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4:10 PM ET, December 20, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
The Mozilla Blog:
Mozilla and Google Sign New Agreement for Default Search in Firefox  —  We're pleased to announce that we have negotiated a significant and mutually beneficial revenue agreement with Google.  This new agreement extends our long term search relationship with Google for at least three additional years.
RELATED:
Christian Zibreg / 9to5Google:
It's official, Google remains default search engine in Firefox for at least three more years
Discussion: PC World and Geek.com
Chris Ziegler / The Verge:
T-Mobile to get seven-year 3G roaming deal, 128 markets of AWS spectrum from AT&T  —  Deutsche Telekom now is detailing the consolation prize it's getting from AT&T in the aftermath of its failed acquisition of T-Mobile — and in looking through the details, calling it a “consolation prize” really doesn't do it justice.
RELATED:
Maria Sheahan / Reuters:
Deutsche Telekom could be forced into arms of Sprint  —  (Reuters) - Deutsche Telekom may be forced into a tie-up of its sub-scale U.S. wireless unit with Sprint Nextel after a $39 billion deal with AT&T collapsed.  —  AT&T said on Monday it had dropped its bid for T-Mobile USA …
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
Apple Rolls Out ‘Complete My Season Pass’ for TV Shows  —  While Apple has long offered a “Complete My Album” feature in the iTunes Store to allow users who have previously purchased individual tracks to upgrade to the full album at a discounted price reflecting their single-track purchases …
Joel Housman:
This Week In Douchebaggery: AllThis  —  Well, it's Monday - I guess that means it's time for another douchebag to create a startup on the Internet.  —  Introducing, Allthis.com.  They list themselves as being in “beta” on their website and claim to be “the ten-minute exchange”.
Discussion: @eldon, Thanks:joelhousman
Janice Wood / Psych Central News:
Meta-Twitter Analysis Shows Happiness Trending Down  —  Using Twitter, a team of scientists from the University of Vermont has created a happiness graph, which shows happiness has fallen over the last few years.  —  “After a gradual upward trend that ran from January to April 2009 …
RELATED:
Bryce Roberts / BRYCE DOT VC:   A Reluctant Twitter Experiment
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook Sponsored Story Ads To Appear In The Web News Feed In 2012  —  Starting in January 2012, Facebook will gradually begin showing Sponsored Stories social ads in the main news feed of the web version of the site, a representative of the company tells us.
Jolie O'Dell / VentureBeat:
First Round Capital rings in the holidays with “Friday” spoof  —  First Round Capital is famous in these parts for its irreverent, awkward and often hilarious holiday e-greetings.  —  This year, the team and its family of startups pitched in to create an elaborate send-up of Rebecca Black's soulless mistake of a song, “Friday.”
Joe Schneider / Bloomberg:
Apple Claims Samsung Tablet, Phone Cases Infringe Patents  —  Dec. 20 (Bloomberg) — Apple Inc., which on Dec. 9 lost a bid to keep Samsung Electronics Co.'s Galaxy 10.1 tablet out of Australia, claims the case for the device and cases for Samsung phones infringe its patents and registered design.
Frederic Lardinois / SiliconFilter:
Super Bowl to be Streamed Live for the First Time  —  There is no other television event in the U.S. that commands as much attention and viewership as the annual Super Bowl.  Last year's event attracted 111 million viewers.  NBC and the National Football League (NFL) today announced …
Mark Suster / Both Sides of the Table:
The End of the Web?  Don't Bet on It.  Here's Why  —  Fred Wilson recently posted a great video on his blog with the CEO of Forrester Research, George Colony.  The money slide is the graphic below.  —  The chart shows three scarce resources and their improvements over time.
Discussion: Global Nerdy
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
Apple Indeed Replacing Recalled iPod Nano Units with Current-Generation Models  —  Just hours after we reported that Apple appeared to have begun shipping out current-generation iPod nanos as replacements for recalled first-generation units, users are beginning to report in that they are indeed receiving the current models.
Richard Lawler / Engadget:
iPhones, iPod Touches still on iOS 3.1.3 can't download new apps directly from the App Store  —  While fragmentation is a rare(r) problem on iOS there's still quite a few users rocking older versions on their devices.  Unfortunately for them, ever since a recent update on the 16th …
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Kindle Fire On Track For Hundreds Of Millions Of Monthly Ad Impressions; Growing Faster Than The iPad In Early 2010  —  Mobile ad network Millennial Media is releasing its monthly data for November.  While Millennial, which is the largest independent mobile ad network, has focused on tracking iOS …
Frederic Lardinois / SiliconFilter:
YouTube in 2011: Over 1,000,000,000,000 Playbacks, 140 Views for Every Person on Earth  —  We'll leave it up to the cultural anthropologists of the future to unravel the significance of the fact that Rebecca Black's “Friday” was the most watched video on YouTube in 2011.
Jack Purcher / Patently Apple:
Apple Wins Patent for iPhone GUI Supporting Application Switching during a Call and More  —  The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of eight newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today.  This morning's report mainly focuses in on two of these patents.
Amazon.com:
The Hottest Holiday Gift Just got Hotter: Free Two-Day Shipping on All Kindles - Including Kindle Fire - in Time for Christmas  —  It's not too late to order Amazon's most popular gifts in time for Christmas - customers who order by 8 pm PT on December 21 will receive free two-day shipping on the $79 Kindle …
Deadline.com:
‘Wolverine’ Pirate To Serve Year In Prison  —  LOS ANGELES - A New York man who admitted illegally uploading to the Internet a pirated, nearly final “workprint” copy of the movie “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” was sentenced this afternoon to one year in federal prison.
Discussion: GMSV, Betabeat and VentureBeat
Matthew Humphries / Geek.com:
Sony sued over PSN “can't sue us” clause  —  Following the huge security breach of the PlayStation Network, Sony realized that not only did it require better security for PSN, it also needed to protect itself as a company from millions of gamers potentially suing it in the future.
Sara Forden / Bloomberg:
Verizon Wireless Probed Over Cable Deals  —  Verizon Wireless's deals for spectrum with cable companies are under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department for their potential to hurt competition in the wireless and cable industries.  —  Gina Talamona, a Justice Department spokeswoman …
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
After Years Of Patent Litigation, Nuance Acquires Vlingo  —  In what Vlingo CEO Dave Grannan calls a ‘good outcome’ on Twitter, the voice-to-text technology company has just been acquired by speech recognition king Nuance.  —  Notably, Nuance has repeatedly sued Vlingo over patent infringement …
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Apple reportedly puts the final ink on $400-500 million purchase of Anobit, an Israeli flash-storage company  —  Last week's big Apple rumor was Apple's purported talks to purchase an Israeli flash memory firm called Anobit.  Now, Israeli news website Calcalist reports that the rumored deal has actually been finalized.
Reuters:
Iran moves websites to guard against cyber attacks  —  (Reuters) - Iran has moved most of its government websites from foreign-based hosting companies to new computer facilities inside the country, to protect them against cyber attacks, a senior official said on Tuesday.
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Health 2.0 startup Keas gets $6.5 million in new funds  —  Keas, a San Francisco-based startup co-founded by veteran technologist Adam Bosworth and enterprise software entrepreneur George Kassagbi, has raised $6.5 million in new funds from existing investors Atlas Ventures and Ignition Parters.
Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:
Twitter will open source security software from its Whisper Systems acquisition  —  Twitter has announced that it is going to open source “some” of the software that it acquired along with Whisper Systems in November of this year.  —  At the time it was acquired, our own Brad McCarty …
Horace Dediu / asymco:
The parable of RIM  —  Here are the highlights from RIM's latest quarter:  — 14.1 million BlackBerry smartphones shipped, 13 million sold through  — 150k PlayBook shipped with sell-through slightly higher. 800k PlayBooks shipped so far.  — BlackBerry subscriber base up to 75 million
Discussion: SplatF
Hunter Walk / Elapsed Time:
Hyperbolic Headlines: Five Ways the Zynga IPO Changes Everything!!!  —  The Zynga IPO changes everything!!!!  Well, not really but the last few days have been a torrent of conjecture about the future of social games, tech IPOs and Mark Pincus' management style.
Thanks:samrzrkat
 
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 More Items: 
Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
“Spanish Napster” Victorious As Court Rejects Major Label Copyright Case
Discussion: GigaOM and Billboard.Biz
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Kayak Consolidates iPhone And iPad Apps; Updates UI, Adds Trip Itineraries And More
Discussion: VentureBeat and GigaOM
Jeffrey Gettleman / New York Times:
U.S. Considers Combating Somali Militants' Twitter Use
Discussion: The Verge
Eric Eldon / TechCrunch:
Interview: Cornell's Dean Huttenlocher, On Expanding Into NYC And Building A Tech Ecosystem
Discussion: VentureBeat and nyc.gov
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Google Puts $94M In Solar Projects; Clean Energy Investments Nearing $1B In Total
 Earlier Items: 
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Cable News Finally Realizing That SOPA And PROTECT IP Are Bad News
more at Mediagazer »
Shayndi Raice / Digits:
Groupon Launches Anti-Amazon Promotion of Sorts
Ben Popper / Betabeat:
Source: Groupon Doesn't Have The Cash to Build Its New Data Center
 

 
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”

Mark Sweney / The Guardian:
National World, one of the UK's biggest newspaper groups, gets a £56.2M buyout offer from shareholder Media Concierge, a 40% premium to its Nov. 21 stock price

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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