Techmeme: Forensic scientist identifies suspicious ‘back doors’ running on every iOS device (Jason D. O'Grady/ZDNet)

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July 21, 2014, 5:50 PM

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Kara Swisher / Re/code:

Confirmed: Yahoo Poised to Buy Mobile Analytics and Ad Platform Flurry — Yahoo is poised to buy mobile analytics and advertising platform company Flurry, according to people with knowledge of the situation. — [Flurry and Yahoo just confirmed the deal in blog posts.]

More: TechCrunch, AdExchanger, New York Times, The Next Web, ABC News, Business Insider, VentureBeat, 9to5Mac, BuzzFeed, Forbes, Electronista, Mashable, App Advice, bizjournals and SocialTimes

Tweets: @marshallk, @ryanlawler and @nichcarlson

Scott Burke / Yahoo:

Yahoo to Acquire Flurry to Strengthen Mobile Products — Over the past couple of years, Yahoo has been focused on re-imagining our users' daily habits, and mobile is at the center of everything we do. Today, I'm excited to announce the next step in our vision, that we have reached …

More: Flurry Insights, ZDNet and Marketing Land

Jason D. O'Grady / ZDNet:

Forensic scientist identifies suspicious ‘back doors’ running on every iOS device — Summary: During his talk at HOPE/X Jonathan Zdziarski details several undocumented services (with names like “lockdownd,” “pcapd,” “mobile.file_relay,” and “house_arrest") that run in the background on over 600 million iOS devices.

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Facebook Launches Save, A Read-It-Later List For Links, Places, And Media Pages — Two years after acqhiring read-it-later startup Spool, Facebook today launched a basic Pocket competitor called Save. It's a feature for iOS, Android, and web that lets you store links from News Feed …

More: Facebook, The Next Web, MacRumors, Forbes, The Technology Chronicles, Marketing Land, 9to5Google, 9to5Mac, Gigaom, GeekWire, PandoDaily, USA Today, TechHive, iMore, Inside Facebook, VentureBeat, Engadget, The Verge, Electronista and BuzzFeed

Tweets: @joshconstine and @caseynewton

See also Mediagazer

Jonathan Shieber / TechCrunch:

NBA star Carmelo Anthony launches venture capital firm called M7 Tech Partners — Knicks Star Carmelo Anthony Launches Venture Firm — After scoring a new contract worth over $122 million with the N.Y. Knicks, NBA star Carmelo Anthony is looking to take a different kind of shot — starting a venture capital firm.

More: VentureBeat, CNET and Entrepreneur

Tweets: @brooke, @julesmaltz, @mikeeisenberg and @hunterwalk

Julia Angwin / ProPublica:

AddThis tests “canvas fingerprinting”, a powerful alternative to cookies for online tracking, on thousands of sites — Meet the Online Tracking Device That is Virtually Impossible to Block — This story was co-published with Mashable. — A new, extremely persistent type …

More: Gizmodo and Mashable. Tweets: @juliaangwin, @juliaangwin, @ashk4n and @csoghoian

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Facebook's $2 Billion Acquisition Of Oculus Closes, Now Official — Facebook now owns Oculus. The $2 billion acquisition deal of the virtual reality pioneer announced in March has been approved by regulators and today become official. The U.S. FCC's anti-trust team greenlighted the deal in April.

More: Inside Facebook, VentureBeat, AllFacebook, Wall Street Journal and Electronista

Jeyup S. Kwaak / Wall Street Journal:

Seoul city government moves to ban Uber, plans similar app for official city taxis — Seoul Moves to Ban Uber, Plans Own App — UPDATE: Uber Monday evening called Seoul city government's earlier statement a sign that it lags behind in adopting what it called an innovation in transportation.

More: Engadget, Washington Post, VentureBeat, The Korea Times, Business Insider, Forbes, BusinessTech, Financial Times, The Next Web, The Verge and SocialTimes. Tweets: @jchengwsj

Kaylene Hong / The Next Web:

In China, more people now access the internet from a mobile device than a PC — China has been going through an explosive internet adoption period, with mobile playing a key role in getting people online. — And now, the latest report published by state-affiliated research organization …

More: Reuters, Computerworld, GadgeTell and The Register

Sarah Frier / Bloomberg:

Urban Compass raises $40M at $360M valuation after increasing revenues 10x over past year — Urban Compass Raises Money at $360 Million Valuation — Urban Compass Inc., the New York marketplace for renting and buying apartments, will expand to more U.S. cities after raising $40 million from investors.

More: TechCrunch, Business Insider, VentureBeat and PE Hub Blog. Tweets: @urbancompass. Thanks:@mattlynley

Paul Ford / Medium:

Why do programmers keep making tools like email clients and todo list apps? — Doomed to Repeat It — Learning from the things we make over and over … There's always some big deal in email—in 2013 it was Mailbox, an app that made it easy to sort and process email.

Tweets: @hamburger, @wear_here, @ablaze, @pomeranian99, @al3x, @piewords, @lorenb and @mjasay

Steven Scheer / Reuters:

Mobileye, Israeli maker of driving assist systems, starts road show for $500M NYSE IPO — Israel's Mobileye starts road show for $500 million NYSE IPO — (Reuters) - Mobileye N.V., which makes software and cameras that help cars avoid accidents, said on Monday it has launched a road show …

More: Globes Online, NASDAQ.com, NoCamels, ifrasia.com and RTTNews

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

RadiumOne Issues Not-Quite-Apology For Ousting CEO Who Pled Guilty To Domestic Violence — Ad platform RadiumOne and its former CEO Gurbaksh Chahal have issued a joint statement that is intended to “bring an end to all disputes they have had.” RadiumOne removed Chahal in April following media criticism …

More: PR Newswire, Business Insider, Wall Street Journal and Valleywag

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

Google's new chief business officer Omid Kordestani joins Spotify board, even as competition increases between the companies — Google's New Business Head Joins Spotify Board, While Another Former Exec Becomes Special Adviser — Omid Kordestani, who has just temporarily replaced Nikesh Arora …

More: WebProNews and hypebot. Tweets: @pkafka

Arik Hesseldahl / Re/code:

Former Autonomy CFO Seeks Rejection of HP Settlement — The former chief financial officer of the British software company Autonomy today moved to challenge a proposed settlement of a shareholder derivative lawsuit stemming from Hewlett-Packard's botched $11 billion acquisition of that company in 2011.

More: ZDNet, Business Insider, SiliconBeat, Reuters and New York Times

Wall Street Journal:

Activist investor with 2% stake pushes EMC to spin off VMware — Activist Investor Pushes EMC to Break Up — Elliott Management Says Spin-Off of VMware Would Boost Stock Price — Elliott Management Corp. has taken a stake of more than $1 billion in EMC Corp. and plans to push …

More: Fortune, Re/code, ZDNet, eWeek, New York Times, bizjournals, Gigaom, Tech Trader Daily, Reuters and The Register

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