10 things in tech you need to know today

Lucy England

Aug 13, 2015, 12:32 IST

Tinder founder Sean Rad has returned as CEO.

Good morning! Here's the tech news you need to know today.

1. Google is seeing its first spin-off since its big restructuring announcement. Niantic Labs, a startup within Google that has launched an augmented reality game called Ingress as well as a location discovery app called Field Trip, is becoming an independent company.

2. NBC Universal has invested $200 million in Vox Media. It also poured another $200 million into Buzzfeed.

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3. Tinder founder Sean Rad has returned as CEO. Chris Payne, who had been serving as CEO, only lasted five months in the position.

4. Analysts believe the reason Apple's stock has been declining over the last few weeks is because investors are worried about its presence in China. Apple fell as much as 2% on Wednesday.

5. Twitter is finally carrying out plans to remove the 140 character limit on direct messages. It first announced that it intended to remove the limit back in June.

6. Apple could be bringing out a more powerful iPad Mini. The next product, which some are speculating will be called the iPad Mini 4, might get a hardware upgrade that allows it to support split-screen apps.

7. Alibaba fell as much as 7% in early trading yesterday after posting disappointing earnings results. Its revenues and sales growth were weaker than expected.

8. Tinder has admitted that its 30+ part tweetstorm in reaction to a Vanity Fair article on today's dating culture may have been a bit much. "Our intention was to highlight the many statistics and amazing stories that are sometimes left unpublished, and, in doing so, we overreacted," the company said in a statement to Wired.

9. Russia is threatening to ban Reddit. Roskomnadzor, the Russian government agency in charge of media in the country, says it is "preparing" to block it because posts on the site contain advice on how to grow marijuana.

10. Julian Assange has been in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for so long that several sex allegations against him are about to expire. Assange has been in the building for the last three years.