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.
Discussion:
ReadWriteWeb, internetnews.com, Google Watch, Between the Lines, GigaOM, MediaMemo, Silicon Alley Insider, Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog, NBC Bay Area, Tom Foremski: IMHO, BayNewser, BuzzMachine, BIA/Kelsey Blog, Tech Trader Daily, Neowin.net, Pulse2, Mark Evans Tech, Understanding Google …, SFGate, Mobile Marketing Watch, The Register, Mihmorandum, Search Engine Land, Silicon Valley Watcher, Softpedia News, GMSV, VentureBeat, paidContent, Search Engine Roundtable, Electronista, Scobleizer, AndroidGuys, The Next Web Network and Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim
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Claire Cain Miller / New York Times:
Google Is in Talks to Buy Yelp — SAN FRANCISCO — In a sign that Google is interested in broadening its reach among local businesses, the search giant is in acquisition talks with Yelp, the review site for local businesses, according to three peoplewith knowledge of the deal.
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:
Between the Lines, One By One Media, CNET News, Damon Cortesi's Blog, Mashable!, GigaOM, Reuters, Gizmodo, Digits, Twitter Status, GMSV, Techland, Boy Genius Report, techPresident, Guardian, Switched, Gear Diary, DailyTech, dot.life, The Register, Twittercism, Appfrica, TechTicker, Fudzilla, PC World, CloudAve, The Huffington Post, SiliconIndia.com, eWeek, Donna's SecurityFlash, Download Squad, Pocket-lint.com and Silicon Alley Insider
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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.
Discussion:
Graham Cluley's blog, Bits, BBC, http://www.techsploder.com …, PC World, BayNewser, Threat Level, CNET News, Mashable!, Praetorian Prefect, CNN, Guardian, Associated Press, Softpedia News, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, CyberCrime & Doing Time, The Next Web Network, Telegraph, HeyJude, p2pnet, Gadgetell, VentureBeat and Security Watch
Tnkgrl / tnkgrl Mobile:
Exclusive: Google Nexus One hands on — I just played with the Google Nexus One for a few minutes, Here's my report: — It's extremely thin — It's much nicer looking in person than in pictures — There's a 4 GB micro-SD card installed — The battery capacity is 1400 mAh
Discussion:
SlashGear, Gadget Venue, jkOnTheRun, I4U News, GottaBeMobile.com, Geekword, The Next Web Network, Silicon Alley Insider, Mashable! and AndroidOS.in
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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.
Spencer E. Ante / Business Week:
Verizon Prepares for the iPhone — Verizon Wireless is buttressing its network in the event Apple drops AT&T as the exclusive carrier of its popular smartphone — There's no telling yet whether or when AT&T (T) might lose its position as the sole U.S. carrier of the Apple (AAPL) iPhone.
Discussion:
Between the Lines, Technologizer, Daring Fireball, Business Week, Electronista, iPhone Buzz, I4U News, Macsimum News and The Huffington Post
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Brainstorm Tech:
Where in the world are Apple's 78 million handsets? — Mostly in the U.S., but Japan, France, Australia and China are coming on fast, says AdMob — Click to enlarge. Source: AdMob — By the end of December, according to Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster, Apple's (AAPL) will have sold 78 million iPhones and iPod touches worldwide.
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Chris Davies / SlashGear:
Notion Ink Tegra Android smartpad uses Pixel Qi display — CES 2010 is likely to see a fair few internet tablets being announced, but SlashGear has heard about one particular model that has more than a little promise. Notion Ink's as-yet unnamed Android “smartpad” is based …
Jonny Evans / 9 to 5 Mac:
Apple iPhone is big, big, big in Japan — Apple is big - really big - in Japan, where the iPhone now accounts for 46.1 percent of the smartphone market, according to the latest data from Impress. — The company achieved sales accounting for almost half of the entire Japanese smartphone market across 2009, the analysts said.
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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 …
Discussion:
Washington Post, App Advice, mocoNews, The Next Web Network and 9 to 5 Mac, Thanks:beamadelica
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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 …
Phone Arena:
Verizon to get Palm Pre Plus, LG VS750, and Motorola Devour smartphones — Published on: Today by PhoneArena Team — Thanks to a few of our tipsters, we've learned what new smartphones are lurking to be released by Verizon Wireless over the next couple of months.
Discussion:
Engadget, Android Phone Fans, SlashGear, AndroidGuys, Softpedia News, EverythingPre, WMExperts, Android Central, I4U News and PreCentral.net
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:
Download Squad, Neowin.net, PMP Today, I4U News, The Equity Kicker, Boy Genius Report, Pocket-lint.com and Hardware 2.0
Sophie Hardach / Reuters:
French court rules against Google over book copying — A Paris court on Friday found U.S. Internet giant Google (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) guilty of violating copyright by digitising books and putting extracts online, following a legal challenge by major French publishers.
Discussion:
BBC, CNET News, Search Engine Land, Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, TeleRead and Silicon Alley Insider
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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”.
Discussion:
Search Engine Land, Silicon Alley Insider and Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Thanks:atul
Olga Kharif / Tech Beat:
Skype In “Conversations” With Avaya — Now that gearmaker Avaya and Web-calling service Skype share a private-equity owner, “we are having conversations with [Skype],” Avaya CEO Kevin Kennedy told us this morning. — While Kennedy wouldn't detail the conversations, it's not difficult …
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.
Steve / The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs:
Some last-minute thoughts — Obviously we will be following Operation Chokehold today and hope to bring you up-to-the-minute coverage of events as they are unfolding around the nation. To do that, we'll need your help. We need you to send in reports, updates, photos — whatever.
Discussion:
techblog.dallasnews.com
Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
Former Microsoft evangelist Don Dodge on Google vs. Microsoft (Q&A) — At Microsoft, Don Dodge was known as the software giant's ambassador to an at-times skeptical startup community. When he was laid off in November, TechCrunch's Michael Arrington declared, “This is a huge mistake,” …
Discussion:
Don Dodge on The Next …
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Microsoft begins testing new tech support forum staffed by paid ‘independent experts’ — Microsoft launched a pilot test program for an online tech-support forum that will be staffed by paid “independent experts.” — News of the pilot was first reported by Manan Kakkar …
Discussion:
I'm Just Being Manan
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Zynga's Mark Pincus Talks About Big Funding, “Offer Ad” Controversies and More! — Just days after selling $180 million in private stock to a group of investors, including Facebook funder Digital Sky Technologies of Russia, Zynga's Mark Pincus came to visit the BoomTown Worldwide HQ for a video interview.
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:
Engadget, jkOnTheRun, Softpedia News, Business Wire, Gizmodo, WebOS Arena, PhoneDog.com and Pocket-lint.com
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Facebook readies its Game Dashboard to organize your social gaming life — Facebook is in the midst of redesigning how users find, interact with, and keep track of games on the social network. Called the “Game Dashboard,” the new feature is Facebook's attempt to play nice with social game developers …
