Techmeme
January 1, 2015, 10:30 AM

Top News

Sarah Frier / Bloomberg:
Snapchat raises $485.6M at $10B+ valuation from 23 investors  —  Snapchat Raises $485.6 Million to Close Out Big Fundraising Year  —  Snapchat Inc., among a pack of elite technology startups that has attained a valuation of $10 billion or more, capped the year with a filing that disclosed it raised $485.6 million.
William Turton / The Daily Dot:
U.K. police allegedly arrest Lizard Squad hacker … Lizard Squad took credit for the Dec. 25 distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live.  DDoS attacks overwhelm a network with too much traffic, leaving targeted networks inaccessible for legitimate users.
New York Times:
Interviews with Sony employees show that the company was slow to realize the gravity and impact of hacking  —  Sony Hacking Attack, First a Nuisance, Swiftly Grew Into a Firestorm  —  LOS ANGELES — It was three days before Thanksgiving, the beginning of a quiet week for Sony Pictures.
Jana Winter / The Intercept:
Tal Kopan / Politico:
Alistair Barr / Wall Street Journal:
Google Fiber could use utility poles and other utility-owned infrastructure under Title II, spurring broadband, company says in letter to FCC  —  Google Strikes an Upbeat Note With FCC on Title II  —  In a rare public comment by Google on net neutrality, the Internet giant this week …
Jon Russell / TechCrunch:
Twitter's ‘While You Were Away’ Recap Feature Is Rolling Out To Many Users  —  Back in November, Twitter announced plans to implement a number of new initiatives to boost user engagement, and one of those features — a ‘While you were away’ recap of tweets you may have missed — appears to be rolling out to significant numbers of users.
More: Guardian and MediumTweets: @elilanger
Craig Buckler / SitePoint:
Average web page size increased 15% in 2014 to almost 2MB; HTTP requests per page hardly changed at 95  —  Average Page Weight Increases 15% in 2014  —  The HTTP Archive Report collates information from almost half a million of the web's most popular websites.
More: theWHIR.com and GigaomTweets: @craigbuckler
Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:
HP sells Palm trademarks, likely to Alcatel One Touch; brand could be resurrected with new Android smartphones  —  HP sells Palm trademarks; brand could be resurrected with new smartphones  —  It looks like Palm will rise from the dead as a Chinese smartphone brand.
Se Young Lee / Reuters:
Samsung Electronics says new smart TVs in 2015 to run Tizen platform  —  (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said on Thursday that all its new smart television products launched in 2015 will be powered by the Tizen operating system, marking a fresh effort by the company to increase the usage of the software platform.
J.R. Wu / Reuters:
Taiwan clears Xiaomi, Apple, Samsung, Sony, Huawei, others of breaching data privacy laws  —  Taiwan clears Xiaomi, other smartphone brands of breaching data privacy  —  (Reuters) - Taiwanese regulators cleared on Tuesday China's Xiaomi Inc [XTC.UL] and other smartphone brands …
Jonathan Soble / New York Times:
Abandoned Japanese social network Mixi resurges with Monster Strike, its first mobile game  —  ‘Monster Strike’ Gives Former Social Media Giant Mixi a Second Act  —  TOKYO — It was a familiar trajectory for a social network like Facebook that did not happen to be Facebook …
Jennifer Booton / MarketWatch:
New York City considers letting drivers pay for parking tickets with Bitcoin, Apple Pay, and PayPal  —  NYC weighs bitcoin, Apple Pay for parking tickets  — The city of New York issues eight to ten million parking tickets annually.  But great news: Drivers will soon be able to use …
Devindra Hardawar / Engadget:
Samsung squeezed past Apple in consumer satisfaction for smartphones  —  Apple may have owned Christmas, but Samsung won the year when it came to satisfying shoppers with its phones.  The latest stats from the American Consumer Satisfaction Index, which surveys 70,000 consumers every year …

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Earlier Picks

Julia Love / SiliconBeat:
Anupam Saxena / Times of India: