Ever since Google bought Nest in 2014, things have gone sideways at the smart home technology company. The Information reports that CEO Tony Fadell has clashed with Google and his underlings, and that Nest has struggled to ship new products. Now the company is set to introduce a line of home security gadgets.
[Mark Bergen | Re/code]

Snapchat is buying Bitstrips, the company that makes the emoji creation app Bitmoji, for around $100 million.
[Kurt Wagner | Re/code]

Private equity investors and activist shareholders are all plotting their Yahoo takeovers. So is Microsoft, sort of: The tech giant is telling investors that it's interested in lending money to buyout efforts.
[Kara Swisher | Re/code]

On this week's episode of the Too Embarrassed to Ask podcast, Walt Mossberg joins Lauren Goode to talk about Apple's "derivative" product announcements from earlier this week.
[Eric Johnson | Re/code]

IBT Media, the parent company of the International Business Times and Newsweek, laid off 15 IBTimes staffers yesterday. IBTimes editorial chief Peter S. Goodman is also leaving, as are four staffers from IBT Media property Latin Times.
[Noah Kulwin | Re/code]