Techmeme: Why Spotify can never be profitable: The secret demands of record labels (Michael Robertson/GigaOM)

9:55 AM ET, December 12, 2011

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David Streitfeld / New York Times:

As Kindle Fire Faces Critics, Remedies Are Promised — The Kindle Fire, Amazon's heavily promoted tablet, is less than a blazing success with many of its early users. The most disgruntled are packing the device up and firing it back to the retailer. — A few of their many complaints: there is no external volume control.

Discussion: Washington Post, Between the Lines Blog, Softpedia News, mocoNews, Gizmodo, ReadWriteWeb, Liliputing, WebProNews, blog.chron.com, CNET News, Pulse2, PadGadget, Phones Review, Electronista, GeekWire, PhoneArena, Techie Insider, I4U News, Business Insider, TeleRead, MobileBurn.com and FT Tech Hub, Thanks:hunterwalk

Dieter Bohn / The Verge:

Kindle Fire software update coming in less than two weeks, performance and UI improvements promised — In the wake of many user complaints about web browsing speeds and other performance issues, Amazon has told the New York Times that it will be releasing a software update for the Kindle Fire “in less than two weeks.”

Discussion: New York Times, Liliputing, GottaBeMobile and Electricpig.co.uk

Mitch Lipka / Reuters:
Amazon's Kindle Fire lets kids charge up a storm

Discussion: Daring Fireball and Gadget Lab

DigiTimes:

Next generation iPads to be available in 3-4 months, say sources — The next generation iPads are expected to be available in the next 3-4 months as makers in the supply chain have started delivering parts and components for the new tablets to OEM contractors while reducing those prepared for iPad 2 …

Apple:

Apple's Mac App Store Downloads Top 100 Million — Apple® today announced that over 100 million apps have been downloaded from the Mac® App Store™ in less than one year. With thousands of free and paid apps, the Mac App Store brings the App Store experience to the Mac …

Discussion: BGR, TUAW, Hardware 2.0 Blog, mocoNews, CNET News, MacRumors, GigaOM, Business Insider, Engadget, 9to5Mac, The Verge, AllThingsD, TechCrunch, Fast Company, Gizmodo, WinRumors, MobileSyrup.com, MacStories, iDownloadBlog.com and WebProNews, more at Mediagazer »

Michael Robertson / GigaOM:

Why Spotify can never be profitable: The secret demands of record labels — Imagine a new hot-dog selling venture. Let's also say there's only one supplier to purchase hot dogs from. Instead of simply charging a fixed price for hot dogs, that supplier demands the HIGHER of the following …

Discussion: Business Insider, SlashGear, Digiday and MacNN

Sung-won Shim / Reuters:

Samsung says sells over 300 million mobile handsets in 2011 — (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd (005930.KS) said on Sunday its annual mobile handset sales this year had exceeded 300 million units for the first time in the company's history. — The world's second largest handset maker …

Discussion: AllThingsD, Engadget, mocoNews, DailyTech, VR-Zone, PhoneArena, MobileBurn.com and Neowin.net

Douglas MacMillan / Bloomberg:

Pincus Faceoff With Zuckerberg Shows Fearsome Prelude to Zynga's IPO: Tech — When Zynga Inc. reached an impasse while negotiating a five-year partnership with Facebook Inc. in August 2010, Chief Executive Officer Mark Pincus demanded a one- on-one meeting with Mark Zuckerberg.

Frédéric Filloux / Monday Note:

HP Kicks webOS To The Kerb — We strongly believe that the best days for webOS are still ahead. — Thus spake Meg Whitman in her memo to the troops, an intramural rendition of HP's official announcement that webOS will be “contributed” to the Open Source community.

Discussion: ZDNet, Channelnomics and Phones Review, Thanks:invantory

Aoife White / Bloomberg:

Google, Motorola Mobility Review Temporarily Halted by EU — European Union regulators suspended their antitrust review of plans by Google Inc. (GOOG), the biggest maker of smartphone software, to buy Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. after requesting more information about the deal.

Discussion: London Calling Blog

Shelly Freierman / New York Times:

One Million Mobile Apps, and Counting at a Fast Pace — Somewhere at a computer last Wednesday, a developer pushed a button and the one millionth mobile app went to market. — Apps shrink the programs that were once available only on a desktop computer to make them usable on smartphones …

Thanks:jasonhiner

Joab Jackson / ITworld.com:

Usenix: Google deploys IPv6 for internal network — Though the project is only halfway finished, Google's IPv6 network is already bearing fruit — In a project that has taken longer than company engineers anticipated, Google is rolling out IPv6 across its entire internal employee network.

Discussion: Slashdot and Fudzilla

Sarah Mitroff / VentureBeat:

Cloud testing service Soasta secures another $12M in funding — Soasta, a cloud-based performance testing services company, has secured $12 million in its fourth round of funding. This series D round was led by Jeff Webber through The Entrepreneurs' Fund III and existing investors Canaan Partners …

Discussion: TechCrunch

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