Techmeme
October 31, 2014, 12:10 PM

Top News

Douglas MacMillan / Wall Street Journal:
Slack raised $120M at $1.12B valuation in a round led by Kleiner and Google Ventures, all previous backers participated too  —  Slack's One-Year-Old Software Business Valued at $1.12 Billion  —  Workplace collaboration tool Slack didn't exist two years ago.
Alistair Barr / Wall Street Journal:
Google's robotics lead and Android founder Andy Rubin leaving the company to start an incubator for hardware startups, will be replaced by James Kuffner  —  Former Android Leader Andy Rubin Leaving Google  —  Rubin Is Starting an Incubator for Startups Interested in Building Technology-Hardware Products
JP Mangalindan / Fortune:
Amazon exec: We priced the Fire phone wrong  —  When it introduced the Fire smartphone in July, Amazon bet sales would be something worth bragging about.  But three months in, it's obvious the Fire phone is more dud than runaway success.  —  Last week, Amazon CTO Tom Szkutak disclosed …
Jessica Dolcourt / CNET:
Samsung Galaxy A5 and A3: Sleek, slim, fully metal (hands-on)  —  Side by side on a table, the two nearly identical rectangular handsets look innocuous enough and extremely familiar.  Yet two things quietly make the Samsung Galaxy A3 and A5 stand out: their all-aluminum material and their unibody construction.
Kip Kniskern / LiveSide.net:
Microsoft's Outlook.com will get third-party app support in spring 2015  —  3rd party apps coming to Outlook.com  —  Microsoft continues to re-examine and bolster its platform company roots, this time by announcing app support for Outlook.com, coming in Spring 2015.
Abhimanyu Ghoshal / The Next Web:
Facebook is now available on Tor for more secure browsing  —  After enabling secure HTTPS browsing by default for all users in August last year, Facebook has taken another step to allow for secure browsing, and has made their social network available via the Tor network for users who want to maintain …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Joyent Raises $15M To Bring Enterprise-Grade Docker Support To Its Cloud Platform  —  Until today, cloud infrastructure company Joyent had raised a total of $120 million in a number of funding rounds, with its 2012 $85 million Series D round being the latest and largest.
Sophie Knight / Reuters:
Sony reports strong Q3 PS4 sales of 3.3M units, cuts annual smartphone sales forecast to 41M, after lowering them to 43M from 50M in Q2  —  Leaner Sony gains smartphone lift despite its own mobile malaise  —  (Reuters) - Sony Corp (6758.T) posted a smaller than expected second-quarter operating loss …
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
BlackBerry updates BBM with timed messages and message retraction, unveils plans for a paid subscription  —  Above: BBM for iOS/Android, now beefed up with Voice and Channels  —  BlackBerry today released a new version of BBM, adding timed messages, message retraction, HD picture transfer, among other features.
Micah L. Sifry / Mother Jones:
Facebook has experimented with Newsfeed content before voting to analyze effect on turnout  —  Facebook Wants You to Vote on Tuesday.  Here's How It Messed With Your Feed in 2012.  —  The social network tries to promote voting, but it also has conducted tests that affect users' voting behavior—without telling them.
Dave McNary / Variety:
Seth Rogen Set as Steve Wozniak in Steve Jobs Biopic  —  Seth Rogen has been set to star as Steve Wozniak opposite Christian Bale in Sony's Steve Jobs biopic.  —  Variety reported on Oct. 15 that Bale was in talks to star in “Jobs,” Sony's biopic about the late Apple co-founder.
Yoree Koh / Wall Street Journal:
Twitter demotes Daniel Graf, elevates Kevin Weil to lead consumer product group  —  Twitter Demotes Product Chief Daniel Graf  —  Kevin Weil Becomes Fifth Product Head in As Many Years  —  Twitter Inc. has demoted its new head of product, Daniel Graf, just six months after his much-touted hire away from Google Inc.
John Koetsier / VentureBeat:
Mobile Internet investment hits record $19.2B — up 232% in last 12 months  —  Mobile Internet companies raked in a total of $19.2 billion in new investment over the last year, more than double the previous period, according to investment advisory firm Digi-Capital.  —  The big winner?
More: Re/code and ZDNet
Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:
Alphaworks, The Equity Crowdfunding Platform From Betaworks, Brings On Erin Glenn As CEO  —  Today the folks at Alphaworks, the equity crowd-funding platform branched out of betaworks, are announcing leadership changes, with Erin Glenn taking the lead as CEO.

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