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January 6, 2015, 9:30 AM
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Bloomberg:
Sources: Verizon approached AOL about possible acquisition or joint venture to strengthen mobile-video offerings  —  Verizon Said to Approach AOL About Possible Takeover or Venture  —  Verizon Communications Inc. has approached AOL Inc. (AOL) about a potential acquisition or joint venture …
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Apple now selling SIM-free unlocked iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in the US, from $649  —  As we reported yesterday, Apple is now selling contract-free iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in retail stores and online.  Following historic pattern, the 16 GB base model iPhone 6 costs $649 with higher tiers costing $100 extra.
Ev Williams / Medium:
Metrics based on a single number, like MAU, are a poor proxy for value for Internet companies  —  A mile wide, an inch deep  —  I was recently quoted as saying, “I don't give a s**t” if Instagram has more users than Twitter.  If you read the article you'll note there's a big “if” before my not giving of said s**t.
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Glassdoor Closes $70M Funding Round Led By Google Capital And Tiger Global  —  Glassdoor, the site that lets employees rate their companies' work environment and anonymously disclose their salary information, today announced that it has raised a $70 million funding round led by Google Capital …
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Samsung updates SmartThings Hub, unveils subscription home monitoring service, coming April 2015  —  Samsung unveils next-gen smart home hub and monitoring service  —  Looks like you didn't have to wait long to see what Samsung would do in the smart home world after acquiring SmartThings …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
HP delivers workstations on the go with thin-and-light Zbook laptops  —  What will be hot in consumer electronics and computing in 2015?  Read VB's full coverage of International CES 2015 to find out.  —  The 2015 International CES is all about consumers.
James Kendrick / ZDNet:
CES 2015: Lenovo unveils Yoga tablets, laptops, and new pen technology  —  Summary:Lenovo intends to continue riding its Yoga line of tablets and laptops, and launched a Yoga Tablet 2 with a strange feature, along with the Yoga 3 and ThinkPad Yoga laptops.  —  The Yoga line of tablets …
Austin Carr / Fast Company:
Amazon executes sweeping reorganization of hardware group Lab126 following Fire Phone flop  —  Following Fire Phone Flop, Big Changes At Amazon's Lab126  —  In recent months, a string of departures and managerial changes has hit Amazon's Lab126, the company's Silicon Valley-based R&D group …
David Kravets / Ars Technica:
FBI says search warrants not needed to use “stingrays” in public places  —  The Federal Bureau of Investigation is taking the position that court warrants are not required when deploying cell-site simulators in public places.  Nicknamed “stingrays,” the devices are decoy cell towers …
More: Techdirt and Gizmodo
Roger Cheng / CNET:
Key wireless charging groups A4WP, PMA agree to merge  —  The alliance should help bring a little bit of clarity to the fragmented world of wireless charging technologies.  —  Powermat technology, pushed by the PMA, is already available at select Starbucks.  —  LAS VEGAS—Two down, one to go.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook Acquires Wit.ai To Help Its Developers With Speech Recognition And Voice Interfaces  —  Facebook today acquired Wit.ai, a Y Combinator startup founded 18 months ago to create an API for building voice-activated interfaces.  Wit.ai already has 6,000 developers on its platform who have built hundreds of apps.
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Gogo issues fake HTTPS certificates to block in-flight YouTube streaming, says no user info collected  —  Gogo issues fake HTTPS certificate to users visiting YouTube  —  Gogo has been caught issuing a fake digital certificate for YouTube, a practice that in theory could allow …
Nick Summers / Engadget:
Moonpig API vulnerability exposed data of 3M customers for 17 months  —  Moonpig flaw leaves customer accounts wide open for 17 months (update)  —  Over the years we've seen our fair share of security breaches and loopholes, but rarely do they take the companies involved almost 17 months to patch them up.
Chris Ziegler / The Verge:
CarPlay and Android Auto will be in Volkswagen cars this year  —  At CES this week, Volkswagen finally announced its plans for Apple's CarPlay and Google's Android Auto: both will be available later this year.  The technologies will work on VW's MIB II dash electronics …
Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:
Samsung is adding Slingbox-like features to its new smart TVs  —  Janko Roettgers  —  Credit: Kobby Dagan / Shutterstock.com  —  Credit: Kobby Dagan / Shutterstock.com  —  This is interesting: Samsung is adding what amounts to a kind of Slingbox to all of its new smart TVs …
Vlad Savov / The Verge:
Razer OSVR: an Android-based open source VR platform with a $199 dev kit headset  —  Razer introduces OSVR, the ‘Android of virtual reality’  —  OSVR takes a shot at unifying the world of virtual reality  —  For a year or more after the Oculus Rift got people talking about virtual reality, the two were nearly synonymous.
Ruth Reader / VentureBeat:
Yahoo Mail mobile app now tracks packages on iOS  —  Yahoo Mail just issued an update to its iOS app that will help you keep an eye on your goods while they're still in transit.  —  In the Yahoo Today section of the mobile app users can track packages from Amazon, eBay, Zappos, Target, Best Buy, Macy's and others.
More: 9to5Mac
Michael Kan / Computerworld:
ZTE Grand Max X Plus prepaid smartphone with 6-inch display, 4G LTE, 5 megapixel front facing camera coming to Cricket this week for $200 off-contract  —  ZTE attacks US prepaid handset market with 6-inch smartphone  —  ZTE sees big promise in the U.S. prepaid handset market …
Caleb Pershan / SFist:
Mark Zuckerberg's New Book Club Sold Out Its First Title On Amazon  —  Mark Zuckerberg is not like us.  For example, when it comes to New Year's resolutions, the Facebook CEO actually achieves things.  And in the five short days of 2015 so far, he's already become Oprah Winfrey.
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Intel Turns Off Russian Forums, Blogs & Comments In Response To Russian Blogging Law  —  Back in April of last year, we were among the first to report on a very dangerous new law in Russia targeting bloggers, requiring any blogger or social media user with more than 3,000 “visitors” a day to register their real name with the government.

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From Mediagazer

Matthew Belloni / Puck:
Sources: David Ellison told execs he will move Paramount out of California if AG Rob Bonta doesn't negotiate a settlement of the WBD antitrust case by October 1

Washington Post:
Sources: Trump took a secret flight from Turkey on July 8 amid an Iranian assassination threat, leaving journalists and others aboard a “decoy” Air Force One

David Uberti / Wall Street Journal:
Trump Media says 10+ customers signed up for its real-time feed of top Truth Social accounts, mainly high-frequency trading firms paying $60K to $100K per month

More News

Earlier Picks

Peter Kafka / Re/code:
Dish announces Sling TV: stream channels like ESPN, CNN, and TNT over the internet for $20 per month without a cable subscription
Lynn La / CNET:
LG G Flex 2: curved smartphone with 5.5-inch screen and Snapdragon 810 coming to Korea this month, AT&T and Sprint later this year
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