Mt Gox finds 200,000 bitcoins
The beleaguered, battered and shuttered bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox has been hunting down the sides of its sofa and managed to find almost 200,000 lost bitcoins this week. That’s a decent haul to pull out of obscurity, as 200,000 bitcoins amount to more than $114 million, according to conversion website Preev. Approximately 650,000 bitcoins are still missing, so users of the site shouldn’t get too excited; plus, the explanation for locating the “disappeared” cryptocurrency might worry them further. After the company filed for civil rehabilitation (a Japanese form of bankruptcy), wallets were rescanned, and one was found to hold 199,999.99 bitcoins, according to CEO Mark Karpeles.
Microsoft set to bring Office to iPad, signaling cross-platform shift
Microsoft is reportedly about to make its Office suite of products available to iPad users. Although the move will be considered a logical business maneuver to most onlookers, for Microsoft it represents a major shift in attitude.
The press briefing called for next week, Satya Nadella’s first as CEO, will likely confirm Microsoft’s plan to become a ‘mobile first, cloud first’ company. In a note, Nomura Equity Research analyst Rick Sherlund forecasts Microsoft will allow Office 365 subscribers to access touch versions of Office, including those for the iPad, at no additional charge. “This is likely to increase interest in Commercial Office 365 and the Home Premium version and additional cloud-based services,” Sherlund wrote.
Tech giants to meet Obama over NSA reform
Executives from Facebook, Google and Yahoo have been invited to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama to discuss the thorny issue of NSA reform, as information continues to surface from leaks provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden last June. This will mark the second of such meetings, and the top tech players will presumably expect answers as to why reform has been so slow to get rolling. The technology community was thrown into uproar when it was revealed the U.S. government’s shady National Security Agency had been intercepting, gathering and storing huge volumes of data from users of online services.
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The week in numbers
Mobile messaging startup Tango takes $280 million in funding from Alibaba Group and others
Tenaya Capital leads $38 million funding for software company Platfora
Mobile social games company FunPlus raises $74 million for its Series B round