Top Items:
Joshua Topolsky / The Verge:
The truth about Microsoft and CES — There's been a bit of back and forth today over Microsoft's announcement that it would be ending its long-standing CES keynote role, and will no longer have a booth at the show as it's done for many years. Head of Microsoft's corporate communications …
Discussion:
SlashGear, Electronista, Neowin.net, IntoMobile, blog.chron.com, Mobile Marketing Watch, Geek News Central, LiveSide.net and I4U News
RELATED:
MG Siegler / parislemon:
F**k Me? No. F**k You. — This morning, Microsoft made waves with a big move: they're pulling out of CES. Frank Shaw, Microsoft's head of communications, made the announcement on the company blog, noting that this year's CES (which is in a few weeks) would be the last one featuring …
Discussion:
Bits, TechNet Blogs, PhoneArena, Mashable!, WinRumors, SlashGear and VG247
Barb Darrow / GigaOM:
Mystery: Who killed the Microsoft CES keynote? — So, just who nixed future Microsoft keynotes at the big Consumer Electronics Show? It's a sticky question. — Microsoft said Wednesday that Steve Ballmer's keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show next month will be the company's …
Discussion:
PhoneArena, Neowin.net, Pocket-lint, msnbc.com, eWeek, memeburn, The Next Web, iPhone, VentureBeat, The Verge, PC World, CNNMoney.com, TechSpot, PC Magazine, @parislemon, Electronista and Business Insider
Sam Biddle / Gizmodo:
All the Companies Supporting SOPA, the Awful Internet Censorship Law—and How to Contact Them — Who's officially on the record backing what could be the worst thing to ever happen to the internet? All of these companies listed below. Don't take our word for it—this list comes straight from Congress.
Discussion:
CNET News and Neowin.net
RELATED:
Adam Savage / Popular Mechanics:
MythBuster Adam Savage: SOPA Could Destroy the Internet as We Know It
Discussion:
A+K, @dannysullivan, Techdirt, WebProNews and TechCrunch, more at Mediagazer »
Declan McCullagh / CNET News:
How SOPA's ‘circumvention’ ban could put a target on Tor
Discussion:
Dennis Fisher, The Next Web, The Firewall and Boing Boing
John Markoff / New York Times:
Jacob Goldman, Founder of Xerox Lab, Dies at 90 — Jacob E. Goldman, a physicist who as Xerox's chief scientist founded the company's vaunted Palo Alto Research Center, which invented the modern personal computer, died on Tuesday in Westport, Conn. He was 90. — The cause was congestive heart failure, his son Melvin said.
RELATED:
Shayndi Raice / Wall Street Journal:
Facebook's Goal: To Be a Blue Chip — As Company Readies 2012 IPO, It's Getting All Grown Up: Zuckerberg Swaps Flip-Flops for Real Shoes — Mark Zuckerberg spent Facebook Inc.'s early years trying to keep it cool. But the founder and CEO of the social-networking giant has spent …
RELATED:
Anton Troianovski / Wall Street Journal:
How the iPhone Zapped Carriers — Americans are glued to their mobile devices, obsessively calling, texting, emailing and downloading applications. So why is the U.S. wireless industry in such straits, as shown by AT&T Inc.'s crucial but failed plan to buy T-Mobile USA?
Tricia Duryee / AllThingsD:
Surprise — The Most Popular Facebook Game of 2011 Wasn't Made by Zynga — Facebook has released its list of the 10 most popular social games for 2011, and while the chart was dominated by Zynga titles, other companies received the top two slots. — The list revealed some other surprises, too.
Discussion:
Facebook, Mashable!, @joshconstine, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, Business Insider, All Facebook and Inside Social Games
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Aol Shareholders Freak Out Over Exec Departures — As They Should — More than a fair amount of business success hinges on telling stories about the future. The reason Yahoo's market cap is down to $19.83 billion from a high of $55 billion is because shareholders don't believe that it has a future.
Discussion:
@evelynrusli, Betabeat, Tech Trader Daily and Deal Journal, more at Mediagazer »
RELATED:
Nicholas Carlson / Business Insider:
Here's The Damning Letter A Massive AOL Shareholder Just Sent Tim Armstrong
Discussion:
paidContent, AOL Corp, Wall Street Journal, VentureBeat, WebProNews and Reuters, more at Mediagazer »
Kevin C. Tofel / GigaOM:
Kindle Fire no longer blocks Android Market website — Earlier this week, I grilled Amazon for attempting to control web browsing activities on its Kindle Fire. Any attempts to browse Google's Android Market website were redirected to Amazon's own AppStore on the tablet.
DealBook:
Yahoo to Consider Sale of Asian Assets — Yahoo's board will consider a deal to sell its holdings in Alibaba Group and its Japanese affiliate back to their majority owners in a complicated tax-free deal valued at about $17 billion, according to people briefed on the matter.
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Actually, Searches For “Google+” Are Petering Out — Just last week, Google was promoting the fact that “Google+” was the No. 2 fastest-growing search term of the year in its annual Zeitgest list. And it did have an amazing pop when it hit “10 million members” a couple weeks after launch last summer.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
45 Privacy Changes Facebook Will Make To Comply With Data Protection Law — In 2012, Facebook will be making 45 privacy-related changes to comply with the recommendations of an audit by Ireland's Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) released today.
Discussion:
paidContent and Inside Facebook, Thanks:grg
RELATED:
Chris Dixon:
The TripAdvisor IPO — Great startup story. Raised a total of $4.2m in venture capital, sold to IAC/Expedia for $210M, and had some interesting adventures and pivots along the way. They started out by trying to aggregate reviews from other websites and white label their product to Expedia and other large travel websites.
Discussion:
TechCrunch
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Hasbro sues Asus over Transformer Prime tablet — Don't say we didn't tell you so: Hasbro sued Asus over the name of its Transformer Prime tablet last week, in a Los Angeles court. The toymaker is no doubt worried that the name could be confused with that of its Transformers franchise …
Discussion:
Inquirer, Gizmodo, paidContent, Electronista, CNET News, TeleRead, SlashGear, TechCrunch, PhoneArena, IntoMobile, Neowin.net, Android Phone Fans and Android Community
Tony Hicks / Contra Costa Times:
People: Steve Jobs awarded a Grammy — Steve Jobs has won a Grammy. — Which makes sense, since he revolutionized the music industry by managing to shrink everyone's record collection into something that will fit in their pocket, among other achievements.
Discussion:
GRAMMY.org, GRAMMY.com, CNET News, Silicon Republic, AppleInsider, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, iPodNN, Mashable!, Gawker, The Next Web, MacStories and SlashGear
Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:
The Facebook “Frictionless” Sharing Apps Trickle Out: Digg Is Next — Facebook took its sweet time this fall; now, in winter, it's launching two interlinked products: Revamped profile pages, now called Timelines (which are being deployed this week), and “frictionless” open-graph apps that share user activity to Facebook automatically.
Discussion:
The Verge, ReadWriteWeb, Mashable!, Business Wire and TechCrunch, more at Mediagazer »
Lee Chyen Yee / Reuters:
China tops U.S, Japan to become top patent filer — (Reuters) - China became the world's top patent filer in 2011, surpassing the United States and Japan as it steps up innovation to improve its intellectual property rights track record, a Thomson Reuters research report showed on Wednesday.
Discussion:
TechEye
Vlad Savov / The Verge:
Radeon HD 7970 official: 28nm, 2,048 Stream processors, and a $549 price for January 9th — AMD today launches the Radeon HD 7970, its first graphics card built at a 28nm production process and the first member of its Southern Islands family of GPUs. As its name suggests …
Discussion:
AnandTech, SlashGear, Neowin.net, Engadget, VentureBeat, Electronista, Icrontic, The Register and Gizmodo
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
Apple's ‘Complete My Album’ Feature Drops 180-Day Deadline for Upgrading — Yesterday, we noted that Apple had launched a new “Complete My Season Pass” feature for TV shows purchased through the iTunes Store, offering users who purchased individual episodes of a TV show season the ability …
Discussion:
Apple, SlashGear, MacStories, The Next Web and the Econsultancy blog
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch Europe:
eBay acquires German ‘purchase-on-invoice’ technology company BillSAFE — A little over a year after its subsidiary PayPal bought a minority stake in German software company BilLSAFE, eBay this morning announced that it has acquired the provider of purchase-on-invoice technology in full.
Discussion:
The Next Web
