Techmeme: Comcast expands its low-cost internet program to 1.2M people (Stacey Higginbotham/Gigaom)

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March 4, 2014, 8:45 PM

Top News

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 …

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 …

Matt Brian / Engadget:

Hands-on with Apple's CarPlay: when Siri met Ferrari (video) — Apple's in-car infotainment system has been a long time coming. After it was announced at the company's annual WWDC conference in June last year, “iOS in the Car” flew under the radar, only to undergo a rebrand and launch publicly yesterday under a new moniker: CarPlay.

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

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: InfoWorld, Daring Fireball and ZDNet

Tweets: @teamcymru, @jbrodkin, @sirsean and @vowe

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, Business Insider, BetaNews, AppleInsider, Re/code, MacRumors, TechHive, Ars Technica, Gizmodo, Gigaom, The Next Web, TechCrunch and dailywireless.org. See also Mediagazer

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: CNET, CITEworld, GeekWire, TechCrunch, Engadget, Reuters, Tech Trader Daily, ZDNet, Wall Street Journal and Business Insider

Wall Street Journal:

DocuSign Raises $85 Million at $1.6 Billion Valuation — DocuSign, an electronic-signature software company, has raised $85 million from institutional investors, according to two people briefed on the matter. The fundraising values the company at roughly $1.6 billion, another person briefed on the matter said.

More: Gigaom, Re/code, PE Hub Blog, VatorNews, VentureBeat, GeekWire, Xconomy, TechCrunch and bizjournals

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

Intel buying health-tracking wristwatch maker Basis for around $100M — Basis Goes To Intel For Around $100M — With $96.7M In Funding, Powa Technologies Debuts PowaTag For Mobile And Audio-Triggered Commerce — Intel has won the Basis auction, we're hearing, at a price of around $100 million according to one source.

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, Hit & Run, Lifehacker, MacRumors and App Advice

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

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.

Tweets: @gerstenzang, @sfiegerman, @jonfortt, @parmy and @sarahfrier. Thanks:@parmy

Nikkei:

Japan to regulate Bitcoin trades, impose taxes — TOKYO — The Japanese government will set rules for trading bitcoins, defining the virtual tender not as a currency but as a commodity akin to gold. — Gains from trading bitcoins on online exchanges, and purchases made with them will be subject to Japanese tax.

More: Gigaom, VentureBeat, Reuters, ValueWalk and The Next Web. Tweets: @kashhill

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, Computerworld, Light Reading, SlashGear, The Verge and Re/code

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:

Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer retiring after 18 years, to be replaced by VP of finance Luca Maestri — Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer retiring after 18 years — Apple's chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer will retire at the end of September, after 18 years at the company.

Alex Hern / Guardian:

Bitcoin bank Flexcoin closes after hackers steal 896 bitcoin worth £365,000, Poloniex loses 12.3% of reserves in separate hack — Bitcoin bank Flexcoin closes after hack attack — Bank admits it does not have resources to cover loss of 896 bitcoin worth £365,000 stolen in raid

More: Flexcoin, bitcointalk.org, SlashGear, Gizmodo, Reuters, CNBC, Business Insider, CoinDesk, Re/code, VentureBeat, Engadget, The Register, The Verge, Wall Street Journal, InfoWorld, CBC News, TechCrunch, Ars Technica, GeekWire, NBC News and TheDomains.com

Tweets: @carnage4life and @robinwauters

Robin Wauters / Tech.eu:

Belgian judge considers forcing ISPs to block Apple websites over ‘misleading’ product warranties — A Belgian magistrate is reportedly considering forcing ISPs to block Apple websites in the country, following a complaint about the company ‘misleading’ consumers on EU-wide product warranty …

More: The Register, MacRumors, I4U News, VentureBeat, iPhone in Canada Blog, iDownloadBlog.com …, 9to5Mac, Inquirer, ZDNet, MacNN, Geek.com and Gigaom

Dante D'Orazio / The Verge:

HBO Go is coming to the PlayStation 3 today — After a very long wait, PlayStation 3 owners will finally be able to stream HBO shows on their consoles. The console is getting its very own HBO Go app starting today, according to an announcement on the official PlayStation Blog.

More: PlayStation.Blog, Polygon, Engadget, VG247, TechCrunch, Kotaku, The Next Web, IntoMobile, Forbes, CNET and BGR. See also Mediagazer

Josh Lowensohn / The Verge:

Aether's $399 Cone is a speaker that knows exactly what you want to hear next — It's a Saturday night and you're cooking dinner before some friends come over. You hit a button on the speaker in your kitchen and it starts playing Daft Punk. You didn't ask for Daft Punk …

More: Gizmodo, Engadget, TechCrunch, PC Magazine, New York Times, TechSpot, SlashGear, Wired, Quartz, Marketwired and USA Today

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, SC Magazine, BGR, TechCrunch, Softpedia News, WMPoweruser and Techie News

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Facebook Paper Update Pushes Virality By Sending Download Links With Articles You Privately Share — Lifesaver iPhone Case Gives Your Smartphone A Dedicated Hardware Panic Button — Facebook's hoping to get more people downloading Paper by adding new options to share articles by text message …

More: CNET, Inside Facebook, TechHive, AllFacebook, 9to5Mac, iDownloadBlog.com … and WebProNews. Tweets: @joshconstine. See also Mediagazer

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: Gizmodo, Gigaom and Re/code. Tweets: @waltbtig. See also Mediagazer

Arik Hesseldahl / Re/code:

ServiceMax, Managing Service Teams in the Cloud, Lands $71 Million — We've all been there. A household appliance — a refrigerator, say — breaks down, and when the repair guy shows up to diagnose the problem, he realizes he doesn't have a needed replacement part.

More: TechCrunch, bizjournals, VentureBeat, Bloomberg, Reuters and silicontap.com

Michael Carney / PandoDaily:

Blockchain acquires RTBTC, adds real-time trading, data, and news offering to become “the Bloomberg of bitcoin” — Blockchain CEO Nic Cary announced the bitcoin wallet company's second acquisition in 10 weeks this morning on Bloomberg TV, revealing that the company has acquired real-time charting …

More: Blockchain Blog, Wall Street Journal, CoinDesk, The Next Web and newsBTC. Tweets: @zeroblock

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