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1:20 AM ET, December 1, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Eliot Van Buskirk / Evolver.fm:
Spotify Becomes a Music Platform  —  At a posh press event in Manhattan's Greenwich Village on Wednesday, freemium music subscription service Spotify revealed the “new direction” at which it has been hinting: a new API (application programming interface) that will let any developer …
RELATED:
Daniel Ek / Spotify:
Say hello to Spotify Apps  —  We're introducing a new world inside Spotify.  It's a world where there's even more music for you to discover and a ton of new experiences to be enjoyed.  Spotify Apps are here!  —  Spotify Apps are a bunch of cool, exciting and integrated apps inside Spotify …
Stuart Miles / Pocket-lint:
Spotify with apps pictures and hands-on  —  According to Spotify “There's a new world inside Spotify” and that means apps.  But do you want them, are they any good, or is the music streaming service just jumping on the apps bandwagon in an attempt to make us all believe that it is something more than just a streaming music service?
Henry Blodget / Business Insider:
You Bet Apple TV Is Coming, Says Apple Guru Gene Munster — Here Are The Details  —  Apple analyst Gene Munster just reiterated his belief that Apple is going to launch a TV next year.  —  He made the comments at our IGNITION: Future of Media conference this morning.
RELATED:
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
Speculation on Apple's Television Set: Range of Sizes, Device Integration, Premium Pricing  —  Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has long been one of the strongest advocates for an Apple-branded television set, and with increasing claims of just such a product pointing to a launch as soon …
Jenna Wortham / Bits:
Apple Says Siri's Abortion Answers Are a Glitch  —  Apple said Wednesday that Siri's apparent inability to retrieve information about abortion clinics and women's health services in some areas was not intentional or deliberate.  —  The company attributed the problem to kinks in the product that are still being ironed out.
RELATED:
Elinor Mills / CNET News:
ACLU asks Apple to fix Siri's birth-control glitch on iPhone  —  Siri isn't helpful on requests for birth control or abortion clinics.  —  It's funny how Siri works.  She will tell you where you can find an escort, drugs, or guns but can't seem to help if you are seeking birth control or abortion clinics.
Bloomberg:
Alibaba-Led Group Said to Prepare Yahoo Bid  —  Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Softbank Corp. (9984) are in advanced talks with Blackstone Group LP (BX) and Bain Capital LLC about making a bid for all of Yahoo! Inc., said three people with knowledge of the matter.
RELATED:
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Carrier IQ references discovered in Apple's iOS  —  To date, the user tracking controversy surrounding Carrier IQ has focused primarily on Android, but today details are surfacing that the company also may have hooks into Apple's iOS.  Well-known iPhone hacker Chpwn tweeted today that versions …
Felix Salmon:
Chart of the day, Apple valuation edition  —  Andy Zaky at Bullish Cross has a great post on Apple's valuation, showing the astonishing degree to which the market is discounting the value of a dollar of Apple's earnings today, compared to just two years ago.  Back then, it was worth $32; now, it's worth just $13.
Jessica Vascellaro / Wall Street Journal:
Some Fear a Glut in Tech ‘Incubators’  —  The number of tech incubators has skyrocketed.  And that has investors and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs such as Max Levchin concerned.  —  Mr. Levchin, the PayPal co-founder who later sold start-up Slide Inc. to Google Inc. in 2010 …
Jordan Golson / MacRumors:
New Apple Board Member Bob Iger Buys $1M In AAPL Shares  —  Newly appointed Apple board member and Disney president and CEO Bob Iger purchased 2,670 shares of Apple stock on the open market, according to a filing with the SEC. The average purchase price of the shares was roughly $375, valuing the purchase at $1,001,250.
Discussion: AppleInsider
Jake Smith / 9to5Google:
Android 4.0 for x86 processors released to developers  —  Google's Android development team has released Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0.1) for x86 chipsets as part of their promise to open up Android for Intel and AMD systems.  The release isn't fully stable — missing sound, camera …
Alex Sherman / Bloomberg:
Netflix Viewing Seen Swelling U.S. Cable Bills  —  Time Warner Cable Inc. (TWC) and U.S. pay- TV companies, weighing how to profit from surging Internet demand spurred by Netflix Inc. (NFLX) and Hulu, are on the verge of instituting new fees on Web-access customers who use the most.
Discussion: Digital Trends, GigaOM, TechSpot and PC World, Thanks:sarahfrier
Walter S. Mossberg / AllThingsD:
Digital Music Meets Its Match in Apple iCloud  —  One of the more interesting ideas in the new wave of cloud-computing services is the music locker.  This is a service that lets consumers store their music collections on a remote server and access them from any device, either by streaming the tunes or downloading them.
JD Rucker / Fast Company:
Is Daily Deals Dashboard Frugalo The Cure For Groupon Fatigue?  —  There is a lot of money riding on the daily deals phenomenon.  Consumers are able to take advantage of special discounts offered through the service based upon bulk sales.  Businesses get large spikes in their business by making the offers.
Nancy Gohring / PC World:
Netflix Opens Door to Leaving Amazon Web Services  —  Netflix designed its cloud architecture so that it has the option to move to an Amazon Web Services competitor, but doesn't expect a real competitor to emerge for a few years, a Netflix executive said on Wednesday.
Discussion: VentureBeat
Reuters:
Exclusive: Zynga aims for $10 billion valuation in IPO  —  Facebook games developer Zynga Inc is seeking a lower-than-expected $10 billion valuation for its initial public offering, which is to be priced on December 15, two people close to the process said on Wednesday.
AJ Glasser / Inside Facebook:
TL;DR: Facebook Increases Status Update Character Limit From 5K to 60K+  —  Facebook said today that it has increased the maximum character count in status updates to over 60,000.  This is 12 times the original character count of 5,000.  The change was originally spotted by All Facebook on a post on the Facebook+Journalists Page.
Discussion: Mashable!, All Facebook and TechCrunch
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
100Plus Raises $1.25M From Greylock and Band Of Angels To Make You Live Longer  —  Less than a month after securing $500K from Founders Fund, health prediction service 100Plus has brought its funding up to $1.25 million.  The new $750K in funding comes from Reid Hoffman and John Lilly via …
Discussion: EON and silicontap.com
Wall Street Journal:
AT&T Mulls Joint Venture With T-Mobile's Parent  —  AT&T Inc. and Deutsche Telekom AG, the parent of T-Mobile USA, have discussed forming a joint venture that would pool network assets from the two U.S. wireless carriers as an alternative transaction if their current acquisition deal falls apart, people familiar with the matter said.
Mike Dano / FierceWireless:
Verizon and Leap trade spectrum for LTE, EV-DO buildouts  —  Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ) and Cricket provider Leap Wireless (NASDAQ:LEAP) announced a significant exchange of spectrum that, if approved by the FCC, will allow Leap to launch LTE service in Chicago and will allow Verizon to bolster …
Kim Zetter / Threat Level:
Exclusive: Comedy of Errors Led to False ‘Water-Pump Hack’ Report  —  Jim Mimlitz on vacation in Russia last June with his wife and three daughters.  Photo courtesy of Jim Mimlitz.  —  It was the broken water pump heard 'round the world.  —  Cyberwar watchers took notice this month …
Thanks:rsingel
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Bing Bans Holiday Deals Sites, Including One By Group That Created Cyber Monday  —  Ironically, the trade group that created the Cyber Monday concept had its own CyberMonday.com site lost in cyberspace this week.  Lost, that is, if you tried to use Bing to find it.
Discussion: Forbes
Arik Hesseldahl / AllThingsD:
Whitman: HP Decision on webOS Coming Within Two Weeks  —  Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman just gave an interview to Le Figaro, a French newspaper, saying that a decision on what to do with HP's webOS software will come within the next two weeks.  —  Here's the key quote, courtesy of Google Translate:
 
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 More Items: 
Tricia Duryee / AllThingsD:
Don't Trust Your Instincts? Wal-Mart Uses Algorithms to Find Gifts People Want
Discussion: TechCrunch and VatorNews
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Academia.edu Raises $4.5 Million To Help Researchers Share Their Scholarly Papers
Discussion: bijan sabet and AllThingsD
Casey Johnston / Ars Technica:
GamePro magazine and website to shutter next month
Brian Cute / AdAge:
Coming in January: .NGO, .ECO, .EARTH
Akky Akimoto / Asiajin:
Twitter Japan Announces Alliance With Mixi
Discussion: AllTwitter and The Next Web
 Earlier Items: 
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft: No Silverlight 5 release in November
Christian Zibreg / 9to5Mac:
Japan rumor: LTE iPad 3 coming in summer 2012, LTE iPhone 5 in Fall
John Paczkowski / AllThingsD:
Dell Will Drop the Flashy Vegas Act for CES This Year
Discussion: Electronista
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Windows author Ed Bott and partners launch ‘digital first’ book publishing company
Discussion: VentureBeat and Ed Bott
Chris Chang / M.I.C. Gadget:
China Unicom: “A Network Permit Is All We Need to Start Selling iPhone 4S”
Discussion: eWeek, GigaOM, AppleInsider and MacNN
Agence France Presse:
Toshiba to shut three Japan semiconductor plants
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Caitlin Huston / The Hollywood Reporter:
Internal memo: Hearst Magazines president announces layoffs as part of a decision to “reallocate resources” to “continue our focus on digital innovation”

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced she will leave the agency on January 20; she was the first woman to be confirmed to lead the agency

Lachlan Cartwright / The Ankler:
Sources: MSNBC renewed Rachel Maddow's contract early this fall, but with a pay cut; MSNBC bosses' plan to shake up daytime and weekend programming

 
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