Top Items:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Twitter Hacked, Defaced By “Iranian Cyber Army” — We've received multiple tips right around 10 pm that Twitter was hacked and defaced with the message below. The site is currently offline. We're looking into this and waiting on a response from Twitter. — The message reads: — Iranian Cyber Army
Discussion:
Digits, Between the Lines, Twitter Status, The Register, Mashable!, Guardian, dot.life, PC World, Damon Cortesi's Blog, Boy Genius Report, GigaOM, eWeek, Computerworld, CNET News, Appfrica, Twittercism, TechTicker, CloudAve, Fudzilla, SiliconIndia.com, Download Squad, Silicon Alley Insider, Gizmodo, Donna's SecurityFlash, Technologizer, Pocket-lint.com and UMBC ebiquity
RELATED:
Biz / Twitter Blog:
DNS Disruption — As we tweeted a bit ago, Twitter's DNS records were temporarily compromised tonight but have now been fixed. As some noticed, Twitter.com was redirected for a while but API and platform applications were working. We will update with more information and details once we've investigated more fully.
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.
Discussion:
The Register, Mark Evans Tech, New York Times, CNET News, GigaOM, Silicon Valley Watcher, Search Engine Land, Softpedia News, VentureBeat, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, The Next Web Network, paidContent, AndroidGuys, Silicon Alley Insider, Scobleizer, Gizmodo, bizjournals, Seeking Alpha and Lost Remote
Dieter Bohn / PreCentral.net:
Palm Confirms 1.3.5: Speed, Battery, App Limit all to be improved, Plus Investor Call Notes — Allowing for installation of more apps — Increased speed and responsiveness on the Palm Pixi — We're still listening in and hearing good things about what's coming.
Discussion:
Softpedia News, Business Wire, Gizmodo, PhoneDog.com, WebOS Arena, Pocket-lint.com and PalmAddicts
RELATED:
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) …
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Google's Nexus One lacks multitouch — Our buddy Tnkgrl just had a sit down with Google and HTC's lovedroid, the Nexus One. She “wasn't allowed” to take pictures or video but she came away with plenty of detail. The biggest point of clarification might not be what's included in the handset, but what's missing: multitouch.
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.
Discussion:
PC World, Technology Liberation Front, internetnews.com, The Register, VentureBeat and WebProNews
Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
DRM Fiasco Ruins James Cameron's Avatar 3D Preview — ‘Avatar’ from Titanic director James Cameron is certainly the most anticipated film of the year. — Set on a moon under siege by humans determined to exploit its resources, this science fiction epic has been in the planning for many years …
Discussion:
Techdirt
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.
Stuart Dredge / Music Ally:
Rdio makes its debut... as an iPhone app — Rdio is set to be one of the more intriguing music startups of 2010 - it's a streaming subscription service set up by Skype/Kazaa founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom. It's still in stealth mode, but has today launched an iPhone app …
Philipp Lenssen / Google Blogoscoped:
Google Guru? — Chris writes in to say he's spotted a new service on his Google account services page: “Google Guru”, which points towards guru.google.com/guru/ ... which is non-existent at the moment. The account page reads, “Guru ... Ask questions and get answers from online users”.
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 …
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.
Aaron / The EtherPad Blog:
EtherPad Open Source Release — As promised, we hereby release all the source code to EtherPad. — http://code.google.com/p/etherpad/ — Our goal with this release is to let the world run their own etherpad servers so that the functionality can live on even after we shut down etherpad.com.
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.
Discussion:
GSMArena Blog, Electronista, MobileCrunch, Pocket-lint.com, SlipperyBrick.com and Gizmodo
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
More on PastryKit — A bit more regarding PastryKit, Apple's web framework for creating iPhone web apps with a look and feel very close to that of native iPhone apps. — Apple's Various JavaScript Frameworks — Jonathan “Wolf” Rentzsch posted this terrific overview of the known JavaScript frameworks …
Discussion:
rentzsch.tumblr.com
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 …
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:
PC World, The Microsoft Blog, internetnews.com, Agence France Presse, Ars Technica, eWeek, TechFlash and Seattle Times
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 …
Peter Burrows / BusinessWeek:
Apple Will Let Google Continue Using Lala — Amid all the talk of the expanding conflict between Google and Apple, comes a small bit of cooperation. It involves Lala Media, the music streaming company Apple bought on Dec. 6—reportedly snatching it away from Google's M&A mavens with an $85 million bid.
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.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Groupon Valued At $250 million — Multiple sources tell us that Groupon, the surging Chicago-based startup, was valued at $250 million when they closed their recent $30 million venture round with Accel Partners and previous investors. In that post we wrote that “the company is going gangbusters …
Discussion:
Widgets Lab
Michael Calore / Webmonkey:
Google: Mobile Gmail Exemplifies HTML5's Power — Over the last few months, Google has been busy optimizing its free Gmail service for mobile phones. — In a post on the Google Mobile blog, the Gmail team highlights the various optimizations it has steadily been building into the mobile version of the webmail site.
Discussion:
Google Mobile Blog
Associated Press:
Hackers Steal SKorean-US Military Secrets — text sizeAAA — South Korea's military said Friday it was investigating a hacking attack that netted secret defense plans with the United States and may have been carried out by North Korea. — The suspected hacking occurred late last month …
Discussion:
Agence France Presse
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.
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.
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 …
Nik Fletcher / Download Squad:
Palm unveils “Project Ares” webOS developer tool — Ever since Palm announced its webOS system earlier in the year, the company has been continually working out its approach for application development for the device. With the App Catalog in beta for customer use, and the Mojo SDK available …
Discussion:
Palm Developer Network Blog, Engadget, Gizmodo, IntoMobile, The eBook Test, PhoneNews.com, InfoWorld, techno.blog, PreCentral.net, Electronista and Phone Scoop
