Top Items:
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 …
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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:
Electronista, CNET News, PhoneArena, Fortune, Tech Trader Daily, iClarified, Marketing Pilgrim, Neowin.net, The Next Web, Phones Review and GigaOM
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Zach Epstein / BGR:
Apple's sinking share in France and Germany may be fueling patent wars
Thanks:greggdourgarian
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:
Ars Technica, Open Source Blog, Computerworld, Bloomberg, Engadget, BGR, Inquirer, MacRumors, Macworld, CNET News, TUAW, 9to5Mac, SlashGear, Android Phone Fans, Electronista, Liliputing, GigaOM and Sammy Hub
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Reuters:
German patent firm sues retailers to halt HTC sales
Discussion:
BGR, PhoneArena, Inquirer, Bloomberg and Electronista
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:
Ars Technica, GMSV, ReadWriteWeb, Pulse2, blog.chron.com, PhoneArena, Bits, TechEye, SlashGear, GigaOM, CEA Digital Dialogue, Neowin.net, Computer Business Review, memeburn, Pocket-lint, Electronista, MTV Multiplayer and Inquirer
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Ed Oswald / BetaNews:
Can CES survive without Microsoft?
Discussion:
Computerworld, Microsoft Watch, Washington Post, The Register and parislemon
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:
ReadWriteWeb, Computerworld, CNET News, Fast Company, WebProNews, GMSV and MacDailyNews
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:
CNET News, The Next Web, 9to5Mac and iClarified
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:
AllThingsD, Business Insider, The Tech Trade, Search Engine Land, All Facebook, TechCrunch, Marketing Pilgrim and Mashable!
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.
Darrell Etherington / GigaOM:
LogMeIn provides free remote Mac access from iOS devices — LogMeIn has a nice holiday gift for iOS device owners this season: a new free app called simply LogMeIn (iTunes link) that provides remote viewing access and control of Macs and PCs on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.
Discussion:
Computerworld, ReadWriteWeb, ZDNet, TUAW and Lifehacker
Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:
Google Will Pay Mozilla Almost $300M Per Year in Search Deal, Besting Microsoft and Yahoo — Please see this disclosure related to me and Google. — Earlier this week, Google and Mozilla said they had struck a deal to renew their search royalty deal for another three years.
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:
MacRumors, Gizmodo, WebProNews, TechCrunch, GottaBeMobile, VentureBeat, IntoMobile, MacNN, MobileBurn.com, 9to5Mac, Evernote Blogcast, 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
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:
Electronista, VatorNews, Business Insider, AllThingsD and WebProNews
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 …
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.
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.
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:
Macworld and The H Open Source
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
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, MacRumors, CNET News, GRAMMY.com, everythingiCafe, Mashable!, Silicon Republic, Redmond Pie, AppleInsider, SlashGear, MacStories, 9to5Mac, iPodNN, Gawker, The Next Web and Edible Apple
Ryan Lawler / GigaOM:
SetJam acquired by Motorola Mobility — Video discovery startup SetJam just got acquired by Motorola Mobility, founder and CEO Ryan Janssen wrote in an email Thursday morning. Financial details of the deal weren't disclosed, but Janssen wrote: … SetJam used to compete with companies …
Discussion:
TechCrunch, AllThingsD and WebProNews
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:
Boing Boing, Gizmodo, Geek.com, TechSpot, Dennis Fisher, The Atlantic Wire and The Firewall
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:
MacRumors, Engadget, 9to5Mac, Inquirer, AnandTech, DailyTech, eWeek, HotHardware.com News, VentureBeat, CNET News, Techie Buzz, Digits, Laptops and Desktops Blog, SlashGear, PC Gamer, Neowin.net, TechSpot, Engadget, Icrontic, Softpedia News, Electronista, The Register and Gizmodo
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Rhapsody tops 1M paying subscribers, and its president has the shaved head to prove it — Rhapsody's Jon Irwin, before and after 1 million subscribers. — Rhapsody says it has surpassed 1 million paying subscribers — leveraging its MetroPCS partnership, its recent acquisition of Napster …
Discussion:
VentureBeat, Engadget, Electronista and L.A. Times Tech Blog
Christina Bonnington / Gadget Lab:
Study Shows AT&T's LTE Network Is Faster Than Verizon's — For Now — 4G LTE provides significantly improved download speeds over 3G, AT&T's slightly faster than Verizon's. Image: Metrico Wireless — Verizon has been touted as having the biggest, baddest, fastest 4G around.
Discussion:
The Verge, dailywireless.org, Metrico Wireless, FierceBroadbandWireless and Electronista
