Techmeme: Final price of WhatsApp for Facebook is $22B, up $3B due to increase in Facebook share price (Alexei Oreskovic/Reuters)

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October 7, 2014, 12:45 PM

Top News

Chris Hamby / BuzzFeed:

DOJ in court filing asserts a DEA agent had the right to impersonate a woman on Facebook without her consent — Government Set Up A Fake Facebook Page In This Woman's Name — The Justice Department is claiming, in a little-noticed court filing, that a federal agent had the right …

More: Techdirt, Washington Post, Gizmodo, The Daily Beast and New York Magazine

Tweets: @qthrul, @buzzfeedben, @anildash, @digiphile and @dangillmor

Juli Clover / MacRumors:

iOS 8 Adoption Stagnates Just Two and a Half Weeks After Launch — After almost three weeks of availability, Apple's iOS 8 operating system is now installed on 47 percent of devices, according to new numbers posted on Apple's App Store support page for developers.

Steve Dent / Engadget:

Microsoft's Project Spark game creator comes to Xbox One and PC — If you enjoy the creative part of building games but not so much the coding, Microsoft's Project Spark is now available for Xbox One and PC (Windows 8.1 only). That marks the end of a six month beta period that saw …

More: Xbox Wire, PC World, The Verge, Electronista, VentureBeat, SlashGear, The Official Microsoft Blog, Ubergizmo and WinBeta

Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:

In addition to news sites, Google's “In The News” box now includes Reddit, blog posts, social media, etc. — Google's “In The News” Box Now Lists More Than Traditional News Sites — Google has confirmed that new “In The News” box appearing in some of its search results …

More: Engadget, Gizmodo, The Next Web, 9to5Google, WebProNews and Search Engine Roundtable. See also Mediagazer

Dennis Fisher / Threatpost:

Insider breach at AT&T compromises Social Security and drivers' license numbers; company offers credit monitoring to those affected — AT&T Hit By Insider Breach — AT&T is warning consumers about a data breach involving an insider who illegally accessed the personal information of an unspecified number of users.

More: Re/code, ReadWrite, New York Times, Mashable, iDownloadBlog.com, ZDNet, DSLreports, Electronista, SlashGear, Cult of Mac, Consumerist, TechSpot, The Register, Ubergizmo, Android Community, iTnews.com.au, PhoneDog.com, Android Central and Nextgov

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Facebook Opens Its Mobile Ad “Audience Network” To All Advertisers And Apps — After announcing its mobile ad network at f8 in April, Facebook today officially launched “Audience Network” and started letting any advertiser buy and any third-party app host ads powered by its targeting data.

More: Facebook Developers, Facebook, Inside Facebook, Wall Street Journal, Marketing Land, The Verge, ReadWrite, The Next Web, CNET, AdExchanger, VentureBeat, PC World and AdAge. Tweets: @joshconstine

Jonathan Vanian / Gigaom:

Docker acquires testing-centric startup Koality as it continues to build out its paid services — Fresh off a recent $40 million funding round, cloud darling Docker just bought a small startup that the company feels fits in nicely with its focus on making application development easier with containers.

More: Forbes, TechCrunch, Apprenda, The Register and VentureBeat

Sydney Ember / New York Times:

Blockchain raises $30M led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, has 2.3M consumer wallets — Blockchain Is Latest Bitcoin Start-Up to Lure Big Investment — The bets that Silicon Valley is placing on Bitcoin are getting bigger. — Even though concerns remain about the digital currency's staying power …

More: Blockchain Blog, CoinDesk, TechCrunch and CryptoCoinsNews. Tweets: @semil

Colin Neagle / Network World:

Secret ad beacon network uncovered, shut down in New York City — For almost a year, a company called Titan has operated a network of advertising beacons, devices that are capable of identifying nearby smartphones and which are often used to push advertisements and information to them …

More: BuzzFeed, BuzzFeed, Marketing Land, Ars Technica, Business Insider, BGR, Wall Street Journal, Digital Trends, Gothamist, Mashable, Gawker, Electronista, The Intercept, Associated Press, Light Reading, New York Magazine and Business Insider. Tweets: @timcohn

Loek Essers / PC World:

European Commission suspects Amazon has received illegal state aid — Amazon.com may have received illegal state aid from tax authorities in Luxembourg, where the company has a subsidiary that records most of its European profit, according to the European Commission.

More: EU Press Room, VentureBeat, Financial Times, ZDNet, GeekWire, CNET, Inquirer, Reuters, Electronista, internetretailer.com, Gigaom, New York Times, Gizmodo, The Register, The Next Web, Associated Press, The Verge and Agence France-Presse

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:

Nvidia launches GeForce GTX 980M and 970M Maxwell-based laptop GPUs, says they provide twice the performance per watt of previous generation — Nvidia's Maxwell graphics chips for laptops can beat some powerful gaming desktops — Computer gaming is about to take a big leap forward.

More: Laptop Mag, The Verge, Gizmodo, Engadget, PC World, NVIDIA, ExtremeTech, PC Magazine, AnandTech and SlashGear

Tim Fernholz / Quartz:

Despite huge investments by VCs in bitcoin startups, transaction volumes haven't surged in the last year — Falling prices aren't the real reason to worry about bitcoin — People are starting to notice: The bad boy of the digital currency world is losing its mojo.

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Yahoo Lays Off 400 Employees In India — Just ahead of its Q3 earnings, Yahoo is laying people off in its international business. Specifically, it is downsizing its software development center in Bangalore, India. We understand that 400 people, mainly working in product engineering, have been affected.

More: NextBigWhat and MediaNama

Alexei Oreskovic / Reuters:

Final price of WhatsApp for Facebook is $22B, up $3B due to increase in Facebook share price — Facebook's WhatsApp acquisition now has price tag of $22 billion — (Reuters) - Facebook Inc (FB.O) closed its acquisition of mobile messaging service WhatsApp on Monday …

More: SiliconANGLE, bizjournals, PC Magazine, Forbes, TechSpot and Tech Times. Tweets: @mathewi

Ben Thompson / stratechery:

PayPal is at a disadvantage because it focused on peer-to-peer payments, not merchant-based transactions — PayPal's Incentive Problem — Last week eBay announced that PayPal would be spun out into a separate company, fixing two big problems for PayPal:

Tweets: @stevesi and @stratechery

Stephen Lawson / PC World:

VCE rolls out an all-in-one system with EMC's all-flash XtremIO array — VCE is expanding its line of all-in-one cloud systems, adding one with all-flash storage and offering more options for enterprises that want an easier path to the cloud. — The company, formed by Cisco and EMC …

More: SiliconANGLE, ZDNet, ServerWatch.com and Data Center Knowledge

Richard Lai / Engadget:

Data-saving Opera Mini browser to land on Samsung Gear S watch — While Tizen's smartphone future remains foggy, it's slowly gaining street cred in the wearable space courtesy of Samsung's smartwatches and their handful of apps. The latest brand to help push this young ecosystem is none other than Opera …

More: Opera Software, BetaNews, The Next Web, PC World, Gigaom, CNET, SlashGear, Electronista and Tech Digest

Josh Ong / The Next Web:

Highfive's $799 TV-connected device & service outfits conference rooms for easy video meetings — Highfive: A new device and cloud service that will fix your meetings and video conferences — Even with technological advances in other aspects of our lives, business meetings have remained frustratingly antiquated.

More: Re/code, TechCrunch, Los Angeles Times, The Verge, Gigaom, Business Insider, Gizmodo, Fast Company, Highfive Blog, Network World and Wired

Tomasz Tunguz:

An analysis of CrunchBase data suggests raising a second seed round won't hurt your odds of raising a Series A — Second Seed Rounds: How They Impact a Startup's Ability to Raise a Series A — The market for startups raising capital has changed dramatically over the past few years.

More: Both Sides of the Table. Tweets: @pmarca, @pmarca, @startupljackson, @pmarca and @joshconstine

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

BloomNation, A Marketplace For Local Florists, Raises $5.6 Million Series A — BloomNation, a Santa Monica-based startup offering florists and floral designers a platform for running their business online, as well as a marketplace that connects florists and consumers, has now closed on $5.55 million in Series A funding.

More: VatorNews, bizjournals, bizjournals, Wall Street Journal, PE Hub Blog, VentureBeat, Forbes, tech.co and socalTECH.com

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