Techmeme: In 2014, large mutual fund managers made 29 deals worth $4.7B to buy into private tech companies, up from 6 deals in 2012 (New York Times)

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March 23, 2015, 3:20 PM

Top News

Alistair Barr / Wall Street Journal:

Schmidt: Google Glass is a long-term project put under Fadell to “make it ready for users” and is a big, fundamental platform for Google — Google Isn't Giving Up on Glass, Eric Schmidt Says — Google is sticking with its controversial Glass Internet-connected eyewear …

Miguel Helft / Forbes:

How Cyanogen got started and its plans to disrupt Android, including upcoming first Cyanogen OS phone without Google apps from Blu — Meet Cyanogen, The Startup That Wants To Steal Android From Google — It's a little hard to take Kirt McMaster seriously at first.

More: ZDNet, SiliconBeat, FierceMobileIT News and Droid Life

Tweets: @dangillmor, @alexrkonrad, @mhelft and @bupbin

Thanks:@bupbin

Ina Fried / Re/code:

Cyanogen Raises $80 Million With Backing From Twitter, Telefonica and Rupert Murdoch — After months of passing around the hat, open Android startup Cyanogen said Monday it has closed an $80 million funding round that includes backing from a number of strategic investors.

More: cyngn.com, Cyanogen, Android Police, Android Authority, Business Insider, GeekWire, TechCrunch, bizjournals, FierceWireless, SlashGear, Pocketnow and silicontap.com

Tweets: @amir and @ingridlunden

Nicole Lee / Engadget:

Instagram reveals Layout, its own photo collage app — If you've ever seen a collage in your Instagram feed, it was likely created by one of several third-party apps — Diptic and Framatic are a couple that spring to mind — that let you arrange multiple photos in a variety of grids.

More: Instagram Blog, The Verge, Re/code, Fast Company, 9to5Google, TechCrunch, iDownloadBlog.com and WebProNews

Tweets: @dannysullivan and @pkafka

Jason Del Rey / Re/code:

Square Introduces Square Cash for Businesses, With a Low 1.5 Percent Processing Fee — Five years ago, Square introduced a sleek card reader to the small-business world that made it easy for everyone from taxi drivers to craft sellers to coffee shop owners to accept credit card payments for the first time.

Steven Levy / Backchannel:

With interviews from Cook, Ive, others, Becoming Steve Jobs is opposite of Isaacson's bio, providing rounded image of Jobs and contextualizing bad behavior — The War Over Who Steve Jobs Was — Walter Isaacson's official biography of Apple's genius leader is being challenged by a new book supported by Jobs's inner circle.

More: New York Times, Computerworld, GeekWire, CNET, 9to5Mac, MacRumors, iPhone in Canada Blog, App Advice, MacNN, AppleInsider, iMore, Cult of Mac and Bloomberg View

Tweets: @philiped and @stevenlevy

Ben Woods / The Next Web:

Twitter partnering with Foursquare to let you tag specific locations in tweets — Twitter users will soon be able to specify and tag locations pulled from Foursquare's database thanks to a tie-up between the two companies. — The deal gives Twitter access to Foursquare's full location database …

More: Medium, TechCrunch, TIME, Fortune, VentureBeat, The Verge, iMore, SlashGear and MobileSyrup.com

Tweets: @twitter and @rsarver

Eduard Kovacs / SecurityWeek:

Cisco IP Phones Vulnerable to Eavesdropping — Some of the IP phones designed by Cisco for small businesses are plagued by a vulnerability that allows a remote attacker to eavesdrop on conversations and make phone calls from affected devices, the company revealed last week.

More: Cisco, iTnews, The Register, The Hacker News, Network World, Help Net Security and Threatpost

New York Times:

In 2014, large mutual fund managers made 29 deals worth $4.7B to buy into private tech companies, up from 6 deals in 2012 — Americans' Retirement Funds Increasingly Contain Tech Start-Up Stocks — The retirement accounts of millions of Americans have long contained shares of stalwart companies …

More: SiliconBeat, Business Insider, Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg View

Tim Peterson / AdAge:

Twitter Starts Testing Autoplay Videos in iPhone, iPad Apps — Social Network Tries Two-Pronged Approach To Take on YouTube, Facebook — Why Taco Bell's Social Media Blackout Was a Brilliant Campaign — Facebook isn't the only social network looking to take on Google's YouTube.

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Stripe Connect helps companies like Lyft and Kickstarter accept payments in 18 countries where Stripe is live, allowing quicker international expansion — Stripe's New Product Helps Marketplaces Go Global More Quickly — Payments company Stripe is today unveiling a new product designed …

More: Stripe Blog, The Next Web, ZDNet, VentureBeat, Y Combinator Posthaven, Forbes and Wired

Ben Popper / The Verge:

Livestreaming service YouNow has 100M+ monthly visitors, engaged community, a business model, and is paying its broadcasters via partnership program — The live-streaming app where amateurs get paid to chat, eat, and sleep on camera — Tayser Abuhamdeh doesn't have what most people would call an exciting job.

More: AVC. Tweets: @rrhoover, @benpopper and @leland

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