Techmeme: THE INSIDE STORY OF YO: How A ‘Stupid’ App Attracted Millions Of Dollars And Rocketed To The Top Of The App Store (Alyson Shontell/Business Insider)

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June 21, 2014, 7:45 PM

Top News

Liz Gannes / Re/code:

Google's Nest Buys Dropcam for $555 Million — Dropcam, the popular home monitoring camera startup, will be acquired by Nest, maker of smart thermostats and smoke detectors. The deal is worth $555 million in cash. — Nest itself was just purchased by Google just four months ago for $3.2 billion.

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

Yahoo, burned by The Weather Channel replacing it as iOS 8's weather data provider, worries next about Stocks app — As Weather Channel Blows Yahoo Off Apple's Upcoming iOS 8, App Storms Ahead for Mayer — Of the many announcements made at Apple's recent Worldwide Developers Conference …

More: Daring Fireball, iMore, iPhone in Canada Blog, App Advice, Ubergizmo, TechnoBuffalo, MacDailyNews, 9to5Mac, AppleInsider, MacRumors, MacNN and Business Insider

Tweets: @counternotions, @kenli729 and @davezatz

Bloomberg:

Former NSA director Keith Alexander now pitching banks $1M/month cybersecurity consulting — Ex-NSA Chief Pitches Banks Costly Advice on Cyber-Attacks — As the four-star general in charge of U.S. digital defenses, Keith Alexander warned repeatedly that the financial industry was among the likely targets of a major attack.

More: PandoDaily. Tweets: @csoghoian and @dangillmor

Alyson Shontell / Business Insider:

THE INSIDE STORY OF YO: How A ‘Stupid’ App Attracted Millions Of Dollars And Rocketed To The Top Of The App Store — Moshe Hogeg was getting tired of asking his employee, Or Arbel, for a favor. — Hogeg, the CEO and founder of Tel Aviv company Mobli, had requested a simple way to get in touch …

More: Valleywag, Robert Scoble, and VentureBeat

Tweets: @ksablan, @ajs, @dangillmor and @rrhoover

Emily Badger / Washington Post:

Taxi medallions have been the best investment in America for years. Now Uber may be changing that. — CHICAGO — A taxicab is a car remade by government, modified dozens of ways by edicts within subsections of articles of the city's taxi code. — “Everywhere on this car has been regulated,” John Henry Assabill says.

More: VentureBeat. Tweets: @mattyglesias and @codinghorror

Shara Tibken / CNET:

Samsung to launch Android Wear smartwatch at Google I/O — The wearable will be one of several new devices built around Google software, sources tell CNET. LG and Motorola are also expected to show off new gadgets.

More: Ars Technica, Gigaom, Neowin, Tech Times, TechnoBuffalo, Techie News, Softpedia News, GSMArena Blog, TechHive, Electronista, Phandroid, Pocketnow, Ubergizmo, Android Central, Android Beat, 9to5Google, The Verge, SamMobile, Engadget and SlashGear. Thanks:@nickstatt

Motherboard:

How Sabu, as an FBI informant, helped coordinate the 2011 hack of FBI IT contractor ManTech — How an FBI Informant Helped Orchestrate the Hack of an FBI Contractor — Weeks after he started working quietly as an FBI informant, Hector Xavier Monsegur, known by his online alias “Sabu,” …

Tweets: @derektmead and @matthewkeyslive

Andy Greenberg / Wired:

EFF to release open-source router firmware for securely sharing your Wi-Fi with strangers — This Tool Boosts Your Privacy by Opening Your Wi-Fi to Strangers — In an age of surveillance anxiety, the notion of leaving your Wi-Fi network open and unprotected seems dangerously naive.

More: PC World, NPR and Gizmodo

Tweets: @mattcutts, @glynmoody, @jpbarlow, @thegrugq and @dangillmor

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Google May Buy Video Search Startup Baarzo — Google has been in talks to acquire video search startup Baarzo, according to sources with knowledge of the company. However, those sources were less clear about whether the companies had reached a final agreement.

Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:

Rather Than Opt-Out Of Google, German News Publishers Demand 11% Cut Of Revenue — German news publishers are picking up where the Belgians left off, a now not-so-proud tradition of suing Google for being included in its listings rather than choosing to opt-out.

More: Ars Technica, BuzzMachine, The Next Digit, Gawker and Techdirt. Tweets: @pmarca

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