Techmeme
December 13, 2013, 9:00 AM

Top News

Michael Sippey / Twitter Blog:
Reverting the changes to block functionality  —  Earlier today, we made a change to the way the “block” function of Twitter works.  We have decided to revert the change after receiving feedback from many users - we never want to introduce features at the cost of users feeling less safe.
Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:
Twitter Reverts Changes To Blocking Functionality After Strong Negative User Feedback  —  Update: Twitter has reverted the changes to blocking functionality that it made earlier today.  After the changes, an outpouring of negative user feedback appeared on Twitter, blogs and other services.
Bloomberg:
Google Said to Mull Designing Chips in Threat to Intel  —  Google Inc. (GOOG) is considering designing its own server processors using technology from ARM Holdings Plc (ARM), a move that could threaten Intel Corp. (INTC)'s market dominance, said a person with knowledge of the matter.
Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:
Gmail blows up e-mail marketing by caching all images on Google servers  —  Ever wonder why most e-mail clients hide images by default?  The reason for the “display images” button is because images in an e-mail must be loaded from a third-party server.  For promotional e-mails and spam …
Bloomberg:
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Oculus VR raises $75M from web browser inventor Marc Andreessen's VC firm to launch virtual reality goggles  —  Virtual reality goggle maker has raised a massive round of $75 million from Netscape founder Marc Andreessen's Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firm to create a consumer version of its product.
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
ARM acquires maker of game graphics and lighting technology Geomerics  —  ARM bought Geomerics, maker of graphics and lighting tech for games like Primal Carnage.  —  Processor design firm ARM has expanded into hardcore graphics technology with the acquisition of Geomerics …
Richard Lawler / Engadget:
Pebble smartwatch update brings do not disturb mode and snooze alarm  —  The Pebble smartwatch is all about getting mobile notifications more efficiently, but what about when you don't want to see those notifications at all?  The new PebbleOS v1.14 update rolling out can help …
Leo Kelion / BBC:
Bots now ‘account for 61% of web traffic’  —  The study suggests humans only account for 38.5% of internet traffic  —  If you are visiting this page the chances are that you are not a human, at least according to research.  —  A study by Incapsula suggests 61.5% of all website traffic is now generated by bots.
Shalini Ramachandran / Wall Street Journal:
DirecTV Explores Online Video Service  —  Product Would Appeal to ‘Price Sensitive’ Young People, Satellite-TV Firm Says … DirecTV is exploring the idea of an online video service that would appeal to “price-sensitive” young people or other customers who have dropped their pay-TV service, the satellite TV firm said on Thursday.
More: EngadgetTweets: @qwilt
Deborah Gage / Digits:
Dell's Venture Arm Expands Investments With $300 Million Fund  —  Dell Ventures is launching a new $300 million venture fund that will broaden its investments beyond storage into several other types of startups, including cloud computing, big data, security, mobility and next-generation data center companies …
Signe Brewster / Gigaom:
Researchers create a more accurate alternative to Wi-Fi for tracking people through walls  —  Back in June, MIT researchers revealed they had figured out how to use Wi-Fi to track moving objects through walls.  Today, the same team announced they have refined their system to be even more precise by switching to radio signals.

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