Techmeme: Duolingo launches Test Center, a $20 alternative to standardized language exams (Nick Summers/The Next Web)

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July 24, 2014, 11:40 AM

Top News

Ravi Somaiya / New York Times:

The Verge EIC Joshua Topolsky leaves to join Bloomberg for a new online venture, to 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 as the editor of a series …

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

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, PC World, Droid Life, Android Central, Android Central and Softpedia News. Tweets: @monkbent

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, Gigaom, The Register, InfoWorld, Softpedia News, Inquirer, Reuters, Softpedia News, Engadget, Schneier on Security and Help Net Security. Tweets: @exodusintel

Sarah Frier / Bloomberg:

Facebook stock surges to 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:

Facebook Beats In Q2 With $2.91 Billion, In Revenue, 62% Of Ad Revenue From Mobile, 1.32B Users

More: The Atlantic Online, Reuters, Wired, Inquirer, VatorNews, The Register, Tech Trader Daily, The Next Web, The Technology Chronicles and Guardian

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

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

More: Mobile Marketing Watch, The Register, VatorNews and Wall Street Journal

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: Gigaom, ZDNet and Wall Street Journal. Tweets: @ahess247

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.

More: CNET, Ars Technica, ZDNet, Electronista, Washington Examiner, GamePolitics blogs, Kotaku, Eurogamer.net, bit-tech.net, Ubergizmo, VG247, Geek.com, Softpedia News, computerandvideogames.com, GamesIndustry International, GSMArena Blog and Engadget

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: TechHive, The Next Web, TechnoBuffalo, Electronista, Ubergizmo, 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 … and Tech in Asia

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

Janet Van Huysse / The Twitter Blog:

Twitter releases diversity report: global employees are 70% male; in US 59% white, 29% Asian — Building a Twitter we can be proud of — At Twitter, we have a goal to reach every person on the planet. We believe that goal is more attainable with a team that understands and represents different cultures and backgrounds.

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, Softpedia News, The Register and Ubergizmo

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

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: Google LatLong, Business Insider, Search Engine Land, BGR, Fox News, The Verge, Ubergizmo, Android Community, Gizmodo, Droid Life and Android Police

Kevin Rawlinson / BBC:

Music label sues YouTube star Michelle Phan for copyright infringement; one artist whose work was apparently infringed defends her — YouTube star Michelle Phan sued over copyright breach — A leading YouTube entrepreneur is facing legal action for alleged copyright infringement in her videos.

More: Techdirt. Tweets: @mrragerx

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: PE Hub Blog, ventureburn, StartupCFO, Forbes and Chaney Marketing Group. Tweets: @joeyczikk

Connie Loizos / StrictlyVC:

Sense, a New Sleep Tracker with a Kickstarter Campaign, Has Raised at Least $10.5 Million from Investors — James Proud, a former Thiel Fellow who sold his first company, is back with a new company and sleep-tracking product called Sense that's “part-Nest thermostat, part-Fitbit,” as Forbes describes it.

Tweets: @rossrubin, @sbyrnes, @mikeisaac and @bryce

Ellis Hamburger / The Verge:

Sense sleep tracker uses two devices to analyze your room conditions and sleep patterns

More: Softpedia News, Wearable World News, Laughing Squid, Connectedly and Forbes

Tweets: @hamburger, @hello and @om

Thanks:@aurlibokovza

Nick Summers / The Next Web:

Reddit Live is now official, lets anyone create their own breaking news live blog — Today, Reddit officially launched its own live-blogging platform. The company calls it Reddit Live and the feature has actually been in “semi-open beta” for a few months now - you may have stumbled across …

More: reddit, Ubergizmo, Softpedia News, VentureBeat and Mashable. See also Mediagazer

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, The Register, PC World, BBC, Help Net Security, Softpedia News, Inquirer, SecurityWeek, CSO Online, ABC News, Reuters and Neowin. Tweets: @jeremiahg

Karen Freifeld / Reuters:

Seven arrests made in $1.6 million StubHub cyberfraud case — (Reuters) - Police have arrested seven people on charges they were tied to an international ring that defrauded eBay Inc's StubHub online ticketing service of some $1.6 million, the latest in a string of high-profile cybercrime busts in recent months.

More: manhattanda.org, VentureBeat, Krebs on Security, Reuters, Associated Press, BBC, Forbes, TechnoBuffalo, Nextgov, SC Magazine, Fox News, CSO Online Martyn Williams, VatorNews, Daily Mail, Consumerist, Wall Street Journal, The Daily Beast and Press Association

Roberto Baldwin / The Next Web:

LittleBits' new cloudBit device adds your dumb gadgets and household appliances to the Internet of Things — The magnetically connected littleBits electronics library got a new internet-connected addition. The new Internet of Things cloudBit module connects all your projects to internet-scripting service, IFTTT.

More: VentureBeat, Engadget, Wired, Wearables Arena, TechCrunch, eWeek, Wall Street Journal, Gigaom, Gizmodo and Connectedly

Jack Linshi / TIME:

Foursquare moving all check-ins to secondary app Swarm starting Thursday — You Can't Check-In on Foursquare's Main App Starting Tomorrow — You can check out Foursquare's new app starting in the next few weeks, but you can't check-in. — Foursquare said Wednesday that users …

More: The Foursquare Blog, Android Community, GSMArena Blog, USA Today, bizjournals, Search Engine Land, The Next Web, ReadWrite, PC Magazine, TUAW, Mashable, VentureBeat and iClarified

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