Techmeme: Sony agrees to $15M settlement in 2011 data breach class action (Tracey Lien/Polygon)

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July 24, 2014, 2:00 PM

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Ravi Somaiya / New York Times:

Joshua Topolsky, editor in chief of The Verge, joins Bloomberg as editor of a series of new online ventures, will be replaced by Nilay Patel — Josh Topolsky of The Verge Is Joining Bloomberg — Josh Topolsky, the co-founder of the technology website The Verge, will join Bloomberg …

More: The Verge and Business Insider. Tweets: @reckless, @stevenlevy, @joshuatopolsky, @dujkan, @delrey, @pkedrosky, @jbenton, @parislemon, @johnbattelle, @ryan, @mattzeitlin, @lavorgna, @jeffjarvis, @aaronklein and @jpaskin. See also Mediagazer

Tracey Lien / Polygon:

Sony agrees to $15M settlement in 2011 data breach class action — Sony today agreed to a $15 million preliminary settlement in a class action lawsuit over its 2011 data breach, which led to the theft of names, addresses and possibly credit card data belonging to 77 million user accounts.

Timothy J. Seppala / Engadget:

Google Voice offers web-based calls through Hangouts, no G+ profile needed — The rumor is that eventually we're going to see Google Voice merged completely into Hangouts, and that's getting even closer to becoming reality. You can now make phone calls via Hangouts directly from the Google Voice website, no Google+ necessary.

More: Alex Wiesen, 9to5Google, Gizmodo, Android Central, Pocketables, PC World, Droid Life, Softpedia News and Android Central. Tweets: @monkbent

Deborah Gage / Wall Street Journal:

Digital Whiteboard Trello Spins Out of Fog Creek With $10.3M — For the second time, Fog Creek Software Inc. has spun out a company—Trello Inc., an internal project management tool that became so popular, according to the founders, it needed to exist on its own.

More: TechCrunch, Joel on Software and VentureBeat

Arik Hesseldahl / Re/code:

HP Makes $50 Million Strategic Investment in Hortonworks — To the steadily growing list of big companies making strategic investments in the open source big data platform known as Hadoop, you can now add computing giant Hewlett-Packard. — Re/code has learned that HP today will announce …

More: Hortonworks, PC World, Data Center Knowledge, Gigaom, Wall Street Journal and ZDNet. Tweets: @ahess247

Exodus Intelligence:

Security firm finds de-anonymizing zero-day vulnerability in Tails OS popularized by Snowden — Silver Bullets and Fairy Tails — Introduction — This week we made mention on Twitter of a zero-day vulnerability we've unearthed that affects the popular Tails operating system.

More: The Verge, Computerworld, Gigaom, The Register, Softpedia News, Inquirer, Network World, Reuters, Softpedia News, Engadget, Schneier on Security and Help Net Security. Tweets: @exodusintel

Richard Lawler / Engadget:

The new $350 Oculus Rift virtual reality headset is now shipping — We were expecting to see the new iteration of the Oculus Rift arrive on developer's doorsteps earlier this month, but unfortunately it hit a couple of delays. Road to VR points out a Reddit thread where pre-orderers confirmed …

More: Gigaom, Road to Virtual Reality, TechCrunch, Ubergizmo, TechRadar.com, Ubergizmo and computerandvideogames.com

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

Chromecast has been used 400M times to ‘cast’ sessions to TVs since it launched a year ago — Chromecast turns one: why this small streaming stick became such a big deal — A year after launch, Chromecast streaming sticks have been used 400 million times to cast media to TVs.

More: Google Chrome Blog, CNET, 9to5Google, VentureBeat, Gizmodo, Engadget, The Next Web, BetaNews, TechCrunch and Android Beat

Re/code:

Razer Integrates WeChat Into Its Nabu Wearable, Says It Should Hit U.S. for Under $100 — Hardware maker Razer said late Wednesday that it is adding support for WeChat into its forthcoming wearable device, the Nabu smartband. — In addition to getting notifications on the device …

More: The Next Web, TechHive, Electronista, Ubergizmo, TechnoBuffalo, Connectedly, Softpedia News, Wearables Arena and Forbes

Nick Summers / The Next Web:

Duolingo launches Test Center, a $20 alternative to standardized language exams — Duolingo today launched Test Center, its own English language certification exam that can be taken on the Web or an Android device. — The fresh alternative to standardized language tests was first announced …

More: TechCrunch, ReadWrite, Gigaom, SlashGear, Carnegie Mellon …, Tech in Asia and Los Angeles Times

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

Up to 50,000 sites commandeered via exploit of vulnerability in MailPoet WordPress plugin — Mass exploit of WordPress plugin backdoors sites running Joomla, Magento, too — As many as 50,000 websites have been remotely commandeered by attackers exploiting a recently patched vulnerability …

More: Sucuri Blog, PC World, Softpedia News, The Register and Ubergizmo

Sarah Frier / Bloomberg:

Facebook stock surges to a record high of $76 in early trading, doubling its IPO price — Facebook Shares Surge to Record as Mobile Ads Fuel Gains — Mark Zuckerberg is staring down naysayers who hammered Facebook Inc.'s stock after its debut two years ago, as shares surged to a record today.

More: Mashable, WebProNews and CNNMoney.com

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

American Users Spend An Average Of 40 Minutes Per Day On Facebook

More: Mobile Marketing Watch, Inquirer, The Register and The Next Web

Ina Fried / Re/code:

LG Shipped 14.5 Million Smartphones in Q2, up 20 Percent, As Phone Business Turned a Profit — Korea's LG Electronics said on Wednesday that its mobile unit turned profitable in the second quarter as the company shipped a record 14.5 million smartphones, up 20 percent year-over-year.

More: LG Newsroom, Digital Trends, Phandroid, Wall Street Journal, SlashGear, Ubergizmo, Pocketnow, ABC News, CNET, Inquirer, Android Central, Engadget, Bloomberg, The Next Web, Yonhap News and Reuters

Andy Greenberg / Wired:

How Hackers Hid a Money-Mining Botnet in Amazon's Cloud — Hackers have long used malware to enslave armies of unwitting PCs, but security researchers Rob Ragan and Oscar Salazar had a different thought: Why steal computing power from innocent victims when there's so much free processing power out there for the taking?

Mark Hearn / 9to5Google:

Google switching Chrome to its homemade BoringSSL to make its browser safer — Google has exhausted a lot of resources patching up OpenSSL, so much in fact, the company has elected to create its own fork aptly named BoringSSL. Preparing to move the platform to Chrome …

More: Ilya Grigorik, Engadget and Web Browser

Josh Ong / The Next Web:

Google Maps challenges Foursquare with new Explore feature on Android and iOS — Google announced today the addition of an Explore Nearby button for Google Maps on iOS and Android. The featuring is rolling out “starting this week.” — The new feature expands the Google Maps as more than just your go-to app for directions.

More: VentureBeat, PC Magazine, Business Insider, Search Engine Land, Droid Life, The Verge, Fox News, Ubergizmo, Android Community, Gizmodo and Android Police

Charlie Osborne / ZDNet:

European Central Bank suffers security breach, personal data stolen — Summary: The European Central Bank's website has been hacked and personal information has been stolen by a cybercriminal. — The European Central Bank (ECB) admitted Thursday that a security breach has led to the theft of personal data.

More: ECB, Guardian, BBC, New York Times, The Register, BBC, Computerworld, Consumerist, Help Net Security, Softpedia News, Neowin, SecurityWeek, ABC News, Reuters, Inquirer and CSO Online. Tweets: @jeremiahg

Joseph Czikk / BetaKit:

Mike McDerment's FreshBooks Raises $30 Million In First Funding Round — Toronto startup FreshBooks, the online cloud accounting software for freelancers and professionals, has raised a $30 million funding round from Oak Investment Partners with participation from Atlas Venture and Georgian Partners.

More: VentureBeat, PE Hub Blog, ventureburn, StartupCFO, Forbes, Chaney Marketing Group, SmallBusiness.com and Fortune. Tweets: @joeyczikk

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