Top Items:


Not the iPad 3 or New TV — But Apple Planning Media-Related Event in the Big(ger) Apple This Month — According to sources close to the situation, Apple is planning an important — but not large-scale — event to be held in New York at the end of this month that will focus on a media-related announcement.
Discussion:
BGR, The Verge, 9to5Mac, MacRumors, Engadget, Gizmodo, TUAW, iDownloadBlog.com, The Next Web and Electronista


New to Twitter: the tweet Murdoch took down ... fast — “Either @rupertmurdoch is genuinely now on Twitter, or some disgruntled ex-NOTW journo just won the hacking Olympics.” — Less than two days after joining Twitter, media mogul Rupert Murdoch appears to have had his first brush …
Discussion:
Guardian, AllThingsD, Wonkette, Mediaite, Pulse2, @lord_sugar, Gizmodo, London Calling Blog, VatorNews, Betabeat, Lost Remote, CNN, CNET, The Tech Herald Technology …, The Next Web, ABCNEWS and TechEye, more at Mediagazer »


Techmeme's biggest stories of 2011, literally, as measured by height — One the best things about Techmeme is how “huge” or “big” stories can literally be that: conveyed through a stack of headlines several times taller than your screen size. (Unless you hate this, in which case it's …
Discussion:
TechCrunch, Business Insider and om.co


It is now illegal to access any foreign website in the Republic of Belarus — According to the US Library of Congress, The Republic of Belarus has just recently published a law making it illegal for Belarusian citizens and residents access and/or use foreign websites (particularly for commercial purposes).
Discussion:
Engadget, loc.gov and Geekosystem

Acer, Lenovo to launch Wintel tablet PC in 3Q12 — First-tier PC vendors Acer and Lenovo are set to launch table PCs based on Microsoft's Windows 8 and Intel's Clover Trail platform in the third quarter of 2012, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.
Discussion:
PC World, I4U News, BGR, Techie Buzz, PhoneArena, SlashGear, Electronista and Fudzilla


Unboxed: How Samuel Palmisano of I.B.M. Stayed a Step Ahead - Unboxed — BECAUSE it has become so consistently successful, I.B.M. is almost boring. This is a company so predictable that its financial forecast is packaged as a “five-year road map,” as if it were some sort of state planning exercise.
Discussion:
Engadget, Bloomberg, AllThingsD, SlashGear and Bits


Microsoft to enable Linux on its Windows Azure cloud in 2012 — Summary: Microsoft is preparing to launch a new persistent virtual machine feature on its Azure cloud platform, enabling customers to host Linux, SharePoint and SQL Server there. — This headline is not an error.
Discussion:
Open Source Blog and OStatic blogs


Wikimedia Foundation Raises $20 Million From 1 Million+ Donors — Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia and other sites, this morning announced that they've raised $20 million from more than a million donors, shattering a record once again.
Discussion:
ReadWriteWeb, VentureBeat, Wikimedia blog, VatorNews and Neowin.net, more at Mediagazer »

The Danger of an Attack on Piracy Online — By invoking the acronym SOPA right at the get-go, I may be daring many of you to check the next column over for something a little less chewy. After all, SOPA, which stands for Stop Online Piracy Act, sounds like a piece of arcane Internet …
Discussion:
ReadWriteWeb and Social Media

Just Ahead of the Iowa Caucuses, Google Launches its U.S. Election Site — Even though the presidential elections are still nine months away, the political circus in the U.S. is in full swing already (and has been for months), thanks to the impending start of the Republican primaries tomorrow.


Asus faces customer backlash over Transformer Prime's locked bootloader — Taiwanese electronics giant Asus has been the subject of intense criticism over the release of its new Transformer Prime tablet after it emerged that the company had locked the bootloader on its device …
Discussion:
Gizmodo, The Verge, IntoMobile, GottaBeMobile, Android Phone Fans and AndroidOS.in, Thanks:jonrussell


H.P.'s TouchPad Tablet Was Bound to Be a Flop, Some Say — The TouchPad tablet from Hewlett-Packard was one of the most closely watched new gadgets of 2011 — and quickly turned out to be the year's biggest flop. The TouchPad, which was supposed to be a rival to Apple's iPad …
Discussion:
PhoneArena, SlashGear, ITProPortal, TechCrunch, Beyond Search, Gizmodo UK, IntoMobile, TechEye, VR-Zone, Business Insider, Electronista, Technologizer, Electronista, All New Musings and Slashdot


EXCLUSIVE: Product picture Galaxy Note AT&T. (NFC) — On December the 30th we received a nice email. — As expected, the Galaxy Note will be hitting the stores in America Q1 or Q2. — However, there were no official pictures of this Galaxy Note. — Until now!


PostSecret shuts down iPhone app due to abusive posts — The PostSecret app has been shut down, but the blog is still alive and well. — PostSecret, the popular blog and new-media project that's long given people a place to share their deepest, darkest thoughts, today announced it has shut …
Discussion:
Appolicious Advisor, MacRumors, msnbc.com, PostSecret, Mashable!, Gadgetopia, ReadWriteWeb and The Next Web

Website Blocking Law Implemented By New Spanish Government — In the last decade Spain has truly emerged as one of file-sharing's safe-havens. Countless court decisions have affirmed that P2P indexing sites operate legally, with most cases against site operators going in favor of the defendants.
Discussion:
ReadWriteWeb, GamePolitics blogs and Techie Buzz