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4:55 PM ET, December 16, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Goodbye, Heather  —  Heather Harde, the business brains behind TechCrunch, will be stepping down at the end of the year as general manager of AOL's technology properties (including TechCrunch, Engadget, Joystiq, and TUAW).  AOL GM Jay Kirsch, who oversees Autos, Finance, and Industry on the business side …
Discussion: VentureBeat and WebProNews
RELATED:
Michael Arrington / Uncrunched:
Why Heather Matters  —  TechCrunch CEO Heather Harde announced her departure today.  —  I'm so angry.  —  Drift back to the end of 2006.  TechCrunch was a year and a half old.  My hobby had turned into a business.  Federated Media was selling our standard ads and sent a small check every month.
Discussion: Business Insider, Thanks:mattlynley
Matt Lynley / Business Insider:
IT'S OFFICIAL: TechCrunch CEO Heather Harde Has Left AOL  —  TechCrunch CEO Heather Harde has left AOL and resigned from the tech news blog, according to the site's founder Mike Arrington.  —  We first reported Harde was leaving in November when AOL's Brad Garlinghouse left the building.
Discussion: @arrington, @taylorbuley and @nero
David Kravets / Threat Level:
Stop Online Piracy Act Vote Delayed  —  The House Judiciary Committee is considering whether to send the Stop Online Piracy Act to the House floor abruptly adjourned Friday with no new vote date set — a surprise given that the bill looked certain to pass out of committee today.
RELATED:
Joshua Kopstein / MOTHERBOARD:
Dear Congress, It's No Longer OK To Not Know How The Internet Works  —  I remember fondly the days when we were all tickled pink by our elected officials' struggle to understand how the internet works.  Whether it was George W. Bush referring to “the internets” or Senator Ted Stevens describing …
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
How SOPA 2.0 Sneaks In A Really Dangerous Private Ability To Kill Any Website
Discussion: Geekosystem
Poornima Gupta / Reuters:
Exclusive: Made in Texas: Apple's A5 iPhone chip  —  SAN FRANCISCO - Apple Inc is famous for relying on low-cost Asian manufacturers to both source and assemble its popular gadgets, but the consumer device giant recently started receiving a critical component in its iPad and iPhones from closer to home - Texas.
Timothy B. Lee / Ars Technica:
UMG claims “right to block or remove” YouTube videos it doesn't own  —  Universal Music Group has responded to Megaupload's request for a temporary restraining order barring the music giant from further interference with the distribution of its “Mega Song.”  UMG insists that it had a right …
RELATED:
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:   An Explanation For Why UMG May Be Right That It Can Pull Down MegaUpload's Video [Updated]
Dan Seifert / MobileBurn.com:
Sprint: Carrier IQ has been disabled on our devices  —  News by Dan Seifert on Friday December 16, 2011.  —  Sponsored links, if any, appear in green.  —  A recent rumor has hit the internet stating that Sprint has asked its manufacturer partners to remove Carrier IQ's software from all of the devices that it carries.
RELATED:
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
AT&T, Sprint, Samsung, and HTC detail Carrier IQ installations
Zack Whittaker / Between the Lines Blog:
Zynga shares slump 10 percent below IPO in first day  —  Summary: While there was hope for Zynga, the largest technology flotation since Google's public debut in 2004, the company's share price dropped by nearly 10 percent in its first day.  —  At the end of Zynga's first day of public trading today …
RELATED:
Max Wang / DigiTimes:
Apple to launch 7.85-inch iPad in 2012, say sources  —  Apple is likely to launch a 7.85-inch iPad prior to the fourth quarter of 2012 in addition to a new iPad scheduled to be released at the end of the first quarter, according to sources in the supply chain.
Darren Murph / Engadget:
Android 4.0.3 announced, bringing ‘variety of optimizations and bug fixes’ to phones and tablets  —  Merely a day after Verizon's version of the Galaxy Nexus was gifted with v4.0.2, Google itself is announcing Android 4.0.3, a so-called “ incremental release of the Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) platform.”
Seth Weintraub / 9to5Google:
Verizon Galaxy Nexus Review: Bigger, faster, cheaper and less Google  —  LTE just makes that Ice Cream Sandwich all the more tasty...  The biggest difference philisophically is demonstrated in the logos above.  No longer a Google Phone, the Verizon Galaxy Nexus is a Verizon LTE phone, for all that is worth.
RELATED:
Taylor Wimberly / Android and Me:   Verizon stores sell out of Galaxy Nexus within hours, but Amazon has it for $149
Adrianne Jeffries / Betabeat:
Stanford Pulls Bid for New York Tech Campus  —  Stanford was the frontrunner in the application for an applied sciences sciences and engineering campus on Roosevelt Island.  But according to a press release from the Stanford news service, that's no longer the case.
Discussion: Digits and NYConvergence.com
Steven Sinofsky / MSDN Blogs:
Signing in with a picture password … The experience of signing in to your PC with touch has traditionally been a cumbersome one.  In a world with increasingly strict password requirements—with numbers, symbols, and capitalization—it can take upwards of 30 seconds to enter a long, complex password on a touch keyboard.
Tom Krazit / paidContent:
Why RIM Needed To Fire Its Co-CEOs Months, If Not Years Ago  —  The two Waterloo Wallys running Research in Motion (NSDQ: RIMM) have presided over the incredible destruction of shareholder wealth in 2011 by misleading the public again and again about its ability to compete in mobile.
RELATED:
Hunter Walk / Elapsed Time:
“I'd love if tech writing as a whole held itself to a higher standard:” What notable journalists are thinking about their craft  —  There's an old expression that we get the politicians we deserve — ie if you don't like it, don't vote them into office.  Over the past few months I've …
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb
Alex Heath / Cult of Mac:
Apple Makes Siri iPhone 4 Port Legally Possible With Today's iOS 5.0.1 Update  —  Siri is by far the iPhone 4S's most-desired feature, and many non-4S users have been clamoring for hackers to make the voice assistant available on older iOS devices.  While Siri ports have been demoed to the public before …
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
iPhone 4S Debuts in Over 20 New Countries, Pricing Starts as High as $1400  —  In line with our report from earlier this month, Apple has launched the iPhone 4S in a number of new countries today.  Based on an examination of Apple's site and those of its carrier partners …
Ben Elowitz / AllThingsD:
With Siri TV, Apple Will Dismantle the TV Networks  —  Steve Jobs died without fully transforming television, but the day before he passed away, Apple unveiled Siri, its natural language interface.  Though it's currently only embedded in the new iPhone 4S, Siri could eventually change the face of the TV industry.
Alyson Shontell / Business Insider:
This Is The First Pitch Deck Foursquare Ever Showed Investors  —  Foursquare is one of the biggest, buzziest startups in New York.  —  Scratch that — anywhere.  —  The local check-in startup raised $50 million this past summer from Andreessen Horowitz and Spark Capital.
Katy Tur / nbcnewyork.com:
Pair of Robbers Want Only iPhones, No BlackBerries  —  The snobby robbers turn their noses up at phones that aren't the ever-coveted iPhones  —  A pair of would-be robbers targeting Columbia students in upper Manhattan seem to be rather picky as they prowl.
 
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 More Items: 
Alexei Oreskovic / Reuters:
Exclusive: Google CEO's inner circle: Meet the L Team
Timothy Hay / Wall Street Journal:
Mobile Ad Start-Up Millennial Media Eyes IPO
Monica Chen / DigiTimes:
Foxconn, Nvidia to set up joint venture R&D center in China
Tim Bray / Android Developers Blog:
Introducing Android Training
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Adobe Pays $400 Million for Efficient Frontier
Discussion: WebProNews
Julie Bort / Business Insider:
This Is Like The Third Reorg Since Cisco Hit The Panic Button Last Year
 Earlier Items: 
Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:
Yelp, YouTube and 23andMe Co-Founders All Working on New Start-Ups
Cody Barbierri / VentureBeat:
Ebay-owned StubHub acquires Zvents for event listings
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
‘For Dummies’ Publisher Sues BitTorrent Users to “Educate and Settle”
Discussion: The Pondering Primate
Richard Lawler / Engadget:
Roku's official iPhone remote app is available, has gesture control and channel selection for all
Discussion: VentureBeat
Mike / Cydia Blog:
New iPad 3 Internal Replacement Part Appears, hints Major Redesign
Rick Marshall / Digital Trends:
Square Enix servers hacked, 1.8 million users affected
Somini Sengupta / New York Times:
Judge Dismisses Twitter Stalking Case
Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:
Chrome 15 puts IE8 in rear-view mirror, takes No. 1 spot
 

 
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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