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 …
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MG Siegler / parislemon:
F**k Me? No. F**k You. — This morning, Microsoft made waves …
Discussion:
Microsoft Watch, Bits, PhoneArena, PC World, paidContent and The Verge
Barb Darrow / GigaOM:
Mystery: Who killed the Microsoft CES keynote?
Discussion:
ReadWriteWeb, Washington Post, Ars Technica, Computer Business Review, Neowin.net, TechEye, PhoneArena, memeburn, Pocket-lint, PC World, MTV Multiplayer, Inquirer, eWeek, msnbc.com, iPhone, CNNMoney.com, PC Magazine, VG247, Mashable!, VentureBeat, @parislemon, Electronista and Business Insider
Tarmo Virki / Reuters:
New iPhone? No thanks, say cash-conscious Europeans — (Reuters) - Weakening economies and falling prices of rival smartphones are hurting sales of Apple iPhones across Europe, data from research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech showed on Thursday. — The October roll-out of Apple's iPhone 4S boosted …
Discussion:
CNET News, Tech Trader Daily, Electronista, BGR, PhoneArena, Fortune, Neowin.net, GigaOM, Marketing Pilgrim, The Next Web and Phones Review
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.
Discussion:
CNET News, InfoWorld, WebProNews, Fast Company, GMSV and MacDailyNews
Jonathan S. Geller / BGR:
BlackBerry 10 is a failure that won't be able to compete, company source says — Bad products, horrible software and no cohesive vision have seemingly turned Research In Motion into a company without motion at this point. Throw in a huge delay before BlackBerry 10 smartphones start shipping …
Discussion:
Business Insider, Gizmodo, CNET News, Tech Trader Daily, Softpedia News, Neowin.net, BerryReview.com, Electronista and SlashGear
Matthias Inverardi / Reuters:
Apple nears German court rebuff in row with Samsung — (Reuters) - A German court rejected Apple's claims that Samsung Electronics' reworked tablet PC still looks like a copycat version of the iPad, in a preliminary assessment. — Apple is fighting several rival makers of smartphones …
Discussion:
Open Source Blog, Ars Technica, Engadget, Computerworld, MacRumors, BGR, Inquirer, CNET News, Macworld, 9to5Mac, Bloomberg, GigaOM, Liliputing, SlashGear, Android Phone Fans, Electronista and Sammy Hub
Walter S. Mossberg / AllThingsD:
Mossberg's Look at 2011's Biggest Tech Products — While other industries struggled, consumer technology seemed to march ahead as always in 2011, with important new products and services continuing to roll out. Sure, some tech companies, like BlackBerry maker Research In Motion, suffered reverses.
Don Southard / MacStories:
Evernote Releases Skitch for iPad — Skitch is a popular tool for annotating screenshots and images with the ability to quickly share them with others. It was purchased by Evernote back in August of this year and today they are proud to present Skitch for iPad.
Discussion:
Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Evernote Blogcast, GottaBeMobile, 9to5Mac, Gadget Lab, VentureBeat, IntoMobile, MacNN, MobileBurn.com, Lifehacker and TUAW
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?
Discussion:
Forbes
Declan McCullagh / CNET News:
How SOPA's ‘circumvention’ ban could put a target on Tor — A little-noticed section of the Stop Online Piracy Act could make it illegal to distribute Tor and other software that can “circumvent” attempts by the U.S. government to block pirate Web sites. — The controversial Hollywood …
Discussion:
TechSpot, Geek.com, The Atlantic Wire, Dennis Fisher, The Firewall, Popular Mechanics, Boing Boing and The Next Web
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Sam Biddle / Gizmodo:
All the Companies Supporting SOPA, the Awful Internet Censorship Law—and How to Contact Them
Discussion:
CNNMoney.com, A+K, CNET News and Neowin.net
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.
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:
MacRumors, CNET News, GRAMMY.com, GRAMMY.org, everythingiCafe, Redmond Pie, Mashable!, AppleInsider, Silicon Republic, SlashGear, MacStories, 9to5Mac, iPodNN, Edible Apple, The Next Web and Gawker
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 …
T.C. Sottek / The Verge:
Exclusive: a look at Kinect Fusion and Lightspace from Microsoft labs — As you might have seen in our second episode of On The Verge, our own Joshua Topolsky recently toured Microsoft's Building 99, where the company conducts a variety of wild research. Today we're pleased to share a look …
Discussion:
TechNet Blogs
Fred / A VC:
Some Thoughts On The IPO Market For Web Companies — We have an IPO market for web companies again. I don't have all the names in front of me, but this year has brought IPOs for Pandora, LinkedIn, Groupon, Zynga, and TripAdvisor. These five companies are all trading for north of $1bn market cap.
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:
eWeek, Laptops and Desktops Blog, AnandTech, Techie Buzz, CNET News, Engadget, VentureBeat, TechSpot, SlashGear, PC Gamer, Neowin.net, Icrontic, Gizmodo, Electronista, Digits, The Register and Softpedia News
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
High Gear Media Network Feed:
In-Car Video Chat And 4G Streaming From OnStar — Detroit's North American International Auto Show is typically thought of as the kick-off of the year's major auto shows. — As automakers continue to integrate technology more and more into their vehicles, however, the Consumer Electronics Show …
Discussion:
Digital Trends, GottaBeMobile, Pulse2, Engadget, Electronista, SlashGear and Gizmodo
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Citi Survey: 27 Percent Watch Netflix Online Versus 15 Percent For Hulu — Both Netflix's brand and shares have been battered this year after price hikes last summer and the botched attempt to spin off the DVD rental business. Netflix was roundly criticized for its miscommunication with customers, but what's been the actual effect?
Discussion:
Business Insider, WebProNews and AllThingsD
Colleen Taylor / GigaOM:
LinkedIn open sources code from IndexTank acquisition — Solid engineering talent is such a prized resource nowadays that many tech firms have taken to doing acqui-hires, which is the practice of buying a company for its employees rather than for its products or technology.
Discussion:
The H Open Source
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:
Mashable!, Softpedia News, VentureBeat, PC Magazine, @joshconstine, TechCrunch, Facebook, Business Insider, All Facebook, Inside Social Games and WebProNews
Jason Green / Mercury News:
Construction to begin soon on ‘prototype’ Apple store in downtown Palo Alto — Work is set to begin “any day now” on a prototype Apple store in the heart of downtown Palo Alto, according to city planning officials. The city issued a building permit on Dec. 12 for the modern …
Discussion:
The Next Web, iClarified and 9to5Mac
Experian Hitwise:
Facebook was the top search term for third straight year — Social network search term tops list for sixth straight year; Justin Bieber and Kim Kardashian most popular public figure and top personality search New York, N.Y., Dec. 21, 2011 - Experian Hitwise, a part of Experian Marketing Services …
Discussion:
All Facebook, Search Engine Land, TechCrunch, Social Media and Mashable!
Rip Empson / TechCrunch:
Tracks Grabs $1 Million To Build “The Experience Graph”; Adds Photobucket Founder To Its Board — The photo-sharing market is saturated, and, by and large, we don't need more players. The players that are there, if they're not leading, are trying to differentiate themselves from the rest in a host of different ways.
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.
Discussion:
msnbc.com
Mark M. Jaycox / Electronic Frontier Foundation:
New Agreement Between the United States and Europe Will Compromise the Privacy Rights of International Travelers — The European Parliament will vote soon on an agreement to formalize US procedures for retaining and providing EU based Passenger Name Record (PNR) data of EU and US citizens traveling into …
