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 …
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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:
Bloomberg, L.A. Times Tech Blog, TechCrunch, Softpedia News, eMoney, MediaPost, PE Hub Blog, Venture Capital Dispatch, Examiner, VatorNews, NBC Bay Area, PC Magazine, VentureBeat, ReadWriteWeb, CNET News, DealBook, Fortune, Screenwerk and SAI
Morgan / P Morgan Brown:
Why Groupon Needs $950 Million More … The blogosphere is abuzz over tech-darling Groupon's proposed $950 million Series G round. Many people have asked “Why do they need all that money?” And while expansion is the obvious answer, it's a bit more nuanced than that.
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 …
Rebecca Kuo / DigiTimes:
LG Display ships 1.5 million iPad panels in November, Samsung ships 1.2 million units — Shipments of 9.7-inch iPad panels from LG Display reached 1.5 million units in November 2010, and fellow supplier Samsung Electronics' shipments reached 1.2 million units for the month.
Discussion:
SAI, 9 to 5 Mac and SlashGear
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Hilzfuld / Mobile and Social Media:
Peter Vesterbacka, Maker of Angry Birds Talks about the Birds, Apple, Android, Nokia, and Palm/HP — There are many speculations regarding the cause of the recent global economic recession, but we all know the truth. It was the Angry Birds and their affect on the productivity of the work force.
Discussion:
SAI, MacStories, Android Community, 9 to 5 Mac, Neowin.net, PhoneArena, AppleInsider, IntoMobile and Softpedia News, Thanks:hilzfuld
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.
Discussion:
Fortune, PC World, FOSS Patents, The Register, Wall Street Journal, Electronista, AppleInsider, TechFlash, Search Engine Land, Googling Google Blog and Mobilized
Threat Level:
Putting the Record Straight on the Lamo-Manning Chat Logs — Editor's note: This is a two-part article, in which Wired.com editor-in-chief Evan Hansen and senior editor Kevin Poulsen respond separately to criticisms of the site's Wikileaks coverage. — The Case for Privacy
Discussion:
TechEye, p2pnet, GMSV, WL Central and Boing Boing, more at Mediagazer »
T-Marco / Cell Phone Signal:
Exclusive : This is the new Motorola Cliq 2 , another Android phone for T-Mobile — Yes guys, we did it again. After showing you the first exclusive pictures of the new Dell Streak 7, now we are giving you one present for this 2011. We introduce you the new and better Motorola Cliq 2 aka Begonia.
Discussion:
pocketnow.com, MobileCrunch, Android Community, TmoNews, IntoMobile, Pocket-lint, Android and Me, BlogsDNA, PhoneArena, MobileBurn.com, Engadget and Electricpig.co.uk
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:
San Francisco Chronicle and All About Symbian
Don Reisinger / The Digital Home:
Netflix said to be planning 2011 international push — After expanding its streaming service into Canada, it seems Netflix is looking elsewhere internationally to build its business. — Speaking to the CBC last week, Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey said the company is “talking about other regions in the world.”
Discussion:
Adweek, Download Squad, SlashGear, Softpedia News, ReadWriteWeb, Shelly Palmer Digital Living and Tech Trader Daily
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Q: What Does Quora Mean For The Future Of Blogging? A: Business As Usual — As many of you have noticed, we (and by “we”, I mainly mean “me") have been using Quora a lot as a source of inspiration for story ideas. Some people seem to think this is a great idea.
Discussion:
Elias Bizannes, Wap Review, TeleRead and Stay N' Alive, more at Mediagazer », Thanks:alexia
Lars Rabbe / Skype Blogs:
CIO update: Post-mortem on the Skype outage — As a follow-up to last week's outage, here is a detailed explanation of what transpired, the root cause, and plans to mitigate this from happening again in the future. For starters, it helps to understand that Skype is based on a peer-to-peer (P2P) network, which is explained here.
Discussion:
TechCrunch and The Next Web
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.
Peter Lattman / DealBook:
Share Rules Could Push Offering by Facebook — Facebook likes big numbers — it now has more than 500 million users, each one of whom can have as many as 5,000 friends. Yet as a privately held company, its ownership base must remain small, or it will have to disclose publicly its financial results.
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Patton Oswalt / Wired:
Wake Up, Geek Culture. Time to Die — I'm not a nerd. I used to be one, back 30 years ago when nerd meant something. I entered the '80s immersed, variously, in science fiction, Dungeons & Dragons, and Stephen King. Except for the multiple-player aspect of D&D, these pursuits were not …
Tim Hornyak / Crave: The gadget blog:
Korean schools welcome more robot teachers — Teacher's pet? An Engkey robot educates kids in Korea — If you thought your English teacher was a robotic bore, spare a thought for kids in South Korea. They're being taught by real robots. — The city of Daegu introduced 29 robot teachers …
Discussion:
PhysOrg.com, joongangdaily.joins.com, Engadget and AOL News
Serkan Toto / MobileCrunch:
Report: Playstation Phone Is Based On the PSPgo, Will Go On Sale This Spring — We've spent quite a few posts on Sony's Playstation Phone in the last few months, and today the Asahi Shimbun (one of Japan's biggest newspapers) is reporting [JP] that the device will be released in spring next year.
Shayndi Raice / Wall Street Journal:
Fiber-Optic Networks Regain Some Glow — Data Traffic Turns Regional Operators Into Buyout Targets — After the telecom bubble burst a decade ago, fiber was a dirty word. — Now, the fiber-optic network business is enjoying a resurgence, particularly for metro fiber …
Discussion:
Data Center Knowledge and Tech Trader Daily
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:
Softpedia News, The Next Web and All Facebook
Reuters:
Clooney, Google, U.N. watch Sudan using satellites — NEW YORK (Reuters) - Groups including the United Nations, Harvard University, Google Inc and an organization co-founded by actor George Clooney are launching a project using satellites to “watch” Sudan for war crimes before a vote that could split the African country in two.
Discussion:
Associated Press, Time and Boston Globe
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 …
