Techmeme: Ford ‘not married’ to Microsoft for next-gen Sync, but BlackBerry isn't necessarily in (Tim Stevens/CNET)

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February 27, 2014, 6:45 PM

Top News

Guardian:

GCHQ, aided by NSA, intercepted and stored webcam images of millions of global Yahoo users — UK spy agency intercepted webcam images of millions of Yahoo users — • Optic Nerve program collected Yahoo webcam images in bulk — • 1.8m users targeted by GCHQ in six-month period alone

More: New York Times, PandoDaily, TheHill, CNET, PC Magazine, Computerworld, Techdirt, Mercury News, Los Angeles Times, Ars Technica, Gizmodo, The Register, Geekosystem, DSLreports, Slate, Guardian, Telegraph, The Next Web, TechSpot, BGR, Charlie's Diary, BetaNews, ZDNet, Forbes, Inquirer, The Verge, VentureBreak, It's a Gadget, Softpedia News, Gigaom, Gawker, Boing Boing, Digital Trends, BBC, TechCrunch, Fox News, The Technology Chronicles, Electronista, USA Today, Ubergizmo, SlashGear, Wired.co.uk, Engadget, Mashable, emptywheel and TechPresident Thanks:@zackwhittaker

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Amazon Talks to Music Labels About a Streaming Service — Amazon gives away movies and TV shows to people who join its Amazon Prime subscription service. When will it start giving away music, too? — Maybe this year. People have been predicting that Amazon would offer a Spotify …

More: The Verge, Gizmodo, 9to5Google, Engadget, The Next Web, 5by5 Master Audio Feed, TechnoBuffalo, Pocket-lint, SlashGear and App Advice

Steven Russolillo / Wall Street Journal:

Yellen on Bitcoin: Fed Doesn't Have Authority to Regulate It in Any Way … Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen said the central bank doesn't have the authority to regulate bitcoin. — “The Federal Reserve simply does not have authority to supervise or regulate bitcoin in any way,” …

More: Engadget, Business Insider, TechCrunch, Reuters and Guardian

Tweets: @obra and @onemanatatime

Fred Wilson / AVC:

Fred Wilson to Senator Manchin: “Benefits of Bitcoin will be as important, impactful, and beneficial as that of the Internet”

More: Union Square Ventures, The Verge, Feld Thoughts, The Switch, Wall Street Journal, Inquirer, Bloomberg View, SiliconANGLE, Mashable, CoinDesk, ITworld.com, Engadget, Ars Technica and Bitcoin Foundation

Tweets: @fredwilson, @bradusv and @polemitis

Daniel Terdiman / CNET:

It's official: Google Barge moving to Stockton — The guessing game about Google Barge's future destination after leaving its current construction site on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay is over. — CNET has confirmed that Google Barge will be heading to Stockton, Calif. (a move we first reported was imminent).

More: Associated Press, Lastest ITProPortal news, SiliconBeat and Softpedia News

Tweets: @clairecm and @mikeisaac

Casey Newton / The Verge:

Google donates $6.8 million to fund free transit rides for San Francisco youth — Amid widespread protests over tech companies' use of public transit infrastructure, Google said today it would fund two years of free transit rides for San Francisco youth. The $6.8 million grant …

More: Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, bizjournals and NBC Bay Area

Tweets: @_danilo, @bhaggs and @mattyglesias

eBay, Inc.:

eBay chairman Omidyar defends board members, CEO against Icahn attack, says PayPal should remain part of the company — Statement by Pierre Omidyar, eBay Inc. Chairman of the Board — I am eBay Inc.'s founder, board chairman and largest shareholder. — A new eBay shareholder, Carl Icahn …

More: ZDNet, USA Today, Shareholders Square Table, CNET, CNNMoney.com, TechCrunch and GeekWire

Tweets: @pierre and @pmarca

Steven Perlberg / Business Insider:

Carl Icahn Goes After The eBay Board In A New Open Letter With 6 Facts

More: Shareholders Square Table and Guardian. Tweets: @cnbc

Steven Brill / TIME:

How an ad-hoc team of outside coders and troubleshooters revived HealthCare.gov — Obama's Trauma Team — How an unlikely group of high-tech wizards revived Obama's troubled HealthCare.gov website — more than two weeks after the launch of HealthCare.gov—White House chief …

Tweets: @jonfoxux, @ferlatte and @benlabolt

Luke Baker / Reuters:

Europe invites Apple, Google to discuss ‘in-app’ purchases — (Reuters) - The European Commission announced plans on Thursday to tackle one of the scourges of the modern age - games on tablets and mobile phones that allow adults and children to rack up vast credit card bills by making “in-app” purchases.

More: EU Press Room, The Verge, Wall Street Journal, MacRumors, Pocket-lint, CNET, iPhone in Canada Blog, Dow Jones Newswires, Gigaom, iDownloadBlog.com …, bizjournals and MobileBurn.com

Todd Spangler / Variety:

ABC will live-stream Oscars on web and mobile only to pay-TV subscribers in select markets — ABC Will Live-Stream Oscars to Web, Mobile Apps for First Time — But There's a Catch — Alphabet net to offer kudocast through Watch ABC apps and website, accessible only through certain pay-TV partners

More: USA Today, The Verge, MacRumors, iMore, 9to5Mac, Computerworld, Yahoo Tech, Engadget and CNET. Tweets: @zseward. See also Mediagazer

Danny Sullivan / Marketing Land:

Tinder: Now Doing 750 Million Swipes & 10 Million Matches Per Day … Hot dating app Tinder is doing 750 million “swipes” per day that lead to 10 million introductions, up from 5 million matches in December. — The latest stats came from Tinder founder and CEO Sean Rad, speaking at Upfront Summit …

More: Business Insider and Los Angeles Times

Mike Shields / Wall Street Journal:

Warner Bros. considering $10M-15M investment in gaming-centric video network Machinima — Warner Bros. Considers Investment in Machinima — Warner Bros. is mulling an investment in Web video network Machinima. — The film studio is said to be considering putting $10 million to $15 million …

More: VentureBeat and Tubefilter. Tweets: @benfritz. See also Mediagazer

Greg Sterling / Marketing Land:

Pew's “The Web at 25”: 87% of Americans use the Internet, social media ranked easy to quit — Survey: Of Major Technologies, Social Media Is The Easiest To Give Up — Based on a new survey of just over 1,000 US adults, the Pew Research Center has released findings commemorating the 25th anniversary of the web.

More: Pew Internet, Poynter, Computerworld, PC World, internetretailer.com, Mashable and TechCrunch

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Facebook Messenger for Windows will shut down on March 3 — Facebook today began prompting Facebook Messenger for Windows users with a message saying the app is shutting down next week. Without much of an explanation, the company plans to kill off Windows support for Facebook Messenger on March 3.

More: PC Magazine, SlashGear, Marketing Pilgrim, Softpedia News, PC World, TechnoBuffalo, gHacks Technology News, Engadget and AllFacebook. Thanks:@epro

Tim Stevens / CNET:

Ford ‘not married’ to Microsoft for next-gen Sync, but BlackBerry isn't necessarily in — BARCELONA, Spain — There's been no shortage of talk and speculation of late surrounding Ford's relationship with Microsoft. — Microsoft has, since the beginning of Sync, provided the software underpinnings …

More: DailyTech, CrackBerry.com, SlashGear, Ubergizmo, Ars Technica and Softpedia News

David Pierce / The Verge:

Moov is a fitness tracker that tells you how to improve your workouts — Meet Moov, the fitness tracker that turns Siri into your new personal trainer — Nikola Hu is running wrong. He's loping along, leaning back as he goes. Suddenly a voice emerges from his phone: “Your cadence is low.

More: TechCrunch, Engadget, Gizmodo, Gigaom, TechSpot, iMore, iDownloadBlog.com …, MacRumors, Liliputing, Co.Design, USA Today, SlashGear, Fortune, Pocket-lint, CNET, Mashable and Ubergizmo

Farhad Manjoo / New York Times:

T-Mobile has turned every accepted practice in the mobile phone business on its head — T-Mobile Turns an Industry on Its Ear — A rash of consumer-friendliness has broken out across the mobile data industry. Over the last year, the four major carriers — AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile …

More: Quartz. Tweets: @alexisohanian and @johnlegere

Arik Hesseldahl / Re/code:

Salesforce Q4 Beats Street, as CFO Smith Plans Exit — Cloud software company Salesforce.com just announced quarterly earnings results that were slightly better than what analysts had estimated, and the company announced that CFO Graham Smith will retire next year.

More: PR Newswire, Business Insider, ZDNet and ZDNet

Eric Johnson / Re/code:

A Long Tail of Whales: Half of Mobile Games Money Comes From 0.15 Percent of Players — Oh, you've spent a couple dollars on Candy Crush? How cute. — In a mobile monetization report released today, app testing firm Swrve found that in January, half of free-to-play games' in-app purchases came from 0.15 percent of players.

More: VentureBeat, Ubergizmo, Guardian, Inc.com, Joystiq, destructoid and www.pocketgamer.biz. Tweets: @codinghorror

Nancy Gohring / CITEworld:

With $50 million, ClearSlide will beef up analytics for salespeople — ClearSlide [1], the provider of services designed to help sales people better communicate with customers, just raised a whopping $50 million. It plans to use the funding to scale up and continue developing more analytics capabilities.

More: Gigaom, TechCrunch, VatorNews, VentureBeat, PE Hub Blog and silicontap.com. Thanks:@mattrosoff

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Google Launches Maps Gallery To Make Public Data Maps More Discoverable — Google today launched the Google Maps Gallery, an extension of the Google Maps Public Data Program it announced last October. The new gallery is meant to showcase maps from the organizations Google is working with …

More: Google Enterprise Blog, Gizmodo, The Next Web, Engadget, The Verge, GeekWire, ReadWrite, Google LatLong, WebProNews, ZDNet, SlashGear and All Points Blog

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