Techmeme: Patents and innovation — The tech world has recently seen … (Kent Walker/The Official Google Blog)

5:45 PM ET, April 4, 2011

Top Items:

Patents and innovation — The tech world has recently seen an explosion in patent litigation, often involving low-quality software patents, which threatens to stifle innovation. Some of these lawsuits have been filed by people or companies that have never actually created anything …

Todd Bishop / GeekWire:

Google bids $900M for Nortel patents, but Microsoft already has them in the bag — [Post updated at 1:45 p.m. with clarification of Microsoft's rights to these patents under a previous licensing deal with Nortel.] — An executive with bankrupt Nortel Networks calls its intellectual property holdings …

Discussion: Market Wire, BGR, All about Microsoft Blog, TechNet Blogs, Financial Post and silicontap.com

Larry Dignan / Between the Lines Blog:
Google bids $900 million for 6,000 Nortel telecom patents

Discussion: Daring Fireball and NBC Bay Area

Sarah Lacy / TechCrunch:

Milk: Kevin Rose's New Company Aims to Solve Big Problems on the Mobile Web — Well by Silicon Valley standards, that certainly wasn't a long “stealth” period. Just weeks after he quit Digg, Kevin Rose is announcing details of his new startup. Knowing Rose, I can tell why he's so excited to get started.

Discussion: PC Magazine, VentureBeat, NetworkEffect and Gear Live

Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:

Android is a mess, say developers — A new survey analyzes the pros and cons of writing for various mobile platforms — On the heels of the debate played out over the weekend between Union Square Ventures' Fred Wilson and Instapaper's Marco Arment about whether it's wiser to be writing apps for Apple's …

Discussion: SAI, Betabeat, Electronista, IntoMobile, Droid Life, CrunchGear, Ubergizmo, 9 to 5 Mac and GottaBeMobile, Thanks:hornokplease

Carolyn Penner / Twitter Blog:

Discover new accounts and search like a pro — We've made it easier to find and follow Twitter accounts based on your interests. When you search for a topic, you can now discover accounts that are relevant to that particular subject. (Previously, you would have seen accounts that have the specific term in their name or username. )

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, Search Engine Land, PC Magazine, Engadget, TechCrunch, techPresident, WebProNews and The Next Web

Zach Epstein / BGR:

AT&T confirms early upgrade price changes for iPhone 4, other smartphones — AT&T has confirmed to BGR that it has made changes to early upgrade pricing for its smartphones. The changes impact customers who wish to upgrade to a new smartphone but are not yet eligible for an upgrade at fully discounted two-year contract prices.

Neil Hughes / AppleInsider:
AT&T increases early upgrade prices for Apple's iPhones by $50

Discussion: Electronista, VentureBeat, Mobile Marketing Watch, O'Grady's PowerPage and 9 to 5 Mac

John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:

The MacBook Air: A $2.2 Billion-a-Year “Quasi-Tablet” — With all the chatter over the iPad 2, the iPhone 4 and its successor, it's easy to forget that Apple has another ultra-portable device that's doing quite well at market: the MacBook Air. — Nearly six months after it launched …

Discussion: AppleInsider, I4U News, MacNN, MacStories and TUAW

Jott Blog:

Jott service ending on May 3rd, 2011 — By now you probably know that we will no longer be offering the Jott service. We have included below the text of an email we sent to our active customers today. — We founded Jott in April of 2006. In the five years that have followed …

Discussion: Mobilized

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

Facebook For iPhone Gets Event Check-Ins, Maps, And Unfriending — A couple weeks ago, after All Facebook spotted the ability to check-in to Facebook events, the social network confirmed to us that the feature would be launching shortly on the iPhone and their mobile-based touch site. Today, here it is.

Discussion: GigaOM, Inside Mobile Apps, MacStories, 9 to 5 Mac, GottaBeMobile, TiPb, TUAW and everythingiCafe

Arik Hesseldahl / NewEnterprise:

Texas Instruments To Acquire National Semiconductor for $6.5 Billion — Two of the oldest names in the chip business are about to combine. About as long as I've known about electronics, I've known of the names Texas Instruments and National Semiconductor.

Discussion: PR Newswire, TechCrunch, Tech Trader Daily, DealBook, @howardlindzon, Electronista and silicontap.com

Christian Zibreg / 9 to 5 Mac:

After 201 days in review, Apple greenlights iPhone app that unmasks blocked calls (updated with video) — Apple's review process has gone a long way since the early days when every day would bring a new story about a controversial rejection. It's rare nowadays that an app would take longer …

Discussion: The Next Web, msnbc.com, Softpedia News, App Advice, iClarified and MacNN

Adam Satariano / Bloomberg:

Pandora Discloses Privacy-Related Grand Jury Probe of Apps — Pandora Media Inc., the Internet music service, said it had been served with a subpoena in connection with a grand jury probe that may be investigating the information-sharing processes of smartphone applications that run on Apple Inc. and Google Inc.'s Android platforms.

Discussion: BGR, Ars Technica, CNET News, L.A. Times Tech Blog, TechCrunch, paidContent, The Loop and Wall Street Journal

Georgina Prodhan / Reuters:

FT won't give up subscriber relationship to Apple — (Reuters) - The Financial Times wants to keep selling subscriptions for its digital news directly to readers rather than surrender control of new customers who sign up via Apple's iPad, the managing director of FT.com said.

Discussion: App Advice, Daring Fireball, Gizmodo, TUAW, MacStories, Electronista, thinq_, MacRumors and MobileBurn.com, more at Mediagazer »

Nicholas Carlson / The Business Insider:

EXCLUSIVE: Jonathan Rosenberg Resigns From Google — SVP of product management Jonathan Rosenberg just resigned from Google - on new CEO Larry Page's first day. — Rosenberg has been with Google since 2002. — Larry Page's focus is product. — A source tells us, “Google still has a lot …

Discussion: Mercury News

Greg Bensinger / Bloomberg:

Sprint Plans Tap-and-Go Payment Service This Year to Get a Jump on Rivals — Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) plans to start a service this year that will allow customers to make purchases with their mobile phones, ahead of a similar initiative from rivals Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc. (T) and T-Mobile USA.

Discussion: mocoNews, CNET News, MobileBurn.com, PhoneDog.com, Phone Scoop, ReadWriteWeb, Electronista and IntoMobile

Greg Kumparak / MobileCrunch:

10 Things That Simply Need To Be In iOS 5 — WWDC. It's like Christmas for OS X and iOS developers. Each year, they flock to San Francisco's Moscone Center, anxiously awaiting the pair of gifts that Apple annually bestows: the new iPhone, and a bundle of new features upon which they'll build their next big thing.

Discussion: Technologizer

Henry Blodget / The Wire:

IT'S OFFICIAL: AOL Fires Freelancers* — A couple of weeks ago, AOL threw its freelance journalists into purgatory: — They were supposed to sit tight and wait to hear from their editors on their roles in the post-merger Huffington Post Media Group. — The freelancers, naturally …

Discussion: Marketing Pilgrim, WebProNews and Guardian, more at Mediagazer »

Tom Warren / WinRumors:

Microsoft may announce Silverlight for Xbox next week … Microsoft may be preparing to announce plans to introduce Silverlight for the Xbox 360, WinRumors has learned. — The software giant looks set to detail its plans at the MIX11 conference next week in Las Vegas.

Discussion: Electronista and The Next Web, Thanks:tomwarren

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:

Myspace Bake-Off Starts Wednesday and-Despite Reports-No Bidder in Lead (and No Zynga Interest Either) — While no one inside or outside Myspace owner News Corp. expects fireworks and giant piles of money, the tire-kicking for the long-troubled social-networking-turned-entertainment site actually starts Wednesday.

Discussion: PC Magazine, MediaPost and Adotas

Thomas Ricker / Engadget:

Sony's Howard Stringer confirms Honeycomb tablet in US by summer — Ready for a taste of a sweet Honeycomb tablet with a Sony twist? You'd better be — Japan's Nikkei is quoting Sony chief executive, Sir Howard Stringer, saying that the company's first Android 3.0 tablet will be on sale by the end of summer.

Tricia Duryee / All Things Digital:

Zynga Appoints DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg to Board — Zynga is beefing up its board of directors by announcing today that it has added Jeffrey Katzenberg, the CEO and co-founder of DreamWorks Animation. — Katzenberg, who created the animation studio along with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen …

Discussion: L.A. Times Tech Blog, Digits, CNET News, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, SAI, DealBook, Inside Social Games, NBC Bay Area, Hollywood Reporter and @markpinc

Matthew Lasar / Ars Technica:

It could be worse: data caps around the world — Here at Ars we spend a lot of time writing about data caps—those ceilings on how much broadband data you can use before your ISP taps you on the shoulder and tells you it's time to pay more. Depending on where you live, these can range from “inconvenient” to “ruinous.”

Discussion: TechCrunch and msnbc.com

Christian Zibreg / 9 to 5 Mac:

iAd rival: Unofficial app store Cydia lands advertising deal with Toyota — Companies are keeping a close eye on the jailbreaking community as at least one big brand demonstrates willingness to advertise on Cydia, the unofficial store for unsanctioned third-party programs which can be installed on jailbroken iPhones, iPods and iPads.

Discussion: GigaOM, Daring Fireball, Fast Company, MarketingVOX, The Next Web and Phones Review

Christian Zibreg / 9 to 5 Mac:

Untethered iOS 4.3.1 jailbreak is out, supports all devices except iPad 2 and Verizon iPhone — Fans of jailbreaking have long known that Sundays are traditionally reserved for major iPhone jailbreaks. Following yesterday's tweet by a team member MuscleNerd, Dev-team released a set …

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