EFF's scorecard rates Obama's proposed NSA reforms at 3.5 out of 12
Rating Obama's NSA Reform Plan: EFF Scorecard Explained — Earlier today, President Obama announced a series of reforms to address abuses by the National Security Agency. We were heartened to see Ob...
Obama bans spying on leaders of U.S. allies, scales back NSA program
(Reuters) - President Barack Obama announced a ban on U.S. eavesdropping on the leaders of close friends and allies on Friday, and rein in the vast collection of Americans' phone data in a series of r...
Dropbox Raises About $250 Million at $10 Billion Valuation
BlackRock Is Leading the Deal Alongside Previous Backers — Dropbox Inc. has closed on about $250 million in a funding round that values the online-storage provider at close to $10 billion, according...
Amazon patents method for anticipating your purchases to move them to a shipping hub near you
Amazon Wants to Ship Your Package Before You Buy It — Amazon.com knows you so well it wants to ship your next package before you order it. — The Seattle retailer in December gained …
HTC Said to Plan New One Phone With Larger Screen, Better Camera
HTC Corp. (2498) plans a March release for the latest version of its HTC One smartphone featuring a larger screen and twin-sensor rear camera, according to a person with direct knowledge of the plans.
Breach at Neiman Marcus Went Undetected From July to December
The computer network at Neiman Marcus was penetrated by hackers as far back as July, and the breach was not fully contained until Sunday, according to people briefed on the investigation. — The comp...
ATMs, 95% of which run Windows XP, must upgrade by April 8 to avoid losing support
ATMs Face Deadline to Upgrade From Windows XP — One-dollar bills. Envelope-free deposits. Stamp dispensers. These are a few of the features that Wells Fargo (WFC), Bank of America (BAC) …
Intel announces plans to cut 5% of its 107k workforce this year
Intel to reduce global workforce by five percent in 2014 — (Reuters) - Intel Corp plans to reduce its global workforce of 107,000 by about 5 percent this year as the chipmaker, struggling with falli...
Andreessen Horowitz raising $1.5 billion for new fund
Andreessen Horowitz is raising its fourth fund in six years. — FORTUNE — Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is in the process of raising $1.5 billion for its fourth fund, Fortune has learned.
Exclusive: Cybercrime firm uncovered six active attacks on U.S. merchants
The sign outside the Target store is seen in Arvada, Colorado January 10, 2014. — (Reuters) - The cyber security firm IntelCrawler said on Friday that it has uncovered six ongoing attacks at merchan...
Building an open source Nest
Earlier this week, Google bought Nest, a connected devices company, for $3.2 billion. This might seem like an ungodly sum for a company that makes thermostats and smoke detectors, but it makes absolu...
Sprint Wifi Calling poised to debut on two Samsung phones
Calling requires software update but no monthly fee; only supported in the U.S. — T-Mobile may soon no longer be the only major carrier offering first-party Wifi calling, as Sprint apparently is pre...
Code points to a Google “Fitness API” allowing Android apps to view and edit activity data
Google Works on a Fitness API for Android — Wearables are now the next big thing. A lot of companies develop smart watches, smart glasses and head-up displays, smart headphones, smart clothes.
Nintendo ‘studying’ mobile devices in wake of bleak hardware sales forecast
“It's not as simple as enabling Mario to move on a smartphone.” — Earlier today Nintendo slashed its sales forecast for the Wii U by nearly 70 percent, which in turn led the company to predict an op...
Dropbox Fundraising Could Actually Be as Much as $400 Million
Dropbox's latest funding round values the company at $10 billion, with private equity giant BlackRock leading the deal with participation with existing investors. — But while the round is currently ...
Google visualizes data from Google Play Music to show changes in music genres over the decades
Explore the history of Pop — and Punk, Jazz, and Folk — with the Music Timeline — With newspapers, blogs, and websites wrapping up their Top Ten album lists for 2013 …
Nintendo warns of loss after slashing Wii U sales forecast by 69 percent
Throughout the past year, Nintendo CEO and president Satoru Iwata has maintained his belief that the company will turn an operating profit of ¥100 billion yen in 2014, even in the face of disappointin...
Some 2011 MacBook Pros Experiencing GPU Glitches, System Crashes
Many early and late-2011 MacBook Pro owners with discrete graphics cards seem to be experiencing GPU failures and system crashes on their machines. In addition to several tips received by MacRumors, ...
Apple details secure ‘touchless’ e-wallet strategy in patent filing
Apple has been coy in revealing its plans for a touchless payment solution, but a patent filing discovered on Thursday gives clues as to where the company is headed. — Tech companies like Google are...
Supreme Court to Decide if Warrants Needed to Search Mobile Phones
The Supreme Court today agreed to decide the unsolved constitutional question of whether police may search, without warrants, the mobile phones of suspects they arrest. — The justices did not immedi...
Hopper, the Startup That's Been in Stealth for Six Years Finally (Soft) Launched This Week
It's been six years since a bunch of ex-Expedia and TripAdvisor engineers started working on Hopper, a Montreal and Boston-based startup that has raised $22 million in funding.
VP Of Product Michael Sippey Is Leaving Twitter
Twitter's Vice President of Product Michael Sippey just announced that he's stepping into an advisory role at the company, then moving on to, well, something else. — In a company email that Sippey a...
Google developing “Chromoting” remote desktop management app for iOS
Google has been working on a remote desktop management app for Android devices called “Chromoting” since last year, but today an entry in the Chromium issue tracker has revealed that an iOS version is...
With 60M downloads, BitTorrent's Bundle experiment is paying off
The Internet has created a world where value is determined by virality. — BitTorrent is contributing to the evolution of how content gets shared. The creator of file-sharing technology revealed tod...
NTT DoCoMo shelves plans to launch Tizen phone, dealing a blow to Samsung, a key backer
Japan's NTT DoCoMo Shelves Plan to Launch Tizen Phone — Carrier Says Smartphone Market Not Growing Fast Enough for a Third Operating System … NTT DoCoMo Inc. has shelved indefinitely plans …
IBM pumps $1.2 billion into global cloud data centers
Dispelling any lingering doubt that IBM sees cloud computing as the way of the future, the company announced that it will invest US$1.2 billion this year in expanding its global cloud infrastructure. ...
Path launches for Windows Phone as a public beta
Path today quietly launched an app for Windows Phone, but there's a small catch: it's a public beta. Nevertheless, the social network has arrived on Microsoft's mobile platform and you can grab the a...
Target credit card data was sent to server in Russia
The stolen credit card numbers of millions of Target shoppers took an international trip — to Russia. — The stolen credit card numbers of millions of Target shoppers took an international trip — to ...
Google introduces surveys to discover why you're muting its ads
Google today announced it is introducing, over the next few weeks, a series of short surveys in English-speaking countries which will appear after a user mutes an ad. The company says its goals are t...
Motorola slashes Moto X's wood finishes from $100 to $25, reveals three new designs coming January 21
Motorola today announced it is slashing the price of the Moto X's wood finishes from a $100 premium to just $25 on Moto Maker. Furthermore, in addition to Bamboo, the Google-owned company …
China Mobile starts selling Apple's iPhones today, but subsidies don't seem that attractive
After Apple struck a long-awaited deal with China Mobile in December last year, the iPhone is finally on sale both in China Mobile stores and Apple's own Chinese stores today.
VCs invested $11B into software companies in 2013, the most since 2000, up 27% from 2012
Software investment hit record levels in 2013 (report) — Software is eating the world, just like cookie monster is eating cookies. — Investments in software companies hit $11 billion in 2013, the ...
In Sign of Maturing Smartphone Market, Q1 Sales Expected to Drop From Previous Quarter
For two years now the global smartphone market has continued to be bigger each quarter than it was the last. — In a sign that the market is now starting to mature, though, analysts at TrendForce pro...
California court rules blogger has same First Amendment protections as traditional media
Here's the summary of the decision, published earlier today: … You can read the whole thing ruling (appropriately enough) or the backstory on the case of the Obsidian Finance Group and defendant Cryst...