Techmeme: Senator who opposes antipiracy bill under pressure? (Greg Sandoval/Media Maverick)

2:50 PM ET, January 19, 2011

Top Items:

Cold Water on the iPad 2 Retina Display Hype — Rumors are rampant that the upcoming iPad 2 will feature a higher-resolution retina display. Long story short: No, it won't. — The current iPad has a 1024 × 768 display; a double-resolution retina display iPad would have a 2048 × 1536 display.

Discussion: CNET News, IntoMobile, MacRumors, SAI, Electronista, MacStories, CrunchGear, SlashGear, Apple Gazette, ITProPortal, Pocket-lint and Apple Headlines

Avery Pennarun / apenwarr:

Moore's law and iPad-sized “retina displays” — Normally I don't bother to engage in Apple product speculation, but in this case, I have some actual knowledge (from a brief foray into working at a semiconductor company, some time ago) that might be interesting to share, and Apple is a good excuse.

Discussion: TiPb and MacStories

Richard Gaywood / TUAW: iPads and Retina Displays: Doing the math

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

In The Race To 10 Billion Downloads, Apple Uncovers The Top All-Time Apps — If you had to guess what the top downloaded iOS app of all time was, what would you say? You'll probably get it. It's an obvious one. It's Facebook. Number two is fairly easy too: Pandora.

Discussion: CNET News, SAI, Gizmodo, Appolicious Advisor, TiPb, msnbc.com, Inc.com, ITProPortal, The Next Web, TeleRead and SlashGear

Allen Stern / CenterNetworks:

LivingSocial Sells Over 550,000 Amazon Gift Cards in 12 Hours — Alright deal hunters of any level, here's a deal you will want to jump on asap. Group buying service LivingSocial is offering a nationwide deal on an Amazon gift card. The deal offers a $20 Amazon gift card for $10.

Discussion: LivingSocial Deals, BetaNews, VentureBeat, All Facebook, SAI, The Huffington Post, Communications …, USA Today, Geek.com and Mashable!

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
LivingSocial Deal Shows the Power of Amazon Partnership

Discussion: eMoney, TechFlash, TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, Lightspeed Venture …, Kindle Review and Black Web 2.0

Wall Street Journal:

Facebook Flop Riles Goldman Clients — It was supposed to be Wall Street's hottest tech deal in years: the private offering of as much as $1.5 billion in shares of Facebook Inc. And it was a coup for the company's adviser, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the most envied firm on the Street.

Discussion: Venture Capital Dispatch, Post Tech, DealBook, Guardian, Deal Journal and SAI

Thomas Ricker / Engadget:

HP / Palm tablet to feature Touchstone dock, cloud storage, Beats audio and Tap-to-Share smartphone integration — Now that the kitty's out of the gemstone bag, we're slowly starting to connect the dots that obscure the details of Palm's soon to be announced “Topaz” and “Opal” tablets.

Tricia Duryee / All Things Digital:

Nintendo's 3DS on Sale March 27 for $250, Boasting iPhone-Like Features — Nintendo announced the pricing and release date today for the 3DS, which it hopes will rejuvenate sales as its other hardware platforms start aging. — The 3DS will be available in the U.S. on March 27 for a competitively priced $249.99.

Discussion: Forbes, Digits, TechEye, Computerworld, BetaNews, Engadget, BGR, TechCrunch, Ars Technica, Show Me The Money, Fast Company, Guardian and GoNintendo

Andru Edwards / Gear Live:

Leaked: New ATT text messaging plans in preparation for Verizon iPhone — AT&T customers, get ready for new text messaging rates to go into effect starting next week. As the Verizon iPhone approaches, the company is looking to make their plans look a bit more attractive, and not so different from what Verizon will be offering.

Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac, MacRumors, Geek.com, Electronista, SlashGear and Gizmodo

Vlad Savov / Engadget:

Playboy Magazine coming to iPad in its uncensored form in March, including full back catalog — From its very first issue in 1953 to its latest incarnation, the full catalog of Playboy Magazine is coming to the iPad this March. And not only that, it'll be faithful to its original form by arriving to your Apple slate uncensored.

Kim-Mai Cutler / Inside Mobile Apps:

Word Lens More Than Pays for Two Years of Bootstrapping With Its Impressive Launch — It was an app two years in the making, but a blowout week more than made up for the time and money Otavio Good spent bootstrapping Word Lens — the first arguably useful augmented reality experience.

Cliff Edwards / Bloomberg:

Sony Said to Plan Networked Portable Game Player, Smartphones — Sony Corp. plans to unveil an updated PlayStation Portable handheld game device on Jan. 27, followed by a game-playing smartphone in February, according to two people with knowledge of the plans.

Macworld:

Apple COO Tim Cook on Android, Verizon, and more — On Tuesday Apple COO Tim Cook answered questions from analysts following the release of Apple's report of record quarterly earnings. Here's an edited transcript of his responses to several of those questions, covering topics …

Discussion: Computerworld, eWeek, The Huffington Post, Engadget, The Atlantic Online, 9 to 5 Mac, MacStories and TechSpot

Ina Fried / All Things Digital:
Apple's Really Good Quarter Was Really, Really Good in China

Discussion: Digital Daily

Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:

Only 66% Use Twitter Profile Location Field as Intended, Says PARC Research Study — The first in-depth user research study on the usage of the “Location” field within Twitter profiles has just been published by the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). With a sample size of 32 million English language tweets …

Discussion: MediaMemo

Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft Blog:

Microsoft readies more West Coast retail stores — Microsoft is opening another brick-and-mortar retail store in California, company officials said today. — The new Microsoft store will be in Costa Mesa, Calif., at the South Coast Plaza Shopping Center, according to a tweet from the Microsoft consumer-products account on Twitter:

Discussion: The Next Web, WinRumors and Electronista

Katherine Boehret / Wall Street Journal:

A New Social Network Where Inquiring Minds Run Wild — If brief communications like Twitter's 140-character messages, Facebook status updates and text messaging leave you longing for more substantial discourse, you may be in luck. This week, I took a look at Quora, a question-and-answer site …

Discussion: Social Business Blog, Brian Solis, Digits, Technology Review, Thomas Hawk Digital Connection, DailyFinance and Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check

Eric M. Zeman / Phone Scoop:

Samsung: We Are Not Charging Carriers for Android Updates — Samsung Mobile emailed Phone Scoop a brief statement to settle some of the rumors that have been flying about regarding the Android 2.2 update for its Galaxy S smartphones. One report suggested that the delay is being caused …

Discussion: Digital Trends, eWeek, Macworld, Android Community, IntoMobile, Examiner, Daring Fireball, ZDNet, DailyTech, Smartphones …, Apple Headlines, PhoneArena, Androinica, Softpedia News, TmoNews, Techie Buzz and PhoneNews.com

Brier Dudley / The Seattle Times:

Starbucks launches mobile payment network — The clever mobile payment system that Starbucks has been testing in a few stores in Seattle, New York and Silicon Valley is going national. — Starbucks is announcing that it has expanded the “pay by phone” program to 6,800 of its stores, plus more than 1,000 outlets inside Target stores.

Loic Le Meur / Telegraph:

Start-Up 100: Why I ditched Europe for Silicon Valley — Guest columnist Loic Le Meur explains why he chose to build his company on the West Coast — The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. … I left Europe because - to put it plainly - Silicon Valley kicks its butt.

Discussion: Loic Le Meur Blog and Silicon Valley Watcher, Thanks:loic

Greg Sandoval / Media Maverick:

Senator who opposes antipiracy bill under pressure? — Supporters of an antipiracy bill introduced into the Senate last year appear ready to put some pressure on one of the legislation's chief opponents. — Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, was instrumental in blocking …

Discussion: Mashable! and ZeroPaid.com

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

Zynga Becoming A Trademark Bully: Threatens Blingville For Daring To Use ‘ville’ — Zynga is really building up quite a reputation as a trademark bully lately. The company, which also has a reputation for copying everyone else, got into a legal fight last year after it copied the name …

Chris Davies / SlashGear:

Notion Ink Adam ships today — Notion Ink has announced that shipments of the Adam tablet will be going out from today, after reportedly clearing the FCC over the weekend. According to the company, as well as those pre-order customers who see January estimates in their shipping status …

Discussion: Notion Ink, I4U News, Techie Buzz, Engadget, Softpedia News and Go Rumors

Tarmo Virki / Reuters:

Firms to buy 10 million tablets in 2011: Deloitte — (Reuters) - Companies will buy more than 10 million tablet computers this year, consultancy Deloitte said on Tuesday supporting recent research from Gartner which sees the global market for Apple's iPad, rising to 55 million devices this year from 19.5 million in 2010.

Discussion: VentureBeat and The Equity Kicker

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