Top Items:
Mike Isaac / Social Medium:
Facebook and Twitter Suspend Operation Payback Accounts — Apparently, Wikileaks has a posse. — Or rather, those who support the ideals behind Wikileaks, and the spreading of information. On Tuesday, my colleague Andy Greenberg reported on how the hacker group Operation:Payback …
RELATED:
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Why Wikileaks Will Never Be Closed Or Blocked — Last weekend, rather than read stories about the US diplomatic cables that Wikileaks has released, I decided to read them directly myself. In doing so, I better understood why no one — certainly not the US State Department — is going to shove those cables back into the darkness.
Discussion:
Technology Review, Associated Press, Gawker, Guardian, ReadWriteWeb, Washington Post, Mashable!, The Lede, CNET News, msnbc.com, Between the Lines Blog, Switched, Boing Boing, The Register, VentureBeat, Techland, Neowin.net, THINQ.co.uk, ITProPortal, The Huffington Post, TG Daily, Pulse2, New York Times, TechCrunch, Geek.com and Electronic Frontier Foundation
The PayPal Blog:
Updated Statement about WikiLeaks from PayPal General Counsel, John Muller
Discussion:
The Next Web, eMoney, The Register, Neowin.net and CrunchGear
Guardian:
WikiLeaks: Who are the hackers behind Operation Payback?
Discussion:
New York Times, The Economist, BBC, New York Times, Fast Company, Netcraft, VatorNews, SocialTimes.com, Examiner, DailyTech, The Lede, Telegraph, Naked Security, GigaOM, CNET News, Boing Boing, Switched, THINQ.co.uk, SAI, Matt McAlister, News: News blog, Neowin.net and Bloomberg
Brian Crecente / Kotaku:
Apple Loses Its iPhone Game Guru — The man in charge of making sure that Apple's popular portable devices play games well is no longer with the tech titan. — Graeme Devine joined Apple's iPhone Game Technologies division last year. Devine tells Kotaku that his last day at the company was Friday.
Discussion:
Macworld, Mashable!, Neowin.net, IntoMobile, Touch Arcade, SelectStart, VentureBeat, paidContent, AppleInsider and Joystiq
Jay Yarow / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:
Google Adsense Creator Lands $25 Million Round From Andreessen Horowitz, Index For New Startup, Factual — Andreessen Horowitz and Index Ventures have co-led a $25 million round in Factual, a data startup. — Factual is founded by Gil Elbaz, who is the co-founder of Applied Semantics …
Discussion:
GigaOM, VentureBeat, TechCrunch and Pulse2
Seth Weintraub / Fortune:
Andy Rubin: Google activates 300,000 phones every day — Google may now be the biggest smartphone vendor on earth. — Andy Rubin just Tweeted that Google (GOOG) is activating 300,000 phones a day. That passes Apple's (AAPL) iOS, that passes Blackberry (RIMM). That even matches any figures that Symbian has ever put up.
Discussion:
9 to 5 Mac, Erictric, Mobilized, Mashable!, Techie Buzz, SAI, Daring Fireball, GeekSmack, The Next Web, LaptopMemo, Pulse2 and Android and Me, Thanks:markgurman
Jonathan S. Geller / BGR:
BlackBerry PlayBook hands-on video demo — We promised a hands on demo video of the BlackBerry PlayBook, and that's what you're going to get from us — almost 10 minutes of 1080p joy. As we said previously, we were pretty impressed seeing the PlayBook demo'd in person right in front of us, and well, we could go on for days.
Carolyn Penner / Twitter Blog:
To Trend or Not to Trend... Since Twitter first introduced the Trends feature in the summer of 2008, one frequently asked question has been “Why isn't X trending?” This question has come up around a variety of subjects, from #justinbieber and #adamlambert to #flotilla, #iranelection and #demo2010.
Discussion:
SelectStart, Guardian, VentureBeat, Social Medium, The Next Web and SAI, more at Mediagazer »
Daniel Bates / Daily Mail:
Twins who accused Mark Zuckerberg of stealing idea for Facebook launch ANOTHER lawsuit against him — The twins who have accused Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg of stealing the idea for the world-conquering website from them have re-started their bitter legal battle against him.
Discussion:
The Atlantic Online and Switched
Rose Yao / Facebook Blog:
More Control on Mobile — Over 200 million people use Facebook on their mobile phones to share photos, access applications and stay connected with friends. In October, we added a dashboard to give you a way to clearly see and control the ways applications use your information.
Discussion:
All Facebook, SAI, IntoMobile, Inside Facebook, SiliconANGLE, Covering Web, TechCrunch, PC Magazine, Social Medium, The Next Web, eWeek, L.A. Times Tech Blog, WebProNews and Download Squad
Jonathan S. Geller / BGR:
Best Buy Mobile offering iPhone 3GS for free on December 10th — We just received a tip from a Best Buy ninja of ours, and well, it seems that Radio Shack isn't the only game in town in you're looking for an Apple iPhone. Best Buy will be offering up Apple's iPhone 3GS for free for one day only, this Friday the 10th.
Discussion:
Erictric, SlashPhone, IntoMobile, Electronista, Gizmodo and The Next Web
Nicholas Carlson / SAI:
Why Groupon Said No To Google's $6 Billion — Each and every Groupon board member stood to gain millions, hundreds of millions, or even more than a billion dollars by accepting Google's $6 billion offer to acquire the company. — Groupon cofounders Brad Keywell and Eric Lefkofsky might …
Discussion:
Tech Trader Daily
Jim Dalrymple / The Loop:
Mac App Store launching in January 2011 — Despite published reports to the contrary, Apple's Mac App Store will launch in January 2011. — Reports earlier this week claimed Apple would launch the Mac App Store on December 13, ahead of the holiday shopping season.
Discussion:
AppleInsider, MacRumors, The Next Web, 9 to 5 Mac, MacStories, TUAW, Gizmodo and everythingiCafe
Tom Warren / WinRumors:
New Windows 8 user interface codenamed ‘Wind’? — Windows 8 will have two separate interfaces according to recent rumors. — Italian based windows8italia reports that Microsoft's next-generation Windows operating system will be 32-bit and 64-bit with two separate interfaces.
Discussion:
The Next Web, Thanks:nstalnecker
Mike Isaac / Social Medium:
Facebook CEO Zuckerberg Agrees to Donate Fortune to Charities — Well, if Mark Zuckerberg's image wasn't already bolstered enough by his recent appearance on 60 Minutes, today's announcement might help polish it a bit more. — Zuckerberg is one of 17 of the latest billionaires to sign the Giving Pledge …
Discussion:
SAI, Wall Street Journal and The Next Web, Thanks:mj_isaac
Pew Internet:
8% of online Americans use Twitter — This is the first-ever survey reading from the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project that exclusively examines Twitter users. In previous surveys, the Project had asked internet users whether they “used Twitter or another service …
Discussion:
digiphile, L.A. Times Tech Blog, IBD Click, SFGate, ReadWriteWeb, The Next Web and Hillicon Valley
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
Truly Decentralized BitTorrent Downloading Has Finally Arrived — BitTorrent is a great technology to share files both quickly and efficiently, but like all other P2P-technologies it has an Achilles' heel. The download process relies in part on central servers that can crash or go offline for a variety of reasons.
Lauren A. E. Schuker / Wall Street Journal:
Movies at Home, for $20,000 — A proposed service aims to bring movies to homes the same day they hit theaters, a milestone that Hollywood has long anticipated with a mixture of fear and fascination. — But there's a catch: At the prices currently being discussed by Prima Cinema Inc. …
Discussion:
Engadget, BloggingStocks, Gizmodo Australia, Reuters, I4U News, Gizmodo, Techland, virtualeconomics, Company Town, Tech Report and CrunchGear, more at Mediagazer »
Electronista:
AMD, Intel, PC builders plan to drop VGA by 2015 — AMD, Dell, Intel, Lenovo, Samsung and LG on Wednesday said they plan on focusing on putting digital DisplayPort and HDMI connections into their computer products. They hope to drop analog VGA and LVDS connections in AMD- and Intel-based products by 2015, the chipmakers said.
Discussion:
Geek.com, Softpedia News and GottaBeMobile
Kevin May / Tnooz:
Google Places blocked from using TripAdvisor reviews — Now here is an interesting development - Google is no longer able to stream in reviews from TripAdvisor to Places pages after the user review giant blocked it. — TripAdvisor confirmed the move today in an email …
Discussion:
Search Engine Roundtable and Understanding Google …
Josh Ong / AppleInsider:
Apple rolling out 90-second iTunes song previews — Apple has begun extending song previews in the iTunes Store to 90 seconds on select songs in the U.S. store. — Some songs on iTunes now offer 90-second previews for users of the U.S. iTunes Music Store.
Discussion:
MacRumors, TUAW, 9 to 5 Mac and The Next Web
Bill Rigby / Reuters:
Google says shut out of USDA cloud computing deal — (Reuters) - Google Inc didn't get the chance to compete for the largest federal government “cloud computing” deal yet announced, according to the Web firm, adding to its concerns that government agencies are unfairly favoring rival Microsoft Corp.
Discussion:
WinRumors
The Smoking Gun:
Porn Site Gave Federal Agents Free Rein — Investigators secretly monitored Free6.com users for 16 months … The operators of a notorious pornography web site granted federal agents administrative access to the site, giving investigators the ability to monitor traffic and public …
Discussion:
The Not-So Private Parts
Eric Engleman / TechFlash:
Intellectual Ventures sues nine tech firms for patent infringement — Intellectual Ventures, a Bellevue, Wash.-based firm that's amassed a huge trove of technology patents over the years, has sued nine technology companies for patent infringement. It's the first time Intellectual Ventures …
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, Bits, Patent Law Blog, Intellectual Ventures Home, paidContent, CNET News, The Seattle Times, VentureBeat, Pulse2, Techdirt, The Microsoft Blog and Voices on All Things Digital, Thanks:johnhcook
DigiTimes:
Inventec ships 60,000 Chrome OS netbooks to Google — Alongside Google's announcement of its new Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) operating system as well as Chrome OS on December 7, Inventec confirmed that it has already shipped about 60,000 Chrome OS-based netbooks to Google, which are expected to be used for testing.
Discussion:
Engadget, InformationWeek, PC Magazine, Liliputing, Fortune, SlashGear, Pulse2, The Toybox Blog, GottaBeMobile, GigaOM, CrunchGear, Appolicious Advisor, Softpedia News, LaptopMemo and Googling Google Blog, Thanks:michaelkroker
RELATED:
Om Malik / GigaOM:
The Network Computer Arrives...Finally!
Discussion:
eWeek, Forbes, MediaPost, WebProNews, Ars Technica, Engadget, OStatic blogs, VentureBeat and Venture Capital Dispatch, Thanks:ryanlawler
