Alibaba ploughs $200 million into Snapchat in latest startup deal: source

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is investing $200 million in photo-messaging app Snapchat, a source familiar with the deal said, striking its latest Silicon Valley deal as the Chinese ecommerce company builds up mobile services. The investment values the company at around $15 billion, according to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the situation as saying.

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Apple’s iTunes, App Stores back online after unusually long outage

By Joseph Menn and Edwin Chan SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc's iTunes and App Store came back online on Wednesday afternoon after an unusually long service disruption that the company blamed on an internal technical error. Apple updated its status page at 5:04 pm ET to show that the disrupted services, including the Mac App Store and iBooks, were now functioning normally. The App Store and iTunes are a source of pride for the world's largest tech company and form the centerpiece of its mobile user experience.

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Snapchat management holds talks with Saudi’s Prince Alwaleed

Senior management of Snapchat held talks with Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed bin Talal on potential cooperation, the prince's investment company said in a statement on Sunday. The meeting, which included the mobile messaging company's Chief Executive Evan Spiegel and Chief Strategy Officer Imran Khan, comes as Snapchat embarks on a new funding round that values the business at up to $19 billion

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Amazon opens store on Alibaba’s online marketplace Tmall

(Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc has opened an online store on Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's fast-growing online marketplace, Tmall.com as it seeks to expand in China, an Alibaba spokesman said. Alibaba's Tmall offers virtual storefronts and payment portals to merchants

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India asks YouTube to remove Delhi rape film

India has asked YouTube to remove all links to a controversial documentary about the gang rape and murder of a woman in Delhi after banning its broadcast, a government official told Reuters on Thursday. Leslee Udwin's “India's Daughter” features an interview with Mukesh Singh, one of four men sentenced to death for the rape and torture of a 23-year-old woman on a moving bus in December 2012. “We just forwarded the court order and asked them (YouTube) to comply,” an official at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology told Reuters

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Britain should turn to middle-aged mums to be spies of the future: report

Britain's security agencies should look to recruit more middle-aged women and mothers to be new spies and should target websites popular with parents to find them, an influential committee of lawmakers said on Thursday. The Intelligence and Security Committee, which oversees the work of Britain's three spy agencies, said it was crucial there was more diversity if the security services were to be able to address the threats facing the country.

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Snapchat adds news, entertainment content to messaging service

By Alexei Oreskovic SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Snapchat has partnered with CNN, ESPN and nine other media companies to feature videos and articles on its mobile messaging service, a move that heightens the competition with social networks such as Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc. Snapchat's new Discover service features individual “channels” for its various media partners that include five to 10 stories a day, according to Snapchat, which announced the move on its official blog on Tuesday. After 24 hours the stories disappear, in keeping with Snapchat's trademark feature of private messages that disappear a few seconds after they are viewed by users of the service.

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Indian retailers hobble online as e-commerce firms race ahead

By Nivedita Bhattacharjee MUMBAI (Reuters) – The head of Future Group, one of India's largest and most established retailers, admits he can't keep up with web sites like Snapdeal and Flipkart when it comes to spending money to entice shoppers to buy online. Private investors have poured $2.

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