Top Items:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Google In Discussions To Acquire Yelp For A Half Billion Dollars Or More — Google and Yelp are in advanced acquisition negotiations, we've confirmed from multiple sources. And while the deal isn't done, we've heard that it's very likely to close. The price is supposedly at least $500 million.
John Letzing / MarketWatch:
Privacy groups file FTC complaint against Facebook — SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Ten privacy and consumer groups announced Thursday they've filed a complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission alleging that Facebook Inc.'s privacy-policy changes violate federal law.
RELATED:
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Next Step in the Facebook Privacy Blowback: The FTC Complaint. The Real Question: Will Advertisers Care? — The clamor about Facebook's changes to its privacy policy — the ones where the social network encourages its users to abandon their privacy — is getting louder.
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
JooJoo/CrunchPad Company Responds To Mike Arrington's Lawsuit — Fusion Garage, the Singapore-based company behind the JooJoo tablet — formerly known as the CrunchPad — has responded to the lawsuit that TechCrunch founder Mike Arrington filed earlier this month.
comScore, Inc.:
Android: Crashing the Smartphone Party — comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today announced the release of its latest report on the mobile market, Android: Crashing the Smartphone Party. The report provides an overview of the current U.S. mobile environment …
Discussion:
PC World, Silicon Alley Insider, DailyTech, Tech Beat, TheAppleBlog, Internet2Go, AndroidGuys, Between the Lines, The Microsoft Blog and WebProNews
RELATED:
Business Wire:
Palm Reports Q2 FY 2010 Results … Companies: — Related Quotes — SymbolPriceChange — 11.72 — SUNNYVALE, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ:PALM - News) today reported that total revenues in the second quarter of fiscal year 2010, ended Nov. 27, 2009, were $78.1 million.
RELATED:
Ryan Singel / Threat Level:
Netflix Spilled Your Brokeback Mountain Secret, Lawsuit Claims — An in-the-closet lesbian mother is suing Netflix for privacy invasion, alleging the movie rental company made it possible for her to be outed when it disclosed insufficiently anonymous information about nearly half-a-million customers …
BBC:
YouTube post leads to movie deal — A producer from Uruguay who uploaded a short film to YouTube in November 2009 has been offered a $30m (£18.6m) contract to make a Hollywood film. — The movie will be sponsored by director Sam Raimi, whose credits include the Spiderman and Evil Dead films.
Discussion:
901am, p2pnet, watchmojo.com, Pocket-lint.com, Lockergnome Blog Network and Open Gardens
Barry Collins / PC Pro:
Mozilla: Firefox Mobile will kill off app stores — Mozilla claims that its new Firefox Mobile browser could be the beginning of the end for the hugely popular app stores created by Apple and its ilk. — Mozilla is releasing the first version of Firefox Mobile (codenamed Fennec) …
Discussion:
Hardware 2.0
Joel Johnson / Gizmodo:
AT&T Has Spent Less on Network Construction Every Quarter Since the iPhone's Launch — If you like your links hyper, here is that AP story, AT&T's financial sheet [PDF], and the post in which Fake Steve Jobs originally pointed out this disparity. Namaste. — Send an email to Joel Johnson, the author of this post, at .
Ilinca Nita / Unwired View:
Lots of Samsung bada OS screenshots leaked — For one reason or another, Samsung's been a bit reluctant in showing screenshots of its newly-announced bada smartphone OS. — Well, in case you want to know what the new mobile platform looks like (and you probably do want), there are many leaked screenshots available.
Kelsey Volkmann / bizjournals:
Bing! Information Design sues Microsoft — Bing! Information Design in St. Louis has sued Microsoft Corp. for alleged trademark infringement and unfair competition over Microsoft's new Bing search engine. — The suit, filed this week in St. Louis City Circuit Court …
Discussion:
internetnews.com, Agence France Presse, The Microsoft Blog, Ars Technica, Dow Jones Newswires, eWeek, TechFlash and Seattle Times
The Official Google Blog:
Go thataway: Google Maps India learns to navigate like a local — Have you ever been lost? Perhaps you missed a turn because a street sign was poorly labeled, hard to see in the dark, or just not where it should have been? These are problems we've all faced, but they're especially complicated in India …
Discussion:
ReadWriteWeb, Google LatLong, MediaNama, Google India Blog and Google Maps Mania, Thanks:atul
Royal Pingdom:
Thank you Google for the SLOOOW Internet — Pingdom's management team recently visited Boston, USA, for some meetings. On their way back they had some time left over at the airport and decided to get some work done. Nicely enough, Google is currently offering everyone free Wi-Fi …
Discussion:
These are the Droids
Nick Bilton / Bits:
A Day in the Life of NYTimes.com — Have you ever wondered where the readers of The New York Times's Web site come from, and what kind of devices they use to read our content? In a past life, not too long ago, when I worked in The Times's research and development labs …
Ben Fritz / Company Town:
Carl Icahn's new target: Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two Interactive — Take-Two Interactive Chairman Strauss Zelnick may have a new best friend. Activist investor Carl Icahn has been gobbling up shares in the video game publisher best known for the wildly popular Grand Theft Auto series.
Raphaël Moll / Android Developers Blog:
Knowing is half the battle — As a developer, I often wonder which Android platforms my applications should support,especially as the number of Android-powered devices grows. Should my application only focus on the latest version of the platform or should it support older ones as well?
Discussion:
BetaNews, Android and Me, ITworld.com, InfoWorld, mocoNews, Android Phone Fans, Android Central and Between the Lines, Thanks:atul
Rene Ritchie / The iPhone Blog:
WordPress and Tumblr show iPhone Tweetie and Twitterrific Not Just for Twitter Anymore — Tweetie 2 and Twitterrific 2 aren't just two of the best Twitter clients for the iPhone, they're two of the best mobile micro-blogging interfaces on the planet and now both WordPress and Tumblr …
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Ad.ly Launches Analytics For Sponsored Tweets — There's been a bit of controversy around Ad.ly, which aims to link up high-profile advertisers with celebrities on Twitter and then distribute links to marketing campaigns through the user's tweet stream with full disclosure.
Damian Roskill / Compete Blog:
Start-up Watch: Typepad vs. Tumblr — Back in November, Typepad announced that they would be launching their own microblogging service called Typepad Micro. What is microblogging? The term generally refers to lightweight blogging platforms such as Micro and Tumblr as well as services such as Twitter.
E.B. Boyd / BayNewser:
Personal Appeal from Jimmy Wales Nets Wikipedia $430K in 24 Hours — Wikipedia's parent organization—the Wikimedia Foundation—is in the middle of its sixth annual fundraising drive—think NPR pledge drive without the annoying interruptions. The goal: $7.5 million.
Brooke Crothers / CNET News:
Intel: New graphics, ‘Core’ chips coming — Intel on Thursday previewed new Core processors and graphics technology that will become the pillar of its mainstream chip offerings. — As reported previously, Intel said it will roll out new Intel Core i processors on January 7 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Discussion:
MacRumors, internetnews.com, Engadget, Electronista, PC Magazine, eWeek, Mobile Whack, VentureBeat and Gizmodo Australia
Jim Goldman / CNBC.com:
RIM Soars, Stuns the Street — So much concern, so much talk about dealing with disappointment, and a perceived slowdown in Blackberry momentum amid so much media clamor about anything and everything Droid from Google and what does Research in Motion do? Blows everyone away, that's what.
Discussion:
Reuters, Agence France Presse, Electronista, Tech Trader Daily, CNET News, Silicon Alley Insider, Wall Street Journal and MarketWatch
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Watch The Buzz On Bitly.TV — With more than two billion links a month passed through its link shortening service, bit.ly can see what is some of the most buzzed about and shared content on the Web. Today, it is exposing the most popular videos people share through bit.ly on Bitly.TV …
Discussion:
bit.ly blog, Technology News, Bits, Silicon Alley Insider and ResourceShelf, Thanks:atul
Michael Cheng / The Official Google Blog:
Translate Google Sites with one click — Google brought translation features to many of our products in 2009, including Google Docs and Gmail and we're happy to add one more before the New Year. To make it easier for people around the globe to read the site you created with Google Sites …
Nat Ives / AdAge:
Kindle Rivals Cozying Up to Magazine, Newspaper Publishers — Que, Sony More Willing to Offer Subscriber Data, Revenue — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — The Kindle's popularity among consumers has let Amazon run roughshod over magazine and newspaper publishers, commanding as much as 70% …
Marc Flores / Boy Genius Report:
T-Mobile offering BOGO on all smartphones until December 20 — T-Mobile definitely has some tricks up its sleeve this holiday season as we just received word that retail stores are offering a buy-one-get-one free special for any smartphone. You heard us correctly: any smartphone.
Business Wire:
LaCie Partners with Symwave to Introduce World's First USB 3.0 Dual-Drive RAID Storage Solution — LaCie 2Big USB 3.0 delivers record speed with performance up to 275 MB/s — PORTLAND, Ore. & LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—LaCie, a leading provider of professional storage solutions …
Kevinthau / Twitter Blog:
What do Indonesia and Ireland have in common? — They both have carriers that launched Twitter's Text Messaging service today. We are excited to announce that our friends at 3 Indonesia and O2 Ireland have both made the Twitter SMS service available to their subscribers without any additional fees.
Nick Eaton / The Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft to pay $4.4M in Arizona settlement — Microsoft will pay more than $4.4 million to Arizona government agencies after settling an antitrust lawsuit in which the company was accused of overcharging for Office software and the MS/DOS operating system.
