Square has acquired 80/20 a user interface design firm which has worked with Apple and Adobe. The payments company will use 80/20′s offices as a jumping off point for its East Coast headquarters. [Source: Bits]
Rolling Stone and Buzzfeed reporter Michael Hastings died early this morning in a car accident at the age of 33. Hastings’ uncompromising 2010 profile of General Stanley McChrystal led to the general being recalled to Washington by President Obama and resigning shortly thereafter. [Source: Buzzfeed / Rolling Stone]
The same day Carl Icahn proposed that Dell offer to buy back as many as 1.1 billion shares at $14 a share, Dell’s special committee struck down the proposal, saying it’s “not, in its present state, a transaction that the special committee could endorse or execute.” [Source: AllThingsD]
According to a White House statement, the US and Russia have reopened a Cold War era hotline to help prevent cyberwar. The countries will use the hotline to share information about hacking attacks. [Source: Verge]
Alternative search engines seem to be on the rise. Today, search engine DuckDuckGo tweeted that it received more than three million direct searches in a single day. [Source: Search Engine Land]
Cloudera has announced that its current CEO Mike Olson will become chief strategy officer and chairman of the board. In his place will be former Arcsight CEO Tom Reilly. [Source: GigaOm]
Toshiba has announced that it plans to cut about 10 billion yen ($104 million) in TV business costs by the end of this fiscal year. This comes after the company lost almost 50 billion yen in the last business year. [Source: Reuters]
FiftyThree, the company behind the iPad app Paper, has just closed a $15 million round of funding. This round was led by Chris Dixon at Andreessen Horowitz. [Source: VentureBeat]
Blekko has released a new iOS and Android version of its Izik search app. The Izik app makes use of Blekko’s “Dynamic Inference Graph.” [Source: TheNextWeb]
“I feel we’re moving into a world that was described pretty accurately by one of the founders of Google… Some reporter asked Eric Schmidt if this was an invasion of privacy … and he said ‘If you’re doing anything that you don’t want to be on the internet, you shouldn’t be doing it.’”
Dish today issued a response to Sprint’s lawsuit against Dish claiming its bid to buyout Clearwire is illegal. According to Dish, the lawsuit is a “transparent attempt to divert attention from its failure to deal fairly with Clearwire’s shareholders.” [Source: GigaOm]
It looks like Amazon will not be taking a cue from Netflix in terms of episode release. According to the Verge, when it released its new program “Alpha House,” it will not release every episode all at once. [Source: The Verge]
Last night the BBC announced six London-based digital media startups that will join its BBC Labs accelerator program. This is the BBC Labs’ second class. [Source: GigaOm]
GE, in a presentation today, announced it will be building new Hadoop-based appliances and software. This is to go towards GE’s new goal of connecting devices to the “industrial internet.” [Source: GigaOm]
A few months back Google added a new visualization for its Local Searches on tablets: a top results carousel bar. Today, Google introduced this feature to the desktop Local Search as well. [Source: TechCrunch]
Today Carl Icahn published a letter to Dell shareholders stating that a bank has agreed to help fund his buyout offer of the computer company. According to the letter, a major investment bank is willing to make $1.6 billion available. [Source: Reuters]
Today marks the release of 25 solar-powered charging stations at various outdoor spaces in New York City. The initiative is a joint venture between the city and AT&T. [Source: BetaBeat]
Parakweet, which offers Bookvibe, a service that recommends books based on natural language processing and social-media analytics, has raised $2 million in funding. [Source: VentureBeat]
Today web browser Torch announced it surpassed 10 million monthly active users after over 10 years on the market. It also launched its new version with a new download accelerator and music service. [Source: TechCrunch]
The Supreme Court invalidated human gene patents. What does that mean for GMOs?
What Dell tells us about the entrepreneur’s endless fight
Tickets for PandoMonthly with GitHub’s Tom Preston-Werner on sale now!
TechLA: A startup internship program aimed at the exodus of LA’s engineering graduates
Forget Home: The iPhone becomes more social without Facebook
On negotiating your first few partnerships
Return of the joystick: Apple’s decision to build controller support into iOS 7 could benefit indie game makers and consumers
The opportunity for Slow Media
Warren Buffett’s former pilot launches Visionary Airlines in Silicon Valley
(Networking) knowledge is power: Bizzabo launches new iPhone app
Silicon Valley builds amazing spy tools, is horrified when they’re used for spying
That didn’t take long: recruiters already circling ex-Zynga employees
ZEFR’s BrandID should make YouTube a smarter bet for brands than TV
Neighborhood social network Nextdoor launches NYC partnership
Is the time finally right for electric bikes?
Everyone is wrong: The surprising advantage to being a working mom
A case for saying yes to YouTube Funding
What the data reveals about how to make SaaS secret sauce
This video shows why Vine is going to be a huge deal
Fred Wilson: For Foursquare, it’s not about the check-in. It’s about “maps with people in them”
Vine and #music show that Twitterers would rather talk than listen
Chris Hughes’ eventful first year at the New Republic
Virtual gaming headset Oculus Rift raises $16 million from Spark Capital, Matrix Partners
Fred Wilson on Twitter’s “huge, enormous” mistake
Fred Wilson: Venture capital as we know it will cease to exist
How Tennessee’s Southland Summit could topple SXSW
PandoMonthly New York with Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson, the full interview
Fullscreen raises a big Series A to prove that YouTube’s a viable platform
Whatever Facebook launches on Thursday, you’re going to hate it
Meet Work–Bench: New York’s first “post-accelerator” program for enterprise startups
The controversial Anu Shukla returns with RewardsPay
DailyLook reveals its secret to customer loyalty and high conversions: Sell looks, not items
Fred Wilson on why corporate VCs suck
The evolution of synth
Content marketing gets its magazine moment
Online, unplanned, and unorganized
Is Waze overvalued or is Foursquare undervalued?
Quantum venture firm QWave announces its first round of investments
Smalltime Crowdfunding Crooks: Tracing a Kickstarter fraudster to other crowdfunding scams
Lock ‘em down: Soluto expands to the iPhone to help small businesses become more secure
FiftyThree raises $15 million from Andreessen Horowitz to move beyond Paper
With 8 million users, Rounds is the Google Hangouts you’ve never heard of. Today it adds co-browsing
Quarterly Co. is back from the brink thanks to its new CEO, Netflix co-founder Mitch Lowe
Matrix Partners’ Antonio Rodriguez on his investment in Oculus Rift
