Techmeme: DisplayMate: Surface Pro 3 has one of the best, most accurate displays available on any mobile platform and OS (Brooke Crothers/CNET)

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July 31, 2014, 12:55 AM

Top News

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, Ubergizmo, TechSpot, Good E-Reader, Digital Trends, TechnoBuffalo, Electronista, PC World, BGR, The Tech Report and Tech Trader Daily

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, TechnoBuffalo, Cult of Mac, VentureBeat, iPhone in Canada Blog, InvestorPlace, Electronista, Business Insider and App Advice

Tweets: @9to5mac and @monkbent

Chris Duckett / ZDNet:

Samsung mobile profit down by a third in 2Q 2014 — Summary: A decline in profitability of Samsung's IT and mobile communications division has pulled overall profit for the Korean conglomerate lower. — Chris Duckett — Samsung has announced an overall 15 percent fall in operating profit …

More: The Verge, Ars Technica, Re/code, BBC and Samsung Tomorrow

Min-Jeong Lee / Wall Street Journal:

Samsung VP: two new smartphones coming with six months, one with a “large screen”, the other with “new materials”

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, Sprint, Electronista, TechHive, Light Reading, Gizmodo, Mashable, Gigaom, TIME, Droid Life, iMore, Re/code, Engadget and eWeek

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

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: 9to5Google, TechCrunch and CNET

Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:

1Password debuts extension for third party apps on iOS 8 — The popular password and security management app 1Password has already previewed its iOS 8 extension and Touch ID support for unlocking and accessing its content outside of its iOS app, and today AgileBits has announced …

More: Agile Blog, GitHub, MacNN, Softpedia News, Engadget, The Verge, App Advice, iMore, SyrupCast, TechCrunch and Macgasm

Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:

64-Bit Chrome for Windows, Now in Beta — 2 months after the Dev/Canary channels, the 64-bit version of Chrome for Windows is now available in the beta channel. It's still limited to Windows 7 and Windows 8+ and you obviously need a 64-bit operating system.

More: Google Chrome Releases, 9to5Google, PC World, Web Browser, Ubergizmo and Android Central

Brooke Crothers / CNET:

DisplayMate: Surface Pro 3 has one of the best, most accurate displays available on any mobile platform and OS — Microsoft's Surface Pro 3 wins plaudits for display, says researcher — Microsoft's newest 12-inch tablet has one of the best displays of any tablet out there, according to DisplayMate Technologies.

More: DisplayMate, PC World, Ubergizmo, Maximum PC, WinBeta, Windows Phone Central, Gizmodo, Forbes, ZDNet and The Fire Hose

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

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 …, Liliputing, The Tech Report and ZDNet

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, AppleInsider, Re/code, Ars Technica, TechCrunch, The Verge, Associated Press, Tech Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, 9to5Mac, MediaPost, Consumerist, Mashable, Washington Post, Droid Life, PhoneDog, TechHive, TechnoBuffalo and WebProNews

Tweets: @dannysullivan and @howardlindzon

Thanks:@samgustin

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 — (Reuters) - Russia has proposed that Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and SAP (SAPG.DE) hand the government access to their source code …

More: The Moscow Times, AppleInsider, Softpedia News, Redmond Pie, DailyTech, Engadget, ITAR-TASS, iLounge and Electronista

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

Ryan Whitwam / Android Police:

Samsung's Milk Music Update Adds $3.99 Premium Subscription Option — Samsung pitched Milk Music this spring as a totally free music service exclusive to its devices, but slipped in at the end that it might not be free forever. You can still stream tunes for free without ads …

More: The Verge, The Next Web, Engadget and Android Central

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.

Diane Bartz / Reuters:

Senate report claims unauthorized wireless cramming charges cost consumers hundreds of millions — U.S. cellphone users frequent victims of ‘cramming’: Senate study — (Reuters) - U.S. mobile phone users have likely paid hundreds of millions of dollars in unauthorized charges “crammed” …

More: The Verge, The Hill, Broadcasting & Cable, Computerworld, Roll Call and Washington Post

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, Finextra Research news, bizjournals and NEWSBTC. Tweets: @startupljackson

Jon Russell / The Next Web:

SocialRank now lets you analyze your Twitter followers based on location and keywords — Twitter analytics service SocialRank, which was launched in February by two ex-Dwolla staffers, has undergone a significant upgrade in order to help brands and companies get more value and insight from their social media.

More: VentureBeat, SocialRank, TechCrunch, tech.co, PandoDaily and Businessweek

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

Josh Ong / The Next Web:

Google releases the source code for its I/O 2014 app as a template for developers — Google today published the source code for its I/O 2014 app in hopes of teaching developers some of its best practices for Android apps. — While you may have used the I/O 2014 app to plan your schedule at the conference …

More: Android Developers Blog, 9to5Google and Android Central

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

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