Techmeme: Operation AURORAGOLD: How the NSA hacks cellphone networks worldwide and spies on the GSM Association, which includes Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, Facebook, others (Ryan Gallagher/The Intercept)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors

December 4, 2014, 4:25 PM

Top News

Travis Kalanick / Uber Blog:

Uber raises $1.2B, looks to invest in the Asia Pacific region; acknowledges shortcomings in company's culture — The Ride Ahead — 2014 has been a year of tremendous growth for Uber. It was just a year ago that Uber was operating in 60 cities and 21 countries - today we are in over 250 cities in 50 countries.

Liz Gannes / Re/code:

Uber confirms $40B valuation; $1.2B round of funding could swell to $1.8B — Uber Announces $1.2 Billion Raise, Confirms $40 Billion Valuation — Quick on the heels of a filing this morning, Uber announced it has raised $1.2 billion in a new round of funding.

More: Fortune, Fortune, BuzzFeed, Business Insider and Seeking Alpha

Ryan Gallagher / The Intercept:

Operation AURORAGOLD: How the NSA hacks cellphone networks worldwide and spies on the GSM Association, which includes Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, Facebook, others — How the NSA Hacks Cellphone Networks Worldwide — In March 2011, two weeks before the Western intervention in Libya …

More: Engadget, Digital Trends, Business Insider, Inquirer, SiliconBeat, TechSpot, Mashable, Gizmodo, CNET, The Verge, Gigaom, PandoDaily, The Hill and Gizmodo UK

Tweets: @the_intercept, @the_intercept, @prism_nsa, @ggreenwald, @matthew_d_green, @rj_gallagher, @e3i5, @the_intercept and @the_intercept

Lev Grossman / TIME:

Inside Mark Zuckerberg's plan to wire the world and put every single human being online — Exclusive: Inside Facebook's Plan to Wire the World — Chandauli is a tiny town in rural India about a four-hour drive southwest of New Delhi. India's a big country, and there are several Chandaulis.

More: AllFacebook, Business Insider and WebProNews

Tweets: @om, @sampjacobs and @time

Alistair Barr / Wall Street Journal:

Google to raise commissions for resellers of Google Apps for Work in a push to woo larger organizations — Google Makes Move on Microsoft's Turf in Workplace — Gmail Operator to Offer Bigger Fees to Resellers Amid Push to Challenge Outlook Owner — Google Inc. plans to boost …

More: TechCrunch, Microsoft News, Bloomberg, SmallBusiness.com, TheStreet.com, 9to5Google and Seeking Alpha

Murali Sitaram / Official Google for Work Blog:

Google launches the Google for Work and Education Partner Program, consolidating existing programs across Apps, Chrome, Cloud Platform, Maps and Search — Introducing the Google for Work & Education Partner Program — Posted by Murali Sitaram, Director of Global Partnerships & Strategic Alliances, Google for Work

More: ZDNet, InfoWorld, Business Insider and WebProNews. Tweets: @alistairmbarr

Jason Del Rey / Re/code:

Amazon Unveils Its Own Diapers and Baby Wipes Called Amazon Elements — For years, Amazon naysayers have warned that the e-commerce giant's ambition would drive it to compete ever more directly with the merchants who sell goods on Amazon's popular online marketplace.

More: Amazon.com, CNET, Network World, PC World, Forbes, Engadget, ABC News, GeekWire, USA Today, Wired, WebProNews, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, The Next Web, The Awl, Gizmodo and internetretailer.com. Tweets: @garyvee

Sherrel Wheeler Stewart / Reuters:

Tim Cook agrees to lend his name to Alabama LGBT anti-discrimination bill after initial resistance from Apple — Alabama anti-discrimination bill to be named after Apple's Tim Cook — (Reuters) - An anti-discrimination bill championed by Alabama's only openly gay lawmaker will bear …

More: ABC News, MacRumors, al.com, 9to5Mac, PadGadget, BuzzFeed, iPhone in Canada Blog, BetaNews, Cult of Mac, AppleInsider, MacDailyNews, App Advice and iMore. Tweets: @caseynewton

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft sells its 17.6% stake in Nook back to Barnes & Noble for $62M and 2.7M shares — Microsoft sells its stake in Nook back to Barnes & Noble — Microsoft and Barnes & Noble unveiled a “strategic partnership” back in April 2012 which involved the software maker investing $300 million …

More: Barnes & Noble, Inc., Gigaom, New York Times, Ars Technica, Associated Press, PC Magazine, Reuters, TechCrunch, CNET, GeekWire, Windows Phone Central, VentureBeat, ZDNet and internetretailer.com. See also Mediagazer

Jeff Elder / Wall Street Journal:

Lawyers say Apple deleted music from rival services on users' iPods between 2007-2009 — Apple Deleted Rivals' Songs from Users' iPods — Apple deleted music that some iPod owners had downloaded from competing music services from 2007 to 2009 without telling users, attorneys …

Nathan Ingraham / The Verge:

Google's Inbox team promises cross-browser support, unified inbox, and more in Reddit AMA — Google's Inbox team promises cross-browser support and a host of other features soon — Google's new Inbox interface for its longstanding Gmail service is an intriguing, futuristic …

More: Google Operating System, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Electronista, ABC News, PC World, Gigaom, TechCrunch, The Next Web, Android Police and TechnoBuffalo

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

Four Months After Acquisition, Square Launches iOS App For Food Delivery Service Caviar — Over the summer, Square purchased food delivery startup Caviar. Today, it's making ordering on the service even easier with the launch of a mobile app. — Square announced the acquisition …

More: AppleInsider, Caviar Blog, MacRumors, The Verge, VentureBeat, Engadget, The Next Web and iMore

Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:

Google+ now lets you pin posts on profiles and pages — Google today added a new feature to Google+: pinned posts. You can now choose to pin one of your posts to the top of your profile or page. — As you'd expect, a pinned post is shown above all your other posts when someone visits your profile or page.

More: Dennis Troper, 9to5Google, 9to5Google, Android Central, Phandroid, WebProNews and Search Engine Roundtable

Jordan Novet / VentureBeat:

Docker announces Docker Hub Enterprise to manage companies' apps behind the firewall, and a suite of orchestration services for admins — Docker debuts on-premises software for storing companies' apps in containers — At its user conference in Amsterdam today, the executives of hot startup Docker …

More: eWeek, The Register, Docker Blog, Docker Blog, CITEworld, Docker Blog, Talkin' Cloud and TechCrunch

Ron Miller / TechCrunch:

Cybersecurity firm ThreatStream raises a $22M Series B round led by General Catalyst Partners — ThreatStream Grabs $22M To Help Fight Cybersecurity Threats — ThreatStream, a cybersecurity firm based in Redwood City, CA, announced $22M in Series B funding today to continue their efforts …

More: VentureBeat, Gigaom, PE Hub Blog, SecurityWeek and silicontap.com

Zoran Basich / Wall Street Journal:

Early Oculus Backer Formation 8 Raises $500 Million to Connect Dots Between Asia, U.S. — Formation 8 has closed its second fund at $500 million, a quick turnaround for a young venture firm whose successful early bet on virtual-reality company Oculus VR Inc. created plenty of demand from institutional investors.

More: Bloomberg, New York Times, TechCrunch, Business Insider, Reuters and PE Hub Blog

Benedict Evans:

Questions about mobile: What happens to Android OEMs? Will more players attempt to fork Android? In what layer will aggregation and discovery sit? More — New questions in mobile — Seven years into the smartphone world, it seems like it's time to change the questions.

More: Wired. Tweets: @benedictevans, @antderosa, @cdixon and @mdudas

Emily Steel / New York Times:

Dish, consumer groups, more unite to launch Stop Mega Comcast coalition to advocate against $45B TWC merger — Coalition Opposes Comcast-Time Warner Cable Merger — A group of companies, public interest groups and labor unions have joined forces to urge regulators to reject Comcast's …

More: BGR, Tech Times, TechPresident, Re/code, Electronista, The Wrap, Multichannel News, Politico and Advanced Television. See also Mediagazer

Todd Shields / Bloomberg:

FCC resumes AT&T/DirecTV and Comcast/TWC merger reviews, suggesting decisions may come in March

More: Broadcasting & Cable and Reuters

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:

Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning — SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds. Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.

Cloudflare:

Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference — Stop preparing for agents. Start running them. 100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.

Zoho:

App Spotlight: Google Sheets Magic Lookup for Zoho CRM — Our App Spotlight brings you hand-picked apps to enhance the power of your Zoho apps and tools. Visit Zoho Marketplace to explore all apps, integrations …

IDrive:

Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:

Special Report: Will AI Wipe Out Humanity? (And Who Profits)

The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.

Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.

Channels with Peter Kafka:

The Atlantic's CEO on AI, Billionaire Owners, and Moonlighting as a Creator

Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.

Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.

Sources:

Mark Zuckerberg on Muse, Meta's biggest AI bet yet

Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.

Subscribe to Sources.

Lenny's Podcast:

How we built Grok Bot in a month | Roman Ugarte (SpaceXAI)

Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.

Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.

Invest Like the Best:

Walter Russell Mead - How America Keeps Winning

The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.

Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.

Grit:

The AI Race Has a Leaderboard | Arena CEO Anastasios Angelopoulos

Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.

Subscribe to Grit.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:25 PM ET, December 4, 2014.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.