Techmeme: Inside The Facebook-WhatsApp Megadeal: The Courtship, The Secret Meetings, The $19 Billion Poker Game (Parmy Olson/Forbes)

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March 5, 2014, 8:35 AM

Top News

Alexei Oreskovic / Reuters:

Yahoo to stop user access of services with Facebook, Google IDs — (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc will stop letting consumers access its various online services, including Fantasy Sports and photo-sharing site Flickr, by signing-in with their Facebook Inc or Google Inc credentials.

More: The Register, BetaNews, Computerworld, Marketing Land, SiliconANGLE, Inquirer, Re/code, Engadget, The Verge, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, CNET, Ubergizmo, SlashGear, ZDNet, Electronista, The Next Web, Android Community and Android Central

Tweets: @amir and @lexnfx

John Gruber / Daring Fireball:

iOS 7.1 to ship in time for next week's iTunes Festival, will be needed to stream event — iOS 7.1 and the iTunes Festival at SXSW — Apple's first iTunes Festival in the U.S. starts a week from today at SXSW in Austin. Apple is going to stream the performances to iOS devices using an app …

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

Google Capital Pours $50M Into Real Estate Marketplace Auction.com At A $1.2B Valuation — FreedomPop Announces The Privacy Phone, A Fully-Encrypted Smartphone For $10 A Month — Fresh of its public debut last week, Google Capital is putting more money to work this week with the announcement …

More: Gigaom, Wall Street Journal, GeekWire and Re/code

Tim Stevens / CNET:

2014's battle for dashboard supremacy: Apple's CarPlay vs. Google's OAA vs. MirrorLink — Cars have been getting smarter and smartphone connectivity is better than ever, but 2014 should be a quantum leap forward for smartphone connectivity. Join us as we look at the main contenders.

Matt Brian / Engadget:

Hands-on with Apple's CarPlay: when Siri met Ferrari (video)

More: TechCrunch, AppleInsider, iMore, iMore, Global Nerdy, Ubergizmo, CITEworld, iPhone in Canada Blog, iDownloadBlog.com …, 9to5Mac, Cult of Mac, eWeek, Computerworld, MacRumors, BGR, Breaking Apple News …, Gotta Be Mobile, MacStories and New York Times

Tweets: @ryan and @r0unak

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

Critical crypto bug leaves Linux, hundreds of apps open to eavesdropping — Hundreds of open source packages, including the Red Hat, Ubuntu, and Debian distributions of Linux, are susceptible to attacks that circumvent the most widely used technology to prevent eavesdropping on the Internet …

More: OStatic blogs, The Register, InfoWorld and ZDNet

Tweets: @kiwinerd, @virusbtn, @plip, @auntysarah, @rootikitty, @teamcymru, @jbrodkin, @sirsean and @vowe

Mark Scott / New York Times:

Steven Ballmer Reflects on Missteps and Ponders the Future of Microsoft — OXFORD, England — A month after stepping down as Microsoft's chief executive, Steven A. Ballmer hasn't lost any of his energy. — In front of a packed crowd at the University of Oxford, Mr. Ballmer hooted …

More: Wall Street Journal, InfoWorld, ZDNet, VentureBeat and CNET. Tweets: @pkedrosky

Ina Fried / Re/code:

Pitching Security, FreedomPop to Offer Modified Galaxy S II With Encrypted Calling and Texting — With all the attention on the vulnerability of cellphone communications to snooping, a number of players are pitching more secure options. — They range from messaging app Wickr to Silent Circle …

More: TechCrunch, Android Community, Engadget, Wall Street Journal, The Next Web and SlashGear

Alvin Wong / UnleashThePhones:

Video shows setup process for Cortana on leaked build of Windows Phone 8.1 — Exclusive: Cortana Voice Assistant on Windows Phone 8.1 [VIDEO] — Building on the videos showing off various brand-new features in the upcoming Windows Phone 8.1 update that we have brought you …

IDC:

IDC Expects PC Shipments to Fall by -6% in 2014 and Decline Through 2018 — Worldwide PC shipments fell by -9.8% in 2013, slightly better than a projected decline of -10.1%, but still the most severe contraction on record, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker.

More: SiliconANGLE, The Register, CNET, CITEworld, Softpedia News, Bloomberg, GeekWire, BGR, TechCrunch, Reuters, The Tech Report, Business Insider, Engadget, Wall Street Journal, ZDNet and Tech Trader Daily

Peter Bright / Ars Technica:

Weeks before expiration date, Windows XP still has 29% OS market share — In February we saw the usual small movements in the browser market. More significantly, however, we didn't see any significant movements in the operating system market. For the second month in a row …

More: InfoWorld, The Register, SC Magazine, TechCrunch, BGR, Softpedia News and WMPoweruser

Julia Angwin / New York Times:

In era of free services where we pay with our personal data, privacy is becoming a luxury good — Has Privacy Become a Luxury Good? — LAST year, I spent more than $2,200 and countless hours trying to protect my privacy. — Some of the items I bought — a $230 service that encrypted …

Tweets: @juliaangwin

Robin Wauters / Tech.eu:

Because screw innovation: Uber already deemed illegal in Brussels, two (private) vehicles seized so far — The Brussels government really wants to make it impossible for Uber to operate in the city, even with a P2P ride-sharing service. Two private cars driven by UberPOP drivers were seized this morning.

Tweets: @lsrgt and @jowyang

Russell Brandom / The Verge:

After initial rejection, Cryptocat finally launches on iOS — The encrypted chat app Cryptocat is launching today for iOS, after an initial rejection in December. Previously available as a desktop app and browser plugin, the program uses the OTR model to offer strong encryption and forward secrecy …

More: Cryptocat Blog, Lifehacker, iPhone Hacks, iDownloadBlog.com …, MacRumors and App Advice

Danny O'Brien / Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Mexican Protest Site Censored by GoDaddy — with the U.S. Embassy's Help — The Mexican website 1dmx.org (mirror here), was set up in the wake of a set of controversial December 1st 2012 protests against the inauguration of the new President of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto.

Tweets: @danielnazer and @wikileaks

Cam Bunton / TmoNews:

94% of T-Mobile Blackberry promo participants switched to other smartphones — 94% of BlackBerry trade-ins switched to other platforms during promo … Tomorrow, March 5th, the $200 trade-in for an old BlackBerry device offer is ending. We've already heard from T-Mobile's CMO …

More: TechCrunch, The Verge, Re/code, Electronista and CrackBerry.com

Bloomberg:

Dish's plans for internet TV could cost $20-$30 a month, sources say — Dish Takes Lead in Race to Offer Streaming TV to Rival Cable — In the race to deliver television over the Internet, Charlie Ergen's Dish Network Corp. (DISH) is pulling ahead. — With a groundbreaking agreement yesterday …

More: DSLreports, Gizmodo, Gigaom, SlashGear, Re/code and dailywireless.org …. Tweets: @waltbtig. See also Mediagazer

Matt McGee / Marketing Land:

Twitter shares first “impressions” metrics for Oscars: 3.3B tweets viewed worldwide in 12 hours — Twitter Moves Beyond The Tweet, Shares First “Impressions” Metrics For Oscars — As the race for second screen dominance continues, Twitter is changing how it reports its own TV-related reach.

More: The Twitter Blog, Digital Trends, memeburn, Forbes, The Technology Chronicles and Mashable. See also Mediagazer

Parmy Olson / Forbes:

Inside The Facebook-WhatsApp Megadeal: The Courtship, The Secret Meetings, The $19 Billion Poker Game — “Get together?” — The subject line of the e-mail was like every other come-on that hit Jan Koum's in-box in the spring of 2012. He was pounded daily by investors who wanted a piece of his company, WhatsApp.

More: Digital Trends and The Verge. Tweets: @gerstenzang, @parmy, @sfiegerman, @sarahfrier and @jonfortt. Thanks:@parmy

Tim Peterson / AdAge:

Yahoo Tests App Install Ads In Hopes of Jump Starting Mobile Business — How to Integrate Social Media Into Your Marketing Strategy … Yahoo hopes to jump-start its mobile ad business the same way Facebook did. — The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based portal has begun testing new mobile ads …

More: Marketing Pilgrim, Business Insider, ExchangeWire.com, Gigaom Research and ReadWrite. Tweets: @mattlynley

The Economic Times:

Walmart to expand in e-retailing in India, planning marketplace model akin to Amazon, eBay — NEW DELHI: Months after it put its brick-andmortar expansion plans in India in deep freeze, Walmart Stores is quietly readying a major e-retailing push in India with an electronic marketplace business model akin …

More: TechCrunch, MediaNama and NextBigWhat

Stacey Higginbotham / Gigaom:

Comcast expands its low-cost internet program to 1.2M people — In hopes of making it's proposed merger with Time Warner Cable sweeter for regulators to swallow, Comcast is extending its low-cost broadband access program and announcing that 300,000 households have signed up.

More: Comcast Voices Blog, CNET, New York Times, Light Reading, SlashGear, Computerworld, Comcast Press Releases, Re/code and The Verge

Terrence O'Brien / Engadget:

Roku's new Streaming Stick works with most TVs, drops price to $50 — When Roku released its first Streaming Stick in late 2012, it was a tough sell. It cost $99 (as much as the highest-end Roku box), only worked with TVs that were certified as “Roku Ready,” and it didn't even ship with a remote.

More: The Official Roku Blog, BGR, Guardian, Inquirer, Business Insider, Re/code, San Francisco Chronicle, BetaNews, AppleInsider, MacRumors, dailywireless.org, Ars Technica, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, Gigaom and The Next Web. See also Mediagazer

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

BlackBerry confirms sponsored content in BBM Channels, promises no ads in BBM chats and to respect user privacy — BlackBerry recently started to push sponsored content to some of its external beta testers, but after users started to notice, the Canadian company has decided to set the record straight.

More: Inside BlackBerry, ZDNet, SlashGear, Cult of Mac, Softpedia News, memeburn, Ubergizmo, BerryReview, MobileSyrup.com, iPhone in Canada Blog and CrackBerry.com

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