Techmeme: Ex-Microsoft employee charged with passing journalist trade secrets (Levi Pulkkinen/Seattle PI)

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March 20, 2014, 9:40 AM

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Mike Isaac / Re/code:

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 the mobile messaging space.

More: SiliconANGLE, Computerworld, GeekTime, tango.me, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, Quartz, The Next Web, Gigaom, Engadget, TechNode, Business Insider, Mashable, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and PE Hub Blog

Tweets: @shaunrein, @benedictevans, @pkafka, @jonrussell and @monkbent

Parmy Olson / Forbes:

Exclusive: Alibaba Sinks $215 Million Into Messaging App Tango, Valuing It At More Than $1 Billion — China's Alibaba is the latest Internet giant to make a bet on the messaging space, and it's a big one. The company is spending $250 million for a minority stake in the messaging and free-calling app Tango, the startup revealed today.

More: Tech in Asia, Bloomberg and Pulse 2.0

Levi Pulkkinen / Seattle PI:

Ex-Microsoft employee charged with passing journalist trade secrets — Prosecutors: Angry worker sent blogger Windows 8 code, internal documents — Workers removing the products from the stage after the Microsoft Windows 8 and Surface event in New York, Oct. 25, 2012.

More: The Register, InfoWorld, Inquirer, Computerworld, Engadget, CNET, Geek.com, Electronista, Gizmodo UK, The Verge, SlashGear, Reuters, bizjournals, GeekWire and WinBeta

David Pierce / The Verge:

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 device that would ultimately become …

More: Gizmodo, Geeky Gadgets, IntoMobile and BGR

Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:

In-depth with Android Wear, Google's quantum leap of a smartwatch OS — We take a look at how Android Wear works, and even manage to break some stuff. — Yesterday, Google announced Android Wear, its wearable device platform for smartwatches. Android Wear is a shrunken-down …

More: LAPTOP Magazine. Tweets: @jyarow

Dan Primack / Fortune:

Exclusive: Jim Breyer reducing role at Accel Partners — Early Facebook investor Jim Breyer plans to spend more time investing personal capital, and less at the VC firm where he has spent the past 27 years. — FORTUNE — Jim Breyer of Accel Partners is one of the most successful venture capitalists …

More: PandoDaily, TechCrunch and PE Hub Blog. Tweets: @danprimack

Ryan Mac / Forbes:

Accel Partners Raises New Funds Totaling Over $1 Billion As Facebook Investor Jim Breyer Reduces Role — Accel Partners, a leading venture capital and growth equity firm, has raised two new funds totaling $1.475 billion as one of its most prominent figures looks to decrease his role.

More: Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg. Tweets: @forbes

eMarketer:

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, mobile is on pace …

More: AllTwitter, Business Insider, SocialTimes, Mashable, AdExchanger, TechCrunch, SeekingAlpha.com, CNET, FierceMobileIT News, VatorNews and WebProNews. Tweets: @emarketer

Stephanie M. Lee / The Technology Chronicles:

Augmedix raises $3.2 million to bring Google Glass into doctor's office — Augmedix, one of several start-ups developing ways to use Google Glass in health care, said Wednesday it has raised $3.2 million in venture capital funding. — The announcement comes on an especially busy …

More: VentureBeat, StrictlyVC, TechCrunch, bizjournals, THE MEDICAL NEWS, Wall Street Journal and PC Magazine

Tweets: @upstart, @rock_health and @halletecco

Martin Beck / Marketing Land:

Google Search Can Now Take Photos, Videos, On Your Android Phone — So you want to take a quick photo or video with your Android phone? It just got a bit easier, at least for those who like to tell their phone what to do. — Google updated its Android Search app today …

Katherine Rosman / Wall Street Journal:

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 Superior Court of California in the County of San Diego …

More: TechCrunch, USA Today, Digital Trends, Re/code, Ubergizmo and CNET

Nick Summers / The Next Web:

PlayStation 4 update to add rich video editor, 720p Twitch streaming, HDCP off option, and more — The Xbox One has already received a few firmware updates and it would seem the PlayStation 4 is about to follow suit. — Sony today detailed an upcoming patch for its new console …

More: PlayStation.Blog, Inquirer, PlayStation.Blog.Europe, Geeky Gadgets, TechnoBuffalo, Blue's News, Electronista and Joystiq

Liz Gannes / Re/code:

Google's Larry Page on Internet Privacy: Don't Throw the Baby Out With the Bathwater — James Duncan Davidson/Flickr/TedConference — Google CEO Larry Page was hesitant to tell the world about the medical condition that was hurting his ability to speak, but publicly sharing his voice troubles helped …

More: Wired, Business Insider, Wall Street Journal, TED Blog, Business Insider, Bloomberg, Wired.co.uk and The Verge. Tweets: @om

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Yahoo launches Games Network platform for developers, new Classic Games site for Android, iOS, and the Web — Yahoo today announced a renewed push into games with the launch of its Yahoo Games Network platform and its Yahoo Classic Games site. The company says it already has more improvements …

More: Yahoo, Computerworld, Re/code, iDownloadBlog.com and App Advice

Christian Nutt / Gamasutra:

Facebook sends 735 million referrals to games every day — Today at GDC, Facebook revealed new statistics around its user base that show that developers who create games for both mobile — using Facebook to drive community engagement — and also deploy them to their website see significant lift in engagement and revenue.

More: Facebook Developers, Inside Social Games, Gigaom, Softpedia News, Mashable, Engadget, Pulse 2.0 and SlashGear

Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:

MP3Tunes Founder Michael Robertson Found Liable for Copyright Infringement — A jury finds that the once-popular website willfully blinded itself to thousands of songs being stolen. — On Wednesday, a jury in a New York federal courtroom found MP3Tunes founder Michael Robertson liable …

More: The Register, Reuters and Bloomberg. Tweets: @ericgoldman

Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post:

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 approval for queries involving Americans impractical.

More: Guardian, The Switch, Memex 1.1, TechCrunch, Valleywag, SlashGear, The Register, Mashable, Engadget, Business Insider, ReadWrite, The Next Web, CNET and PC World

Joseph Marks / Nextgov:

White House Releases Climate Data Set, Challenges Developers to Use It — The Obama administration opened up a trove of climate change data on Wednesday as part of its larger drive to open up government data. — The data housed at Data.gov/climate will be contributed by NASA …

More: Whitehouse Blog, The White House, SiliconANGLE, Gigaom, Google LatLong, Computerworld, The Register, Intel Newsroom, Gizmodo, BetaNews, Federal Computer Week, MSDN Blogs, Engadget, KPLU News for Seattle …, The Verge, TechCrunch and VentureBeat

Arik Hesseldahl / Re/code:

Cisco CTO Padmasree Warrior Joins Box's Board — Box, the enterprise-focused cloud storage and platform company, named Cisco Systems' CTO and chief strategy officer Padmasree Warrior to its board of directors, taking another step toward an IPO that's expected before the summer.

More: The Box Blog, VentureBeat, PE Hub Blog, Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, bizjournals and ZDNet. Tweets: @hackbright

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Want More Privacy In Your App? Wickr Resells Its Encryption, Self-Destructing Tech To Other Apps — Wickr, one of the wave of messaging apps built on the idea of private, encrypted and self-destructing data, has vowed never to make money off its users — with its app remaining free …

More: Re/code, VatorNews and VentureBeat

Bloomberg:

Burger King to Add Mobile-Phone Payment at U.S. Stores — Burger King Worldwide Inc. (BKW), the second-biggest U.S. burger chain by store count, is introducing an application that will allow customers to pay for Whoppers with their smartphones as it races rivals to woo younger diners.

More: Business Insider, Internet2Go, Digital Trends, iPhone in Canada Blog, iPhone Hacks, MobilePaymentsToday.com News, iMore and Engadget

Chris Velazco / Engadget:

Quirky and GE cook up a smarter, prettier air conditioner — Quirky is more than just bendy power strips these days — recently, it's been pushing its vision of the connected home thanks to a multi-million dollar partnership with GE. So far their deal has yielded stuff like intelligent egg trays …

More: Gizmodo, The Verge, AppleInsider, Wall Street Journal, Quartz, Co.Design, CNET, 9to5Mac, TechCrunch and TechnoBuffalo

Phil Goldstein / FierceWireless:

Huawei backtracks, won't release a dual-OS Android, Windows Phone smartphone — Huawei said it has no plans to release a dual-OS smartphone running Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Phone and Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android, contradicting earlier statements from a Huawei executive.

More: The Verge, IntoMobile, Electronista, Guardian, Gizmodo UK, Softpedia News, WinBeta, Phandroid, Engadget, Pocketnow, Windows Phone Central, Coolsmartphone, Ubergizmo and Android Police

Daisuke Wakabayashi / Wall Street Journal:

US VCs invested $848M in consumer electronics hardware startups in 2013, up from $442M in 2012 — Venture Money Flows Into Hardware Startups — From Jawbone to Roku, U.S. Investors Pump $848 Million Into Consumer-Electronics Makers — A hardware startup is still hard, but it is getting a little easier.

Tweets: @wsjd

Jay Hathaway / Gawker:

Dong Nguyen says Flappy Bird will return to the App Store, but not soon — Enjoy Your Life While You Can, Because Flappy Bird is Coming Back — The most addictive, dangerous new drug of 2014 is about to come back on the market. Game developer Dong Nguyen has announced that his hit game Flappy Bird …

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