Techmeme: In Russia, iPhone sales doubled in 2013 to 1.57M, largest carriers now resuming iPhone sales (Ilya Khrennikov/Bloomberg)

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February 19, 2014, 9:55 AM

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Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Microsoft SkyDrive becomes OneDrive, gets camera backup for Android, real-time co-authoring, and easier video sharing — Microsoft today officially relaunched SkyDrive as OneDrive, giving its existing users access to their files on the new service by simply logging in at onedrive.com.

Kate Kaye / AdAge:

Amazon and Apple struggle with ad growth because they're “slow, cocky and downright stingy” according to media buyers — Why Can't Amazon And Apple Catch a Break on Madison Ave? — Advertising Sales Are a Tough Slog for Both — And for A lot of the Same Reasons — Goodby, Silverstein and Partners

More: TheStreet.com, Fortune, Breaking Apple News …, TechCrunch, Softpedia News, The Mac Observer, MacRumors, Ubergizmo, Computerworld, iPhone Hacks, iMore, iPhone in Canada Blog, Business Insider, BGR and App Advice. Tweets: @amir

Alistair Barr / USA Today:

Sources: new Samsung Gear smartwatch to run on Tizen, not Android — Samsung's updated smartwatch to shun Android — SAN FRANCISCO - The new version of Samsung's Gear smartwatch will run on Tizen, not Google's Android operating system, the latest attempt by the South Korean electronics giant …

Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:

Apple bringing iTunes Festival to the US for the first time at SXSW, for five nights in March — Apple has announced that it is bringing the iTunes Festival to the United States for the first time, after being a UK-only event since it began in 2007. The festival will be held at SXSW …

More: Apple, The Next Web, CNET, AppleInsider, MacRumors, The Verge, Gigaom, TechCrunch, The Loop, iPhone in Canada Blog, Cult of Mac and iDownloadBlog.com. Tweets: @benjaminzamayo

Ilya Khrennikov / Bloomberg:

In Russia, iPhone sales doubled in 2013 to 1.57M, largest carriers now resuming iPhone sales — Apple Drags Russia's Mobile Carriers Kicking and Screaming Into the iPhone Era — After years of wooing, Russian mobile carriers are finally coming around to the iPhone — not that they have much choice.

More: Mobile Marketing Watch, 9to5Mac, MacNN, iPhone Hacks, AppleInsider and Electronista

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Google Capital Invests $40M In Learning Analytics Firm Renaissance Learning At $1B Valuation — Renaissance Learning, one of the leading cloud-based K-12 assessment and learning analytics companies, today announced that it has raised a $40 million investment from Google Capital.

More: The Official Google Blog, Re/code, CNET, The Next Web, Fortune, PE Hub Blog and WebProNews

Arik Hesseldahl / Re/code:

HP Explores Settlement of Autonomy Shareholder Lawsuit — Hewlett-Packard has begun talks with a shareholders group that sued the company and CEO Meg Whitman over the botched 2011 acquisition of the British software firm Autonomy about a possible settlement, sources familiar with the situation tell Re/code.

Reuters:

HP was aware of Autonomy's loss-making hardware sales: FT

More: bizjournals, Digits and Business Insider

Jesse Hicks / The Verge:

This machine kills trolls: how Wikipedia's robots and cyborgs snuff out vandalism — At midnight on February 13th, 2014, a Wikipedia user named Lightningawesome added to the list of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic characters a lengthy biography of Lightning Dash, a capricious, lovable filly existing only in fan fiction.

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

After Raising $10M From USV, SideCar Pivots To Offer A Ride-sharing Marketplace — Peer-to-peer ride-sharing startup SideCar is releasing a brand new version of its app for both passengers and drivers, which will provide more flexibility for drivers and more choice for passengers.

More: Gigaom, A VC, CNET and Re/code. Tweets: @om

Matt Burns / TechCrunch:

Google Explains How Not To Be A Glasshole — Here are the do's and don'ts of wearing Google Glass. Right from Google. — Apparently — and I know this might be a shocker — you're not supposed to stand in the corner of the room and record people with Google Glass.

Jeremy Wagstaff / Reuters:

Upsetting the app cart: Asian messaging services challenge mobile order — (Reuters) - Asian chat services KakaoTalk, LINE and WeChat threaten to overturn the mobile order of things, usurping the role of Google Inc, Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Facebook Inc and telecoms carriers as gatekeeper to the consumer.

More: stratechery. Tweets: @jonrussell and @msab_xry

Colleen Taylor / TechCrunch:

Whisper publicizes and claims it vetted a new Gwyneth Paltrow affair rumor shared by a user — Whisper, The Sequoia-Backed Secret Sharing App, Makes A Move Into TMZ Territory — Whisper, the popular anonymous social sharing startup that's raised $24 million from venture capital giants …

More: Gawker, Vanity Fair, Business Insider, Racked National, Betabeat, BuzzFeed and Brian Solis

Tweets: @neetzan, @fmanjoo, @whisperapp, @neetzan, @ryanlawler and @timcohn

See also Mediagazer

Douglas MacMillan / Digits:

Peter Magnusson, former engineering director at Google, joins Snapchat as a VP of engineering — Snapchat Poaches Google Veteran in Engineering Push … “What differentiates Snapchat from most other tech companies is that the service constantly erases messages from its servers …

More: The Register, Softpedia News, SlashGear, Business Insider and Gigaom

Tweets: @petersmagnusson, @mikeisaac and @sfiegerman

Mikey Campbell / AppleInsider:

Apple patents sensor-packed health monitoring headphones with ‘head gesture’ control — In one of the earliest pieces of evidence pointing to Apple's push into the fitness and health monitoring field, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday granted the company a patent …

More: SiliconANGLE, Gizmodo, Guardian, Gotta Be Mobile, The Verge, Apple Gazette, Business Insider, The Technology Chronicles, NEWS.com.au, The Register, iDownloadBlog.com, PadGadget, Computerworld and Gigaom

Wall Street Journal:

Iranian infiltration of US Navy computer network far more extensive than previously thought — Iranian Hacking to Test NSA Nominee Michael Rogers — Infiltration of Navy Computer Network More Extensive Than Previously Thought — WASHINGTON—Iran's infiltration of a Navy computer network …

Tweets: @wsjd

Dan Farber / CNET:

Artemis aims to eliminate congestion, dead zones and unreliable connections in cellular networks using pCell technology — Is pCell the Holy Grail of wireless networking? — Serial entrepreneur Steve Perlman claims that his new patented technology can create the wireless network of our dreams.

More: Re/code, The Verge, IEEE Spectrum Recent …, VentureBeat, EE Times and Wired

Tweets: @bijan and @al3x

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

Password leak in WeMo devices makes home appliances susceptible to hijacks — Security researchers have taken the unusual step of recommending that people stop using Belkin's WeMo home automation products after uncovering a variety of vulnerabilities that attackers can exploit to take control …

More: Krebs on Security, US-CERT, ReadWrite, Help Net Security, SlashGear, eWeek, CNET, Lifehacker, MacNN, SecurityWeek, SC Magazine, Network World, Threatpost and Softpedia News. Tweets: @weldpond

David Meyer / Gigaom:

Yandex offers apps-and-services bundle to help others build non-Google Android devices — The Android Open Source Project, or AOSP, allows anyone to build a device using the basic Android operating system, without Google's permission. However, that also means forgoing all of the Google services …

More: The Next Web and TechCrunch

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Opera Opens Pre-Registration For Its Data-Savings Android App — Last December, Opera announced Max, a free app that would use Opera's servers to compress all the non-encrypted data to your Android device. At the time, it opened up sign-ups for a small private alpha test, but starting today …

More: DSLreports, The Register, Android Community, The Droid Guy, Android Police, Gigaom, gHacks Technology News and CNET

Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:

New Bing Apps For Windows Phone Point To Increasing Platform Unity From Microsoft — This morning Microsoft announced updates to Bing apps for Windows Phone (News, Finance, Weather, Sports), and new Bing-based apps for the smartphone platform: Food and Drink, Health and Fitness, and Travel.

More: Search Blog, Windows Phone, The Verge, The Windows Blog, Softpedia News, CNET, The Next Web and WinBeta

Jerome Segura / Malwarebytes Unpacked:

Banking trojan ZeusVM retrieves configurations hidden inside image files — Hiding in plain sight: a story about a sneaky banking Trojan — The Zeus/Zbot Trojan is one the most notorious banking Trojans ever created; it's so popular it gave birth to many offshoots and copycats.

More: Inquirer, FireEye Blog, SC Magazine and Computerworld. Tweets: @virusbtn

Ina Fried / Re/code:

No New Windows Phone Models on Tap for Barcelona — It's shaping up to be a rough Mobile World Congress for Microsoft, with little new expected on either the hardware or software front for Windows Phone. — The Barcelona event will see the debut of dozens of new Android phones, said sources …

More: CNET, BGR, Inquirer, Softpedia News, LiveSino, TechnoBuffalo, WinBeta, Ubergizmo, Gotta Be Mobile, Pocketnow and WMPoweruser

Naomi Tajitsu / Reuters:

NZ court overturns earlier High Court decision, rules raids on Dotcom's mansion were legal — NZ court rules Megaupload warrant legal, dealing blow to Dotcom — (Reuters) - A New Zealand court on Wednesday ruled that the search warrant used in the arrest of Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom …

More: Electronista, TorrentFreak, The Register, Bloomberg, TechEye, SlashGear, Ars Technica, sbs.com.au, TVNZ, Stuff.co.nz and sharechat.co.nz

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