Techmeme
February 11, 2015, 6:05 PM

Top News

Sharon Bernstein / Reuters:
iPhone kill switch reduced thefts by 40% in San Francisco, 25% in New York city, and 50% in London  —  Smartphone theft drops in London, two U.S. cities as anti-theft ‘kill switches’ installed  —  (Reuters) - Thefts involving smartphones have declined dramatically in three major cities …
Jungah Lee / Bloomberg Business:
Samsung to release two versions of 5.1" Galaxy flagship with all-metal bodies, one with a 3-sided display next month  —  Samsung Said to Plan 3-Sided Screen in New Galaxy Smartphone  —  Don't Miss Out —  (Bloomberg) — Samsung Electronics Co. plans to release two new versions …
Canalys Newsroom:
Over 720K Android Wear devices shipped in 2014, with Moto 360 being the clear leader  —  Over 720,000 Android Wear devices shipped in 2014  —  Palo Alto, Shanghai, Singapore and Reading (UK) - Wednesday, 11 February 2015  —  Over 720,000 Android Wear devices shipped in 2014 out of a total of 4.6 million smart wearable bands.
Peter Kafka / Re/code:
Twitter to pay about $30M for Niche, and possibly up to $60M with earnouts and employment contracts included  —  Twitter Buys Niche, a Social Media Talent Agency, for at Least $30 Million  —  Twitter has acquired Niche, a small startup that connects advertisers with social media stars …
More: Mashable
Baljeet Singh / The Twitter Blog:
Rajesh Jha / The Official Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft acquires Sunrise, creator of an innovative calendar app for mobile devices  —  I'm pleased to announce that Microsoft has acquired Sunrise, provider of a next-generation calendar app for iOS and Android.  We are making this acquisition because we believe a reinvention …
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Apple Confirms Aperture to Be Removed From Mac App Store After Launch of Photos for OS X  —  Shortly after last week's deployment of OS X 10.10.3 to developers, Apple updated its official Aperture page on its website, adding a notice stating that Aperture will be removed from the Mac App Store when the Photos for OS X app launches.
Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:
Samsung TVs start inserting ads into your movies  —  Thought you could watch that video on your local hard drive without ads?  Think again: A number of owners of Samsung's smart TVs are reporting this week that their TV sets started to interrupt their movie viewing with Pepsi ads …
Dan Seifert / The Verge:
Report: in response to Apple Pay, Square is working on an Android tablet; Google testing Plaso, a mobile payment system that allows you use your initals to pay  —  Square working to rely less on Apple's iPad, claims report  —  Square, the mobile payments service found in countless coffee shops across …
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
Starting today, wireless carriers have to unlock your phone  —  Once you've paid off your contract, carriers can't say no.  —  Major wireless carriers in the US have promised to unlock customers' phones or tablets once they've paid off their contracts, beginning today.
Se Young Lee / Reuters:
Samsung Display to invest $3.6 billion in new OLED production line  —  The company logo is displayed at the Samsung news conference at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas January 7, 2013.  —  (Reuters) - Samsung Display, a subsidiary of South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co Ltd …
Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:
Reserve Raises $15M To Help With Your Restaurant Reservations And Payments  —  Reserve, the app promising to serve as your “personal dining concierge,” is announcing that it has raised $15 million in Series A funding.  —  The company was incubated at Expa, the startup studio created by StumbleUpon and Uber co-founder Garrett Camp.
Re/code:
Apps Search Pioneer Quixey Poised to Raise $60 Million From Alibaba, Twitter, SoftBank  —  Quixey, the app search engine, is close to getting $60 million in funding from a powerful coterie of investors, including China's Alibaba Group, Twitter, SoftBank and others.
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Facebook launches ThreatExchange, an API-based platform that lets companies share security threat info  —  Facebook today launched ThreatExchange, described as “an API-based clearinghouse for security threat information.”  It's really a social platform, which Facebook naturally excels at building …
Cyrus Farivar / Ars Technica:
FBI tries to prevent disclosure of information about use of fake “stingray” cell towers by local police  —  FBI really doesn't want anyone to know about “stingray” use by local cops  —  Memo: cops must tell FBI about all public records requests on fake cell towers.
More: Slashdot
Help Net Security:
IBM security finds over 60% of Android dating apps are open to hacks, risking corporate data  —  Majority of dating apps are open to hacks  —  IBM Security found that over 60% of leading Android dating mobile apps they studied are potentially vulnerable to a variety of cyber-attacks …

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More News

Jon Fingas / Engadget:

Earlier Picks

Eric Slivka / MacRumors: