Techmeme: Highfive's $799 TV-connected device & service outfits conference rooms for easy video meetings (Josh Ong/The Next Web)

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October 7, 2014, 4:20 PM

Top News

Mike Isaac / New York Times:

Facebook working on stand-alone mobile app that will allow anonymous discussion; release expected in coming weeks — Facebook Readies App Allowing Anonymity — Facebook has long attempted to be the place where, above all else, you try to be yourself. — Soon, Facebook will allow you to be yourself, but under a different name.

More: Gizmodo, Wall Street Journal, Marketing Land, The Daily Dot, BGR, SiliconBeat, iMore, Business Insider, The Verge, Gigaom, Wired, The Next Web, VentureBreak, Cult of Mac, Pocket-lint, App Advice, Seeking Alpha, Engadget, SlashGear, TIME and Droid Life

Tweets: @kevinroose, @alexjamesfitz and @geoffreyfowler

Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post:

Twitter sues U.S. government over limits on ability to disclose surveillance orders — Twitter, the world's largest microblogging platform, on Tuesday sued the U.S. government, alleging that the Justice Department's restrictions on what the company can say publicly about the government's …

More: The Twitter Blog, ZDNet, The Verge, The Next Web, VentureBeat, Gizmodo, SiliconBeat, BBC, National Journal, The Hill, Re/code, TIME, Bloomberg, New York Magazine, Threatpost and SlashGear

Tweets: @dnvolz and @mikeisaac

See also Mediagazer

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

Microsoft to hold cloud media event in San Francisco on October 20 — CEO Nadella to talk up what's next for Microsoft's cloud — Summary: Microsoft execs, including its CEO Nadella, are on tap to talk more about the company's cloud futures on October 20.

More: TechCrunch, Computerworld, Re/code, Gigaom, WindowsITPro, ScottGu's Blog, GeekWire and Neowin. Tweets: @maryjofoley

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, Tech in Asia, MediaNama, Seeking Alpha and Electronista. Tweets: @zerohedge

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, Blogging Windows, destructoid, SlashGear, The Official Microsoft Blog, The Verge, Ubergizmo, Electronista and VentureBeat

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: Los Angeles Times, StrictlyVC, Fortune, BloomNation, Wall Street Journal, bizjournals, bizjournals, VentureBeat, tech.co, socalTECH.com, PE Hub Blog, Forbes and VatorNews

Walt Mossberg / Re/code:

Kano Lets Kids Build Their Own Computers and Learn to Code — If you ask a typical 10-year-old today what's inside her computer, or how the software is created, she's likely to be baffled. Today's sleek notebooks and desktops, and the apps they run, are a far cry from the crude models …

More: Lifehacker, Crowdfund Insider, Guardian and The Verge. Thanks:@brewpr

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

Ellis Hamburger / The Verge:

Plastc, a card to digitally replace other payment cards, is up for $155 pre-order, ships in summer 2015 — Plastc wants to replace your entire wallet with a single card — How much technology can you fit into a 0.8-millimeter-thick credit card? — Last November, Coin offered a first taste of what was possible.

More: BGR, AppleInsider, The Next Web, Gigaom, MacRumors, App Advice, Gizmodo, VentureBeat, Inc.com and iPhone Hacks

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: Data Center Knowledge, eWeek, Forbes, TechCrunch, bizjournals, The Register, VentureBeat and Apprenda

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, Gigaom, Marketing Land, Ars Technica, Business Insider, Wall Street Journal, BGR, Associated Press, Gothamist, Mashable, Gawker and Electronista

Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:

Google's “In The News” box moves beyond news sites, and may now include Reddit discussions, blog posts, and social media — 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, 9to5Google, Search Engine Roundtable, InvestorPlace, Gizmodo, The Next Web and WebProNews. See also Mediagazer

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, CryptoCoinsNews, TechCrunch and CoinDesk. Tweets: @semil

Deborah Gage / Wall Street Journal:

SolidFire Raises $82 Million for Pooled Storage on Flash Memory … Storage based on flash memory, which consumes less power while reading data much faster than traditional hard disk drives, is one of the more promising new technologies for handling enormous amounts of data.

More: VentureBeat, The Register, Gigaom, Reuters, Xconomy, theWHIR.com and Forbes

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

GitHub Partners With Digital Ocean, Unreal Engine, Others To Give Students Free Access To Developer Tools — Back in the days of shrink-wrapped software, students would often get huge discounts on expensive software packages like Adobe's Creative Suite or Microsoft's developer tools.

More: GitHub, Los Angeles Times, ReadWrite, InfoWorld, The Next Web and Gamasutra

Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:

Microsoft launches OneNote Class Notebook Creator app for teachers, Office 365 subscription required — Microsoft today launched OneNote Class Notebook Creator, an app designed to help teachers do their job in the paperless age. If you have an Office 365 subscription …

More: Office Blogs and The Next Web

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, VentureBeat, AdAge, Inside Facebook, AllFacebook, Wall Street Journal, ReadWrite, The Next Web, CNET, AdExchanger and VentureBeat. Tweets: @joshconstine

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.

More: AVC

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, Reuters, Financial Times, ZDNet, GeekWire, CNET, Gizmodo, Gigaom, New York Times, Inquirer, The Next Web, internetretailer.com, Associated Press, The Verge, The Register and Electronista. See also Mediagazer

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