App Store, used by over a million people — Apple Yanks World's Most Popular Bitcoin Wallet From App Store — Apple has removed the world's most popular bitcoin wallet from its App Store. — Late Wednesday, the tech giant yanked …

More: Bloomberg, Blockchain.info Team Blog, Guardian, Telegraph, CoinDesk, SiliconANGLE, 9to5Mac, Ars Technica, Bitcoin Magazine, SlashGear, Business Insider, AppleInsider, The Next Web, Cult of Mac, App Advice, MacRumors and Geeky Gadgets. Thanks:@percival

Mat Smith / Engadget:

Sony to exit VAIO PC business, spin off TV business, cut 5000 jobs worldwide — Sony sells its VAIO PC business, makes TV arm its own subsidiary — Sony said it was “addressing various options” as recently as yesterday when it came to its VAIO PC and laptop arm, and while announcing …

More: Sony Global, New York Times, VentureBeat, ZDNet, Gigaom, Android Central, BGR, TechEye, BetaNews, Tech in Asia, Inquirer, It's a Gadget, WebProNews, Re/code, InfoWorld, MobileBurn.com, Tech Trader Daily, Geek.com, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, BBC, Agence France Presse, Bloomberg, DisplayBlog, Reuters, TechSpot, Xperia Blog, SlashGear, CNET, The Next Web, Electronista, IntoMobile, Ubergizmo and CNET. Tweets: @dannysullivan

Bloomberg:

HTC Sees New Devices and Fresh Marketing Push Driving Turnaround — HTC Corp. (2498) said an updated version of the One smartphone, its first wearable device and a renewed focus on marketing will help turn around the company this year after two straight annual declines in revenue.

Richard Byrne Reilly / VentureBeat:

New York Police Department is beta-testing Google Glass — Caption: Google Glass: watching me, watching you. — Source: Jolie O'Dell/VentureBeat — Google Glass may soon become a favored tool for law enforcement agencies in the United States. — The New York City Police Department's massive …

More: Digital Trends, bizjournals, Gizmodo, SocialTimes, Softpedia News, Geeky Gadgets, 9to5Google and Ubergizmo. Tweets: @digiphile

Ellis Hamburger / The Verge:

Indie smash hit ‘Flappy Bird’ racks up $50K per day in ad revenue — The enigmatic and oppressively difficult mobile game Flappy Bird has turned into quite the cash cow for Vietnamese developer Dong Nguyen. In an interview with The Verge, Nguyen revealed that the game …

More: The Next Web, Business Insider, CNN, TechSpot, Gigaom Research, iPhone Hacks, Gearburn, iPhone in Canada Blog and Mobile Entertainment Feed

Tweets: @paul_austin and @ourielohayon

Raffi Krikorian / The Twitter Blog:

Twitter Data Grants: Pilot project giving a few research institutions access to public and historical Twitter data — Introducing Twitter Data Grants — Today we're introducing a pilot project we're calling Twitter Data Grants, through which we'll give a handful of research institutions access to our public and historical data.

More: Mobile Marketing Watch, Telegraph, TechCrunch, Engadget, Forbes, TechWeekEurope UK, Gnip Blog, ZDNet, PC World, SlashGear, The Register and The Next Web

Tweets: @janamal and @audreywatters

Dan Levine / Reuters:

Google, Intellectual Ventures case over patents ends in U.S. mistrial — (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Wednesday declared a mistrial in a lawsuit brought by private patent owner Intellectual Ventures against Google Inc's Motorola Mobility unit after jurors could not unanimously agree, according to an Intellectual Ventures statement.

More: Intellectual Ventures, Ars Technica, 9to5Google, The Verge and Gigaom. Tweets: @fedcourtjunkie

Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:

Twitter Crushes With Q4 Revenue Of $242.7M, But Shows Slow User Growth To 241M Actives — After the bell this afternoon, Twitter reported its maiden earnings as a public company, with fourth-quarter revenue of $242.7 million and earnings per share of $0.02 (non-GAAP).

Steve Hargreaves / CNN Money:

Twitter forecasts slowing sales and user growth

Tweets: @cnnmoney. See also Mediagazer

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Twitter's Mobile Business Now At 184M Monthly Actives And 75%, $165M Of All Ad Revenues

More: I4U News and ReadWrite

Abhijeet M. / SamMobile:

EXCLUSIVE: A look at Samsung's updated S Voice app — Samsung adds a multitude of features and services on top of what Google already provides with Android, and we recently offered our readers an exclusive look on updated versions of two of those apps - S Health and WatchON.

More: IntoMobile, Geeky Gadgets, TechnoBuffalo, Phandroid and BGR

Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:

Target Hackers Broke in Via HVAC Company — Last week, Target told reporters at The Wall Street Journal and Reuters that the initial intrusion into its systems was traced back to network credentials that were stolen from a third party vendor. Sources now tell KrebsOnSecurity that the vendor …

More: NYT Bits, New York Times, Computerworld, TheStreet.com, Softpedia News, bizjournals, TechWeekEurope UK, VentureBeat, Digits, Gizmodo and The Verge. Tweets: @viss

Seth Rosenblatt / CNET:

Take a trip down memory lane to Google's first data center — Before Urs Hölzle became Google's first chief engineer, he took a tour of the company's server room at the Exodus data center in Santa Clara, Calif. Not yet a Google employee, Hölzle was taken there by Google co-founder Larry Page …

More: Urs Hölzle, Data Center Knowledge and Network World

Burak Akinci / AFP:

Turkey lawmakers adopt ‘Orwellian’ Internet curbs — Ankara — Turkish MPs late Wednesday adopted new Internet legislation roundly criticised as a fresh assault by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on freedom of expression, access to information and investigative journalism.

More: Associated Press, The Switch, The Verge, Reuters, BBC and Al Jazeera English

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

AOL's Q4 Revenue Grows To $679M But Earnings Per Share of $0.43 Fall Short Of Estimates — AOL came in ahead of analyst estimates on revenue but not earnings in its in its fourth quarter of 2013, reporting $679 million in revenue and diluted earnings per share of 43 cents.

More: AdExchanger, Re/code and Reuters. See also Mediagazer

Kevin Fitchard / Gigaom:

Cisco: The U.S. officially enters the gigabyte era of mobile data consumption — Mobile users the world over came close to doubling their mobile data consumption between 2012 and 2013 as average monthly usage peaked well over 1 GB in the U.S, and several other countries …

More: Cisco Blog, internetnews.com, VideoNuze Analysis, Cisco, NYT Bits, Reuters, eWeek, Re/code and dailywireless.org. Tweets: @symantec

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Netflix Now Pulls In Almost as Much Revenue as HBO — But HBO Is Far More Profitable — Reed Hastings has positioned Netflix as an “Internet TV network,” with HBO among its chief competitors. — And now Netflix is almost as big as HBO — at least in terms of topline revenue.

More: Wall Street Journal and The Verge

Liz Gannes / Re/code:

Google Confirms Susan Wojcicki Is New YouTube Head — Susan Wojcicki is Google's new SVP of YouTube, Google confirmed today. We wrote about the shift last night. — Google CEO Larry Page said in an emailed statement, “Salar and the whole YouTube team have built something amazing.

More: The Register, Computerworld, TechnoBuffalo, ReelSEO Video Marketing, AdExchanger, Mercury News, PC Magazine, SocialTimes, Marketing Land, ZDNet and CNET. Tweets: @susanwojcicki. See also Mediagazer

Jaikumar Vijayan / Computerworld:

Possible Belarus connection prompts probe of Healthcare.gov — U.S. intelligence community releases, then withdraws, report about programmers in Belarus doing work on Healthcare.gov — The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched a security probe of Healthcare …

More: Washington Free Beacon, Reuters and SC Magazine

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Mozilla And EverythingMe Preview “Firefox Launcher”, An Android Homescreen That Fights App Overload — Mozilla wants to help you find new apps and rediscover those you downloaded but forgot. So today it previewed Firefox Launcher for Android, a homescreen replacement powered …

Harry McCracken / TIME:

Amazon's iPhone App Uses Image Recognition to “See” Real-World Products You Want to Buy — Among the many things that make Amazon one of the most successful merchants in the history of merchandising is the zeal with which it removes every possible obstacle that might stand in the way of you buying something.

More: memeburn, iDownloadBlog.com and Digits

Sponsor Posts

Soxton:

Fast, affordable law for startups — Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better. We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts. Join the waitlist for early access!

F5:

Accelerate AI Adoption at F5's AI Virtual Summit — Learn how to architect, secure, and scale AI for production with real-world insights from industry leaders on June 23. Register now to save your spot.

Zoho:

Zoho RPA named a Leader in the 2026 RPA Technology Value Matrix by Nucleus Research — Zoho RPA has been named a Leader in the 2026 RPA Technology Value Matrix, published by Nucleus Research …

IDrive:

Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Lenny's Podcast:

The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (founder of Zynga)

Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.

Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.

Big Technology Podcast:

SpaceX's IPO Triumph, Anthropic's Fable Fumble, OpenAI's Price War

The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.

Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.

Access:

A top iPhone app developer reacts to Apple's new Siri

A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.

Subscribe to Access.

Hard Fork:

'Hard Fork' Live, Part 1: Satya Nadella and Cindy Cohn

The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.

Subscribe to Hard Fork.

The Upstarts Podcast:

TBC's Alex Ksendzovsky: The Neurosurgeon Using Brain Cells To Build Better AI

Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.

Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

AI's Mythos Moment: Rishi Sunak on preparing governments for AI

Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.

Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:10 AM ET, February 6, 2014.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.