Top Items:
Nicholas Carlson / Business Insider:
Facebook Employees Go Nuts As Zuckerberg Tells Them The IPO Is Coming — A source close to Facebook employees emailed us yesterday to say that the rumor flitting from employee to employee is that “a Facebook S1 filing is coming really soon. Possibly as soon as next month.”
Discussion:
CNET News, Friending Facebook Blog, ITworld.com, Dice Blog Network and WebProNews
RELATED:
Eric Eldon / TechCrunch:
Facebook's IPO Motive: Keeping Employees, Not Compliance — Many people have believed that Facebook's initial public offering is due in 2012 since the company announced its giant funding round from Goldman Sachs at the start of this year. At that point, the company said in a press release that it …
Discussion:
All Facebook
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Getting Steve Jobs Wrong — Exhibit A in the case against Walter Isaacson's flawed Jobs biography: Malcolm Gladwell in last week's New Yorker, arguing that Jobs was “a tweaker”: … Jobs was neither. These men make for a poor comparison to Jobs because Jobs didn't really “invent” …
Discussion:
parislemon and Business Insider
Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:
Motorola fairly likely to win German patent injunction against iCloud in February — Apple demands 2 billion euro ($2.7B) bail — The German city of Mannheim is slowly but surely giving Cupertino some serious headache. — After a default judgment against Apple Inc. over two patents …
Discussion:
LAPTOP Magazine, AllThingsD, MacRumors, AppleInsider, GigaOM, RazorianFly, PhoneArena, 9to5Google, Gizmodo and SlashGear
RELATED:
Ingrid Lunden / mocoNews:
Rain Falls On iCloud? Apple Could Lose Motorola Case To The Tune Of $2.7B
Discussion:
BGR, Bloomberg, Electronista, Business Insider and iClarified
Duncan Geere / Wired.com:
200+ Labels Withdraw Their Music From Spotify: Are Its Fortunes Unravelling? — Following a study that claims that streaming music is damaging to record sales, a distributor representing more than 200 labels has withdrawn its entire catalogue from Spotify, Napster, Simfy and Rdio.
Discussion:
Washington Post, SplatF, Music Ally, Kudos Distribution, Between the Lines Blog, @nytimesbits, GigaOM, thinq_ and The Verge
Frederic Lardinois / SiliconFilter:
Google's JPEG Alternative WebP Gets Smarter, Takes on PNG — Last year, Google introduced a new image format for the web called WebP. WebP is meant to be a modern alternative to the popular but patent-encumbered JPEG standard. It produces significantly smaller files without sacrificing image quality.
Discussion:
Chromium Blog, ReadWriteWeb, Google Operating System, Slashdot, Electronista, Softpedia News and 1001 Noisy Cameras
Jordan Golson / MacRumors:
AT&T Raises Subsidized iPhone 3GS Price to $0.99 — In a curious move, AT&T has raised the subsidized price of its cheapest iPhone to $0.99, up from free. — When the iPhone 4S was announced in October, Apple specifically mentioned in its press release that the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS …
Discussion:
CNET News, @cnetnews, iDownloadBlog.com, Neowin.net, RazorianFly and Electronista
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
March Launch for Slightly Thicker iPad 3? iPhone with 4-Inch Screen in Summer? — iLounge offers a series of tidbits from its “most reliable source” regarding Apple's product plans for 2012, reporting that the iPad, iPhone, and MacBook Pro will all be receiving redesigns.
Discussion:
CNET News, iLounge, TechCrunch, MobileWhack.com, Business Insider, Redmond Pie, iPhone Savior, everythingiCafe, 9to5Mac, GottaBeMobile, Geek.com, MacDailyNews, Electronista and iClarified
Douglas MacMillan / Business Week:
Why Image-Sharing Network Pinterest Is Hot — Fast-growing Pinterest is a site for visually inclined collectors, and some retailers are using it to reach customers — From left, founders Paul Sciarra, Ben Silbermann, and Evan Sharp — Mathew Scott for Bloomberg Businessweek
Sarah Lacy / TechCrunch:
The Rumors Are True. I Am Leaving TechCrunch. — This won't come as a surprise to a lot of people, but I am leaving TechCrunch. — My departure is something people have speculated about since Michael Arrington's ouster two months ago, but it wasn't an easy decision for me.
Discussion:
@karaswisher, om.co, @danprimack and @alexia
Jolie O'Dell / VentureBeat:
Google co-founder Sergey Brin gives $500,000 to help Wikipedia — The Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, has just received a $500,000 grant from the Brin Wojcicki Foundation, an organization started by Google co-founder Sergey Brin and his wife, 23andMe co-founder Anne Wojcicki.
Discussion:
Wikimedia Foundation, AllThingsD, ReadWriteWeb, Mercury News, Ars Technica, Business Insider and The Register
Barry Collins / PC Pro:
Up to 50 Ultrabooks “to be launched at CES” — As many as 50 Intel Ultrabooks will be launched at next January's CES, according to the show's organisers. — Speaking at a CES Unveiled event in London, Shawn DuBravac, director of research for show organisers the Consumer Electronics Association …
Discussion:
Geek.com, The Verge, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, netbooknews.com, Neowin.net, Mashable!, AllThingsD, Ubergizmo, Computerworld, Liliputing, Electronista, Softpedia News and Gizmodo
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Financial Times Hits 1M Users On HTML5 Site That Dodges Apple's Tax — The newspaper industry is struggling to make ends meet. Mobile could be the solution, but the Apple App Store comes with a 30% tax on the subscriptions that established news outlets depend on.
Discussion:
MediaPost, Financial Times, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, paidContent:UK and Poynter, more at Mediagazer »
Christian Zibreg / 9to5Google:
Google patents Android pattern unlock — One of the treats that immediately set apart the first version of Android from Apple's iOS software (besides the notification center invoked with a pulldown gesture) is the pattern unlock feature on the lock screen. Whereas Apple opted for a slide gesture …
Discussion:
Examiner, Mashable!, MobileSyrup.com, TechCrunch, Android Phone Fans, AndroidGuys, IntoMobile, AndroidOS.in, Pocketables, Electronista and Gizmodo, Thanks:jordankahn
Zach Epstein / BGR:
iPhone 4S carrier showdown: AT&T fastest, Verizon most reliable — Apple's iPhone 4S became the fastest-selling smartphone of all time when it launched last month. It also finally arrived on Sprint's network, making it available from three of the four top wireless carriers in the United States.
Ben Fritz / Company Town:
Starz planning new digital strategy as Netflix deal ends — With 21.5 million Netflix streaming subscribers set to lose access to Starz's movies and television shows in February, the premium cable channel is planning a big digital push of its own in 2012. — Starz President Chris Albrecht …
Discussion:
Zatz Not Funny! and The Verge
Zach Epstein / BGR:
Messaging apps, VoIP already eating into carrier revenues, study finds — A new breed of messaging services and mobile Voice over IP clients like Skype are already eating into carrier revenues according to a new study. Commissioned by mobile infrastructure solutions provider Mavenir Systems …
Discussion:
The Next Web and Slashdot
Drew Olanoff / The Next Web:
Netflix to resurrect Arrested Development in 2013 as part of content play — In a serious content play, Netflix has announced that it is bringing the wildly popular show Arrested Development back exclusively on its platform. — Ted Sarandos, Netflix Chief Content Officer said this about the news:
Discussion:
Variety, VentureBeat, TechCrunch and The Verge
Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post:
Foreign hackers targeted U.S. water plant in apparent malicious cyber attack, expert says — Foreign hackers broke into a water plant control system in Illinois last week and damaged a water pump in what appears to be the first reported case of a malicious cyber attack damaging …
Joanna Stern / The Verge:
Nook Tablet review — DOES THE NOOK TABLET HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO EXTINGUISH THE KINDLE FIRE? — Exactly one year ago, Barnes & Noble made an interesting move, one no other company in the tech industry had yet been bold enough to make: it released the Nook Color for just $249.99.
Business Week:
What Is Sony Now? — At 69, Sir Howard Stringer's time as CEO of the unwieldy electronics giant is running out. Can he and heir apparent Kazuo Hirai turn it around? — Sir Howard Stringer remembers when 2011 was going to be wonderful. “This was the first year of the payoff,” he says, “and next year was going to be the second.”
Discussion:
The Verge, Gizmodo and Company Town
Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:
Microsoft And TechStars Launch Kinect Accelerator For New Kinect-Based Startups — The Kinect has proved fertile ground for hackers and innovators all over the world, from individuals to student teams to established researchers. But as yet there haven't been many commercial applications.
Discussion:
PC World, Business Insider, TechStars and WinBeta
DealBook:
LivingSocial Set to Raise Near $200 Million — LivingSocial is aiming to raise close to $200 million from new and old investors, according to two people briefed the matter. — As part of the transaction, the daily deals site is also discussing a credit facility of roughly $100 million, these people said.
Discussion:
Business Insider and CNBC
New York Times:
U.S. Military Goes Online to Rebut Extremists' Messages — MacDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. — The morning sun had barely cast its fresh light over Tampa Bay when Ardashir Safavi — born in Iran, a refugee to Turkey, educated in the mid-Atlantic states — was up and patrolling …
