Pandora agreed to buy "several key aspects" of streaming music technology provider Rdio for $75 million cash, Pandora said in a news release Monday. The company will acquire certain technology and intellectual property from Rdio and will offer "many" Rdio employees roles with Pandora, the release said. After regulatory approval of the transaction, Rdio will begin "winding down" its branded services, Pandora said.

NTIA’s Dec. 2 meeting of its vulnerability research disclosure multistakeholder process will focus on trying to make more progress in areas stakeholders identified during the process’ late September meeting -- awareness and adoption, multiparty disclosure, economic incentives and disclosure safety -- said NTIA Director-Cybersecurity Initiatives Allen Friedman in an email Thursday. Most attending NTIA’s September vulnerability research multistakeholder meeting urged NTIA to focus on incentivizing responsible vulnerability research practices over developing new best practices (see 1509290061). NTIA’s Dec. 2 meeting, at the 20 F Street NW Conference Center, will review drafts developed at the September meeting, Friedman said. The meeting also will be an “opportunity to break out into working groups to plan out specific focused steps, and discuss as a whole community the broad agenda and milestones for the next few meetings,” Friedman said. The Dec. 2 meeting is to run 10:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. A mid-January meeting will also be in D.C., while a late February meeting in the San Francisco Bay Area will “be timed around” the Feb. 29-March 4 RSA cybersecurity conference, Friedman said.

For Fossil, the traditional watch category “remains sluggish, as tech-enabled devices offer consumers additional choices,” CEO Kosta Kartsotis said on an earnings call Thursday. “Technology is emerging as the latest trend in fashion with a growing interest in wearable technology, inspiring new entrants into the watch space, as well as explosive growth in activity trackers,” he said. That is why Fossil decided to buy activity-tracker supplier Misfit for $260 million cash, he said. The acquisition “will allow us to combine our key competitive advantages in design, sourcing, distribution and powerful brands with a business that is already a recognized player in technology-infused accessories and possesses a world-class software and hardware engineering team that stays ahead of emerging technology trends,” he said.

Angie’s List said it will “carefully review and evaluate” an unsolicited bid from IAC/InterActiveCorp to buy it at $8.75 per share, for a total of about $512 million cash. IAC is also willing to exchange ownership of its HomeAdvisor business for ownership of Angie’s List, that company said in a Wednesday news release.

PayPal completed its buy of electronic money transfer service Xoom, PayPal said in a news release Thursday. Under the terms of the acquisition announced in early July, PayPal bought all shares of Xoom for $25 in cash per share, it said. Xoom CEO John Kunze will continue to lead the company, which will operate as a separate service within PayPal, and will join PayPal's executive staff, PayPal said.

There's a “clear racial divide” about how surveyed online users feel about the effect that the Internet and social media have on politics, Yahoo said Thursday in the results of an online survey. Eighty-three percent of surveyed users said they believe social media and the Internet have resulted in wider dissemination of misinformation, including 85 percent of surveyed white users, 81 percent of Hispanic users and 78 percent of black users, Yahoo said. Fifty-seven percent of white users said social media has made politics more negative, while 50 percent of Hispanics and 41 percent of black users said the same. Yahoo worked with Harris Poll to do the survey, which polled 5,188 registered votes in September.

European Justice Commissioner Věra Jourová, a top negotiator for the European Commission in drafting a revised safe harbor agreement with the U.S., is scheduled to discuss the future of the transatlantic data transfer framework Monday at the Brookings Institution. The event is planned for 11 a.m. at Falk Auditorium, 1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW.

ICANN’s CEO search committee has begun interviewing perspective candidates to succeed current CEO Fadi Chehadé “and will continue for the next couple of months,” with the aim of developing a set of recommended candidates by the end of the year, ICANN said Tuesday in a blog post. Applications for candidates to replace Chehadé were due Sept. 30. Chehadé said in May that he plans to leave ICANN after the nonprofit corporation’s March 5-10 meeting in Marrakech, Morocco (see 1505220051). Ninety-three percent of the more than 100 candidates who applied to succeed Chehadé are male, ICANN said. Forty-one percent of the initial CEO applicants were from North America, while 27 percent were from Europe and 16 percent from Asia, ICANN said. Nine percent of applicants were from Africa and 7 percent were from Latin America and the Caribbean, ICANN said. “Winnowing a large list of candidates is relatively easy at the beginning of the process, but becomes increasingly more difficult as the process continues, since the candidates being eliminated from consideration are increasingly experienced and well qualified,” ICANN said. The CEO search committee is “therefore moving somewhat more slowly in its deliberations, in order to assure that the decisions made are in the interests of obtaining a CEO that is best suited to leading ICANN.”

NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling urged participant nations in the Internet Governance Forum Tuesday to “step up in support of the free and open Internet and the multistakeholder process that has led to its success.” The U.S. remains committed to multistakeholderism as it continues to work with ICANN to plan the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition, Strickling said during the opening ceremony of IGF’s meeting in João Pessoa, Brazil. “This work is tiring, sometimes contentious, perhaps exasperating,” he said, but “the process is working and I am confident it will be successful. It will be a testament to the strength of the multistakeholder process when the transition is completed.” Strickling warned against governments’ attempts to restrict the Internet via data localization laws and restrictions on data transfers. “Such proposals do far more harm than good,” he said. “Restricting data flows and competition between firms increase costs for Internet users and businesses, retard technological innovation, and may curb freedom of expression,” he said. IGF and other multistakeholder forums are “imperative” to “make a case for policies and practices that encourage the development of an open and innovative Internet,” Strickling said.

For the mobile device initiatives of chipmaker Pixelworks, Q3 “was an outstanding quarter of progress,” CEO Bruce Walicek said on an earnings call. Pixelworks introduced and sampled the second chip in its Iris family of mobile display processors, “and we gained volume production,” he said Friday. The processor is targeted at 5.5-inch smartphones, 10-inch tablets and other mobile devices at sizes in between that feature display resolutions up to full HD, he said. The chip “is receiving a great response and faster adoption as the concept of bringing TV quality processing to mobile gains momentum,” he said. As Pixelworks moves into “the next phase of market development” with the Iris initiative, “we are seeing opportunities and higher volume platforms as many mid-range mobile SoCs can leverage the performance and benefits and features of Iris, allowing them to compete against more expensive, higher end SoC platforms,” he said. “Regarding SoC partners, we are seeing significant pull as the benefits of Iris can help differentiate their platforms as well as enhanced capability and performance. As a key part of our strategy to drive Iris design wins, we are engaged in joint selling and reference designs with major mobile SoC providers. And our activity increased significantly during the quarter.” The strategy recently paid big dividends when Pixelworks “captured a significant milestone design win for a major U.S. mobile wireless carrier, and we expect to see Iris-enabled tablets in their channel in mid-2016,” Walicek said. Pixelworks sees over-the-top video streaming services as “a key driver of mobile video and the increasing importance of the display experience,” he said. Early in 2016, Pixelworks plans to roll out “a key piece of our strategy to leverage” the company’s core video processing technology, he said. Code-named True Cut, the initiative brings the company’s video processing algorithms “upstream to the server level to drive pull for Iris-based mobile devices and ultimately drive design wins for Iris,” he said. True Cut is “an end-to-end solution that enables products based on Iris to display a higher-quality streaming video experience,” he said. True Cut “not only provides a value proposition to products based on Iris, but to carriers and content distributors as well,” he said. Pixelworks has begun “initial trials” of True Cut with “a major China-based carrier,” and expects to mount “live demos of this capability” in Q1, he said.