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The tooth gnashing you hear is from Flash users installing a new 0day patch

Ex-Motorola CEO admits to cancelled Nexus 6 fingerprint reader

SkyMall, killed by the smartphone

Apple told Wall Street to expect total sales somewhere in the range of $63.5 to $66.5 billion — representing, at the midpoint, 15% growth from fiscal Q1 2014. Analysts aren’t buying it. They saw the lines for the new iPhones. They’ve seen IDC’s Mac numbers. They know iPad sales haven’t totally died. They watched Apple shift production to meet demand for the larger — and higher margin — iPhone 6 Plus. They’re expecting a big quarter.

I can’t tell if video podcasts just didn’t get the traction in the market that they needed or if audio podcasts are just preferable because broadcasters really want to protect their video. The same could be said for terrestrial broadcasts (i.e., those you get for free over an antenna), which no longer seem to be a major priority for broadcasters either. I’ve considered getting a PVR to record video in lieu of video podcasts, but NBC isn’t available at our house (though several other stations are). Would we have been able to receive NBC here in the pre-cable era? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the answer were “yes.”

Here is one more nail in Flash’s coffin: starting today, YouTube defaults to using HTML5 video on all modern browsers, including Chrome, IE 11, Safari 8 and the beta versions of Firefox.

Federal regulators have been throwing their weight around lately, and mostly to good effect for consumers and users of mobile technology. The net effect of their recent activism adds up to a whole new set of rules and protections for all of us. Here are the ramifications of seven new rules.

Hashtags: 28 total, 50% of ads overall Facebook: 4 total, 7.1% of ads overall Twitter: 3 total, 5.3% of ads overall Snapchat: 1 total, 1.8% of ads overall URLs: 25 total, 44.6% of ads overall

I was hoping that the ugly rumors were false. But TUAW—The Unofficial Apple Weblog, which has long been one of the most dependable sources of Apple news—has confirmed that its owner, AOL, will discontinue it on February 3. (It's also official that AOL is killing Joystiq, a videogame site which, like TUAW, was founded in 2004. TechCrunch reports that AOL will be laying off about 150 people in total, mainly in sales, and merging TUAW's and Joystiq's content into its flagship tech website Engadget. The only reason I'm not waxing nostalgic about Joystiq here is that its subject matter meant less to me than TUAW's did.)

Google Ventures, the search giant's venture capital arm, invested $258 million in Uber in August 2013. It was Google Ventures' largest investment deal ever, and the company put more money into Uber's next funding round less than a year later. Back then, it was easy for observers to imagine Google teaming closely with Uber, or even one day acquiring it. David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer and senior vice president of corporate development, joined the Uber board of directors in 2013 and has served on it ever since.

But a person familiar with the matter said news that Google is developing an app to rival Uber has been blown out of proportion. The person said a Google engineer has been testing an internal app that helps Google employees carpool to work, and the app isn’t associated with the company’s driverless cars program.

The possible move, discussed as part of RadioShack’s looming trip to bankruptcy court, would represent Amazon’s biggest push into traditional retail. Amazon joins other potential bidders, including Sprint Corp. and the investment group behind Brookstone, in evaluating RadioShack stores, people familiar with the situation said. RadioShack has more than 4,000 U.S. locations and is moving toward a deal to sell a portion and close the rest, according to some of the people. Sprint has discussed buying 1,300 to 2,000, they said.

(Bloomberg) -- RadioShack Corp. is preparing to shut down the almost-century-old retail chain in a bankruptcy deal that would sell about half its store leases to Sprint Corp. and close the rest, according to people with knowledge of the discussions.

Microsoft was left alone as the last manufacturer of Windows RT-based tablets, and now the software giant is no longer producing any RT devices. A Microsoft spokesperson has confirmed to The Verge that the company is no longer manufacturing its Nokia Lumia 2520 Windows RT tablet. "We are no longer manufacturing Nokia Lumia 2520; however, those still eager to buy Nokia Lumia 2520 should visit Microsoft Retail Stores, MicrosoftStore.com, third-party retailers and resellers for the latest availability." The confirmation comes just a week after Microsoft revealed it has stopped manufacturing the Surface 2, another Windows RT tablet.

Ostensibly, the EES is now being withdrawn because it references a cryptographic algorithm, Skipjack, that is no longer approved for U.S. government use. But one facet especially strikes home: Whatever the reason for the proposal to withdraw the FIPS, it is a timely reminder that efforts by governments to require use of specific technologies that have not been developed in a transparent manner with broad input are not merely misguided—they are very likely to fail. Especially in areas as sensitive as that involved here.

That is why I am proposing that the FCC use its Title II authority to implement and enforce open internet protections. Using this authority, I am submitting to my colleagues the strongest open internet protections ever proposed by the FCC. These enforceable, bright-line rules will ban paid prioritization, and the blocking and throttling of lawful content and services. I propose to fully apply—for the first time ever—those bright-line rules to mobile broadband. My proposal assures the rights of internet users to go where they want, when they want, and the rights of innovators to introduce new products without asking anyone’s permission.

Industry executives say Apple is in talks with TV programmers about deals that would allow Apple to offer an “over the top” pay-TV service, like the one Dish has started selling with its Sling TV product, and the one Sony is getting ready to launch.

In the first half of this year, tweets will start to be visible in Google’s search results as soon as they’re posted, thanks to a deal giving the Web company access to Twitter’s firehose, the stream of data generated by the microblogging service’s 284 million users, people with knowledge of the matter said Wednesday. Google previously had to crawl Twitter’s site for the information, which will now be visible automatically.

The founder of the underground website Silk Road was convicted on Wednesday on narcotics and other criminal charges for his role in orchestrating a scheme that enabled around $200 million of anonymous online drug sales using bitcoin. Ross Ulbricht, 30, was convicted by a federal jury in Manhattan on all seven counts he faced following a closely watched four-week trial that spilled out of U.S. investigations of the use of the bitcoin digital currency for drug trafficking and other crimes. The jury of six men and six women needed a little over three hours to deliberate before finding Ulbricht guilty of charges that included drug trafficking and conspiracies to commit money laundering and computer hacking.

In addition to operating UGotPosted, Bollaert also operated a separate website that allowed victims to pay to have their photographs removed. According to the Associated Press, Bollaert charged up to $350 to have images removed and is said to have earned tens of thousands of dollars in the process. He reportedly now faces up to 20 years in prison.

Werner Koch wrote the software, known as Gnu Privacy Guard, in 1997, and since then has been almost single-handedly keeping it alive with patches and updates from his home in Erkrath, Germany. Now 53, he is running out of money and patience with being underfunded.

In addition to Stanford University in Apple's backyard, a series of other American campuses are also teaching Swift including California Polytechnic Institute, Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo, University of California at Santa Cruz, Drexel University in Philadelphia, Full Sail University near Orlando, Northwest Kansas Technical College, the University of Missouri and Southern Methodist University in Dallas.