Exclusive: Facebook Deal Nets Instagram CEO $400 Million
By Mike Isaac Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired Facebook’s acquisition of the immensely popular photo-sharing service Instagram for $1 billion is far and away the largest acquisition in the history of the world’s largest social network. But for CEO Kevin Systrom and company, it’s a windfall payday like none other. CEO Systrom owns 40 percent of Instagram, according [...]
Angry Birds Space Now Available for Download
by Stan Schroeder Fans of the Angry Birds franchise, take notice: the disgruntled feathery creatures have conquered space, and they’re out to show those dastardly pigs a lesson. The latest installment of this megapopular game, Angry Birds Space, is now available for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Android devices, as well as the Mac and PC. [...]
Launching Google Wallet on Sprint and working with Visa, American Express and Discover
In May we announced Google Wallet—an app that makes your phone your wallet—with Citi, MasterCard, Sprint and First Data. With Google Wallet, you can tap, pay and save using your phone and near field communication (NFC). We’ve been testing it extensively, and today we’re releasing the first version of the app to Sprint. That means we’re beginning [...]
Apple loses bid for injunction against Amazon
by Steven Musil A federal judge has denied Apple’s request to immediately stop Amazon from using the term “Appstore” to describe its digital downloads storefront. In an 18-page opinion filed today with the U.S. District Court for Northern California, Judge Phyllis Hamilton denied Apple’s request for a preliminary injunction preventing Amazon’s use of the term, which [...]
Your iPhone’s watching you. Should you care?
by Josh Lowensohn and Elinor Mills A peek at location data stored on an iPhone. (Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET) Researchers announced today that they found what look like secret files on the iPhone that track user location and store it on the device, without the permission of the device owner. It’s unclear what the data is [...]
Man bites dog? Google sues the government
by Tom Krazi Google and the U.S. government are headed for a legal showdown, but on different sides of the courtroom than one might expect. Eric Goldman, a law professor with Santa Clara University who closely follows the tech industry, spotted a lawsuit filed by Google against the federal government claiming that the U.S. Department [...]
Twitter CEO Evan Williams Steps Aside, To ‘Product Strategy’ Role
By John C Abell Twitter CEO Evan Williams announced Monday that he was stepping aside to focus on product strategy, elevating COO Dick Costolo to the top role at the messaging service. The move bore no earmarks of a shakeup at Twitter but rather a common step in the maturation process of a startup lucky enough [...]
Is Facebook Planning a Phone? Who Knows. Should It? No
By John C Abell It was quite the weekend sensation: TechCrunch thought it had a resonant story — though perhaps not in this way. It’s hard to say exactly why the TechCrunch piece on Facebook developing a branded phone caught so much fire and ire. It might, however, be because Facebook took the somewhat unusual step of [...]
Apple loosens its chokehold on app development
By Stacy Cowley NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Apple is loosening its grip on its app development for its mobile devices, announcing Thursday that it will drop restrictions on what programming tools developers can use to create iOS apps. The company also dropped a ban on certain in-application ad serving tools that had effectively cut off Google’s [...]