Microsoft to expand encryption, increase software transparency to protect customer data
Protecting customer data from government snooping — The following post is from Brad Smith, General Counsel & Executive Vice President, Legal & Corporate Affairs, Microsoft.
Fixing the Nexus 5: with a new version of Android, Google tackles the camera
Android 4.4.1 is coming to help you take better pictures — Only a few years ago, Dave Burke remembers, cellphone users were just happy to have a camera at all. But expectations have changed.
Alan Mulally, considered a candidate for Microsoft CEO, commits to Ford through end of 2014
Ford's Mulally Not Leaving Company, Board Director Says — Ford Motor Co. (F) Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally, considered one of the leading candidates to take the top job at Microsoft Corp. …
Bank of America says Bitcoin could become a ‘major means of payment’
Analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch issued the bank's first research report today on Bitcoin, the virtual currency that approximates cash on the internet, concluding that the currency has the po...
Spotify Will Launch Limited Free Mobile Access At Dec 11th Event, Source Confirms
Spotify plans to make mobile access to its music service free, The Wall Street Journal reports. Now a source confirms with TechCrunch that the free mobile tier will launch December 11th at a press ev...
Ryan Seacrest invests $1 million in Typo iPhone keyboard case, will debut CES 2014
Ryan Seacrest Wanted a Keyboard for His iPhone, So He Invested $1 Million in One — Well-known entertainment personality and producer Ryan Seacrest said he had invested in a startup, which he also co...
China Bans Financial Companies From Bitcoin Transactions
China's central bank barred financial institutions from handling Bitcoin transactions, moving to regulate the virtual currency after an 89-fold jump in its value sparked a surge of investor interest i...
Google now lets you download a copy of your Gmail and Google Calendar data
Google today rolled out a long-requested feature: being able to download a copy of your Gmail and Google Calendar data. The new feature means you can now back up your emails and calendars, or just ex...
Verizon quietly unleashes its LTE monster, tripling 4G capacity in major cities
We've already logged a few sightings of Verizon's powerful new LTE network in New York and other cities, but in the last few months Verizon has been rapidly working behind the scenes on upgrading its ...
House of Representatives passes widely supported bill to fight patent trolls
A bipartisan bill that cracks down on potentially frivolous suits from “patent trolls” has passed the House of Representatives. Rep. Bob Goodlatte's (R-VA) Innovation Act passed committee in November...
Big Data, Big Bucks: Palantir Valued at $9 Billion
Palantir Technologies, the “big data” miner that the counts the CIA and the FBI among its clients, is poised to announce a new round of funding that will value the company at roughly $9 billion, accor...
Half of Twitter's board members don't tweet regularly, including newly appointed Scardino
Twitter's new board member isn't the only one who rarely tweets — When Twitter announced the appointment of Marjorie Scardino as a board member, it did it, naturally, with a tweet.
Twitter Names Marjorie Scardino, Ex-CEO Of Pearson, As The First Female Member Of Its Board
Twitter has announced the appointment of its first female board member, Marjorie Scardino, the former CEO of media company Pearson. The appointment is effective immediately.
Instagram invites press to ‘share a moment’ at NYC event
CNET today received a mysterious invite — sent via FedEx, not e-mail — from Instagram for an event it's hosting next week. — The package, wrapped with brown paper and a white ribbon, contained a woo...
Apple desktops overtake Dell on shoppers' holiday wish lists
Apple has long been the most-desired brand for tablets, smartphones, MP3 players, and streaming media devices on US shoppers' holiday lists. And, for the first time, the company also got ranked as th...
New York Times brings print edition to tablets and computers with Today's Paper web app
The daily print edition of The New York Times now has a home of its own on digital devices. A new web app called Today's Paper, released today, offers solely the articles and sections that go to prin...
Apple Puts iOS 7 Adoption At 74% Based On App Store Usage Numbers
Apple has just updated its developer website for the iOS App Store to show the distribution of devices on different versions of iOS, and iOS 7 now commands a significant league, with 74 percent of dev...
Twitter to be available on mobile phones without Internet
(Reuters) - Twitter Inc is tying up with a Singapore-based startup to make its 140-character messaging service available to users in emerging markets who have entry-level mobile phones which cannot ac...
Bing Maps Preview Arrives on Windows 8.1
A first step in introducing a new way to explore the world, the Bing Maps Preview app hits the Windows Store today. Built from the ground up for clarity, detail and scale, the app provides a seamless...
Google's Voice Search On Android And iOS Can Now Answer Questions In German, French And Japanese
Google has long had a thing for voice search, but until now, the only language it fully supported was English. Even though voice search itself is available for a few dozen languages …
Foursquare 7.0 Brings Scannable Design And Expands Proactive Recommendations To All Users
Way back in the ancient prehistory of 2009, Foursquare made its first foray into push notifications, at a time when using push at all was still rare. Two years later, it made an attempt to capitalize...
China Mobile still talking to Apple on iPhones
(Reuters) - China Mobile Ltd, the country's largest mobile operator, said it is still negotiating with Apple Inc to offer iPhones on its network, commenting on a media report saying that a long-awaite...
Obama says he's not allowed iPhone for ‘security reasons’
(Reuters) - The troubled mobile phone maker BlackBerry still has at least one very loyal customer: U.S. President Barack Obama. — At a meeting with youth on Wednesday to promote his landmark healthc...
‘ZeroAccess’ click-fraud botnet disrupted, but not dead yet
Microsoft and law enforcement agencies said Thursday that they disrupted a botnet that defrauded online advertisers of US$2.7 million a month but that the malicious network hasn't been completely elim...
Spotify to Introduce Free Mobile Music Service
Free Version of Streaming Service Was Previously Only Available on Desktop and Laptops — Spotify AB is planning a free, ad-supported version of its streaming-music service on mobile devices, accordi...
Facebook Admits Organic Reach Is Falling Short, Urges Marketers to Buy Ads
Brands Urged to Think of Fan Acquisition As Way to Enhance Performance — Facebook is being more blunt about the fact that marketers are going to have to pay for reach. — If they haven't already …
AT&T launches ‘Mobile Share Value Plans’ with notable monthly savings for BYOD customers, 18-month Next option
AT&T has launched a new initiative called Mobile Share Value Plans that is designed to save customers money on their monthly AT&T mobile phone service bills.
Online Retail Giant's Grocery Delivery Service AmazonFresh May Launch in San Francisco Next Week
Another online grocery delivery service seems set to launch in San Francisco, and it's a big one: AmazonFresh. — All signs are pointing to Amazon publicly launching the same- and next …
Job-Review Site Glassdoor Hints at IPO Aspirations While Raising $50M More
Glassdoor, the job-review site that has also become a job-listings and recruiting platform, wants to go global. That is, more global than it is today — the Sausalito, Calif.-based company says 25 per...
comScore: Apple takes 40.6% share as top US smartphone maker, Samsung hits 25.4%; Android stops losing share
In the US, Apple's dominance as the top smartphone OEM appears to have peaked at just above the 40 percent mark. In the last three months, Samsung gained share faster than its main competitor …
Heyday App Is a Journal of Your Life That Writes Itself
An iPhone app called Heyday launches today — it compiles a record of its owner's life, based on places visited and photos taken. — This is a topic I've been particularly interested in, as it becomes...
Pinterest's Engineering Lead Jon Jenkins Leaves To Launch His Own Startup
Jon Jenkins, who joined Pinterest a year ago as its head of engineering, is leaving the company in what he describes on Quora as a “bittersweet” decision. Jenkins says wants to launch his own company...
BitTorrent Sync doubles users in a single month, growing ‘2 times as fast as Dropbox’
On Nov. 5, BitTorrent Sync, the free “private cloud” solution to syncing files between your desktop, laptop, and mobile devices, hit one million users. Today, the company announced that it has hit tw...
LG partners with Qualcomm's AllJoyn for 2014 Smart TV line, will connect to any phone
LG Electronics has announced it will incorporate AllJoyn into its 2014 line of Smart TVs, a big step in creating a connected home entertainment ecosystem. — AllJoyn, developed by Qualcomm …
Google's copyright win against Oracle is in danger on appeal
A federal judge ruled that API packages are like bookshelves in a library. Will that view hold? — The most dramatic outcome of the Oracle v. Google trial in spring 2012 wasn't anything the jury sai...
Twitter opens up ‘tailored audiences’ so brands can target their Promoted Tweets using browser cookies
After “experimenting” with the feature in July, Twitter is launching a new advertising tool for brands and advertising partners called tailored audiences, which means firms can guarantee …
Android flashlight app developer settles FTC charges of sharing geolocation data
The developer of a popular flashlight app for Android devices has agreed to settle U.S. Federal Trade Commission charges that it shared users' geolocation information with advertising networks and oth...
JPMorgan warns 465,000 card users on data loss after cyber attack
(Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co is warning some 465,000 holders of prepaid cash cards issued by the bank that their personal information may have been accessed by hackers who attacked its network in J...
Snapchat Is Raising $54.5 Million On A Valuation Of Up To $2 Billion, This Regulatory Filing Says
The sleuths at VC Experts, a site that tracks the financial information of private companies, have done it again. They uncovered a new regulatory filing that shows Snapchat is about to raise …
Apple's ‘smart dock’ would give Siri a permanent place in the home
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday published an Apple patent application detailing a full-function “smart dock” that continually listens for cues to activate and communicate with the voi...
Credit card fraud comes of age with advances in point-of-sale botnets
Inside the command and control channel of a point-of-sale botnet powered by StarDust. — IntelCrawler — Underscoring the growing sophistication of Internet crime, researchers have documented one of...
Venezuela Cyber Crackdown Ensnares Web's Bitly
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelans have been scrambling for dollars for weeks, taking refuge in the greenback as their own currency is in free fall. Rather than address the economic imbalances beh...
Box raises $100M at $2B valuation from overseas partners to speed international growth
Box Secures $100 Million Funding at $2 Billion Valuation — Web Storage Vendor Expects Sales to Top $100 Million This Year — Box Inc. has secured $100 million in funding at a valuation of about $2 ...
Of the 7,776 languages in use in the offline world, fewer than five percent exist online
How the Internet is killing the world's languages — Less than five percent of current world languages are in use online, according to a recent study by prominent linguist András Kornai …
Employee Stock Sales Boom, As Square Considers One at $5 Billion
Across Silicon Valley, employees are cashing out. — For years, the Valley's conventional wisdom has held that allowing employees to sell some stock before an initial public offering would reduce the...
Mobile-first word-processing app, Quip launches on Android
Quip, the mobile-first collaboration-oriented word-processing app that launched on iOS devices about four months ago is finally launching for Android on Thursday. … The company, co-founded by former F...
Homejoy Raises $38M to Bring $20/Hour Home Cleaning to the Masses
Today's technology industry is obsessed with applying convenience and efficiency to life's daily drags and annoyances. So what else can be booked on a website to arrive at your door a day later?
Digital spy tech could face same regulation as weapons in international treaty
A consortium of international governments are working on an update to a nearly 18-year-old agreement in order to limit the export of various electronics security technologies.