Techmeme
February 19, 2015, 6:30 AM

Top News

Owen Williams / The Next Web:
Superfish adware reportedly pre-installed on new Lenovo computers, affecting Chrome and Internet Explorer, posing a major security threat  —  Lenovo caught installing adware on new computers  —  It looks like Lenovo has been installing adware onto new consumer computers from the company …
Ritsuko Ando / Reuters:
Sony three-year plan to focus on PlayStation and camera sensors; company may exit smartphone and TV markets  —  Sony sees 25-fold profit jump by 2018; could exit TVs, phones  —  (Reuters) - Sony Corp (6758.T) aims to boost operating profit 25-fold within three years by growing its camera sensors …
Jessi Hempel / Wired:
White House Names DJ Patil as the First US Chief Data Scientist  —  It's finally official: The White House has named DJ Patil its first ever Chief Data Scientist and Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Data Policy.  —  Yes, that's a mouthful.  Even as an acronym, Patil's new title is ten letters long: CDCaDCTODT.
Serenity Caldwell / iMore:
Astropad is a $50 sketching app that mirrors a Mac display on an iPad at a high frame rate with functionality similar to a Wacom tablet  —  Astropad brings the Cintiq experience to your iPad  —  The iPad's made great progress in the sketching world, but it's still been hampered …
Johnathan Nightingale / meandering wildly:
Mozilla's VP in charge of Firefox Johnathan Nightingale to step down at the end of March  —  Home for a Rest  —  Earlier today, I sent this note to the global mozilla employees list.  It was not an easy send button to push.  —  One of the many, many things Mozilla has taught me over the years is not to bury the lede, so here goes:
Dustin Volz / National Journal:
Google Calls FBI's Plan to Expand Hacking Power a ‘Monumental’ Constitutional Threat  —  Any change in accessing computer data should go through Congress, the search giant said.  —  Google is warning that the government's quiet plan to expand the FBI's authority to remotely access computer files amounts …
Brooks Barnes / New York Times:
Entertainment firm Whalerock creates online and app-based channels for celebrities to reach fans directly with paid and free programming  —  Coming Soon: Celebrity Web Networks From the Media Company Whalerock  —  SANTA MONICA, Calif. — An under-the-radar media company here called Whalerock …
Steve Kovach / Business Insider:
Samsung will buy Apple Pay competitor LoopPay  —  Samsung will buy LoopPay, a mobile payments company.  —  LoopPay's technology allows mobile payments through traditional magnetic credit card readers.  That means it can theoretically work in a lot more places than Apple Pay, which requires special payment pads to work.
Newley Purnell / Wall Street Journal:
Google Capital's first international expansion set for India  —  Google Capital Sets Sights on India  —  More evidence of global investors' growing interest in India's startups: Google's new investment arm is setting up shop in the country.  —  In what will mark the first such expansion outside the U.S. …
Mark Sullivan / VentureBeat:
Pinterest is trying to raise another $500M, valuing the company at $11B (report)  —  The image bookmarking site Pinterest is reportedly in talks to raise another $500 million in venture capital, which would put the company at a valuation of about $11 billion.
Sebastian Anthony / Ars Technica:
UK parliament calls for Internet to be classified as a public utility  —  A world-class country should have world-class Internet access.  —  A new report, published by the upper house of UK parliament—the House of Lords—has called for Internet access to be reclassified as a public utility.
Lucian Constantin / PC World:
Samsung smart TVs don't encrypt the voice data they collect  —  Samsung does not encrypt voice recordings that are collected and transmitted by its smart TVs to a third party service, even though the company has claimed that it uses encryption to secure consumers' personal information.

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