Techmeme: Dating site Zoosk cuts costs, lays off 15% of employees after putting IPO plans on hold (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)

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January 16, 2015, 1:55 AM

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.

Stephen O'Grady / tecosystems:

Apple's Swift rises from 58th in Q3 '14 to 22nd in Q1 '15 in Redmonk's language ranking list that uses Github and Stack Overflow data — The RedMonk Programming Language Rankings: January 2015 — With two quarters having passed since our last snapshot, it's time to update our programming language rankings.

More: Wired, iMore, MacNN, The Next Web, ReadWrite, SlashGear, Cult of Mac, MacDailyNews, AppleInsider and The Loop

Jason Koebler / Motherboard:

Mt. Gox CEO Denies Silk Road Involvement: ‘I Am Not Dread Pirate Roberts’ — Mark Karpeles, the CEO of Mt. Gox—which was once the world's most popular Bitcoin exchange—has denied any involvement in Silk Road and has told Motherboard that he's not Dread Pirate Roberts, the man who allegedly ran the site.

More: The Verge, Gawker, TechCrunch, SiliconANGLE and Electronista

Andy Greenberg / Wired:

DHS suspected Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles may have been Silk Road's mastermind, Dread Pirate Roberts

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

Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:

Google Knowledge Graph Now Showing Social Profiles For Brands — In November, Google began adding links to other social networks, outside of just Google+, within the knowledge graph box - but only for personalities such as famous actors, political figures and bands.

More: Google Webmaster Central Blog, Engadget, The Next Web, WebProNews, Marketing Land, Zineb Ait Bahajji and 9to5Google

James Ball / Guardian:

Newly uncovered US cybersecurity report finds encryption vital to protect private data, and is at odds with David Cameron's proposal — Secret US cybersecurity report: encryption vital to protect private data — Newly uncovered Snowden document contrasts with British PM's vow to crack down on encrypted messaging after Paris attacks

More: Ars Technica and The Hill. Tweets: @dangoodin001

Reuters:

China to create $6.5 billion venture capital fund to support start-ups — (Reuters) - China will set up a government venture capital fund worth 40 billion yuan ($6.5 billion) to support start-ups in emerging industries, in its latest move to support the private sector and foster innovation.

More: ZDNet, TechCrunch, Financial Times, China Money Network and Tech in Asia. Tweets: @bgurley

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Dating site Zoosk cuts costs, lays off 15% of employees after putting IPO plans on hold — Dating Service Zoosk Lays Off 15% Of Staff, Company Confirms — Dating service Zoosk has laid off 15 percent of its employees this week, sources told TechCrunch, and the company now confirms.

Brian Fung / Washington Post:

United for Patent Reform launches, a “super-coalition” against patent trolls brings together some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley — Patent reform advocates are launching a ‘super-coalition’ to whack patent trolls — What do department stores and restaurants have in common with search engines and social networks?

More: Politico

Brendan Klinkenberg / BuzzFeed:

South Carolina Orders Uber To Stop Operations — The latest regulatory battle facing the ride-hailing giant. — http://blog.uber.com — Uber's increasingly bitter fight to operate in states across the country worsened today, as South Carolina issued an order to cease and desist all operations in the state.

More: The Verge and Gigaom

Steven Johns / Neowin:

Moving the Steam folder on Linux is causing users' entire file systems to be deleted — Users of Steam on GNU/Linux are reporting that attempting to move the Steam folder - something that the GNU/Linux Steam installer doesn't allow you to set at the time of installation - is leading to everything being deleted recursively from root.

More: GitHub

David Meyer / GigaOm:

Be My Eyes app harnesses volunteers to help sight-impaired people — 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 …

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

Dan Levine / Reuters:

Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe settle US poaching lawsuit for $415M — Apple, Google settle U.S. poaching lawsuit for $415 million — SAN FRANCISCO - Four Silicon Valley companies including Apple Inc and Google Inc agreed to pay $415 million to resolve an antitrust class action lawsuit …

More: VentureBeat, The Verge, Associated Press, bizjournals, CNET, USA Today, San Francisco Chronicle and App Advice

Marguerite Reardon / CNET:

Q&A with Tom Wheeler on net neutrality, legal challenges, Obama's role, and being the butt of late-night TV jokes — Net Fix: FCC chief on solving the Open Internet puzzle (Q&A) — With a vote looming on new rules for Internet access, Tom Wheeler talks candidly with CNET News about legal challenges …

More: National Journal, Electronic Frontier Foundation, U.S. Senate Committee … and ZDNet. Thanks:@rogerwcheng

Ina Fried / Re/code:

Mobile Industry Generated $3.3 Trillion Last Year, Created 11 Million Jobs — A new study finds that the mobile industry last year produced more than $3.3 trillion in revenue. — That breaks down to more than $400 for every man, woman and child on earth. So everyone must be feeling a little wealthier, right?

More: www.bcgperspectives.com and Associated Press

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Timeline news app launches to give the historical context behind the day's headlines — Timeline Launches News App To Give You The Context Behind The Day's Headlines — One big complaint about current news coverage is that there's not enough context — an article or TV report might tell …

More: ReadWrite, Business Insider, New York Times and Reporters Without Borders. See also Mediagazer

Matthew Goldstein / New York Times:

Hacker's List matches professional hackers with those needing their service for $100 - $5,000 — Need Some Espionage Done? Hackers Are for Hire Online — A man in Sweden says he will pay up to $2,000 to anyone who can break into his landlord's website.

Tweets: @mikeisaac

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: MIUI Official English Site, TechnoBuffalo, PhoneDog.com, Gizmodo, Android Authority, Business Insider, Liliputing, Ubergizmo, Engadget, SlashGear, bgr.in, AndroidHeadlines.com and Engadget

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

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Shutterstock acquires photo agency Rex Features for $33M & music service PremiumBeat for $32M — Shutterstock Acquires Rex Features And PremiumBeat — Stock imagery, video and music service Shutterstock today announced that it has acquired Rex Features, Europe's largest independent photo press agency …

More: PR Newswire, Resource Magazine, StreetInsider.com, hypebot, PetaPixel and VentureBeat. 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, PhoneDog.com, Consumerist, Lifehacker, Geeky Gadgets, CNET, Droid Life, Gigaom, Ubergizmo, TechnoBuffalo, TmoNews, 9to5Google, SlashGear, AndroidHeadlines.com and Finextra Research news. Tweets: @dannysullivan

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