Techmeme: NSA analysts will be required to delete incidental information on Americans within one year, on foreigners within five (David E. Sanger/New York Times)

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February 3, 2015, 1:00 PM

Top News

Bloomberg Business:

Amazon discussed buying some RadioShack stores to showcase its hardware and serve as pickup/drop-off centers — Amazon in Talks to Buy Some of RadioShack's Stores — Don't Miss Out — (Bloomberg) — Amazon.com Inc., aiming to bolster its brick-and-mortar operations …

Joshua Brustein / Bloomberg Business:

Inside RadioShack's Slow-Motion Collapse … Nathan Hill learned a lot about entertaining himself during his time as a RadioShack employee. For 15 months during 2013 and 2014, he worked at two locations in two separate strip malls in suburban Phoenix. It was dull, but Hill …

More: TechnoBuffalo, Phandroid, MacDailyNews, SlashGear, CNBC, The Register, Ars Technica, The Next Web, Hit & Run, Business Insider, Electronista and Slashdot. Tweets: @llsethj

Brad Stone / Bloomberg Business:

Google developing its own Uber competitor, likely in conjunction with driverless car project — Exclusive: Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor — The two companies are going to war over self-driving taxis — Don't Miss Out — … Uber faces an ever-growing cast of adversaries …

Wall Street Journal:

Sources: Report of Google's plan for Uber rival overblown; app is only internal tool for carpooling — Uber Chases Google in Self-Driving Cars With Carnegie Mellon Deal — Uber on Monday said it formed a partnership with Carnegie Mellon University to develop driverless car and mapping technology …

More: Uber Blog, BGR, WebProNews, Electronista, SiliconBeat, CNET, The Technology Chronicles, VentureBeat and Tech2

Tweets: @mikeisaac, @mikeisaac, @mikeisaac, @rolfewinkler and @evelynrusli

John Biggs / TechCrunch:

Uber Opening Robotics Research Facility In Pittsburgh To Build Self-Driving Cars — Driver-on-demand service Uber is building a robotics research lab in Pittsburgh, PA to “kickstart autonomous taxi fleet development,” sources close to the decision have confirmed to TechCrunch.

More: TUAW, Associated Press, PC World, Techaeris, The Verge, VatorNews, New York Times, SlashGear, Gigaom, Droid Life, Engadget and Ubergizmo

Tweets: @hunterwalk and @mikeisaac

Thanks:@mjburnsy

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

With an Eye on Wall Street, Twitter Starts Selling Twitter Ads Outside of Twitter — Twitter is rolling out plans for a new revenue stream: Twitter ads that don't appear on Twitter. — Starting today, the company will start running its core “Promoted Tweet” ad unit on other people's apps and sites.

David E. Sanger / New York Times:

NSA analysts will be required to delete incidental information on Americans within one year, on foreigners within five — President Tweaks the Rules on Data Collection — WASHINGTON — A year after President Obama ordered modest changes in how the nation's intelligence agencies collect …

More: Bloomberg Business, PandoDaily, Gizmodo, The Hill, The Verge, The Next Web and Gigaom. Tweets: @trevortimm

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

Eero aims to eliminate WiFi dead-spots in homes using a mesh network created by a set of boxes — Eero Is A Smart Wireless Routing System That Wants To Do For WiFi What Nest Did For Thermostats — Have you tried to purchase or install a wireless router lately? I have, and it is hell.

More: VentureBeat, The Next Web, Ars Technica, Gizmodo, Engadget, PC World, CNET, Gigaom, SlashGear, Nextgov, Technology Personalized, Electronista, Ubergizmo, Wired and Xconomy

Lauren Goode / Re/code:

Review of three new Fitbits: accuracy of heart-rate sensors in Charge HR and Surge disappoints — Three New Fitbits: See How They Run — Depending on what you read, the market for step-and-sleep-tracking wristbands is either set to explode, or is hanging in a wobbly balance while everyone waits …

More: Wearable Tech Insider, Gizmag and Tom's Guide

Toby Wolpe / ZDNet:

DataStax snaps up Aurelius and its Titan team to build new graph database — Summary:The prize in DataStax's acquisition of open-source firm Aurelius is not the Titan database but rather engineering expertise, which will be used in developing a new graph database.

More: DataStax, The Register, Fortune, Data Center Knowledge, Gigaom, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, bizjournals, Forbes and Aurelius

Jason Del Rey / Re/code:

eBay layoffs begin with many involved in PayPal's disappointing in-store initiatives — Big Layoffs Begin at eBay and PayPal — The big job cuts eBay promised last month are here. — On Monday, eBay and PayPal began notifying employees who were losing their jobs as part of the cuts …

More: bizjournals and PYMNTS.com. Tweets: @delrey

Tom's Hardware Guide:

Razer announces latest Blade gaming laptop with GTX 970M GPU, 16GB RAM, QHD+ 3200x1800 14" touchscreen display for $2,199 — Razer Announces New Razer Blade Gaming Laptops Rocking Nvidia GTX 970M GPU, QHD+ Display — Today, Razer launched its latest top-tier Razer Blade gaming laptop.

More: The Verge, TechCrunch, Digital Trends, Engadget, Wired, AnandTech, CNET and GameSpot

Kyle Russell / TechCrunch:

Nest Touts Three Studies Claiming Its Thermostat Pays For Itself In Two Years — Google-subsidiary Nest claims that the results of three studies based on longitudinal data show that its thermostat pays for itself in less than two years from savings from heating and cooling costs.

More: Nest, 9to5Google, ITProPortal and SlashGear

Mat Honan / BuzzFeed:

US Department of Transportation looks to vehicle-to-vehicle communication, automation, and other technologies to solve future gridlock — Transportation Department Releases Tech-Focused 30-Year Report — It's all crumbling bridges, flight delays, and gridlocked traffic unless we get deeper ports …

More: Mashable, CNET, Washington Post and The Verge. Thanks:@fwd

StatCounter Global Stats:

Google US search share drops to 74.8% as Yahoo usage on Firefox almost triples since November — Yahoo gains further US search share in January — Google falls below 75% for first time — US Yahoo-on-Firefox usage almost triples since November — San Francisco, CA & Dublin …

More: USA Today, TechCrunch, bizjournals, Computerworld, VentureBeat, The Overspill, Business Insider, The Register, Bidness Etc, The Tech Portal, ITProPortal, Telecompaper, SiliconBeat, ValueWalk, Ubergizmo, NASDAQ.com, Investor's Business Daily and Tech Insider

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

New Adware Found In Google Play Apps With Millions Of Downloads — A new report from security firm Avast out this morning reveals the discovery of a new form of malware on the Google Play store, which begins to display advertisements disguised as warning messages to end users when they unlock their Android smartphone.

More: Avast blog and Ars Technica

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