Techmeme: Inside w00w00: hacking group formed in 1996 counted Jan Koum, Shawn Fanning, and Sean Parker as members (Steve O'Hear/TechCrunch)

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March 2, 2014, 7:30 PM

Top News

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

Exclusive: Top Execs Bates and Reller to Depart, As Musical Chairs Begins at Microsoft — Two direct reports to new Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella — EVP of business development and evangelism Tony Bates and EVP of marketing Tami Reller — are leaving the company, according to numerous sources close to the situation.

More: Fortune, GeekWire, VentureBeat, The Verge, Pocket-lint and WinBeta

Tweets: @tomwarren, @caseynewton and @monkbent

Yukari Iwatani Kane / Wall Street Journal:

Tim Cook: a private, disciplined, tough manager crafting a healthier work environment at Apple — The Job After Steve Jobs: Tim Cook and Apple — From the moment he became CEO of Apple, Tim Cook found himself in the shadow of his boss — Author of “Haunted Empire, Apple After Steve Jobs” …

More: Fortune, Daring Fireball, Engadget, 9to5Mac, CNET, iMore, Mashable, Business Insider, AppleInsider, iDownloadBlog.com …, iPhone in Canada Blog and MacRumors

Tweets: @edwardroussel, @diemkay, @blader and @jyarow

Nick Bilton / New York Times:

SF real estate under tech pressure: homes sell for 60-80% over asking price, 40% in all-cash deals, city workers priced out — The Housing Market With Nowhere to Go (but Up) — Not long ago the pink house at 1829 Church Street, in the Glen Park neighborhood here, hit the market for $895,000.

Tweets: @lvgaldieri, @pmarca, @ryan, @ryanchris and @hunterwalk

Steve O'Hear / TechCrunch:

Inside w00w00: hacking group formed in 1996 counted Jan Koum, Shawn Fanning, and Sean Parker as members — Inside The Billion-Dollar Hacker Club — For this group of old friends, assembled for an impromptu reunion, the venue would feel familiar: an online chat room running on a secure private server.

Sean Gallagher / Ars Technica:

MtGox sets up call center in Japan for queries from worried Bitcoiners — Bitcoin investors left hanging by the sudden shuttering of the MtGox electronic market will soon have a way to learn more about the fate of their cryptocurrency holdings—a Japanese phone hotline.

More: CNET, VentureBeat, Forbes, New York Times and Inquirer

Jake Adelstein / The Daily Beast:

Former employee says incompetent management and faulty accounting led to collapse of Mt. Gox

More: Reuters, Bitcoin Magazine and CoinDesk

Tweets: @mfilipov and @bendavenport

Liz Shannon Miller / Gigaom:

DVD screener leaks decline as distributors crack down on leakers, test digital options — Looking for Oscars torrents? This is why you may end up empty-handed — If Ellen DeGeneres mentions the film The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty on Sunday night, it might be with a wince …

See also Mediagazer

Nick Bilton / New York Times:

Some Tech Interns Make More Than U.S. Workers — Here's a quiz for you: Who makes more money, a median American household or an intern at Facebook? If you guessed the latter, the tech company, you're right. — According to a report released on Friday by Glassdoor, an online jobs and career company …

More: Glassdoor Blog, Fast Company, AllTwitter, CNET, Mashable and The Register

Geoffrey A. Fowler / Wall Street Journal:

Secret, Whisper, and Ask.fm can't guarantee anonymity, all make privacy and safety trade-offs — Secret Apps: Your Secrets Aren't Always Safe — What you should consider when using secrecy apps — A secret is hard to keep on a smartphone. — Yet sharing secrets—broadcasting them …

Robin Wauters:

WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum scolds writer for 2011 TechCrunch fundraising scoop that inconvenienced him — An unexpected chat with WhatsApp founder Jan Koum — Things were getting pretty quiet in the speaker / press lounge backstage at the 4YFN conference in Barcelona.

More: Tech.eu. Tweets: @nero, @joehas, @jaimenovoa, @hunterwalk, @pkafka, @ingridlunden, @neerajarora, @robinwauters, @robinwauters and @danprimack. See also Mediagazer

Zachary M. Seward / Quartz:

GrubHub and Seamless take a 13.5% cut of their average delivery order — GrubHub and Seamless charge an average commission of 13.5% for restaurant orders placed through their websites and apps. And restaurants pay more to appear higher in search results, which isn't apparent to diners.

More: Gizmodo. Tweets: @zseward and @zseward

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

Comcast Is Acquiring Video Ad Company FreeWheel For $320 Million — Over the years, FreeWheel has become the go-to ad-serving platform for many TV networks that stream their content online. And it's about to become part of one of the biggest distributors of content online and off.

More: CNET, Variety and Re/code. Tweets: @qthrul

Spencer E. Ante / Wall Street Journal:

Watson Head's Departure Raises Questions About IBM Moonshot — Manoj Saxena, the International Business Machines executive overseeing its artificial intelligence Watson technology, told IBM employees on an internal conference that working on Watson was the highlight of his professional life …

More: A Smarter Planet Blog and CNET. Tweets: @wsjd

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