Techmeme: Encrypted Internet Traffic Surges in a Year, Research Shows (Ernesto/TorrentFreak)

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May 18, 2014, 10:55 PM

Top News

AT&T:

AT&T agrees to acquire DirecTV in stock-and-cash deal for $95 per share — AT&T to Acquire DIRECTV — Creates Content Distribution Leader Across Mobile, Video & Broadband Platforms — The premier pay TV brand with the best content relationships now poised to deliver video to multiple screens …

Jon Passantino / BuzzFeed:

AT&T Buys DirecTV For $67 Billion In Second Major Deal To Reshape TV Industry

More: Ubergizmo, PC Magazine and Bloomberg. See also Mediagazer

Nathan Mattise / Ars Technica:

AT&T and DirecTV vow to follow FCC's 2010 net neutrality guidelines for three years after deal closes

More: Washington Post, Gizmodo and iMore

Tweets: @pkafka, @gnagesh, @pkafka, @gnagesh, @samgustin and @pkafka

Steve Kovach / Business Insider:

DirecTV deal valued at $48.5B, or $67.1B with debt; AT&T frames purchase as a way to extend internet access to rural areas

Tweets: @zpower, @zpower and @zpower

Reuters:

AT&T won't pay break-up fee if regulators reject deal-source

Tweets: @danprimack, @danprimack, @danprimack and @sherman4949

Todd Spangler / Variety:

YouTube to Acquire Videogame-Streaming Service Twitch for $1 Billion: Sources — Deal would be biggest ever for YouTube — Google's YouTube has reached a deal to buy Twitch, a popular videogame-streaming company, for more than $1 billion, according to sources familiar with the pact.

More: ZDNet, The Next Web, Ars Technica, Business Insider, TechCrunch, The Verge, Gigaom, CNET News, iMore, Engadget, 9to5Google, USA Today, Dan Rayburn, Kotaku, Phandroid, TechSpot, Neowin, Nerdist, Glass, Ubergizmo, VG247, Kotaku, Polygon, ReelSEO Video Marketing, Joystiq, Mashable and TheDomains.com

Tweets: @om, @rolfewinkler, @jenabellalol, @erickschonfeld, @erickschonfeld, @benfritz, @hunterwalk, @theromit, @drew, @caseynewton, @amir, @amir, @drew, @ow, @drew, @drew, @hunterwalk, @felixsalmon, @beijingdou, @drew, @hunterwalk and @teroterotero

See also Mediagazer

Wall Street Journal:

Google's acquisition talks with Twitch still at an early stage — Google in Talks About Possible Acquisition of Twitch — Google's Talks With Live Video-Streaming Service at Early Stage — Google Inc. is in talks about a possible acquisition of Twitch, a fast-growing live video-streaming service …

More: Reuters and SlashGear. Tweets: @marshallk and @ow

The Verge:

Twitch chooses Google over Microsoft amid multiple buyout offers — Video game streaming startup believes YouTube is its best bet for mainstream success — YouTube is indeed close to securing a $1 billion buyout of live streaming service Twitch, and will have fended off multiple suitors including Microsoft …

Eric Johnson / Re/code:

Why a YouTube-Twitch Marriage Makes Sense

More: Daily Dot. Tweets: @panzer and @pkafka

Dante D'Orazio / The Verge:

Facebook is reportedly building a new Snapchat competitor — Facebook is taking Snapchat very seriously after its failed attempt to purchase the video and picture messaging app for $3 billion last year. Mark Zuckerberg is personally supervising an internal effort to build a competing …

Fred Wilson / AVC:

Unified login and deep linking within top “app constellations” mean the rich get richer in mobile — App Constellations — I touched on the concept of App Constellations in my post on Friday about Swarm. I've been thinking about this concept for the past week …

Tweets: @tek_fin

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:

Encrypted Internet Traffic Surges in a Year, Research Shows — Over the years we have been following various reports on Internet traffic changes, mostly focusing on file-sharing traffic. — A new report published by Sandvine this morning sheds light on the most recent developments.

More: Sandvine, Wired, Geek.com, BetaNews and Softpedia News

Andy Greenberg / Wired:

How 3-D Printed Guns Evolved Into Serious Weapons in Just One Year — A burgeoning subculture of 3-D printed gun enthusiasts dreams of the day when a lethal firearm can be downloaded or copied by anyone, anywhere, as easily as a pirated episode of Game of Thrones.

Tweets: @kathilynnaustin and @a_greenberg

Daniel Roberts / Fortune:

Will.i.am owns an equity stake in Beats, played a key role in its success — Behind the scenes, a frontman awaits a payday — Lost in the coverage of Apple's reported $3.2 billion bid for Beats is the fact that Dr. Dre isn't the only rapper who will make money in a sale.

Tweets: @tapbot_paul. See also Mediagazer

Arik Hesseldahl / Re/code:

In Letter to Obama, Cisco CEO Complains About NSA Allegations — Warning of an erosion of confidence in the products of the U.S. technology industry, John Chambers, the CEO of networking giant Cisco Systems, has asked President Obama to intervene to curtail the surveillance activities of the National Security Agency.

More: Reuters, TechCrunch and Tech News Plus. Tweets: @jtemple

Jeff John Roberts / Gigaom:

Patent reform hangs by a thread as Senate Democrats bottle up key bill — For a second there, it looked as if Congress was about to fix the country's dysfunctional patent system. The House passed a bipartisan bill in December, supported by the White House and a coalition of retail and tech giants …

More: Ars Technica and NationalJournal.com. Tweets: @digiphile

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