Techmeme
January 1, 2015, 8:00 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.
Tal Kopan / Politico:
Jana Winter / The Intercept:
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 …
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.
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.
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 …
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
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 …
Julia Love / SiliconBeat:
Apple hit with class action over storage eaten up by iOS 8  —  Apple has been hit with a lawsuit alleging that it doesn't inform users just how much storage its new operating system will eat up - and then prods them to buy more space through its iCloud service.

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Earlier Picks

Anupam Saxena / Times of India: