Techmeme: BBM for Windows Phone 8 beta is now available for anyone to download (Ben Woods/The Next Web)

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July 31, 2014, 3:25 PM

Top News

Andy Greenberg / Wired:

Security researchers say USB security is fundamentally broken; hard-to-detect malware in the firmware can take over Macs/PCs, no easy fix — Why the Security of USB Is Fundamentally Broken — Computer users pass around USB sticks like silicon business cards.

More: ExtremeTech, Security Research Labs, Ars Technica, 9to5Mac, The Verge, VentureBeat, Help Net Security, MacRumors, Cult of Mac, TechSpot, Reuters, Gizmodo, MacDailyNews, Electronista and 9to5Google. Thanks:@wiredmike

Wall Street Journal:

French telecom Iliad has made a $15 billion offer for T-Mobile US — France's Iliad Makes Bid for T-Mobile US — Bid Counters Earlier Offer From Sprint Corp. — French upstart telecommunications company Iliad SA has made an offer for T-Mobile US Inc., in a bold bid to counter an offer …

More: eWeek, PC Magazine, CITEworld, Re/code, Engadget, Gigaom, Business Insider, The Verge, CNET, ZDNet, BGR, iMore, The Hill, Fortune, Bloomberg, dailywireless.org, TechnoBuffalo and USA Today

Tweets: @harrymccracken and @miriamgottfried

Ina Fried / Re/code:

T-Mobile Adds 1.5 Million More Customers, Swings to Profit on Spectrum Sale

More: GeekWire, BGR, Computerworld, The Verge, GeekWire, AppleInsider, VentureBeat, Electronista, BGR, CNET, ZDNet, Engadget and Washington Post

Dan Rayburn / StreamingMediaBlog.com:

Apple's CDN Now Live: Has Paid Deals With ISPs, Massive Capacity In Place — Since last year, Apple's been hard at work building out their own CDN and now those efforts are paying off. Recently, Apple's CDN has gone live in the U.S. and Europe and the company is now delivering some of their own content, directly to consumers.

More: Ars Technica, Macworld, Gigaom, AppleInsider, MacRumors, iMore, iLounge and Electronista. Thanks:@danrayburn

Ben Fox Rubin / CNET:

iFixit's Oculus Rift teardown finds Samsung display, 40 LEDs — The repair-guide website uncovers a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 display inside the second-generation virtual-reality headset prototype. — Inside the Oculus Rift DK2 prototype. — iFixit — If you're one of the lucky few …

More: iFixit, Gizmodo, Business Insider, TechCrunch, 9to5Google, Fortune, Ars Technica, CNET, Engadget, Wearable World News, Geek.com, Polygon and SlashGear

Colleen Taylor / TechCrunch:

Timeful, The Khosla And Kleiner Backed Time Management App, Launches On iOS — For months now, there's been a stealthy buzz around a startup called Timeful. Attracting a nearly $7 million pre-launch Series A round from the likes of Khosla Ventures, Data Collective, and Kleiner Perkins certainly seemed …

More: Re/code, Fortune, BGR, VentureBeat, The Next Web and PC Magazine

Min-Jeong Lee / Wall Street Journal:

Samsung VP: two new smartphones coming within six months, one with a “large screen”, the other with “new materials” — Samsung to Launch New Smartphones as Profit Falls — One Model Will Have a Large Screen While the Other Will Be Built Using New Materials

More: VentureBeat, TechnoBuffalo, SamMobile, BGR, Business Insider, Forbes, SlashGear and The Verge

Chris Duckett / ZDNet:

Samsung mobile profit down by a third in 2Q 2014

More: Samsung Tomorrow, Bloomberg, The Verge, 9to5Google, bizjournals, Ars Technica, Engadget, Inquirer, Digital Trends, ITProPortal, ABC News, Telegraph, BBC and Electronista. Tweets: @asymco

Mark Mazzetti / New York Times:

C.I.A. Admits Penetrating Senate Intelligence Computers — WASHINGTON — An internal investigation by the Central Intelligence Agency has found that its officers improperly penetrated a computer network used by the Senate Intelligence Committee in preparing its report on the C.I.A.'s detention and interrogation program.

More: McClatchy Washington Bureau, Washington Post, BuzzFeed, Business Insider, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Senator Wyden's Press Feed, Vox and Newsweek

Tweets: @the_intercept, @ronwyden, @rdevro, @kashhill and @csoghoian

Billy Steele / Engadget:

NFL players to wear shoulder pad RFIDs for on-field stats tracking — The NBA isn't the only professional sports league in the States getting serious about accurate stats accounting. With some help from Zebra Technologies' location system, 17 NFL stadiums will use receivers and RFID …

More: ZDNet, TechCrunch and Ars Technica

Brad Molen / Engadget:

With Qi wireless charging, you'll soon be able to charge your device from a short distance — It's becoming more and more common to find mobile devices with wireless charging capability, either as a built-in feature or integrated into third-party cases. Progress has been somewhat hampered …

More: Ars Technica, Computerworld and Pocketnow

Eric Slivka / MacRumors:

Shazam Brings Always-On Music and TV Recognition to Mac With Free Menu Bar App — Music recognition service Shazam, which was one of the early App Store hits and has continued to see good success on mobile platforms, is now bringing its services to the desktop in the form of the first music, TV show, and ad recognition app for Mac.

Erin Griffith / Fortune:

Palantir snaps up Propeller — its second deal this week — Until this week, Palantir Technologies, a Palo Alto-based data analytics company, wasnt much of an acquirer. Despite having raised $896 million in venture capital, at a $9 billion valuation, and generating more than $500 million in revenue …

More: Business Insider, SiliconBeat, TechCrunch and FierceMobileIT News. Tweets: @eringriffith

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Internet.Org's App With Free Access To Facebook, Google, Wikipedia, Local Info Launches In Zambia — 85% of the 5 billion people without Internet simply can't afford data plans. So Facebook's accessibility initiative Internet.org today launches its Android and web app for the developing world …

Parmy Olson / Forbes:

Xiaomi now world's fifth largest smartphone maker; Android captures record 85% market share in Q2 — China's Xiaomi Becomes World's 5th Largest Smartphone Maker — Global smartphone sales are still growing, but the market's star performer in the last three months wasn't Apple or even Samsung.

More: TechCrunch, Wireless Smartphone Strategies, Wall Street Journal, PR Newswire, BetaNews, Computerworld, The Next Web, BGR, CNET, Android Police and PR Newswire. Thanks:@parmy

Kim-Mai Cutler / TechCrunch:

Twitter Acquires Password Security Startup Mitro, Open Sources Its Product — Twitter is acquiring a small password security startup called Mitro for its New York office. Mitro built a way that multiple people can share or control passwords to a single account.

More: Mitro Labs, Electronic Frontier Foundation, ZDNet, VentureBeat, The Next Web and silicontap.com. Tweets: @joshconstine

Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:

Indiegogo Goes Mobile With International Launch Of iOS App — Ever since Indiegogo raised that massive $40 million Series B this year, the crowdfunding platform has been laser-focused on building out its mobile presence. In fact, CEO Slava Rubin said in an interview with TechCrunch recently …

More: AppleInsider, Engadget, VentureBeat, Indiegogo Playbook, 9to5Mac, iMore, GeekTime, Crowdfund Insider, The Next Web and WebProNews

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Runtastic's $120 Orbit Fitness Tracker Prizes Function And Features Over Fashion — Runtastic is doing the reverse of what many startups are doing these days: it's going from being a software platform provider to becoming a hardware maker with the Runtastic Orbit fitness tracker.

More: Engadget, TUAW, SlashGear, Connectedly, The Next Web, Ubergizmo, ReadWrite, Gizmodo and TechHive

Nick Summers / The Next Web:

PlayStation Now game streaming service hits open beta today on PS4 in the US and Canada — Sony is launching a public beta for its PlayStation Now video game streaming initiative in the US and Canada today (July 31). — For now, the service will be available exclusively on the PlayStation 4 …

More: PlayStation.Blog, Digital Trends, TechHive, Ars Technica, ExtremeTech, Polygon, Kotaku, Softpedia News, Gamasutra, destructoid, TechnoBuffalo, Softpedia News, TechRadar.com, gameinformer.com, Engadget, SlashGear, All Games Beta and VG247

Larry Neumeister / Associated Press:

NY judge, ruling against Microsoft, says US warrant can access email stored in Ireland — NEW YORK — A judge has ruled against Microsoft Corp., saying U.S. law enforcement can force the company to turn over emails it stores in Ireland. — Loretta Preska, a federal judge in New York …

More: TechCrunch and ZDNet

David Pierce / The Verge:

Lytro Illum review: an expensive, flawed, buggy glimpse of the future of photography — Lytro Illum review: this is the camera of the future — It's almost time to forget everything you ever knew about photography — Ten minutes into using the Lytro Illum, I'm throwing out everything I've ever learned about photography.

More: The Verge, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and The Next Web

Rolfe Winkler / Wall Street Journal:

Google Will Add Ratings to Search-Results Ads So They Look More Like Amazon — Google is prodding merchants to provide more information to make its search results more effective-and more like Amazon. The question is whether merchants will play ball. — In a blog post Tuesday …

More: CNET, VentureBeat, Search Engine Land, Mashable and Softpedia News

Ben Woods / The Next Web:

BBM for Windows Phone 8 beta is now available for anyone to download — Following a brief stint in private beta, BlackBerry has today announced that its popular BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) app is now available for all Windows Phone 8 users. — The company said it has tried to pick …

More: PC World, Conversations and Gigaom

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: WindowsITPro, The Verge, Marketing Land, Guardian, ITProPortal, ITworld.com, ZDNet, WebProNews, 9to5Google and CNET

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