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January 16, 2015, 8:15 PM

Top News

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Sources: Google is interested in buying mobile payments company Softcard, price could be less than $100M — Google Is In Talks With Softcard, The Mobile Payments Company — Apple has Apple Pay, and now it looks like Google may be fattening up its own wallet.

More: Wall Street Journal, Marketing Land, The Register, VentureBeat, Ars Technica, 9to5Google, Forbes, PhoneDog.com, PaymentsSource, SlashGear, WMPoweruser, Android and Me, Android Central and 9to5Mac

Tweets: @ohthatflo and @mdudas

Adi Robertson / The Verge:

Republicans introduce net neutrality legislation which would strip rule-making power from the FCC, avoid a major reclassification of broadband service — Republicans want a net neutrality law, but only if it stops the FCC from handling it — A month before the FCC votes on a new net neutrality proposal …

More: Reuters, Washington Post, Gizmodo, Energy & Commerce Committee, The Daily Caller, Consumerist, Variety, Public Knowledge, TechCrunch, SiteProNews and New York Times. See also Mediagazer

Amy Schatz / Re/code:

In letter to FCC, Sprint says “light touch application of Title II” regulation would not harm investment in data networks, delighting net neutrality supporters

More: Gigaom, ReadWrite, Engadget, CNET, PC World, DSLreports and Broadcasting & Cable

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

More: Techdirt, PC World, TechCrunch, Consumerist, Electronista, BGR, Ars Technica, DSLreports, Nextgov and Gizmodo. Tweets: @karlbode. Thanks:@rogerwcheng

South East Regional Organised Crime Unit:

UK cybercrime unit and FBI arrest 18-year-old man in UK for “swatting” offenses and DDoS attacks on Playstation Network and Xbox Live — Man arrested for ‘swatting’ and denial of service offences — SEROCU, has worked closely with the FBI on the operation which focused …

Faryaab S. / SamMobile:

Samsung to use Touch ID-like fingerprint sensor in Galaxy S6 instead of swipe-based sensor — Exclusive: Samsung opts for a touch-based fingerprint sensor for the Galaxy S6 — A smartphone is one of the most personal devices a human being can own, and it's one of those devices where compromising on security is not an option.

More: PC Magazine, Ausdroid, AndroidGuys, Droid Life, 9to5Google, PhoneDog.com, Pocketnow, PhoneArena, Gotta Be Mobile, TechnoBuffalo, Gigaom, Phandroid, Android Authority, SlashGear, AppleInsider, Forbes, MobileSyrup.com, Seeking Alpha and iPhone in Canada Blog

Douglas MacMillan / Wall Street Journal:

Yahoo combines ad products into one unit, to be led by Prashant Fuloria, former executive at Google, Flurry, and Facebook — Yahoo Reorganizes Ad Product Team, Says Memo to Staff — Marissa Mayer is reorganizing management at Yahoo as part of her effort to jumpstart the company's stagnant advertising business.

More: Re/code, bizjournals, TechCrunch, Marketing Land, Bloomberg, Streetwise Report, Seeking Alpha, AdExchanger and Techcircle.in

Tweets: @dmac1 and @wsjd

See also Mediagazer

Alistair Barr / Wall Street Journal:

Google joins PricewaterhouseCoopers in $2B bid to update US DoD's electronic-health-records system — Google Is Bidding for a Pentagon Contract Worth More Than $2 Billion — Google is using a new partnership with consulting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers and some of its $60 billion in cash …

More: Computerworld, Politico, EHRintelligence.com, cloudpro.co.uk and Federal Computer Week. Tweets: @alistairmbarr

Phil Goldstein / FierceWireless:

Sprint's Virgin Mobile launches new prepaid shared data plans at Walmart, with option for unlimited data in select apps for $5/month — Sprint dumps Virgin Mobile Custom brand, but keeps ItsOn technology and Walmart partnership — Sprint launches new shared data plans under Virgin Mobile banner

More: Engadget, Android Police, CNET, Seeking Alpha, The News Ledge, HotHardware.com News, Tom's Guide, SlashGear, VentureBeat, PC Magazine, USA Today and PhoneNews.com

BBC:

UK and US to stage “cyber attack war games” involving commercial banks to test critical national infrastructure — ‘Cyber war games’ to be staged by UK and US — The UK and US are to carry out “war game” cyber attacks on each other as part of a new joint defence against online criminals.

More: BBC, Slashdot, TechCrunch, PC World, BetaNews, Business Insider, Naked Security, Mashable, Guardian and The Next Web

Derrick Harris / Gigaom:

Facebook open sources deep learning tools; head of AI research pledges to “start building things in the open” — Facebook open sources tools for bigger, faster deep learning models — Facebook on Friday open sourced a handful of software libraries that it claims will help users build bigger …

More: Research at Facebook, Backchannel, VentureBeat, InfoWorld, ITworld.com, New York Times, TechCrunch, Wired and Beyond Search

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.

More: Slate, Business Insider, TechSpot, BGR, ZDNet, Network World, Gizmodo and The Loop

Tweets: @propublica and @mikeisaac

Will Brunelle / Capital New York:

NY Gov. Cuomo proposes broadband expansion program offering up to $500M in public funds to ISPs willing to match the state's investment — Cuomo re-announces $500 million broadband initiative — ALBANY—Governor Andrew Cuomo formally announced his proposed $500 million broadband expansion plan Friday …

More: The Verge, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, Associated Press, Citizen, bizjournals, lohud.com, WIBX 950 and TechCrunch

Douglas Soltys / BetaKit:

Founding partners of Teehan+Lax, the design firm behind Medium, join Facebook — Teehan+Lax shutting down as partners join Facebook — A new era begins for the Toronto design community as the founding partners of Teehan+Lax announced this morning they are shutting down the company to join Facebook.

More: teehan+lax, Facebook Design, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, The Verge and MobileSyrup.com

Tweets: @teehanlax, @losowsky, @joshm, @jongold, @joulee and @joshm

Thanks:@tron

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