Techmeme: Heads rolling at Beats as Apple eliminating redundant positions, Ian Rogers & Trent Reznor to stay on (Mark Gurman/9to5Mac)

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July 30, 2014, 9:15 PM

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Bloomberg:

Snapchat Said in Funding Talks With Alibaba at $10 Billion — Snapchat Inc., the company that makes a mobile application for disappearing photo messages, is in talks with investors including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (BABA) for a round of financing that may value the company at $10 billion, people with knowledge of the situation said.

Walt Mossberg / Re/code:

Exclusive Interview: Best Buy CEO Says Tablet Sales Are “Crashing,” Hope for PCs — Re/code has landed in Minneapolis to talk to the folks at Best Buy — the last standing nationwide big-box, bricks-and-mortar consumer electronics retailer, with over 1,000 main stores and hundreds of smaller mobile device stores.

More: SlashGear, Digital Trends, Ubergizmo, TechSpot, PC World, Good E-Reader, TechnoBuffalo, Electronista and BGR

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Heads rolling at Beats as Apple eliminating redundant positions, Ian Rogers & Trent Reznor to stay on — As Apple's acquisition of Beats Electronics and Beats Music nears completion this financial quarter, the Cupertino and Santa Monica, California-based companies have begun work …

More: iMore, MacDailyNews, VentureBeat, Cult of Mac, TechnoBuffalo, iPhone in Canada Blog, InvestorPlace, Electronista and Business Insider

Tweets: @9to5mac and @monkbent

See also Mediagazer

Ryan Knutson / Wall Street Journal:

Virgin Mobile intros customizable prepaid smartphone plans with options for unlimited data on certain services like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest — Sprint Will Sell a $12 Wireless Plan that Only Connects to Facebook or Twitter — For about $12, Sprint will soon let subscribers buy …

More: Gizmodo, Gigaom, TechHive, Sprint, Electronista, Light Reading, Gizmodo, Droid Life, Re/code, TIME, Engadget, Mashable, iMore, eWeek, BGR, The Verge, CNET and TechSpot

Tweets: @wsj, @iansteadman, @chimeracoder and @qthrul

Maria Kiselyova / Reuters:

Russia wants access to Apple and SAP source code to see if their products are used for spying — Russia wants Apple, SAP to cooperate against foreign spying — * Apple, SAP guard their source code closely — * Russian, Western relations strained over Ukraine

More: AppleInsider, The Moscow Times, Redmond Pie, Engadget, Cult of Mac, iLounge, DailyTech, Patently Apple, ITAR-TASS, Electronista, 9to5Mac, VentureBeat and iMore

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Hangouts Now Works Without Google+ Account, Becomes Part Of Google Apps For Business And Gets SLA — Say what you want about Google+, but it incubated two great products at Google: Hangouts for video meetings and Google+ Photos. While Photos is still deeply integrated with the social network …

More: Google Enterprise Blog, PC Magazine, Computerworld, Gigaom, The Register, PC World, VentureBeat, CITEworld, Re/code and 9to5Google

Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:

Yelp Swings To Profitability In Strong Q2 With $88.8M In Revenue, EPS Of $0.04 — Today after the bell Yelp reported its second-quarter financial performance, including revenue of $88.79 million, and a profit of $0.04 per share. The company had net income of $2.7 million in the period, up from a $878,000 loss in the year-ago quarter.

More: Yelp, Business Insider, ScreenwerkScreenwerk, Marketing Land, Fortune, Re/code, Tech Trader Daily, TheStreet.com, 24/7 Wall St. and WebProNews

Mike Futter / Game Informer:

Sony: EA Access Doesn't ‘Represent Good Value To The PlayStation Gamer’ — Following EA's announcement of the company's new subscription program, Access, we were curious about it being tied only to Xbox One. We reached out to Sony for clarification, and it seems like PlayStation 4 owners shouldn't hold their breath for the program.

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:

Popcorn Time Adds Apple TV Support, iOS App Coming Soon — The Popcorn Time phenomenon is one of the biggest piracy stories of the year thus far. — The software became an instant hit by offering BitTorrent-powered streaming in an easy-to-use Netflix-style interface.

More: Business Insider, BGR, Cult of Mac, iPhone in Canada Blog, Softpedia News, Gizmodo and SlashGear. See also Mediagazer

Michael Carney / PandoDaily:

EXCLUSIVE: Payments giant First Data acquires Gyft in an effort to bring digital gift cards to the masses — Gyft, a Redwood City-based virtual gift card provider has agreed to an acquisition by payment giant First Data, Pando has learned. The terms of the transaction were undisclosed …

More: Gyft, VatorNews, TechCrunch, Gigaom, ventureburn, LOCAL ONLINER and NEWSBTC. Tweets: @arrington

Eduard Kovacs / SecurityWeek:

Tor Warns of Attack Attempting to Deanonymize Users — The Tor Project has disclosed details of an attack which appeared to be an attempt to deanonymize users of the popular anonymity network. — According to Tor Project Leader Roger Dingledine, the attack was detected on July 4 …

More: The Tor Blog blogs, Gizmodo, PandoDaily, Ars Technica, Reuters, BBC, Wall Street Journal, TechSpot, lists.torproject.org …, ZDNet, Deep Dot Web, Forbes, Telegraph, Electronista, Softpedia News, SC Magazine and Gigaom. Tweets: @csoghoian. Thanks:@wiredmike

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

Interim No More: Rob Glaser Named Permanent CEO of RealNetworks — Rob Glaser, who founded RealNetworks in 1994 and served as its CEO until 2010, has been named permanent CEO of the Seattle-based digital media company. He has been interim CEO for the last two years, trying to turn around RealNetworks …

More: GeekWire and FierceOnlineVideo News

Eric Jackson / Forbes:

After several costly errors by CEO Marissa Mayer, Yahoo could use another activist investor — How Do You Solve A Problem Like Marissa? — [Disclosure: Author was long YHOO at time of writing.] — There's been a sharp response to the post I wrote last Wednesday in Forbes outlining …

More: Business Insider. Thanks:@techtipster1

Agam Shah / PC World:

AMD announces dev kit with 64-bit ARM-based server chips for $2,999; paves way for x86 coexistence — AMD's new 64-bit ARM board points way to x86 coexistence — Advanced Micro Devices is moving closer to a motherboard design that will accept both x86 and ARM chips with the shipment of its first 64-bit ARM board.

More: AMD, The Register, News & Product Reviews …, The Tech Report, Liliputing and ZDNet

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

Andrew Mason's Audio Tour App Detour Steers You Away From The Typical Tourist Traps — I'm about 20 minutes late when I meet Andrew Mason at the famous Boudin Bakery in San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf district. It's a tourist trap, but it's where Mason wants to meet and who am I to complain?

More: The Verge, Re/code, Businessweek, VentureBeat and WebProNews. Tweets: @producthunt. Thanks:@anthonyha

Sam Gustin / Motherboard:

FCC Chairman: Verizon Uses a ‘Disturbing’ Loophole to Throttle Unlimited Data — Federal Communication Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler is “deeply troubled” about Verizon Wireless's recently-announced plan to begin slowing down data speeds for some customers, he wrote in a strongly-worded letter to the company's CEO on Wednesday.

More: Verizon Wireless, Ars Technica, TechCrunch, Re/code, The Verge, MacRumors, Associated Press, The Hill, Washington Post, 9to5Mac, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, MediaPost, Consumerist, PhoneDog, Droid Life, TechHive, TechnoBuffalo, WebProNews and Mashable. Tweets: @howardlindzon. Thanks:@samgustin

Reuters:

European regulators training sights on Google's mobile software — (Reuters) - European regulators are preparing what could be a stern challenge to Google Inc's (GOOGL.O) (GOOG.O) mobile software business in the coming months after a nearly four-year investigation into the company's Web …

More: TechCrunch and CNET

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

BitTorrent starts testing Bleep, its new P2P messaging platform — BitTorrent's new P2P chat app is dubbed Beep, and Windows users can now line up to become part of an invite-only test. — BitTorrent is slowly starting to take the wraps off its upcoming P2P chat initiative …

More: PC World, The Official BitTorrent Blog, Digital Trends, TorrentFreak, VentureBeat, Engadget, Business Insider, Betabeat and BetaNews

Biz Carson / Gigaom:

BitPay cuts transaction fees on starter plan, making bitcoin payment processing free (and unlimited) for merchants — The Atlanta-based payment processor plans to announce today that it's dropped the 1 percent transaction fee on all starter plans. — The financial barrier to bitcoin processing just got obliterated.

More: The BitPay Blog, CoinDesk, bizjournals, Finextra Research news and NEWSBTC. Tweets: @startupljackson

Marcus Wohlsen / Wired:

Square prepares new reader with support for forthcoming cards with embedded computer chips — Square Bets Big on Next-Gen Credit Card Tech — Square first came to fame with a credit card reader you could plug into your iPhone jack. But next year, the company's signature device …

More: Square, The Verge, iMore, New York Times, TechCrunch, Forbes, 9to5Mac, The Next Web and Gizmodo. Thanks:@emilydreyfuss

Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:

Apple TV overhaul not expected to debut until 2015 — A new report from The Information published today discussing the next generation of Apple TV says the new set-top box won't be ready for prime time until at least 2015. This expectancy timeline aligns with previous 9to5Mac reporting on the Apple TV development progress.

More: The Information, Ars Technica, Engadget, Pocket-lint, TechnoBuffalo and MacRumors. Tweets: @parislemon. See also Mediagazer

James Temple / Re/code:

HealthTap debuts $99/month service for 24/7 video, audio, and chat access to licensed doctors — HealthTap Turns to Telemedicine, but Will Consumers Pay? — HealthTap is unveiling an updated version of its product on Wednesday that puts the startup squarely in the increasingly competitive telemedicine space.

More: App Advice, The Next Web, Forbes, bizjournals, TUAW and Wired

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