Techmeme: China acknowledges targeting VPN services to foster the “healthy development” of the nation's internet, says VPNs are illegal (Andrew Jacobs/New York Times)

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January 29, 2015, 10:45 PM

Top News

Google:

Google Inc. Announces Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2014 Results — Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG, GOOGL) today announced financial results for the quarter and fiscal year ended December 31, 2014. — “Google's full year revenue for 2014 was $66 billion, up 19% year on year,” said Patrick Pichette …

Harrison Weber / VentureBeat:

Google misses in Q4 2014 with $14.48B revenue, $6.88 EPS on slowing ad revenue growth — Updated 1:45 p.m. Pacific with new details from Google's earnings call. — Google reported its fourth-quarter earnings today, with GAAP EPS of $6.88 on revenue of $14.48 billion (minus traffic acquisition costs).

More: Wall Street Journal, The Register, Tech Trader Daily, Wall Street Journal, internetnews.com, 9to5Google, Mercury News, Fortune, BGR, GeekWire, The Verge, Phandroid, USA Today, CNET, Tech Trader Daily, ZDNet and bizjournals. Tweets: @chris_ciaccia

Rolfe Winkler / Wall Street Journal:

Cyanogen's $70M+ round to include Microsoft as a minority investor — Microsoft to Invest in Rogue Android Startup Cyanogen — Microsoft is investing in a hot startup that's trying to weaken Google 's hold over Android. — People familiar with the matter say Microsoft is putting money into Cyanogen …

Vlad Savov / The Verge:

The best Gmail app for the iPhone is now made by Microsoft — Outlook. Yes, Outlook. — Gmail is the world's most popular email service, and the iPhone, as if this week didn't make it abundantly clear, is the world's most popular smartphone. The two have been around for years and years …

More: AppleInsider, Business Insider and TUAW

Julia White / The Official Microsoft Blog:

Microsoft launches Office for Android tablets, new Outlook mail apps for iOS and Android

More: Office Blogs, Office Blogs, Telegraph, Engadget, GadgeTell, The Daily Dot, TechnoBuffalo, Droid Life, Pocketnow, PC Magazine, AnandTech, Bloomberg Business and The Register

Office Blogs:

New Accompli-based Outlook for iOS and Android integrates email, calendar, contacts, and files, supports Office 365, Exchange, iCloud, Gmail, and Yahoo accounts

More: Pocket-lint, Business Insider, Forbes, New York Times, MacRumors, MSDN Blogs, Ink, Bits, & Pixels, Phandroid, Macworld, Digital Trends, Droid Life and Redmond Pie

Micah Singleton / The Verge:

FCC redefines broadband: minimum download speed raised from 4 to 25 Mbps, minimum upload from 1 to 3 Mbps — The FCC has changed the definition of broadband — The Federal Communications Commission has voted to change the definition of broadband by raising the minimum download speeds needed …

More: FCC.gov, Ars Technica, Gizmodo, BetaNews, CNET, Engadget, Techdirt, Slate, Guardian, BGR, NCTA, New York Times, Hit & Run, Electronista, CNBC, Business Insider, Re/code, SlashGear, GamePolitics blogs, Gigaom, ZDNet, Android Authority, TechnoBuffalo, Neowin, Geek.com and AppleInsider. Tweets: @munin

Taylor Soper / GeekWire:

Amazon posts $214M profit, $0.45 EPS in Q4 2014 on $29.33B revenue; Prime membership grows 53% year over year — Amazon Prime memberships grow 53% in 2014, despite $20 price hike … Amazon's decision to increase the price of its Prime membership doesn't seem to be hurting the company.

Andrew Jacobs / New York Times:

China acknowledges targeting VPN services to foster the “healthy development” of the nation's internet, says VPNs are illegal — China Clamps Down Still Harder on Internet Access — BEIJING — Jing Yuechen, the founder of an Internet start-up here in the Chinese capital …

More: Daring Fireball, Wired, Asia Stocks to Watch, BetaNews, The Register and theWHIR.com

Andy Greenberg / Wired:

Prosecutors Trace $13.4M in Bitcoins From the Silk Road to Ulbricht's Laptop — If anyone still believes that bitcoin is magically anonymous internet money, the US government just offered what may be the clearest demonstration yet that it's not. A courtroom PowerPoint presentation traced hundreds …

Tweets: @a_greenberg

Douglas MacMillan / Wall Street Journal:

Alibaba invests $10M in Ouya, plans to incorporate Ouya's game library into set-top boxes — Alibaba Breathes New Life Into Game-Console Maker Ouya — Ouya, the game-console maker that has struggled to gain traction since its record-breaking Kickstarter campaign, has received a new injection …

More: VG247, VentureBeat, Android Police, The Verge, GamesIndustry.biz, Ubergizmo and Engadget

Jeff John Roberts / Gigaom:

FTC shuts down “revenge porn” operation, but imposes no fine — In one of the most despicable scams on the internet, Colorado resident Craig Brittain ran a website that posted nude photographs of hundreds of women alongside their Facebook profiles and other personal information …

More: The Verge, PC World, Techdirt, Popehat, CBS News, The Huffington Post, VentureBeat, The Daily Beast, TIME, The Hill, National Journal, Ars Technica, SC Magazine and Gizmodo

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

The App Install Ad Boom Helps Tune Raise $27 Million — A few years ago, the app install ad business — fueled by developers who want to distribute their stuff across a universe of smartphones — didn't really exist. — Now it's one of the big reasons Facebook has a giant mobile ad business.

More: VentureBeat and TechCrunch

Daniel Terdiman / VentureBeat:

Facebook launches location tips on iPhone, tests Bluetooth beacons to increase geolocation accuracy in NYC — Facebook invades Yelp, Foursquare territory with geo-specific Place Tips for iPhone — Facebook knows that being able to target users with information about exactly where they are can be extremely lucrative.

More: Facebook, Engadget, Marketing Land, Re/code, The Verge, Electronista, ABC News and Consumerist

Dan Levine / Reuters:

Delhi Uber passenger who alleges driver rape sues in U.S — (Reuters) - A passenger who said she had been raped by an Uber driver in India's capital sued the online car service in U.S. federal court on Thursday, claiming the company failed to maintain basic safety procedures.

Maya Kosoff / Business Insider:

Spotify working with Goldman Sachs to raise $500M at possible $6B+ valuation; could delay IPO for another year — Spotify Is Looking To Raise $500 Million In New Funding — Spotify is looking to raise $500 million with help from Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

More: Wall Street Journal, The Verge, CNET, New York Times and Mashable

Tweets: @joshconstine and @finansakrobat

Phil Goldstein / FierceWireless:

FCC raises record $44.9B in AWS-3 spectrum auction — It's over: FCC's AWS-3 spectrum auction ends at record $44.9B in bids — The FCC said bidding in the AWS-3 spectrum auction, known as auction 97, is now closed after 341 rounds of bidding. Total provisional winning bids came in at a record $44.899 billion.

More: The Verge, Wall Street Journal and TmoNews. Tweets: @bfeld. Thanks:@fiercewireless

Barb Darrow / Gigaom:

VMware's vCloud Air to integrate Google's BigQuery analytics, Cloud Datastore, Cloud DNS, and Cloud Storage services — VMware is bringing key Google services to its cloud — Here's a deal that has “corporate synergies” written all over it. VMware and Google are working together …

More: VMware Blogs, Data Center Knowledge, eWeek, Bloomberg Business, cloudpro.co.uk, Forbes, RealWire, Virtualization Review, Wall Street Journal, CRN and ZDNet

Brian Steinberg / Variety:

Nickelodeon to unveil stand-alone streaming video subscription service in February — Nickelodeon to Unveil Stand-Alone Subscription Video Service in February — Kid-entertainment giant Nickelodeon intends to follow the example of HBO and unveil a direct-to-consumer subscription service in February …

More: TechCrunch, Reuters, New York Times, CNBC, SlashGear, New York Post, ABC News, TechnoBuffalo, Ubergizmo, Telecompetitor, Digital Trends, Consumerist, Gizmodo and The Verge. See also Mediagazer

Abhijeet M. / SamMobile:

Samsung may remove default add-ons from TouchWiz on Galaxy S6, make them downloadable instead — Exclusive: Samsung removing bloat from TouchWiz, making most of it downloadable — The fact that Samsung's phones and tablets come with a lot of software features is both an advantage and a curse.

More: 9to5Google, Phandroid, Gotta Be Mobile, TechnoBuffalo, Pocketnow, SlashGear, Droid Life, PhoneDog.com, Ubergizmo, PC World, Gizmodo, Business Insider, Android Authority, BestTechie, Gigaom and BGR

Jeff John Roberts / Gigaom:

FAA imposes 30-mile radius ban on drones around stadium hosting Super Bowl XLIX — Super Bowl will have 30-mile “no drone zone” — Buzzing quarterback Tom Brady with an unmanned aircraft might sound like fun, but anyone who flies a drone remotely near the University of Phoenix stadium …

More: Wall Street Journal, GeekWire, Forbes, Marketing Land, CNN, Gizmodo, Fox News, Popular Science, CNET and The Verge

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:

Imgur introduces new tool to make high-quality GIFs from streaming video like YouTube — Imgur's new tool makes the most beautiful GIFs on the web — Imgur has been on a quest to upgrade the GIF, and part of that means making GIFs look a whole lot nicer.

More: Gigaom, The Imgur Blog, The Daily What, VentureBeat, BuzzFeed, Engadget, TechCrunch, The Daily Dot, The Next Web, Mashable and Re/code. See also Mediagazer

Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:

Apple resolves iTunes Connect issue presenting wrong user name and apps for developers — Widespread iTunes Connect issue presenting wrong user name and apps for developers (Update: Resolved) — iTunes Connect, Apple's portal where developers manage software published on the App Store …

More: MacRumors, TechCrunch, The Register, AppleInsider, Ars Technica, Cult of Mac, iPhone Hacks, GeekWire, The Next Web and InvestorPlace

Tweets: @tapbot_paul, @tapbot_paul, @bitario, @llsethj, @9to5mac and @drbarnard

Eric Johnson / Re/code:

Twitch hit 100M unique viewers in December 2014, more than double the 45M from a year ago — Twitch's Monthly Viewers More Than Doubled (Again) in 2014 — Video game streaming site Twitch, now owned by Amazon, said today that it has crossed 100 million monthly unique viewers …

More: The Verge, The Hill, The Daily Dot, San Francisco Chronicle, Gamasutra, gameinformer.com, MCV: Home Stream, games.on.net, The Official Twitch Blog, Wall Street Journal and GeekWire

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