Techmeme: Microsoft launches Picturesque, its second free lock screen replacement app for Android (Abhimanyu Ghoshal/The Next Web)

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February 4, 2015, 12:00 PM

Top News

Tom Wheeler / Wired:

FCC Chairman Wheeler proposes using Title II authority to implement and enforce open internet protections — FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality — Federal Communication Commission(FCC) Chairman Tom Wheeler waits for a hearing at the FCC December 11, 2014 in Washington, DC.

More: The Verge, Gizmodo, The Next Web, Business Insider, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Washington Post, BGR, Engadget, Windows Central, Senator Wyden's Press Feed, Vox and The Daily Caller

Tweets: @tomwheelerfcc, @reckless and @tomwheelerfcc

See also Mediagazer

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

AT&T previews lawsuit it plans to file against FCC over net neutrality

More: AT&T Public Policy Blog, DSLreports, Gizmodo, VentureBeat, The Mac Observer, USA Today, ABC News, PC World, Electronista and SlashGear

AppleInsider:

Apple is reportedly testing camera-equipped minivans in the Bay Area, possibly for a Street View-like mapping system — Apple testing mysterious camera-equipped vehicles in the Bay Area — A number of minivans with what appears to be camera equipment and a LiDAR sensor mounted to the roof …

Artem Russakovskii / Android Police:

The Next Android Revision Is Indeed ‘Android 5.1 Lollipop’, Shipping On Android One Phones, Coming To Nexus Devices — A few hours ago, we spotted no less than five mentions of “Android 5.1” on Google's Indonesian Android One page. Considering that 5.1 is quite a jump from 5.0.2 …

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Apple's iPhone Overtakes Android In US Sales For The First Time Since 2012 — Apple, in its flush of new, bigger iPhone 6 handsets, has been selling record numbers of its older and newer model smartphones in the last few months, and now it's passed another significant milestone …

More: Kantar Worldpanel, Marketing Land, CNET, AppleInsider, iMore, 9to5Mac, iPhone in Canada Blog, MacRumors, Kantar Worldpanel, The Next Web, App Advice, VentureBeat, Business Insider, iDownloadBlog.com, Inquirer, Ubergizmo, SlashGear, iPhone Hacks and BetaNews

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Taboola Gets $117M From Comcast, Other Strategics To Boost Its Content Recommendation Platform — Taboola — the recommendation platform that provides 200 billion content suggestions to 550 million users each month, and analytics to publishers and brands about what's getting people clicking …

More: Gigaom, Wall Street Journal, Beet.TV, VentureBeat, GeekTime, AdExchanger, Fortune, SocialTimes and Forbes. See also Mediagazer

James Vincent / The Verge:

Instagram introduces endlessly looping videos to please advertisers — Instagram has tweaked its video settings so that clips automatically replay in users' streams — a change that will be mainly welcomed by #brands keen to get as many views for their ads as possible.

More: Re/code, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, Engadget, MobileSyrup.com, GSMArena Blog and Tech2

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft stops making the Nokia Lumia 2520 tablet, the last remaining Windows RT device in production — Windows RT is officially dead — Microsoft was left alone as the last manufacturer of Windows RT-based tablets, and now the software giant is no longer producing any RT devices.

More: CNET, Mashable, TechnoBuffalo, Ubergizmo, SlashGear and Pocketnow

Andrew McMillen / Backchannel:

Almost all 47K edits by a top Wikipedia editor were to fix incorrect uses of “comprised of” — Meet the ultimate WikiGnome. — On a Friday in July 2012, two employees of the Wikimedia Foundation gave a talk at Wikimania, their organization's annual conference.

More: Business Insider, Fusion, Gizmodo, Yahoo Tech and Slashdot

Julie Bort / Business Insider:

What Satya Nadella has done in his first year as Microsoft CEO — In just one year, Satya Nadella made Microsoft so much better — One year ago, Microsoft appointed long-time Microsoftie Satya Nadella as the company's historic third CEO, and by all accounts, it's been a helluva ride for the company ever since.

More: Bloomberg Business, ZDNet, Business Insider, Ars Technica, CITEworld and CNET

Steven Levy / Backchannel:

How Twitter developed its revenue model, even as user growth disappointed — While Twitter struggles to get new users, its revenue side is killing it. — In 2009 Twitter was a 50-person company punching way above its weight in cultural impact, its micro-blogging platform blasting its way into the public imagination.

Tweets: @twitterads, @jyarow, @adambain, @monkbent and @jimprosser

Kurt Wagner / Re/code:

Twitter is testing a new landing page featuring curated tweets for people without accounts — Another Twitter Update! This One's a New Homepage, Designed to Lure New Users. — Twitter is experimenting with yet another new product tweak — a homepage designed for people who visit Twitter but don't have their own account.

More: Marketing Land, ValueWalk, Mashable and SocialTimes

Tweets: @sacca and @gilbert

See also Mediagazer

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

Serious bug in fully patched Internet Explorer puts user credentials at risk — Microsoft engineers are working to patch universal XSS vulnerability. — A vulnerability in fully patched versions of Internet Explorer allows attackers to steal login credentials and inject malicious content into users' browsing sessions.

More: SecLists.Org Security …, Full Disclosure, GeekWire, Help Net Security, Security Affairs, PC World and Neowin

Brian Fagioli / BetaNews:

Toshiba releases super-secure Encrypted USB Flash Drive with hardware-based encryption — In a cloud-focused world, more and more people are shunning physical storage. It's hard to blame them, as cloud services are very convenient. Best of all, services like Dropbox and OneDrive store …

More: eWeek, Ubergizmo, SlashGear and Gizmodo

Jessica Plautz / Mashable:

Groupon founder Andrew Mason launches Detour, an iPhone app for location-aware walking tours in cities, starting with San Francisco — Groupon's ex-CEO launches audio tour app in San Francisco — Audio tours, often associated with museum field trips, are taking to the streets.

More: The Detour Blog, Laughing Squid, Wired, TechCrunch, Upstart Business Journal, Fast Company, Inc.com, Chicago Business, Business Insider and The Verge

George Avalos / Mercury News:

Report: Silicon Valley powers to record job boom, but surge produces income gap — SAN JOSE — The Silicon Valley economy is red hot and the growth looks like it will intensify, with technology leading the employment and investment boom in the region, according to the latest Joint Venture Silicon Valley Index …

More: New York Times, bizjournals, Los Angeles Times, US News and ABC News

Tweets: @michellequinn and @rosenbergmerc

Paul Bischoff / Tech in Asia:

Alibaba is testing drone delivery in China with a 3-day pilot program — Alibaba is now in the testing phases of delivering packages by drone, according to a post on Taobao's website (h/t 36kr). Bringing Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' dream into reality, Alibaba's major online marketplace Taobao …

More: BBC, TechCrunch, The Next Web, SiliconANGLE, USA Today, The Daily Dot, GeekWire, ValueWalk, Business Insider, Fortune and Gizmodo

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:

California becomes first state to convict someone for operating a revenge porn website — A California jury has convicted the operator of a revenge porn website in what the state believes is the first conviction of its kind nationwide. The operator, Kevin Bollaert, was found guilty …

More: The Atlantic Online, Gawker, Associated Press, Daily Mail, Washington Post, The Register, Plagiarism Today, Gizmodo, Engadget, Guardian and Associated Press

Sam Machkovech / Ars Technica:

Pono Player review: FLAC does not sound noticeably better than high-quality MP3 audio, poor portability, sluggish touchscreen — Pono Player review: A tall, refreshing drink of snake oil — We give Neil Young's high-res music player a spin and do a few cochlea kegels.

More: Yahoo Tech and MacDailyNews. Tweets: @joshconstine

Michael Mimoso / Threatpost:

Cisco report: 1,800 compromised domains serving Flash zero day exploit — 1,800 Domains Overtaken by Flash Zero Day — When the Blackhole exploit kit went away after the arrest of its alleged creator and maintainer Paunch, there were questions about which kit would rise up as its successor.

More: Cisco Blog, Computerworld and The Register

Abhimanyu Ghoshal / The Next Web:

Microsoft launches Picturesque, its second free lock screen replacement app for Android — Microsoft quietly launches a free lock screen replacement app for Android — Things are busy at Microsoft Garage, where the company's employees share experimental projects they've been working on.

More: CNET, Android Police, SiliconANGLE, SlashGear, Android Central, 9to5Google, PhoneDog.com, Phandroid, NDTV Gadgets, Neowin, Android Authority, Engadget, Quartz, Ubergizmo, Gigaom, Business Insider, Lifehacker, VentureBeat and PC World

Buster Benson / The Twitter Blog:

Twitter's quick promote feature lets SMBs buy promoted tweets from the analytics dashboard — A faster way for SMBs to promote Tweets — Today we're excited to introduce quick promote, a faster and easier way for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to get their best content in front of more people on Twitter.

More: The Next Web, TechCrunch, SiliconANGLE, Medium, Gigaom, WebProNews and SocialTimes. Tweets: @twitterads

Julian Hattem / The Hill:

Obama wants $105M in budget to replicate the US Digital Service at 25 agencies — Obama wants $105M to improve agencies' digital footprint — President Obama's budget request includes $105 million to expand a digital strike force modeled on the team that turned around HealthCare.gov.

More: National Journal, FederalNewsRadio.com, TechPresident, Nextgov and SC Magazine

Brian Ries / Mashable:

Obama administration publishes 2016 fiscal budget proposal on Github and Medium

More: White House.gov Blog and VentureBeat. Thanks:@themadhacker

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