Techmeme: Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi closing funding round topping $1B led by All-Stars Investment, valuing the company at $45B (Dave Smith/Business Insider)

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December 20, 2014, 6:35 PM

Top News

New York Times:

Obama administration seeks China's help in blocking North Korea's ability to launch cyberattacks — U.S. Asks China to Help Rein In Korean Hackers — WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has sought China's help in recent days in blocking North Korea's ability to launch cyberattacks …

More: The Verge, Gizmodo, Associated Press, Just Jared and The Daily Beast

BBC:

North Korea denies Sony hack, proposes joint inquiry with US, warns of “grave consequences” if Washington refuses — North Korea seeks join probe with US on Sony hack — North Korea has offered to hold a joint inquiry with the United States into a cyber-attack on Sony Pictures …

More: The Verge, Guardian, Reuters, TechCrunch, CBS News, USA Today, ABC, NPR, PC Magazine, Engadget, No Film School, Business Insider, Deadline, Gizmodo UK, Forbes, Refinery29, Wired, CNN, The Huffington Post and TMZ.com. See also Mediagazer

Frank Pallotta / CNNMoney.com:

Sony Entertainment CEO blames theaters for cancellation of The Interview, still wants to release the film — Sony exec fires back at President Obama — Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton, denying that the studio had “caved” by scrapping next week's opening of “The Interview,” …

More: Hollywood Reporter, ReadWrite, Engadget, CNN, Business Insider, Polygon, Raw Story, TechCrunch, Agence France-Presse and NBC News. See also Mediagazer

Mike Lennon / SecurityWeek:

Hackers Used Sophisticated SMB Worm Tool to Attack Sony

More: US-CERT Alerts, Re/code, Ars Technica, TechCrunch and CBS News. Thanks:@securityweek

Dave Smith / Business Insider:

Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi closing funding round topping $1B led by All-Stars Investment, valuing the company at $45B — The ‘Apple Of China’ Raises Over $1 Billion, Valuation Skyrockets To More Than $45 Billion — Xiaomi has reportedly raised more than $1 billion in its latest round of funding …

More: Wall Street Journal and Android Central

Patricia Hurtado / Bloomberg:

Former BitInstant CEO Charlie Shrem gets two years in prison for Silk Road money laundering — Bitcoin Promoter Gets 2 Years for Silk Road Money Laundering — Charlie Shrem, the former Bitcoin Foundation Inc. executive who pleaded guilty to charges tied to the illicit online bazaar …

More: CNET, Reuters, USA Today, Newsday, CryptoCoinsNews, Inside Bitcoins, NY Daily News and CoinDesk

Steven Tweedie / Business Insider:

Ex-Apple engineer launches Duet Display, which turns iPads into second displays for Macs, uses wired connector to avoid lag, available now for $9.99 — This Ex-Apple Engineer's New App Turns Your iPad Into A Second Display For Your Mac — Duet Display is an app designed to get you some extra use out of your iPad.

More: BGR, Macworld, TechCrunch, MacRumors, iClarified, Lifehacker, The Verge, Slate, Gigaom, Gotta Be Mobile and iPhone in Canada Blog

Alastair Sharp / Reuters:

BlackBerry building BlackBerry Enterprise Service into Boeing Black device, an Android phone which will self-destruct when tampered with — BlackBerry works with Boeing on phone that self-destructs — (Reuters) - BlackBerry Ltd is working with Boeing Co on Boeing's high-security Android-based smartphone …

More: PC World, SlashGear, Gizmodo and The Verge

Sam Biddle / Gawker:

Writer whose post helped kick off #HasJustineLandedYet mob recounts meeting and apologizing to Justine Sacco, reflects on his own fumble with Twitter irony — Justine Sacco Is Good at Her Job, and How I Came To Peace With Her — The internet is a mountain, and if you climb that mountain …

More: BuzzFeed. Tweets: @ryanlawler, @nickbilton, @mdudas, @joemfbrown, @nero, @libertarianblue, @glennf, @antderosa, @binarybits, @rafat, @anildash, @sg, @pegobry, @theferocity, @tedr and @waxpancake. See also Mediagazer

Jan Dawson / Beyond Devices:

Cross platform development by Apple, Google, and Microsoft analyzed and visualized — Visualizing cross-platform development — Much has been made recently of Microsoft's shift from a Windows-centric worldview to a cross-platform approach to the development of applications and services.

Tweets: @animeshsriv, @benjaminellis, @chrisnahr and @stevesi

Jon Russell / TechCrunch:

India's e-commerce giant Flipkart raises $700M, bringing its total investor money in 2014 to over $2B — India's E-Commerce Giant Flipkart Replenishes Its War Chest With New $700M Round — Flipkart raised $1 billion at the end of July, and less than six months later the Indian e-commerce giant …

More: Re/code, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Times of India, NDTV Gadgets and NDTV Profit

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

Chrome Security Team Considers Marking All HTTP Pages As ‘Non-Secure’ — Back in August, we noted that Google had started adjusting its search algorithm to give a slight boost to sites that are encrypted. That is, all else equal, sites that use HTTPS will get a slight ranking boost.

More: The Chromium Projects, BBC, Freedom to Tinker, Threatpost, SD Times, ECPM BLOG, ITProPortal, Accidental Tech Podcast, Datamation.com, The Register, eWeek, SecurityWeek, Inquirer, ZDNet and Search Engine Roundtable. Tweets: @stshank

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