As Messaging Wars Escalate, Social App Tango Raises $280 Million
Social startup Tango announced Thursday that it had raised a massive $280 million Series D round of venture funding, the latest significant move among a handful of high-profile apps all vying to own t...
Internet Tolls And The Case For Strong Net Neutrality
The Internet is improving lives everywhere - democratizing access to ideas, services and goods. To ensure the Internet remains humanity's most important platform for progress, net neutrality must be ...
Inside the NSA's Secret Efforts to Hunt and Hack System Administrators
A secret document reveals how the NSA tracks down system administrators for surveillance. Illustration: Josh Begley. — Across the world, people who work as system administrators keep computer netwo...
Twitter Blocked in Turkey as Prime Minister Pledges to ‘Eradicate’ it
There's electioneering, and then there's what Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoan said Thursday on the campaign trail. “We will eradicate Twitter,” Erdoan told a rally in Bursa in the west of ...
Microsoft scanned blogger's Hotmail account to find source of Windows 8 leak, cites TOS
Court docs: Microsoft searched through blogger's e-mail to track down alleged leaker — Earlier this week, an ex-Microsoft employee was charged with the theft of trade secrets in the U.S. District Co...
Hacked emails show what Microsoft charges the FBI for user data
Microsoft often charges the FBI's most secretive division hundreds of thousands of dollars a month to legally view customer information, according to documents allegedly hacked by the Syrian Electroni...
Gmail now always uses an HTTPS connection and encrypts all messages moving internally on Google's servers
Google today announced it has made security improvements to Gmail to further protect users' emails from snooping. Gmail now always uses an encrypted HTTPS connection when you check or send email …
Medium Launches Simple iPhone App That's Just For Reading
Blogging platform Medium has released a simple app for the iPhone that allows users to read articles from the site. They're presented as a feed that's recommended for you automatically, though articl...
Pinterest Seeks 7-Figure Spend Commitments from Advertisers
Company Has Raised $564M And Has No Revenue Yet — Example of a test promoted pin on Pinterest — How Advertising Performs in a Social Media World — Pinterest hasn't brought its ads to market yet,...
Microsoft's DirectX 12 to boost gaming on PCs, mobile devices
San Francisco—Meet the next generation of gaming graphics. DirectX 12 is faster, lighter-weight, and more predictable said Anuj Gosalia, Development Manager for Graphics at Microsoft, at the Game Dev...
Sony to offer original programming on PlayStation Network, its first show “Powers” for US only
Sony to Add Original TV Shows for PlayStation — Move Is Part of Effort to Broaden Console's Appeal Beyond Videogames — Sony Corp. is venturing into original TV programming …
Official: Court's sign-off for queries on Americans' data would be impractical
A senior government lawyer said Wednesday that the high volume of searches that the National Security Agency makes of a database that holds Americans' and foreigners' communications would make court a...
Driven by Facebook and Google, Mobile Ad Market Soars 105% in 2013
Mobile ad spending on pace to reach $31.45 billion this year — Last year, global mobile ad spending increased 105.0% to total $17.96 billion, according to new figures from eMarketer. In 2014, mobil...
Pebble sold 400,000 smartwatches last year, on track to double revenues in 2014
CEO Eric Migicovsky walks Fortune through the smartwatch maker's successful first year. — FORTUNE - If Pebble is the smartwatch category's David, surely Google is its Goliath.
Twitter's new video hosting platform lets mobile users play clips with a single tap
Twitter Rolls Out Easier, Faster Video Playback — Over the past year, Twitter has worked closely with television networks and other professional video creators to upload and promote thousands …
Firefox 29 beta arrives with new Sync tool, customization mode, and Mozilla's user interface overhaul Australis
Following the release of Firefox 28 just two days ago, Mozilla today updated its Firefox Beta channel to version 29 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android.
NSA Director Says Agency Wants to Release Transparency Reports of Its Own
NSA Deputy Director Rick Ledgett called former contractor Edward Snowden's release of documents about his agency's surveillance programs “inappropriate” and “arrogant” in a video interview from Fort M...
Seagate CEO Luczo departs from the Microsoft board
Summary: Musical chairs among Microsoft's board members continues, with Seagate's CEO departing the board. — The Microsoft board musical chairs are continuing, with Seagate Chairman and CEO Stephen ...
Layar now wants to augment your reality with its Google Glass app
Augmented reality and wearable technology go hand-in-hand, so it's with not too much surprise that we've just learnt that Layar's augmented reality app is now available to download for Google Glass.
Facebook migrates to, open-sources Hack, a language resembling PHP with gradual typing
Facebook Introduces ‘Hack,’ the Programming Language Of the Future — Facebook engineers Bryan O'Sullivan, Julien Verlaguet, and Alok Menghrajani spent the last few years building a programming langu...
Minneapolis' FirstTech, Apple retailing pioneer, is closing
When Apple first began selling its pioneering personal computers in the late 1970s, its first batch of machines went to Team Electronics in the Twin Cities. — Team Electronics eventually morphed int...
Lenovo buys mobile patents from Unwired Planet for $100M
Lenovo on Thursday continued ramping up its mobile arsenal. — The Chinese computing giant, which in January agreed to buy Motorola for $2.9 billion, now has reached a deal to purchase 21 patent fami...
Airbnb In Advanced Talks to Raise Funding at a $10 Billion Valuation
Private-Equity Firm TPG Likely to Lead Funding Round for the Online Home-Rental Marketplace — Airbnb Inc. is in advanced talks to raise funds that would value the online home-rental marketplace at m...
China Mobile Added About 1 Million New iPhone Users in February
HONG KONG— China Mobile Ltd added about one million new iPhone users last month after it started offering the popular smartphone in mid-January, Chief Executive Li Yue said Thursday. — The comment c...
HP plans 3D printer announcement for June
Hewlett-Packard claims to have solved the two biggest problems with today's 3D printers and will make its first big technology announcement in that area in June, CEO Meg Whitman said Wednesday. — Th...
Fitbit Now Faces a Class-Action Suit in Rash Fallout
A month after Fitbit issued a recall of its fitness-tracking bracelet following complaints of blisters and rashes, the startup now faces its first lawsuit. — The suit, filed on Monday in the Superio...
Ad platform Rubicon Project sets $108M IPO
Advertising platform Rubicon Project has announced terms for an initial public offering today that will have the company seeking to raise $108 million. — Rubicon Project operates an automated digita...
FireChat For iOS Is A Hyperlocal Anonymous Chat Network That Doesn't Need An Internet Connection
We all know that chat apps are pretty hot right now and there are plenty of companies hoping for a WhatsApp-like exit. For the most part, all of those apps are pretty similar, but FireChat …
Google-Backed Lending Club Brings Peer-To-Peer Lending To Business Loans
Peer-to-peer lending marketplace Lending Club is announcing a major expansion today into business loans. — Lending Club brings together lenders and borrowers who want to cut out banks in the process...
Coupa Raises $40M For Cloud Procurement Software, Takes On SAP
Coupa Inc., which helps companies track spending on items like travel and office supplies that can quickly eat into corporate budgets, raised another $40 million, bringing total funding to $87 million...
The story of Motorola's smartwatch from the man who designed it
The Moto 360 is a breathtaking design — here's how it came to be — Eventually they just made a watch. — Motorola design chief Jim Wicks and his team had spent a year and a half designing the devic...
PCWorld Founder and IDG Chairman Patrick J. McGovern dies at 76
International Data Group (IDG) announced Thursday with great sadness that its Founder and Chairman, Patrick J. McGovern, died March 19, 2014, at Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto, California. — “IDG ha...
Twitter Launches Easy Tool That Finds Your First Tweet
Twitter has launched #FirstTweet, a tool that helps users find the very first message they sent out using the site-which, of course, means that you might end up seeing a tweet you'd rather not remembe...