Techmeme: KeySweeper, a USB charger that sniffs, decrypts, logs, and transmits keystrokes of some Microsoft wireless keyboards can be built for $10 (Dan Goodin/Ars Technica)

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January 15, 2015, 6:10 PM

Top News

BBC:

Google Glass to become an independent division reporting to Tony Fadell; Glass Explorer Program shutting down; production of device in current form to end — Google calls end to Glass programme but says kit is not dead — Google is ending its experimental Google Glass programme, the BBC has learned.

Richard Lai / Engadget:

Xiaomi takes on iPhone 6 Plus with 5.7" 1080p Mi Note phablet launching January 27 for $370; $530 Mi Note Pro with 2560x1440 display coming in March — Xiaomi mocks Apple with its very own premium phablet — There's just no stopping for the world's most valuable startup.

Jared Newman / TechHive:

Xiaomi announces $30 Mi Box Mini, a media streamer the size of a phone charger, with pre-orders open in China on Jan. 20, shipping late Jan. — Xiaomi's Mi Box Mini is a media streamer the size of a phone charger — With the $30 Mi Box Mini, Xiaomi has managed to stuff …

More: PhoneDog.com, I4U News, Android Authority, Electronista, Business Insider, Gizmodo, Liliputing, Ubergizmo, Engadget, SlashGear, bgr.in and AndroidHeadlines.com

Mike Shields / Wall Street Journal:

MySpace says it reached 50.6M unique users in US in November, 575% over same month in 2013, and generated over 300M video views — MySpace Still Reaches 50 Million People Each Month — Did you know that 50 million people still visit MySpace each month? — Would you be surprised …

More: PC Magazine, TIME, Gigaom, The Daily Dot, Mashable, The Huffington Post, TechSpot, Business Insider and SiliconANGLE

See also Mediagazer

Phil Goldstein / FierceWireless:

T-Mobile launches new ‘Simply Prepaid’ plans, starting at $40/month with 1 GB of LTE — T-Mobile US (NYSE:TMUS) launched new prepaid plans under its “Simply Prepaid” banner starting at $40 per month. The new plans come several months after T-Mobile launched the “Simply Prepaid” …

More: T-Mobile Newsroom, Wireless Week, CNET, Gigaom, PhoneDog.com, Consumerist, 9to5Google, Lifehacker, Geeky Gadgets, AndroidHeadlines.com, Ubergizmo, Droid Life, TmoNews, SlashGear, Finextra Research news and TechnoBuffalo

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

KeySweeper, a USB charger that sniffs, decrypts, logs, and transmits keystrokes of some Microsoft wireless keyboards can be built for $10 — Meet KeySweeper, the $10 USB charger that steals MS keyboard strokes — It sounds like the stuff of a James Bond flick or something described …

More: Samy Kamkar, VentureBeat, Threatpost, Security Affairs, Telegraph, Neowin, SlashGear, Business Insider, Network World, Schneier on Security, Hackaday and TechCrunch

David Meyer / The Copenhagen Post:

The Danish app that lends eyes to the blind — The Danish developer Robocat, which I've previously covered for its Thermodo thermometer dongle, has fully launched a new app that could be of great use to visually-impaired people. — Robocat built the open-source Be My Eyes iOS app for a non-profit startup of the same name.

More: Quartz, Laughing Squid, cphpost.dk, TUAW and iMore

Carmel DeAmicis / Gigaom:

Instacart quietly changed its primary revenue model from delivery fees and product markups to grocer fees — On the way to $220M in funding, Instacart quietly changed its business model — Kaitlin Myers a shopper for Instacart studies her smart phone as she shops for a customer at Whole Foods in Denver on October 28, 2014.

More: Slate. Thanks:@bizcarson

Ian King / Bloomberg:

Intel reports net income of $3.7B, record revenues of $14.7B, EPS of $0.74 for Q4; Q1 sales estimated to be a modest $13.7B — Intel Sales Forecast Misses Estimates, Signaling Deeper PC Slump — Intel Corp. (INTC), the largest maker of chips that run personal computers …

More: Re/code, VentureBeat, New York Times and Intel

Tweets: @chris_ciaccia, @corytv and @corytv

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Maker Studios Looks Beyond YouTube As It Announces Exclusive Content Deal With Vimeo — Vimeo and Maker Studios are announcing a partnership that will bring new videos from the Disney-acquired content network (that's Maker Studios) to the IAC-owned streaming video service (that's Vimeo) for an exclusive time window.

More: The Next Web, CNBC, TheStreet.com, International Business Times, Union Gazette, Chinatopix, LaughingPlace.com, New Media Rockstars, Deadline and TIME

See also Mediagazer

Ron Miller / TechCrunch:

Neo Technology, a graph database company, raises $20M Series C led by Creandum — Neo Technology Bags $20M As Graph Databases Get Hot — Neo Technology, developers of the neo4j graph database have been growing steadily, and investors have noticed, rewarding them with a $20M Series C pay day.

More: VentureBeat, VatorNews, Forbes, Yahoo! Finance, PandoDaily, Gigaom, bizjournals, Neo4j Graph Database, PE Hub Blog, SiliconANGLE and silicontap.com

Andy Greenberg / Wired:

DHS suspected Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles may have been Silk Road's mastermind, Dread Pirate Roberts — DHS Believed Mt. Gox CEO Might Have Been Silk Road's Secret Mastermind — Long before the Department of Homeland Security set its sights on a 29-year-old named Ross Ulbricht …

More: Ars Technica, Bloomberg, CoinDesk, Inside Bitcoins, The Verge and Business Insider

Stephen Lawson / PC World:

Open Interconnect Consortium releases preview of IoTivity, an open-source framework for its Internet of Things standard — Intel-backed OIC advances in fast-moving IoT standards race — Internet of Things industry groups are in high gear, driving toward standards they hope will define …

More: SiliconANGLE, Yahoo! Finance, Wall Street Journal, SD Times and Rethink Wireless

Adi Robertson / The Verge:

Twitch launches free music library for video game streamers — Game streaming platform Twitch is trying to solve a problem that has plagued it for months: how can you enforce copyright laws without limiting what players can do on the service? Today, the Amazon-owned company is launching …

More: The Official Twitch Blog, Engadget, Ars Technica, VentureBeat, GeekWire, PC World, TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal, The Next Web, PC Gamer, Geeky Gadgets, Shacknews, Joystiq and Polygon

See also Mediagazer

Ben Popper / The Verge:

Skydio raises $3M from Andreessen Horowitz and Accel Partners to create self-navigating drones — A tiny startup has made big strides in creating self-navigating drones — Veterans of Google X and MIT have created some remarkable computer vision systems

More: Wired, cdixon blog, Gigaom, TechCrunch, skyd.io, Wall Street Journal, Gizmodo, bizjournals and VentureBeat. Tweets: @cdixon

Kurt Wagner / Re/code:

Video chat startup Rounds raises $12M led by Sequoia, allows chats with up to 12 users and gameplay and video watching while chatting — Video Chat Startup Rounds Raises $12 Million — Rounds, a Tel Aviv-based video chat startup, has raised $12 million in new venture funding, according to CEO Dany Fishel.

More: VentureBeat, Webrazzi, TechCrunch, PE Hub Blog and VatorNews

Erin Griffith / Fortune:

Boxed, a wholesale shopping app, raises $25M series B led by GGV and DST — Boxed, a bulk shopping app, raises $25 million — Boxed, a mobile application for wholesale shopping, has raised $25 million in a Series B round of funding. GGV Capital and Digital Sky Technologies led the round …

More: TheStreet.com and bizjournals. Tweets: @jrichlive and @twang

Guardian:

David Cameron seeks cooperation of US president over encryption crackdown — PM to ask Barack Obama to put pressure on US internet companies to work more closely with UK intelligence agencies — David Cameron is to urge Barack Obama to pressure internet firms such as Twitter and Facebook …

More: The Hill, CNET, Wall Street Journal, SiliconBeat, ReadWrite, Geeky Gadgets, US News, TechCrunch, Telegraph, Daily Mail, Daily Express, Bloomberg, Gigaom and ITProPortal

Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:

Google and Lending Club to launch pilot program offering low-interest business loans to eligible Google partners — Google and Lending Club launch low-interest loans for Google partners — Peer-to-peer lending service Lending Club has announced a new tie-up with Google to facilitate funding for “eligible Google partners.”

More: PR Newswire, Seeking Alpha, Re/code and StreetInsider.com

Brian Fung / Washington Post:

Source: FCC to vote February 26 on petitions from two cities asking to preempt state laws that limit municipal Internet service — The FCC will vote next month on whether to help cities build their own Internet — US President Barack Obama speaks about increasing access to high speed …

More: The Verge, The Dish and tech.slashdot.org

See also Mediagazer

Andrea Peterson / Washington Post:

Elon Musk Donates $10M to Future of Life Institute to fund research on artificial intelligence safety — Elon Musk's fear of Terminators just netted researchers $10 million — A T-800 Terminator in a scene from “Terminator Salvation.” (Warner Bros. Pictures)

More: Future of Life Institute, CNET, TechCrunch, SiliconBeat, ABC News and BetaBoston

Lucian Constantin / PC World:

CryptoWall ransomware is back with new version after two months of silence — Attackers have started distributing a new and improved version of the CryptoWall file-encrypting ransomware program over the past few days, security researchers warn. — The new version, dubbed CryptoWall 3.0 …

More: TechNet Blogs, The Register, The Hacker News, Security Affairs, SecurityWeek, Help Net Security and Threatpost. Tweets: @virusbtn

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