Techmeme: TechStars-backed Wander is acqui-hired by Yahoo after launching ‘Days’ app (Harrison Weber/VentureBeat)

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February 11, 2014, 1:15 PM

Top News

Lan Anh Nguyen / Forbes:

Exclusive: Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Says App ‘Gone Forever’ Because It Was ‘An Addictive Product’ — The mysterious developer of the world's most popular free app, who drew global attention this past weekend with his sudden decision to remove it, tells Forbes that Flappy Bird is dead.

Lorraine Luk / Digits:

Foxconn Working With Google on Robotics — But few people know the Taiwanese contract manufacturer, also known as Hon Hai Precision industry, has been quietly working with Google. — People familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal that Foxconn has been working …

More: Inquirer, Business Insider, ZDNet, VentureBeat, 9to5Google, TechSpot, Wired.co.uk, AppleInsider, bizjournals, The Verge, I4U News, FierceWireless, WebProNews, Gizmodo, SlashGear, iDownloadBlog.com, The Next Web and Engadget

Liz Gannes / Re/code:

Social customer service company Lithium Technologies to acquire Klout for at least $100M — Exclusive: Lithium Technologies to Acquire Klout — Klout, the online popularity contest startup, is poised to be sold to social customer service company Lithium Technologies.

More: Business Insider, The Next Web, Mashable and social media. Tweets: @jwherrman. Thanks:@forrestkoba

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

Netflix performance on Verizon and Comcast has been dropping for months — Comcast streams Netflix at just the right speed for the Slowskys. — Comcast — Netflix's speed rankings show that video streaming performance on Verizon and Comcast has been dropping for the past three to four months.

More: Re/code, Examiner, Inquirer, Netflix US & Canada Blog, ReelSEO Video Marketing, The Verge and DSLreports

Jason Del Rey / Re/code:

Square Lands Its Next Starbucks by Inking Deal With Whole Foods — Digital payments company Square has signed a deal to manage the payments process in portions of select Whole Foods Market stores in the U.S., the companies announced this morning. With the deal, Square has signed on its flashiest …

More: Square, TechCrunch, Digits, TechHive, The Verge, WebProNews and Mashable

Robert McMillan / Wired:

Google Takes Over NASA's Hangar One, a Silicon Valley Icon — Google has taken over the lease at the airfield that houses Hangar One — the giant eight-acre aircraft hangar that was built in 1933 to house massive dirigibles and now is one of the most recognizable landmarks in Silicon Valley.

More: NASA, Gizmodo, CNET, Mercury News, The Verge, 9to5Google, PR Newswire, The Register, TechCrunch, Silicon Valley Business …, NASA Watch, Re/code and Inside Google

Dan Seifert / The Verge:

Sprint's the only major US carrier yet to lose money this quarter, despite record subscribers — Sprint posted its fourth quarter earnings report for 2013 this morning, with highlights including the highest number of subscribers ever for the company. The third-place carrier reports a loss of $1 billion …

More: Sprint Newsroom, Gigaom, MacRumors, VentureBeat, DSLreports, Wall Street Journal, Engadget, CNET, Bloomberg, BGR, Phandroid and Electronista

Daniel Cooper / Engadget:

Samsung Galaxy S5 teaser hints at new privacy and fitness features — We're not mathematicians, but we're fairly sure that you can't multiply Life to the power of five. That hasn't stopped Samsung, however, from claiming as much on its latest MWC invite. The company's “back-to-basics” …

More: Samsung Tomorrow, Ars Technica, 9to5Google, SonnyDickson, The Next Web, BGR, Gigaom, LAPTOP Magazine, CNET, The Verge, AndroidGuys, Android Police, Softpedia News, Redmond Pie and SlashGear

Harrison Weber / VentureBeat:

Thousands of tech companies, groups, sites join “The Day We Fight Back” anti-NSA protest on Tuesday — Reddit, Mozilla, Tumblr and more gear up for massive NSA protest tomorrow — Caption: SOPA protests in San Francisco. — Source: Wikipedia — Remember the Internet's reaction to SOPA and PIPA?

Harrison Weber / VentureBeat:

TechStars-backed Wander is acqui-hired by Yahoo after launching ‘Days’ app — Yahoo has acquired Wander, a startup backed by TechStars New York that is best known for Days, a diary-like blogging app. This news, which Wander announced on its blog, comes less then a year after Days launched.

More: The Days Blog and TechCrunch. Thanks:@harrisonweber

Tom Warren / The Verge:

New Windows Phone 8.1 features revealed in developer preview leaks — Microsoft has started sharing its Windows Phone 8.1 Software Development Kit (SDK) with developers, and the inevitable leaks have begun. Over on Reddit, one developer is documenting all of the updates discovered in the Windows Phone 8.1 SDK.

More: Windows Phone Central, ZDNet, GeekWire, Electronista, Gotta Be Mobile, WMPoweruser, MobileSyrup.com, Softpedia News, WinBeta, My Nokia Blog, IntoMobile and TechSpot

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

Shazam Poised to Raise $20 Million in New Funding at a $500 Million Valuation — According to several sources close to the situation, music discovery app Shazam is close to raising $20 million from investors, some new, at a $500 million valuation. — The number is significantly larger …

More: Business Insider and hypebot. See also Mediagazer

Kim Zetter / Wired:

Sophisticated Spy Tool ‘The Mask’ Rages Undetected for 7 Years — PUNTA CANA, Dominican Republic - Researchers have uncovered a sophisticated cyber spying operation that has been alive since at least 2007 and uses techniques and code that surpass any nation-state spyware previously spotted in the wild.

More: Kaspersky Lab US, Securelist / Blog, Wired.co.uk, Gigaom, The Switch, Ars Technica, The Register, Lastest ITProPortal news, Schneier on Security, SlashGear and SC Magazine. Tweets: @thedanwells

Jordan Novet / VentureBeat:

Netflix moves into deep learning research to improve personalization — Google isn't the only company looking to make lots and lots of computers function more like human brains. — In a blog post published earlier today, Netflix research engineers Alex Chen, Justin Basilico …

More: The Netflix Tech Blog and The Register

asymco.com:

With estimated gross revenues of $7 billion per quarter, iTunes would be ranked 130 in the Fortune 500 — Fortune 130 … Apple Inc. Form 10-Q. — During the last quarter Apple changed the pricing for iWork and OS X to zero[1]. — I estimate the net effect to have been a reduction …

More: MacRumors, Fortune, iMore, Macworld, iDownloadBlog.com, 9to5Mac, MacDailyNews and App Advice

Tweets: @benbajarin and @monkbent

Andy Greenberg / Forbes:

Instagram Bug Would Have Let Hackers Peek At Private Photos For At Least Last Six Months — If at any point before last Tuesday you suddenly found your private Instagram pics embarrassingly exposed to public perusal, Christian Lopez might be able to offer an explanation.

More: insertCoin, Re/code, Business Insider, Softpedia News and Valleywag

Matt Swider / Ars Technica:

Slim PS Vita hits North America this spring with Borderlands 2 — Sony announced today that the new slimmer and lighter PlayStation Vita available elsewhere in the world is headed to North America this spring. The handheld will be part of a Borderlands 2 bundle costing $199.99.

More: PlayStation.Blog, Re/code, CNET, HotHardware.com News, Softpedia News, WebProNews and Geek.com

Brad Molen / Engadget:

MediaTek's new octa-core processor to compete with Qualcomm over the premium LTE smartphone market — MediaTek, a chipset manufacturer based out of Taiwan, has been making some huge moves lately. Just over two months ago, it came out with the “world's first true octa-core” processor …

More: MediaTek, Ars Technica, Inquirer, eWeek, Pocketnow, PhoneNews.com, Gizchina.com, SlashGear, AndroidGuys, CNET, LAPTOP Magazine and Re/code

Casey Johnston / Ars Technica:

Virgin Atlantic passengers get Google Glass customer service — Professionals are getting further into Google Glass. A new video shows a firefighter's display while performing a rescue. — Google — Virgin Atlantic staff are getting Google Glass to help them assist customers, according to report from The Next Web.

More: Daily Mail, SITA.aero, Gigaom, BGR, Gizmodo, 9to5Google, Digital Trends, Engadget, The Verge, TechnoBuffalo, SlashGear, Android Central and Inquirer. Tweets: @kashhill

Todd Bishop / GeekWire:

Activists block Microsoft shuttles in Seattle, in anti-gentrification protest — Photo by Sean Maguire, via Twitter. — Several Microsoft Connector shuttles were reportedly blocked for a total of 45 minutes in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood this morning by protesters handing out flyers …

More: PandoDaily, CHS Capitol Hill Seattle, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, NYT Bits and CNET

Tweets: @pmarca and @jreichhold

Brian Fung / Washington Post:

This blogger paid Facebook to promote his page. He got 80,000 bogus Likes instead. — If you manage a Facebook page for a company, interest or organization, then you know there are two main reasons Facebook Likes are important. One is pretty obvious: The number of Likes you receive …

More: The Next Web, AGBeat, BestTechie, ITworld, The Daily Caller, Tubefilter, Mashable and Union Square Ventures

Tweets: @nytimesbits, @stilgherrian, @narendra, @teresangonzalez, @pug, @calebgarling and @counternotions

Brian Fagioli / BetaNews:

Microsoft soars through the sky — FAA authorizes Surface 2 for pilot use — Traveling on an airplane used to be quite the archaic experience. Sure, soaring above the clouds is great, but for many, using electronic devices for things like Flappy Bird is much more exciting.

More: Surface Blog, PC Magazine, Engadget, Gigaom, ZDNet, SlashGear and WinBeta. Thanks:@brianfagioli

George Packer / New Yorker:

Is Amazon Bad for Books? — Amazon is good for customers. But is it good for books? Amazon is a global superstore, like Walmart. It's also a hardware manufacturer, like Apple, and a utility, like Con Edison, and a video distributor, like Netflix, and a book publisher, like Random House …

More: Forbes, Salon, GeekWire, Re/code and Business Insider

Tweets: @bradstone and @jbarro

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