Top Items:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Groupon Closing $950 Million Round, Valued At $4.75 Billion — Lots of excitement today about Groupon's intention to raise a new monster round of financing, with speculation that the valuation of the still-young startup reaching nearly $8 billion. That speculation is only partially right …
RELATED:
Erin Griffith / VC Experts:
Groupon Raising Up to $950 million Series G — Fresh off the heels of Groupon's widely publicized Google rebuff, the discount e-commerce company has filed a certificate to authorize a $950 million Series G round of preferred stock. The certificate, which gives Groupon the capacity to raise $950 million, was filed on December 17.
Discussion:
Venture Capital Dispatch, TechCrunch, VatorNews, eMoney, DealBook, VentureBeat, ReadWriteWeb, NBC Bay Area, CNET News, Fortune, Mashable!, SAI and Screenwerk
Kellex / Droid Life:
Exclusive: 12 Photos of the HTC Thunderbolt on Verizon — Take a look at that beauty. Say hello to the HTC Thunderbolt, which will be the first 4G LTE device to land on Verizon after its unveiling next week at CES. As you can see, it really just looks exactly like the Desire HD …
Discussion:
Engadget, IntoMobile, PhoneDog.com, BGR, MobileCrunch, Electronista, PhoneArena, Android Phone Fans and Erictric
Kontra / counternotions:
The Unbearable Inevitability of Being Android, 1995 — According to soldiers of the Android Crusade, 2011 is the year Google will crush iOS to declare its inevitable suzerainty over mobile territories. — Let's meet this week's crusaders: Seth Weintraub (2011 will be the year Android explodes) …
Discussion:
Daring Fireball
Ionut Arghire / Softpedia News:
New Android Market Stats Out, Over 200k Apps Available — Google's Android operating system already attracted a lot of developers on its side, which came up with applications in excess of 200,000, the latest stats on the Android Market show. — Apple's App Store for the iPhone …
Discussion:
BGR, WebProNews, The Next Web, Electronista, Techie Buzz, IntoMobile, Examiner and Know Your Cell, Thanks:keithdsouza
Brooks Barnes / New York Times:
Disney Tackles Major Theme Park Problem: Lines — ORLANDO, Fla. — Deep in the bowels of Walt Disney World, inside an underground bunker called the Disney Operational Command Center, technicians know that you are standing in line and that you are most likely annoyed about it.
Discussion:
VatorNews, Newlaunches.com, Engadget, GMSV and Company Town
Brian X. Chen / Gadget Lab:
Apple Doesn't Want Coders Messing With iPhone Buttons — Sometimes — Apple can't stick to its own rules with the gigantic iOS App Store. — The company recently approved an iPhone camera app that carries a special feature: the ability to snap a photo by pressing the physical Volume button rather than tapping the touchscreen.
Discussion:
AppleInsider, Pulse2, The Apple Core Blog, App Advice, MacRumors, BlogsDNA, Technovia, MacNN and PC World
Dan Primack / Fortune:
SecondMarket: The SEC has not asked us for anything — The SEC “wants to learn more” about secondary stock trades in private companies like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Zynga, according to a report in today's New York Times. No specifics as to the inquiry's primary goal …
Joseph Tsai / DigiTimes:
Apple prepares three versions of iPad 2 for 2011, says sources — Apple is expected to release three versions of iPad 2, supporting either or a combination of Wi-Fi, UMTS and CDMA, for 2011 with mass production to start as early as the later half of January.
Discussion:
Digital Trends, Gadget Lab, Electronista, Macworld, PhoneDog.com, TechSpot, Gadgetell, IntoMobile, Fast Company, MacRumors, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Pulse2, LAPTOP Magazine, NBC Bay Area, TiPb, The Toybox Blog, VatorNews, Examiner, The Digital Home, Electricpig.co.uk, Geek.com, PadGadget, VentureBeat, The Apple Core Blog, WebProNews, Techland, MediaPost, Tech Trader Daily, eWeek, Erictric, GottaBeMobile, Mobile Knots, AppleInsider, BGR, Softpedia News, ITworld.com, The Next Web, CrunchGear, SAI, MacStories, SlashGear, AfterDawn.com, GeekSugar, Edible Apple, The Huffington Post, iClarified, Gearlog, everythingiCafe, The Loop, lalawag, Tech Report and 9 to 5 Mac
Donald Melanson / Engadget:
Researchers create ultra-fast ‘1,000 core’ processor, Intel also toys with the idea — We've already seen field programmable gate arrays (or FPGAs) used to create energy efficient supercomputers, but a team of researchers at the University of Glasgow led by Dr. Wim Vanderbauwhede now say that they have …
Discussion:
SlashGear
McAfee, Inc.:
McAfee Labs Predicts Geolocation, Mobile Devices and Apple Will Top the List of Targets for Emerging Threats in 2011 — McAfee Researchers Also Foresee Attackers Targeting Shortened URL Services and Internet TV Platforms; Increase in Politically Motivated Hacktivisim
Discussion:
SFGate, Macworld, The Social, L.A. Times Tech Blog, TechCrunch, Examiner, TUAW, WebProNews, Digital Trends, ReadWriteWeb, MarketingVOX and Pulse2
Zach Epstein / BGR:
BlackBerry PlayBook battery issues could delay launch, says analyst — According to Kaufman Brothers analyst Shaw Wu, RIM may be forced to delay the release of its first tablet computer, the BlackBerry PlayBook. Wu claims he is hearing that the PlayBook “needs to improve its relatively poor battery life …
Discussion:
Electronista, Digital Daily, Tech Musings, IntoMobile, GottaBeMobile, SlashGear, ITworld.com, PhoneDog.com, SAI, Tech Trader Daily, TiPb, MobileBurn.com, Examiner and AppleInsider
Michael Oliveira / Globe and Mail:
Canadians spend more time online than any other country — Canadians were curating their Facebook profiles long before the rest of the world got hooked, many were experimenting with the limitations of writing in 140-character snippets at Twitter's launch in 2006, and we watch online video more than any other web surfers.
Discussion:
All Facebook and The Next Web
Horace Dediu / asymco:
The parable of the the PDA: predicting the smartphone's future — When reading the comments disputing the possible end of the voice-phone era I'm reminded of similar comments disputing the end of the PDA era. — Although the Apple Newton pioneered the market in 1992 and John Sculley came …
Brier Dudley / The Seattle Times:
Paul Allen tries again with suit against Apple, Google, Facebook ... Mercer Island billionaire Paul Allen today renewed his effort to sue Apple, Google, Facebook, eBay, AOL and other companies for patent infringement. — Allen's case was rejected on Dec. 10 by a federal judge in Seattle who said it was too vague.
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
France Wants To Extend Private Copying Levy To Tablets... But Not If They Run Microsoft Windows — from the say-what-now? dept — Kurata points us to the news that French politicians are debating extending the “you must be a criminal” private copying levy to tablet computers — but …
Discussion:
SAI
Chester Wisniewski / Naked Security:
Mozilla accidentally publishes user IDs and passwords hashes — On Monday, Mozilla, the developer of popular open source applications like Firefox and Thunderbird, announced that a database containing usernames and password hashes belonging to users of addons.mozilla.org had been posted publicly by accident.
Greg Sandoval / Media Maverick:
ISP won't reveal names of alleged porn pirates — Time Warner Cable, one of the nation's largest Internet service providers, has refused to turn over customers accused in a lawsuit by Larry Flynt Publishing of pirating one of the company's porn films, according to Flynt's attorney.
Discussion:
Digital Trends, DSLreports, ZeroPaid.com, TechEye and TorrentFreak
Charles Hamilton / GigaOM:
Sleipnir Mobile and 360: Two New Web Browsers for iOS — Sleipnir Mobile and the 360 Browser have joined a growing group of alternatives to Mobile Safari, the web browser that comes with the iPhone and iPod touch. Tabs, data sync with Firefox, download management, and access …
Discussion:
App Advice and MacStories
Vlad Savov / Engadget:
ASUS teases Eee Pad and Eee Slate ahead of CES launch — Seems like all these CES vendors have wised up to the fact that announcing their new products amidst a maelstrom of new product announcements tends to be slightly counterproductive. So, naturally, they're spending their December carefully teasing out little pre-release details.
Discussion:
BGR, CrunchGear, SlashGear, Techinstyle.tv, Newlaunches.com, DailyTech, LAPTOP Magazine, Pocket-lint, The Toybox Blog, TechSpot, Mashable!, PhoneArena, Liliputing, Softpedia News, Gizmodo and Gadgetell
Vanessa Dennis / Online NewsHour:
Delete Older Facebook Apps — or Risk Everyone's Privacy — If you have a Facebook page, you've probably added quite a few apps. If you've linked your YouTube account, New York Times account, or just about any mobile app to your Facebook profile, you've also installed their app …
Discussion:
Switched, Help Net Security and All Facebook
Digital Chosunilbo:
Samsung to Unveil New Galaxy S at Mobile World Congress — The successor to Samsung Electronics' hit Galaxy S smartphone will be released in February. — Samsung announced Monday that it will unveil the device at the 2011 Mobile World Congress, the world's largest mobile communications exhibition …
Discussion:
Android Phone Fans, PhoneDog.com, Samsung Hub, MobileWhack.com, SlashGear, pocketnow.com, Mobile Knots, Softpedia News, PhoneArena and The Korea Times
Julian Lee / Sydney Morning Herald:
Groupon to enter Australia as daily deals sites explode — THE world's largest daily deals website, Groupon, which Google tried to buy this month for $US6 billion, has confirmed it is entering the Australian market. — The company is recruiting people to sign up to its email database …
Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
RapidShare Shows MPAA/RIAA: We Can Lobby Lawmakers Too — Last month RapidShare discovered that they had been reported by the MPAA and RIAA to the US Government for being one of the world's “most notorious pirate markets”. Now, on the heels of reports that the entertainment industries spent …
Discussion:
Deutsche Welle, ZeroPaid.com and Ars Technica
