Techmeme: Announcing The Winners Of The 8th Annual Crunchies Awards (Matt Burns/TechCrunch)

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February 6, 2015, 12:55 PM

Top News

Owen Bowcott / Guardian:

UK court rules GCHQ mass internet surveillance was unlawful, breached human rights law — GCHQ mass internet surveillance was unlawful, rules court — Access to intercepted information obtained by the NSA breached human rights laws, according to the Investigative Powers Tribunal

More: The Next Web, ABC News, New York Times, PandoDaily, The Verge, Gigaom, CNET, The Independent, Business Insider, PC World, VentureBeat, BetaNews, Wall Street Journal, BBC, Inquirer, TechCrunch, The Register, Reuters, BuzzFeed, Engadget and Mashable

Tweets: @tsimonite, @saskiasassen, @anonyops, @rj_gallagher and @openrightsgroup

Bloomberg Business:

Tesla has hired 150+ Apple employees, more than from any other company; Apple tries poaching Tesla employees with $250,000 signing bonuses but recruits few — Apple Abduction — Tesla has hired more workers from Apple than from anyplace else — Doug Field never considered leaving Apple.

TechCrunch:

Rocket Internet Puts $586M Into Delivery Hero, Buys 9 Other Food Startups — Rocket Internet, the Berlin-based e-commerce group that went public last year, is making some major consolidation moves in the food delivery business. It has acquired a 30% stake in Delivery Hero …

More: PE Hub Blog, Bloomberg Business, VentureVillage, VentureBeat and Tech.eu

Nick Summers / Engadget:

First Ubuntu phone, a repurposed mid-range BQ Android phone, goes on flash sale in EU next week for $195 — The first Ubuntu phone arrives next week, but there's a catch — It's been a long time coming, but finally Canonical is ready to release its first Ubuntu phone.

More: The Next Web, The Register, PC World, The Verge, Gigaom, TechCrunch, Ubuntu Insights, CNET, Neowin, Liliputing and PhoneDog.com

Mark Scott / New York Times:

Google's advisory council on the Right to be Forgotten suggests limiting it to Europe — Limit ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ to Europe, Panel Tells Google — LONDON — Europe's so-called right to be forgotten should apply only in Europe. — That was the recommendation published on Friday …

More: TechCrunch, Gigaom, The Register, PandoDaily, Forbes, CNET, Reuters, GeekWire, The Next Web, Bloomberg Business, CIO.com, DW.DE, VentureBeat and Techdirt

Matt Burns / TechCrunch:

Announcing The Winners Of The 8th Annual Crunchies Awards — Today at The 8th Annual Crunchies Awards TechCrunch and VentureBeat came together to celebrate the best of technology in 2014. It was a night for the ages. The Davies Symphony Hall was packed and Silicon Valley's TJ Miller hosted the event.

More: Re/code, Bloomberg View and VentureBeat

Kyle Wiens / Wired:

Farmers seek DMCA exemption to modify or repair high-tech proprietary agriculture equipment that is making DIY repairs impossible — New High-Tech Farm Equipment Is a Nightmare for Farmers — A central Illinois corn farmer, on top of his combine, is silhouetted against the setting sun in Pleasant Plains, Illinois on Sept. 27, 2014.

More: USA Today. Tweets: @oscarwijsman, @joelgrus, @marciahofmann, @matt_cawood, @swartzcr, @hackerhostellou, @kwiens and @dangoldin

Jon Russell / TechCrunch:

Picsart, A Photo Editing App With 200M Downloads, Lands $10M From Sequoia — Picsart, a mobile photo editing app and community that claims 60 million monthly users, has closed $10 million in funding from Sequoia Capital. — This is the first outside investment that Picsart has taken …

More: Re/code, VentureBeat, VentureBeat and Xconomy

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

Study finds music labels take 73.1% of profits from streaming services; artists get 10.9% — Yes, Major Record Labels Are Keeping Nearly All The Money They Get From Spotify, Rather Than Giving It To Artists — A small group of very vocal musicians has decided that the new target of their anger …

More: Music Business Worldwide, TechSpot, The Equity Kicker, Gizmodo, TeamRock News and Slashdot

James Vincent / The Verge:

HTC reports profits of $15.9M from revenue of $1.5B for Q4, its third consecutive profitable quarter — HTC reports slim profit for third consecutive quarter — HTC is looking beyond smartphones to grow its business as the company reports slim profit margins in its latest quarterly earnings.

More: CNET, Android Authority, ZDNet, GeekWire, Gigaom, Android Central and GSMArena.com

Johana Bhuiyan / BuzzFeed:

Uber competitor Gett to launch corporate service in New York within weeks as company shifts global marketing budget to the city — Uber's Massive European Competitor Gett Shifts Focus To New York — As Uber doubles down on its investment in Europe and Southeast Asia, Gett is reinvesting its international profits into New York.

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Google Maps for Android update includes Local Guides program, similar to Yelp Elites — Google Takes On Yelp Elites With Its New “Local Guides” Program — Google is rolling out a “Local Guides” program in an update to Google Maps - a move that seemingly sees the company taking on …

More: Android Police, BGR, Engadget, Droid Life, Mobiletor.com, 9to5Google, 9to5Google, Lifehacker and Google

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

ClusterHQ raises $12M Series A led by Accel Partners to expand its container data management tool, Flocker — ClusterHQ Raises $12M Series A Round To Expand Its Container Data Management Service — ClusterHQ today announced that it has raised a $12 million Series A round led by Accel Partners London …

More: SiliconANGLE, Talkin' Cloud, ZDNet, Gigaom and VentureBeat

Manish Singh / BGR India:

WhatsApp voice calling tested in India, works as well on Edge networks as on 3G — Exclusive: We tried WhatsApp Call and it is a winner! — Around 11PM last night, we got a surprise call from WhatsApps's Neeraj Arora. It wasn't any ordinary call but one he made from within WhatsApp.

More: BetaNews. Thanks:@refsrc

Jon Russell / TechCrunch:

Uber Will Add Panic Button And Location/Journey Sharing In India On February 11 — Late last year, Uber announced plans for tighter safety measures in India following the rape of a passenger using its service in December. Now it has confirmed that two major features …

More: bizjournals, Uber Blog, Wall Street Journal, SlashGear, Slashdot and Tnooz

Joshua Benton / Nieman Lab:

WordPress and Drupal plugin Amber aims to prevent linkrot by storing a mirror of every link on a website as a fallback — Amber, a new tool to prevent linkrot on websites, is out in beta — Ever seen a news story from a few years back — or maybe even just a few weeks back …

More: PC World. Tweets: @mediagazer

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Facebook's Dedicated App For The Famous Gains Twitter Sharing, Topics In Timeline — Not all Facebooks are created equal: Facebook Mentions is an app the company released last year that lets celebrities use the social network in a way that's gear for filtering out noise and making fan engagement much easier.

More: Facebook Media, SiliconANGLE, ValueWalk, VentureBeat, SocialTimes, Mashable and The Next Web

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Twitter Q4 user count grew 1.4%, down from 4.8% in Q3, company blames bug in iOS 8 integration — Twitter Blames Slow User Growth On iOS 8 Bug, But Predicts Strong Q1 2015 — Twitter's user count grew a measly 1.4% this quarter, down from 4.8% in Q3 2014, but CFO Anthony Noto said things are turning around.

More: Re/code, Business Insider, New York Times, WebProNews, memeburn, Neowin, TechSpot, 9to5Mac and The Verge

Ruth Reader / VentureBeat:

Twitter beats Q4 revenue expectations with $479M, nets just 4M new monthly users

More: Business Insider, Re/code, Wall Street Journal, internetretailer.com, City A.M., eWeek, TechCrunch, SiliconBeat and ZDNet

Tweets: @joshelman, @hunterwalk, @mikeisaac, @rsarver, @joshconstine, @dannysullivan, @evelynrusli, @mgsiegler, @pkafka and @alex

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