NSA collects almost 200 million text messages a day in global “untargeted” sweep
NSA collects millions of text messages daily in ‘untargeted’ global sweep — The National Security Agency has collected almost 200 million text messages a day from across the globe …
Introducing our smart contact lens project
You've probably heard that diabetes is a huge and growing problem—affecting one in every 19 people on the planet. But you may not be familiar with the daily struggle that many people with diabetes fa...
Google Now integrated in Chrome Canary builds, with weather, scores, traffic, and reminder cards
Google Now in Chrome for Desktop — Google Now cards are available in the latest Chrome Canary build for Windows and Mac (34.0.1788). You only need to go to chrome://flags/#enable-google- now …
Exclusive: Yahoo's Editor-in-Chief Jai Singh Departs Company
According to sources close to the situation, Yahoo's Editor-in-Chief Jai Singh has quit the company, a major departure which comes in the wake of changes made to its media unit after the firing of COO...
Apple to begin in-store iPhone 5c screen repairs next week
We've gotten word from multiple sources that Apple will begin repairing/replacing broken iPhone 5c displays in its retail stores next week. The current plan is to begin offering replacements on Monda...
T-Mobile expands ETF payment program to include US Cellular, other regional carriers
T-Mobile Broadening Its Program to Pay Switchers — T-Mobile plans to expand a recently introduced program that pays new customers up to $350 for breaking their contract with a rival carrier.
Facebook Launches Trending Topics On Web With Descriptions Of Why Each Is Popular
Following tests of Twitter-style Trending Topics on the web and mobile in August, Facebook today officially launches a redesigned “Trending” section on its web homepage's sidebar in the US, UK, Canada...
Twitter Gets Serious About Commerce, Nears Deal With Payments Startup Stripe
Twitter is close to letting its users purchase products directly through the social network and is nearing a deal with payments startup Stripe to help it accept credit card payments from its users, ac...
OUYA Founding Team Member And VP Of Product Development Departs
One of OUYA's founding members, Muffi Ghadiali, has left the company, TechCrunch has learned. Ghadiali was instrumental in helping launch the OUYA on Kickstarter and to the consumer market, and has p...
California woman who drove with Google Glass beats traffic ticket at trial
(Reuters) - A California woman ticketed for driving while wearing Google Glass, a tiny computer mounted on an eyeglass frame, had her citation dismissed on Thursday by a San Diego court commissioner w...
NPD: Apple grabbed 42% of US smartphone share in Q4 2013, Samsung took 26%, as HTC, Motorola, and BlackBerry fell
In Q4 2013, Apple and Samsung were the clear winners in the US smartphone race. iPhone ownership increased from 35 percent in Q4 2012 to 42 percent in Q4 2013 …
Yahoo's Bumps on a Road to Revival
SAN FRANCISCO — It looks as if the Google pixie dust isn't so easy to spread around. — Marissa Mayer's arrival at Yahoo as chief executive a year and a half ago was widely hailed as an opportunity t...
Farhad Manjoo heads to NYT after 4 months at WSJ to replace David Pogue
The New York Times Gets its David Pogue Replacement from the Wall Street Journal — The New York Times has found a replacement for David Pogue, its high-profile reviewer: Sources say the Times is fil...
Steam Controller drops touchscreen, adds physical buttons (update: new controller image)
It turns out that Valve's hardware beta was an actual beta: the Steam Controller is dropping its touchscreen and adding some physical buttons before going up for sale via Steam and at retail later thi...
Rdio takes on Spotify with free Web streaming for US users
Rdio today announced it is making its music streaming service free on the Web for all US users. In other words, you can access the company's over 20 million songs, as well as albums, playlists, and s...
Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson says Google, not Apple is the greatest innovator in the world
Google steals innovation crown from Apple: Isaacson — iPhones begin selling at China Moblie on Friday — This is a big deal, says Walter Isaacson, Aspen Institute, discussing Apple's deal …
Nokia's Android phone includes Windows Phone-like UI
Images of Nokia's Android phone, codenamed Normandy, were originally published in November, but a number of recent leaks have provided a closer look at the hardware and its software. Vizileaks has pu...
Casually-dressed security guards seen monitoring Google commuter buses in San Francisco
Latest perk on Google buses: security guards — (Reuters) - First, San Francisco-based commuters to Google Inc got buses with plush seats and free WiFi. Now, they are getting security.
Facebook plans suite of standalone mobile apps for 2014
Messenger is just the tip of the iceberg — Facebook's new Messenger app is lightning fast and utilitarian — a vision of the “mobile first” mentality Facebook promised one year ago. In an earnings c...
LG G Flex coming to Sprint January 31st for $300, preorders begin today
The LG G Flex was finally announced for three carriers in the US at CES, but we didn't know any pricing or availability. It looks like Sprint is the first to strike with the news: the G Flex will be ...
Intel Beats Q4 Revenue Forecasts With Top Line Of $13.8B, Misses On Profit With EPS Of $0.51
Today Intel reported its fourth-quarter earnings, including revenue of $13.83 billion and earnings per share of $0.51. Investors had expected Intel to earn $0.52 per share on revenue of $13.72 billio...
Citing The Re-Org, Xbox Exec Exits Microsoft After Nearly A Decade
In the wake of the recent Microsoft reorganization, a longtime Xbox-group executive is leaving Microsoft, according to the Los Angeles Times and confirmed by TechCrunch. Blair Westlake, a now former ...
Verizon Victory on Net-Neutrality Rules Seen as Loss for Netflix
Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ)'s legal victory over the Federal Communications Commission lets the carrier charge extra fees for speedier delivery of online content, potentially increasing costs for...
Samsung announces the Galaxy Tab 3 Lite, a low-end 7-inch Android tablet
Samsung is throwing yet another Android tablet into the mix; a 7-inch slate called the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite. — The WSVGA display sports a 1024×600 pixel resolution (170 ppi), which falls far be...
Adobe Partners With MakerBot and Shapeways
Adobe today launched the latest update to its subscription-based Creative Cloud suite. While the company is updating a variety of its tools …
The Net Neutrality Endgame
The U.S. Court of Appeals made a significant and troubling decision this week: it shut down a 2010 FCC decree that prevented internet service providers ("ISPs") from selectively enhancing or restricti...
Report: eBay To Launch “The Plaza,” A New Brand-Focused Online Mall For Retail Goods
According to a new report from Macquarie Capital, marketplace giant eBay is set to launch a new vertical this spring called The Plaza on eBay that will focus on direct-to-consumer sales.
Discover More Music with Personalized Station Recommendations
Music discovery has always been at the heart of the Pandora experience and today we're thrilled to announce the launch of personalized station recommendations on both iOS and Android mobile devices.
Privacy activists can sue Google in UK over Safari tracking, court decides
A group of privacy activists in England have won permission to sue Google in that country over its tricking of Apple's Safari browser into accepting its tracking cookies, even when the browser setting...
U.S. government warns merchants on methods used by Target hackers
Merchandise baskets are lined up outside a Target department store in Palm Coast, Florida, December 9, 2013. — (Reuters) - The U.S. government sent a confidential, 16-page technical bulletin to reta...
Pew: 69% of Americans read a print book in 2013, 28% read an e-book, but only 4% went exclusively electronic
During 2013, 69 percent of Americans read a book in printed form, 28 percent read an e-book, and 14 percent listened to an audiobook. While the proportion of Americans who read e-books …
Someone's refrigerator just took part in a malicious cyberattack
Between December 23 and January 6, more than 100,000 internet-connected smart “things,” including media players, smart televisions and at least one refrigerator, were part of a network of computers us...
Shopkick Starts 100-Store iBeacon Trial For American Eagle, Biggest Apparel Rollout Yet
Apple's iBeacon technology, which uses Bluetooth LE to send notifications to users when they're inside a physical store, is making another mainstream advance today: Shopkick — the location-based offer...
US Attorney seizes $28 million in Bitcoin from the Silk Road server
Today, federal attorneys announced the seizure of 29,655 bitcoins from the Silk Road server, adding up to over $28 million at current exchange rates. The seizure is part of a larger audit of the cont...
Amazon Warehouse Workers Vote Against Joining Union
In the first vote of its kind among workers employed by Amazon in the U.S., a group of up to 30 of the commerce giant's warehouse workers at a Delaware distribution center voted against unionization t...
December 2013 NPD: While both supply constrained, Xbox One outsells PlayStation 4
The Xbox One Day One edition controller. — The Xbox One and and PlayStation 4 both sold well, but Microsoft's latest console bested its Sony counterpart ... although both are behind Nintendo's 3DS.
China reveals COS: a government-approved operating system designed to break the monopoly of foreign software
China's tried to create its very own mobile OS ecosystem in the past, but let's face it, the attempt with OPhone was hardly something that would make the nation proud.
IRS enables Americans to download their tax transcripts over the Internet
Earlier today, at the White House Education Datapalooza, an official from the United States Department of the Treasury informed a packed theater and livestream that students, parents and citizens woul...
Secondhand Clothing Marketplace Twice Raises $18.5M From Andreessen Horowitz
Online fashion marketplaces are fast picking up steam these days, quickly replacing the traditional auction model pioneered by eBay, as a way to consign, and sell your clothes. Twice, an online consi...
Compass survey: 66% of Silicon Valley startup founders pay themselves less than $50k
What salary does the founder of your favorite startup get? Probably not a very high one — If you're a startup founder, how much should you pay yourself? Not very much, according to data that Compa...
Bitrot and atomic COWs: Inside “next-gen” filesystems
We look at the amazing features in ZFS and btrfs—and why you need them. — Most people don't care much about their filesystems. But at the end of the day, the filesystem is probably the single most ...
FullContact Buys Cobook, Adds Address-Book Apps and 1M Users
Denver-based startup FullContact announced today that it has acquired Cobook, a Latvia-based company that's created a popular contact management app for Apple users. Terms of the transaction were not...
Price war in U.S. mobile market raises fear of profit hemorrhage
(Reuters) - New Year's rivalry among U.S. mobile operators has Wall Street worried that the industry's profits could seriously decline. — After months of aggressive moves by T-Mobile US to lure cust...
Target will testify before Congress over massive holiday data breach
US retailer Target will offer testimony next month in a congressional hearing focused on data breaches. The Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade Subcommittee hearing is scheduled for the first week of ...