Techmeme: Popcorn Time's “Netflix for Torrents” Is Coming to Chromecast (Mario Aguilar/Gizmodo)

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July 8, 2014, 11:30 AM

Top News

Jungah Lee / Bloomberg:

Samsung Sees Phone Rebound After Earnings Miss Estimates — Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) posted second-quarter profit that missed analysts' estimates as the world's biggest smartphone maker loses market share to Apple Inc. (AAPL) and less expensive devices from Chinese manufacturers.

More: newswire.co.kr, ZDNet, Engadget, VentureBeat, Businessweek, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CNET, Re/code, Quartz, Reuters, MobileBurn.com, AndroidGuys, Electronista, Reuters, TIME, App Advice, ABC News, Inquirer, NBC Bay Area, Pocketnow, 9to5Google and SamMobile

Tweets: @bloombergnews, @mattrosoff, @fmanjoo, @satariano and @counternotions

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Apple bolsters iOS 8 Health app with on-device steps counting & caffeine tracking — Apple has made significant enhancements to its upcoming Health application for iOS 8 in the latest beta of the new iPhone operating system. Most notably, the Health application can now utilize …

More: Inquirer, Gigaom, VentureBeat, iLounge, AppleInsider, BGR, MacRumors, App Advice, MacNN and Softpedia News. Tweets: @tim. Thanks:@mikebeas

Mario Aguilar / Gizmodo:

Popcorn Time's “Netflix for Torrents” Is Coming to Chromecast — Popcorn Time is a miracle: It lets you stream torrents of movies and TV shows as though they were on Netflix or Hulu. Is it illegal? Probably! But it's also awesome, hard to trace, and soon, it'll work with your Chromecast.

More: BetaNews, 9to5Google, Business Insider, Softpedia News, Pocket-lint, Digital Trends, Ubergizmo, TechSpot, AndroidHeadlines.com and CNNMoney.com

Kim-Mai Cutler / TechCrunch:

Keith Rabois' Homebuying Startup OpenDoor Raises $9.95M From Everyone — Well. — It seems like a lot of Valley investors want to see the process of buying homes become a lot more efficient. — After Khosla Ventures VC and former Square COO Keith Rabois teased that he was working …

More: bizjournals, VentureBeat and Re/code

Tweets: @howardlindzon and @mike_greenfield

Kaylene Hong / The Next Web:

LG's Android Wear-based G Watch is now on sale across the world on Google Play and key retailers — LG took the wraps off the G Watch in March, a smartwatch powered by Android Wear, Google's platform for wearables. Now the G Watch is finally available for purchase worldwide on Google Play …

More: iFixit, LG Newsroom, Gizmodo, ZDNet, CNET, Droid Life, Android Central, Pocketnow, Ubergizmo and Gotta Be Mobile

Andrea Peterson / Washington Post:

Chinese cyberspies have hacked Middle East experts at major U.S. think tanks — Middle East experts at major U.S. think tanks were hacked by Chinese cyberspies in recent weeks as events in Iraq began to escalate, according to a cybersecurity firm that works with the institutions.

More: CrowdStrike, Inquirer, ZDNet, Computerworld, Reuters, SC Magazine and VentureBeat

Tweets: @teamcymru and @dylanwelch

JP Mangalindan / Fortune:

How John Arrillaga Sr. turned orchards into office parks for Silicon Valley's tech giants — The secretive billionaire who built Silicon Valley — How John Arrillaga Sr. transformed California fruit orchards into high-priced office space for the likes of Google, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, and Cisco.

More: Valleywag and SiliconBeat. Tweets: @howardlindzon and @stephaniemehta. Thanks:@jpmanga

Philip Guo / Communications of the ACM:

Python is now the most popular introductory teaching language at top U.S. universities … At the time of writing (July 2014), Python is currently the most popular language for teaching introductory computer science courses at top-ranked U.S. departments. — Specifically, eight …

Tweets: @holdenweb

Liam Tung / ZDNet:

BlackBerry reveals why the Passport is hip to be square: It's all about the spreadsheets — Summary: BlackBerry's Passport has inspired a lot of head-scratching, but the company reckons it does have a good reason for going out on a square limb. — Liam Tung

More: Inside BlackBerry, Business Insider, PC Magazine, Ars Technica, Inquirer, Digital Trends, Softpedia News, TechCrunch, Engadget, Electronista, Ubergizmo, SlashGear, Gearburn, DailyTech, BerryReview, Android Central, CrackBerry.com and Tech Times

Kevin Collier / Daily Dot:

How currency exchange Moolah contributed to mistrust and tumbling prices for Dogecoin traders — The death of Dogecoin — On May 4, against all odds, Dogecoin surged to the finish line in Aaron's 499, a nationally televised NASCAR race in Talladega, Ala.

More: The Verge

Juli Clover / MacRumors:

iPhone 6 Front Panel Subjected to Scratch Test, Significant Bending — Earlier today, we shared a video of what appeared to be the front panel of the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 subjected to a limited bending stress test, but YouTube user Marques Brownlee has now acquired the same front panel and subjected …

More: LAPTOP Magazine, YouTube, Inquirer, BGR, The Register, Gotta Be Mobile, Business Insider, TIME, iPhone Hacks, DisplayBlog, VentureBeat, Cult of Mac, Daring Fireball and MacRumors

Tweets: @lukew and @thetechblock

Angelica Mari / ZDNet:

20 armed, disguised men steal $36M worth of Samsung products from Brazil factory; nobody hurt — Samsung suffers massive robbery in Brazil — Summary: Approximately $36m worth of products have been stolen from a São Paulo factory — In an operation that resembled the 1978 Lufthansa heist …

More: Reuters, Digital Trends, Electronista, Engadget, GSMArena Blog, Bloomberg, 9to5Google, Business Insider, AndroidHeadlines.com and SamMobile

Russell Brandom / The Verge:

Facebook likely to be better than FBI at facial recognition due to its larger photo database — Why Facebook is beating the FBI at facial recognition — If you're worried about Big Brother and computerized facial recognition, this summer has given you plenty of reason to be scared.

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

MIT And Dropbox Alums Launch Inbox, A Next-Generation Email Platform — Founded by Dropbox and MIT alums, a new startup called Inbox is launching out of stealth today, hoping to power the next generation of email applications. Similar to the newly launched Gmail API, Inbox offers a more modern …

More: theWHIR.com, InfoWorld, Electronista, Business Insider, The Next Web and VentureBeat

Tweets: @jmspool, @steveklabnik, @justin and @ccgus

Arik Hesseldahl / Re/code:

Box's updated S1 shows Q1 sales up 94% and losses up just 11% year-on-year — Pace Quickens Toward Box's IPO as Q2 Sales Nearly Double — Cloud storage and collaboration firm Box nearly doubled in size and revenue in the last quarter, but it did so as losses deepened, albeit at a slower rate than in earlier periods.

More: eWeek, PE Hub Blog, SiliconBeat, Quartz, TechCrunch and bizjournals. Tweets: @ahess247. Thanks:@ahess247

Wall Street Journal:

Box raises $150M more from TPG and Coatue Management at $2.4B valuation, expects IPO after labor day

More: Business Wire, ZDNet, Gigaom Research, PandoDaily, Gigaom, cloudpro.co.uk, Softpedia News, CNET, Re/code, CITEworld Matt Rosoff, New York Times, VatorNews, VentureBeat, GeekWire, Business Insider, and TechCrunch

Tweets: @dmac1 and @mattlynley

Stacey Higginbotham / Gigaom:

Spark Labs raises $4.9M to make an OS for the internet of things — Spark Labs, the company that last year built a development board that lets people make connected devices that could connect to a cloud service, has raised $4.9 million to take its business to the next step.

More: Business Insider, TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal, The Next Web, Re/code and PE Hub Blog

Andrew Wallenstein / Variety:

Twitter Replaces Media Chief Chloe Sladden with Katie Stanton (Exclusive) — Less than a month after the departure of Twitter Media chief Chloe Sladden, the social media giant has found her replacement. — Katie Stanton, previously vice president of international market development …

More: Associated Press, Re/code, SocialTimes, Softpedia News and Lost Remote

Tweets: @chloes and @awallenstein

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