Tech firms push back against White House efforts to divert NSA meeting
Dominic Rushe in New York and Paul Lewis in Washington — The top leaders from the world's biggest technology companies pressed their case for reform of the National Security Agency's controversial s...
2013 in Search: Heroes, tragedies and the Harlem Shake
Every day, around the world, we search. We want to find out more about our heroes, explore far-away destinations, or settle a dinner table dispute between friends. And sometimes we just search to fi...
LG announces Chromebase, a Chrome OS all-in-one computer
Google's Chrome OS is typically found in inexpensive Chromebook laptops, and occasionally a Chromebox desktop as well. At next month's Consumer Electronics Show, however, LG will put it into a deskto...
Torrent Site Uploader Ordered to Pay $652,000 For Sharing One Movie
In 2011, popular private BitTorrent tracker Swebits announced it would close down, just a week after one of its users was arrested. — The then 25-year-old was a moderator and uploader and between Ap...
Apple Requiring All App Submissions To Be Optimized For iOS 7 By Feb 1st
Apple is requiring developers to optimize all app submissions for iOS 7 by February 1st, 2014, according to a new posting on its developer portal. That includes new apps and updates to existing apps.
Facebook plans to start selling video ads on Thursday, people say
Facebook Inc. will begin selling video advertisements later this week, according to people familiar with the matter. — The ads, which will play automatically in users' news feeds may help Facebook c...
Qualcomm Insider: Apple 64-Bit Chip ‘Hit Us in the Gut’
In public, Apple's rivals in the smartphone market have tried to downplay the technological advances Apple introduced in the iPhone 5s. But it turns out that one breakthrough — Apple's speedy, 64-bit...
Universal laptop charger standard coming in 2014
A new universal laptop charger standard that promises to cut down on e-waste has been published in the hope that it firms will choose to adopt it. — The International Electrotechnical Commission [IE...
Samsung wants a retrial of the November retrial in its first U.S. patent litigation with Apple
Last month a federal jury in the Northern District of California awarded Apple $290 million in damages for Samsung's infringement of 13 of the 28 products accused in this first litigation between thes...
Federal Circuit affirms Microsoft's import ban against Motorola Mobility's Android-based devices
The Unitd States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit today ruled against Google's (Motorola Mobility's) appeal of an import ban Microsoft won from the United States International Trade Commission...
Microsoft Director Says CEO Choice Will Not Be Made Until Early 2014
Microsoft director John Thompson, who leads CEO search — John Thompson, the Microsoft director who is leading the search for a CEO to replace outgoing leader Steve Ballmer, said today in a blog post...
Continuing Its Public Content Push, Facebook Acquires SportStream
Twitter may still be synonymous with real-time, in-the-moment discussion. But that's hardly stopping Facebook from moving in on the territory. — Natch, Facebook announced on Tuesday it had acquired...
Meg Whitman's salary bumped from a buck to $1.5 million
Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman appears to be getting a big reward for working to make the company more efficient. — The company's board has decided to up her salary from a mere $1 to $1.5 million, ...
We Didn't Get One of Valve's Steam Machines, So We Built One Ourselves
Late last week, computer game company Valve released its much anticipated game-centric, Linux-based operating system, SteamOS. Alongside it, they sent out their own custom-built Steam Machines to 300...
iTunes and App Store Best of 2013
With the end of 2013 closing in, Apple's annual App Store and iTunes numbers are in, and among them we find an eclectic mix of apps, albums, movies, books, and other varied content categories. Not su...
Meta Unveils Meta Pro, Its $3,000 AR Glasses Now Available For Pre-Order
Augmented reality startup Meta has spent the past few years making prototypes of wearable devices featuring see-through optics and a wide variety of sensor arrays. Now it's starting production on its...
TiVo co-founders about to release new TV streaming box called QPlay
TiVo co-founders Michael Ramsay and Jim Barton are about to release a new TV companion device that aims to combine video discovery and curation with smart TV functionality. Dave Zatz recently spotted...
Sailthru Raises $20M Round To Personalize Email Marketing And More
Marketing personalization startup Sailthru is announcing that it has raised $20 million in Series C funding. — Less than a year has passed since the company raised its $19 million Series B, and foun...
PayPal acquires mobile platform provider StackMob so developers can build more payment-friendly apps
PayPal is showing that it's serious about supporting developers. Today, the company announced that it has acquired mobile platform StackMob in a move that will bolster its efforts …
Amazon's streaming data service, Kinesis, is now available
Kinesis, the streaming data service that Amazon Web Services announced in November, is now publicly available. The service is comparable in theory to popular open source technologies such as Apache S...
Yahoo Acquires PeerCDN As It Builds Out Its Content Strategy
Content delivery network provider PeerCDN has been acquired by Yahoo, the company has informed TechCrunch, in a deal the terms of which were not disclosed. The startup revealed its project earlier th...
NSA surveillance critic Bruce Schneier to leave post at BT
Bruce Schneier, at an Open Technology Institute presentation on Capitol Hill last Friday, said the NSA had created vulnerabilities in the Internet that criminals could exploit within the next two to t...
Intellectual Ventures reveals list of 33,000 patents, in move toward (partial) transparency
Intellectual Ventures, under increasing pressure to be more transparent about its patent holdings, this morning released a searchable list of more than 33,000 of its patents …
Testing a New Way to Watch Promoted Videos in News Feed
Since September, we've been testing a way to make videos more engaging on Facebook, and as a result we've seen views, likes, shares and comments increase more than 10 percent. — We're beginning to t...
Apple airs touching holiday commercial featuring the iPhone 5s and AirPlay
As is tradition, Apple is airing a new holiday commercial this evening, this time highlighting the iPhone 5s, its movie making capabilities, and AirPlay with the Apple TV. The ad is set to the tune o...
Slobberknockered: The Tough Hit the NSA Didn't See Coming
How a toothless bureaucratic commission went all Snowden on the NSA. — Edward J. Snowden must be pleased with what he started. A group appointed by President Barack Obama in August to review the Na...
Google, Facebook Push to Control Web's Pipes
In the past year, these companies that supply …
Qualcomm Insider: Apple 64-Bit Chip ‘Hit Us in the Gut’
In public, Apple's rivals in the smartphone market have tried to downplay the technological advances Apple introduced in the iPhone 5s. But it turns out that one breakthrough — Apple's speedy, 64-bit...
Mac Pro Build-to-Order Upgrade Pricing Revealed
Late last week, we noted that Apple's business sales staff have been offering customers price quotes for build-to-order configurations of the new Mac Pro, providing the first glimpse at what these mac...
Oregon politician gets six years for Facebook IPO fraud
(Reuters) - A former candidate for governor of Oregon was sentenced to six years in prison on Monday for fraudulently convincing investors he had access to shares of Facebook Inc before its highly ant...
Samsung launches a gamepad for Android that's optimized for its Galaxy phones
Apple began allowing third-party gamepads on the iPhone with iOS 7, and Samsung is also upping its presence in the space after announcing its own gamepad (the not-so-creatively named 'Smartphone GameP...
Android botnet stole SMSes from South Korea, emailed them to China
An Android botnet found in South Korea that steals text messages may be one of the largest and most advanced mobile malware operations discovered, according to security vendor FireEye. — The botnet,...
AT&T adds 4G roaming to UK with EE
Summary: AT&T's US customers should be able to access EE's LTE network, but pricing and speeds remain vague for now. — Liam Tung — AT&T's US customers visiting the UK should benefit from a new 4G ...
Microsoft: Skype runs on Windows Azure; SkyDrive up next
Summary: Microsoft is continuing to move more of its cloud services onto Windows Azure. The latest in the queue: Skype and SkyDrive. — Microsoft is continuing to move more of its biggest cloud serv...