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12:40 PM ET, December 1, 2010

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Nielsen Wire:
U.S. Smartphone Battle Heats Up: Which is the “Most Desired” Operating System?  —  According to October 2010 data from The Nielsen Company, 29.7 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers now own smartphones that run full operating systems.  —  The most popular smartphones are the Apple iPhone and RIM Blackberry …
RELATED:
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:
Nielsen: iPhone and Android are tied for ‘most-desired’ smartphones
Wall Street Journal:
Google Set to Launch E-Book Venture  —  Google Inc. is in the final stages of launching its long-awaited e-book retailing venture, Google Editions, a move that could shake up the way digital books are sold.  —  The long-delayed venture—Google executives had said they hoped to launch this summer …
RELATED:
Kit Eaton / Fast Company:
Google Editions Ebookstore Due Soon, Controversy (And Failure?)
Discussion: The Next Web
DealBook:
Google Gambit for Groupon Raises Concerns  —  Google's $6 billion bid for Groupon, an online coupon start-up, is an aggressive move by the company to dominate local online advertising and help with its long-sought move into social networking.  —  Google has offered Groupon $5.3 billion …
RELATED:
Wall Street Journal:
Google in Talks to Buy Groupon  —  Google Inc. is in talks to buy local deals site Groupon Inc., said people familiar with the matter, a move that would mark Google's biggest acquisition yet and a major push into local advertising.  —  The two sides weren't prepared to announce a deal as of Tuesday …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Bidding War For Twitter Raises Valuation To Nearly $4 Billion.  Kleiner Perkins Currently In Pole Position  —  Two weeks ago we reported that Twitter was mulling over raising a big new round of financing and the expected valuation was in the $3 billion range.  Things have developed since then, it seems.
Kat Hannaford / Gizmodo:
Motorola Olympus Found at Flea Market Poses For Hi-Res Photoshoot  —  Of course, we're never too sure that what our tipsters have told us is the truth, but this one claims he bought Motorola's unannounced new flagship at a market.  The very same Android that's leaked all over the place recently.
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Groupon Acquires Local Marketing Services Startup Ludic Labs, Expands Some More  —  Groupon is expanding its presence in Silicon Valley with a brand new office and the acquisition of San Mateo-based Ludic Labs, the local marketing services startup behind offerfoundry.com and diddit.com.
RELATED:
Melanie Lee / Reuters:
Groupon buys 3 discount sites, expands into Asia
Discussion: Fast Company and The Next Web
Andrew / Groublogpon:
Coming Soon: Groupon Stores and the Deal Feed  —  This summer, we launched personalization to bring you deals that better suit your interests.  We weren't about to stop there - today, we're giving you a sneak peak of some new stuff that will bring you even more deals you love: Groupon Stores and the Deal Feed.
RELATED:
Geoffrey A. Fowler / Digits:
Groupon Grows Beyond One Deal Per Day
Discussion: Telegraph and SAI
Vijay Sankaran / Nokia Siemens Networks Blog:
New iPhone OS supports our network technology to boost smartphone performance  —  With its latest iPhone iOs 4.2 software, it looks like Apple is joining efforts to cut smartphone signalling down to size.  Tests by Nokia Siemens Networks have shown that iPhone iOs 4.2 supports …
Wall Street Journal:
Race Is On to ‘Fingerprint’ Phones, PCs  —  IRVINE, Calif.—David Norris wants to collect the digital equivalent of fingerprints from every computer, cellphone and TV set-top box in the world.  —  He's off to a good start.  So far, Mr. Norris's start-up company, BlueCava Inc., has identified 200 million devices.
Christy Pettey / Gartner:
Gartner Reveals Top Predictions for IT Organizations and Users for 2011 and Beyond  —  Predictions Show Clear Linkage of IT Investments and Business Results Becoming an Imperative for IT Organizations  —    Gartner, Inc. has revealed its top predictions for IT organizations and users for 2011 and beyond.
George Ou / Digital Society:
Level 3 outbid Akamai on Netflix by reselling stolen bandwidth  —  Level 3 communications raised a lot of eyebrows earlier this month when it outbid rival Content Delivery Network (CDN) provider Akamai to deliver Netflix content to large parts of the United States.
RELATED:
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Feature: How Comcast became a toll-collecting, nuke-wielding hydra
J T. Ramsay / Comcast Voices:
How Internet Peering Works
David Lam / David Lam's Business & …:
RIM sues Kik for patent infringement  —  If you've been following BlackBerry news lately, you know that Kik Messenger was booted out of the Blackberry app store by RIM on Nov 12, for “breaching contractual obligations”.  —  Kik is an in instant messaging service, much like RIM's BlackBerry Messenger (BBM).
Royal Pingdom:
Mobile OS usage splits the world (chart)  —  Where do you think Apple's iPhone is the most popular?  Where does Nokia's Symbian phones dominate?  How is it going for Android in different parts of the world?  What about Blackberry?  —  We're going to answer all of those questions and more in this article …
Don Clark / Wall Street Journal:
IBM Claims Breakthrough in Laser-Based Chips  —  A race to transform computers with laser-based communications is accelerating, with International Business Machines Corp. the latest to claim breakthroughs in chips that send data at blazing speeds using pulses of light.
Ina Fried / Mobilized:
Verizon 4G Network to Launch Sunday  —  Verizon Wireless announced on Wednesday that it will launch its 4G network on Sunday in 38 markets across the United States.  —  The company had shared most of its plans ahead of time.  One of the unknowns, though, was what Verizon would charge for the service.
John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
Kindle Feels iPad's Heat, Sees E-Reader Lead Going Up in Smoke  —  When Apple CEO Steve Jobs first announced the company's new iBookstore and iBooks application for the iPad back in January, he said that while Amazon had done a great job with its Kindle e-book reader, Apple planned to “stand on their shoulders and go a little further.”
Rob Walker / Fast Company:
Inside the Wild, Wacky, Profitable World of Boing Boing  —  Happy Mutants: From left, Mark Frauenfelder, David Pescovitz, “band manager” John Battelle, Cory Doctorow, and Xeni Jardin |  It's eccentric.  It's unprofessional.  And it makes money.  How four people who do exactly what they want run …
Matt Brian / The Next Web:
BlackBerry Mobile Internet Use Overtakes Apple In US  —  Website analytics provider StatCounter has published a new report showing that for the first time since its starting collecting mobile internet data, RIM's BlackBerry OS overtook Apple's iOS in terms of mobile internet usage …
Robin Wauters / TechCrunchIT:
Cisco To Acquire Network Management Software Company LineSider  —  Cisco this morning said it intends to purchase LineSider Technologies, a privately-held network management software based out of Danvers, Massachusetts.  Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed …
Terry Walsh / We Got Served:
HP Pulls Out of the Windows Home Server Market, Leaves Vail Out in the Cold  —  HP today announced an immediate withdrawal from the Windows Home Server market.  —  In a briefing earlier this month, the company explained that the recent acquisition of Palm had led to a shift in business priorities across …
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
The Future Is Here: DoubleTwist Brings Wireless Sync To Android For Music, Photos & Video  —  Earlier today, Winamp released a new version of its Android application that allowed users to sync their music wirelessly with their Windows desktop (disclosure: Winamp and TechCrunch are both owned by AOL).
Liz Gannes / NetworkEffect:
Facebook Engineering Director Aditya Agarwal Departs  —  Facebook director of engineering and very early employee Aditya Agarwal is leaving the company after more than five years, he announced last night.  —  In a note published on his Facebook profile, Agarwal said:
 
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 More Items: 
Julius Genachowski / Reboot FCC Blog:
Preserving a Free and Open Internet
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Nearly Every Single Topic On Quora Now Has A Twitter Account
Discussion: Skeptic Geek
Julia Angwin / Digits:
A New Type of Tracking: Akamai's ‘Pixel-Free’ Technology
Matt Brian / The Next Web:
Microsoft reaches out to Windows Phone 7 jailbreak developers, unlocking tool pulled
 Earlier Items: 
Bing:
Bing Feature Update: Shop, compare and share on Facebook with new …
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Report: In-Game Purchases To Blow Mobile Games Revenues Past $11 Billion By 2015
Sui-Lee Wee / Reuters:
China arrests hundreds of hackers, says situation “grim”
Jack Purcher / Patently Apple:
Apple Wins Multiple Touch & MacBook Tablet Patents
Discussion: MacStories, TUAW and CrunchGear
Nick Bilton / Bits:
For Start-Ups, the Ultimate Goal: Becoming a Verb
Emre Peker / Bloomberg:
JPMorgan Gives Bankers IPads, Signaling Danger to RIM
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Alex Sherman / CNBC:
Analyzing Comcast's spinoff of cable networks, purposefully structured with low debt: the move might be a signal to the industry that it's time to consolidate

Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:
James Harding says the Tortoise-Observer deal could create a profitable media group and there isn't a guaranteed future for the Observer with the Guardian

Terry Gross / NPR:
Excerpts from a Q&A with Marty Baron and David Remnick on coming retribution against media: prosecutions for posting government leaks, public media cuts, more
 
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