Techmeme: FT: IBM has appointed Goldman Sachs to sound out possible buyers for its semiconductor arm (Jack Clark/The Register)

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February 7, 2014, 5:10 AM

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Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Apple buys sapphire crystal furnaces for AZ plant, capable of producing 100-200M ~5" iPhone displays per year — Exclusive: Apple just procured enough Sapphire Crystal furnaces to make 100-200M ~5-inch iPhone displays in Arizona — Last year, Apple and GT Advanced struck a deal to open …

More: TechCrunch, ZDNet, everythingiCafe, It's a Gadget, The Mac Observer, AppleInsider, Electronista, iPhone in Canada Blog, iPhone Hacks, Pocketnow, TechnoBuffalo, MacRumors, iDownloadBlog.com, BGR, Gigaom, Business Insider, iLounge and Gotta Be Mobile. Thanks:@swb1192

Daisuke Wakabayashi / Wall Street Journal:

Apple Repurchases $14B of Own Shares in 2 Weeks — CEO Cook Says Company Wanted to Be ‘Aggressive’ and ‘Opportunistic’ — CUPERTINO, Calif. - Apple Inc. has bought $14 billion of its own shares in the two weeks since reporting financial results that disappointed Wall Street, Chief Executive Tim Cook told The Wall Street Journal.

More: Reuters, 9to5Mac, iDownloadBlog.com, Geeky Gadgets, ZDNet, AppleInsider, MacRumors, MacNN, iPhone in Canada Blog, The Next Web, Business Insider, TUAW, MacDailyNews, MacRumors, AppleInsider, Business Insider and SlashGear

Tweets: @michyuan, @sandycannold, @sammywalrusiv and @drewdowell

Mike Isaac / Re/code:

LinkedIn to Acquire Job-Seeking Site Bright for $120 Million — LinkedIn announced on Thursday it plans to acquire Bright, a data-driven job search startup, for $120 million. — The buy is LinkedIn's largest acquisition to date, topping the company's earlier major acquisitions of SlideShare ($119 million) and Pulse ($90 million).

More: LinkedIn Blog, Bright.com Blog, TechCrunch, LinkedIn, Quartz, Tech in Asia, TechSpot, Computerworld, BetaNews, The Next Web, ReadWrite, Mashable, CNET, MarketWatch, WebProNews, VentureBeat and Digits

Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:

LinkedIn Beats In Q4 With Revenue Of $447.2M, But Growth Concerns Dampen After Hours Trading

More: GlobeNewswire, VatorNews, TheDomains.com, VatorNews, Gigaom, GeekWire, Re/code, Reuters, MarketWatch, Forbes, ZDNet and Tech Trader Daily

Ina Fried / Re/code:

Google Changes Homepage to Protest Russia's Anti-Gay Law — As the Winter Olympics kick off in Sochi, groups ranging from Google to human rights organizations are turning to digital media to protest a law that vastly curtails the free speech rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people throughout Russia.

More: Gizmodo, Telegraph, Search Engine Land, Lowyat.NET, TechCrunch, Gigaom, BetaNews, Sarah Perez and The Verge. Tweets: @dannysullivan. See also Mediagazer

Kashyap Deorah / OpenTable Blog:

Pay Your Check with OpenTable Mobile: Pilot Payment Program Launches in San Francisco — First, OpenTable made it simple to book a restaurant reservation at any time of day or night with just a few clicks. Now, we're pleased to announce that it will soon be just as easy to pay for your meal.

More: The Verge, TechCrunch, MacRumors, Eater National and The Next Web

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

OpenTable Buys Ness For $17.3M To Beef Up Mobile And Restaurant Recommendations

More: Press Room, VatorNews, Press Room, Internet2Go, Skift, bizjournals, App Advice, Re/code and Eater National

Tweets: @chloepark and @jess

Robert Graham / Errata Security:

NBC story on visitors to Sochi Olympics getting hacked is misleading — That NBC story 100% fraudulent — Yesterday (Feb 5 2014) NBC News ran a story claiming that if you bring your mobile phone or laptop to the Sochi Olympics, it'll immediately be hacked the moment you turn it on.

More: CNET, iMore, Android Central, Business Insider, Engadget, Daring Fireball and PC Magazine

Tweets: @peard33, @stilgherrian, @tapbot_paul, @jandrade, @inthisdimension and @iliablinderman

See also Mediagazer

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

That Secret App Is Becoming Silicon Valley's New Blind Item — “I work at Evernote and we're about to get acquired... Watch this space” — That could be the first big acquisition rumor to have found its way onto Secret, the new “anonymish” sharing app launched late last week. But it won't be the last.

More: Valleywag, Venture Capital Dispatch and Yahoo Tech

Tweets: @plibin, @dcurtis, @tedr, @jyarow, @sg, @panzer, @sarahlane, @frankba, @benparr, @ajs, @karaswisher, @jessicalessin, @danprimack, @hunterwalk, @profjeffjarvis, @howardlindzon, @danprimack, @carnage4life and @ryanlawler

Tony Romm / Politico:

Tech's biggest players hire first NSA lobbyist — Apple, Google, Facebook and five other technology giants that have banded together in their calls for surveillance reform officially registered a Washington lobbyist on Thursday. — The new hire — tasked to represent a coalition that also includes AOL …

More: TheHill. Tweets: @govjventura

Adi Robertson / The Verge:

Twitter rejects compromise on secret government orders

More: The Twitter Blog, Techdirt, memeburn, Digits, NYT Bits, ReadWrite, Marketing Land, Nextgov, Electronista, Marketing Pilgrim, SiliconBeat, Engadget, Guardian, CNET, Re/code, The Next Web, TechCrunch and Softpedia News. See also Mediagazer

Liam Tung / ZDNet:

IBM lands deal to make DARPA's self-destructing ‘VAPR’ ware — Summary: DARPA's VAPR project could allow it to blanket vast areas with monitoring sensors without risking the equipment falling into enemy hands. — Liam Tung — IBM has won a US government contract to create a model for transient devices that destruct on command.

More: SiliconANGLE, Pocket-lint, The Hacker News, Ars Technica, ExecutiveBiz, DeviceMAG, Business Insider, Motherboard, Washington Post, Geek.com, SlashGear, ExtremeTech, Ubergizmo, Engadget and The Register

Brian X. Chen / NYT Bits:

California Bill Would Require Antitheft Technology for Cellphones — A smartphone is sleek, compact and valuable, which makes it a perfect target for a thief. Californian lawmakers want to require cellphone companies to fix that problem. — In the last year, officials in San Francisco …

More: PC World and CNET

William Alden / DealBook:

How Ben Horowitz Avoided an Options Backdating Scandal — Just by listening to his favorite rappers, Ben Horowitz has absorbed many tales of run-ins and near run-ins with the law. But the prominent Silicon Valley investor also lived one of his own. — Mr. Horowitz, a co-founder …

More: Ben's blog. Tweets: @pmarca, @pmarca, @integrilicious, @shiraovide, @johnofa and @stevesi

Jon Fingas / Engadget:

Android search update lets you pick video-on-demand providers in Google Now — Little software updates sometimes make a big difference. Google has rolled out an update to Android's search app that's currently listed as a simple bug fix, yet introduces a deluge of new features for Google Now.

More: Android Police, Geeky Gadgets, Softpedia News, BGR, Gotta Be Mobile and Pocketnow

Jon Fingas / Engadget:

Firefox beta brings touch-friendly web browsing to Windows 8 — After roughly a year of development, Mozilla has at last released a beta of Firefox for Windows 8. The not-quite-finished browser gives early adopters a full touchscreen interface with finger-friendly elements and gesture support.

More: Future Releases, Geeky Gadgets, The Next Web, CNET, Softpedia News, The Register and SlashGear

Rip Empson / TechCrunch:

Descomplica Lands $5M From Social+Capital, AngelList's First International Syndicate To Become Brazil's Go-To Online Classroom — Internet penetration and social media usage are on the rise in every corner of the globe, but few can hold a candle to the level of adoption one finds in Brazil.

Tweets: @leejacobs

Sean Hollister / The Verge:

Google wants to replace your office's teleconference system with a $999 Chromebox — Google's $35 Chromecast dongle made it cheap and easy to show off YouTube videos on your TV. Now, the company sees another narrow window of opportunity for Chrome: teleconferencing.

Jack Clark / The Register:

FT: IBM has appointed Goldman Sachs to sound out possible buyers for its semiconductor arm — Report: IBM to peddle its chip wing — Big Blue looks at chip division, then chopping block, then chip division, then ... IBM is rumored to have retained Goldman Sachs to help it put a price on its semiconductor division.

More: Gigaom, Financial Times and Reuters

Greg Kumparak / TechCrunch:

Don't Like Your Facebook “Look Back”? You'll Be Able To Edit It Soon. — For the past 24 hours, my Facebook newsfeed has been predominantly filled with just two things: — 1) People sharing those cutesy automated “Look Back” videos that Facebook made for most of its users to celebrate the company's 10th anniversary

More: I4U News, SlashGear, AllFacebook, PC Magazine, CNET, Softpedia News, Mashable and ResearchBuzz

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