Techmeme: Apple Made A Deal With The Devil (No, Worse: A Patent Troll) (Jason Kincaid/TechCrunch)

4:05 PM ET, December 10, 2011

Top Items:

Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:

Apple Made A Deal With The Devil (No, Worse: A Patent Troll) — Over the last two years, Apple has been engaged in vicious legal battles over smartphone patents, many of which are aimed at squelching (or squeezing money out of) manufacturers of devices running Android.

Discussion: VentureBeat, Slashdot, Pulse2, Electronista and Techie Buzz

Andy Greenberg / The Firewall:

Browser Study Sheds Light On Firefox's Insecurity (And Google Approves This Message) — Illustration by Galit Weisberg. Click on the image to see his original. — Updated with a response from Mozilla. — When Google funds a study on browser security and allows it to be published …

Discussion: Pulse2, The Register, Techie Buzz, Neowin.net, Slashdot, Computerworld, SecurityWeek, Gizmodo and Ars Technica, Thanks:forbestech

Chris Chang / M.I.C. Gadget:

iPhone 4S Receives Network Access Permit, Set to Go On Sale in China This Month — Finally. Apple's iPhone 4S has made progress towards debuting in China. On December 6, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), has officially issued the network access permit for the iPhone 4S.

Discussion: BGR, CNET News, Cult of Mac, Fortune, Engadget, Pulse2, Electronista, AllThingsD, iClarified and Tech in Asia

Gareth Beavis / TechRadar.com:

Microsoft: NFC already supported in Windows Phone — Exclusive: ‘Exciting things coming through soon’ — Microsoft has told TechRadar that its current Windows Phone 7.5 platform already supports Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, but no manufacturer has enabled it as yet.

Discussion: VentureBeat, Electronista, WinRumors, Neowin.net, Softpedia News, My Nokia Blog and WMPoweruser

Patrick Condon / Associated Press:

To thwart porn, colleges are buying up .xxx sites — ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The University of Kansas is buying up website names such as www.KUgirls.xxx and www.KUnurses.xxx. But not because it's planning a Hot Babes of Kansas site or an X-rated gallery of the Nude Girls of the Land of Aaahs.

Discussion: CNET News and Mashable!

The White House:

We Can't Wait: Obama Administration Announces $2 Billion in Resources to Support Job-Creating Startups — Today, the White House announced administrative and private sector actions that will help entrepreneurs grow their businesses and create jobs by increasing their access to capital and resources.

Discussion: Business Week

David Kravets / Threat Level:

Senator Wants Answers from DHS Over Domain Name Seizures — Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) said Friday he would demand answers from the Department of Homeland Security about its domain seizure program known as Operation in Our Sites after it was revealed that the government kept …

Discussion: Electronic Frontier Foundation, Softpedia News, Techdirt, Ars Technica and Engadget

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

MPAA Boss: If The Chinese Censor The Internet Without A Problem, Why Can't The US? — The MPAA is getting pretty desperate, it seems. MPAA boss Chris Dodd was out trying to defend censoring the internet this week by using China as an example of why censorship isn't a problem. It's kind of shocking, really.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Ars Technica and WebProNews

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

HP's Whitman: We'll Make WebOS-Powered Tablets In 2013 — Hewlett Packard CEO Meg Whitman finally announced the fate of operating system WebOS this morning, after the company previously announced that it was ceasing the development of all smartphones and tablets running Palm's webOS platform.

Quentin Hardy / Bits:
H.P.'s Nondecision Decision on WebOS

Discussion: AllThingsD, Tech Check, Open Source Blog, Guardian and ReadWriteWeb

Nik Cubrilovic / New Web Order:

The Crunchpad is proof of obviousness in the iPad design — The patent case between Apple and Samsung regarding the iPad and Galaxytab has been an ongoing issue. Apple won an injunction against the sale of the Galaxy Tab in Australia, then saw the decision reversed, only for it to be re-applied by a higher court.

Discussion: TechCrunch, OSNews and Gizmodo

Enigmax / TorrentFreak:

Universal Censors Megaupload Song, Gets Branded a “Rogue Label” — This morning we published an article on a new campaign by cyberlocker service Megaupload. — Site founder Kim Dotcom told TorrentFreak he had commissioned a song from producer Printz Board featuring huge recording artists including P Diddy …

Discussion: Techdirt, Boing Boing and Gawker, more at Mediagazer »

BBC:

Tweets cause US death row conviction to be overturned — Erickson Dimas-Martinez was convicted in 2010 of killing a 17-year-old — A juror's tweets have caused the murder conviction of a death row inmate to be overturned by a court in the US. — Arkansas Supreme Court judges …

Discussion: Slashdot

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