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12:15 PM ET, January 18, 2012

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
David Drummond / The Official Google Blog:
Don't censor the web  —  You might notice many of your favorite websites look different today.  Wikipedia is down.  Wordpress is dark.  We're censoring our homepage logo and asking you to petition Congress.  So what's the big deal?  —  Right now in Washington D.C. …
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Hugh O'Connell / Business Insider:
How To Access Wikipedia During Its 24-Hour Blackout  —  IF YOU OBJECT to the legislation currently weaving its way through the U.S. Congress and wish to participate in the 24-hour internet blackout taking place today then we suggest you stop reading now.  —  But if you are one of the many millions …
Ben Fritz / Company Town:
Wikipedia, Craigslist, other sites go black in SOPA protest  —  Following through on their threats to shut down for a day over controversial proposed anti-piracy legislation, a coalition of websites including the hugely popular user-generated encyclopedia Wikipedia went black as midnight struck the East Coast.
Colleen Taylor / GigaOM:
Taking SOPA/PIPA to the streets: Protests on for SF, NYC  —  A number of tech industry companies and organizations are taking to the web to protest the proposed anti-piracy legislation in the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA.)  But the demonstrations don't stop …
Fred / fredbenenson.com:
Visualizing SOPA on Twitter  —  When I heard that Tyler Gray at Public Knowledge was looking for someone to do some analysis on tweets that mentioned SOPA, I thought I might try Cytoscape (an open source tool used for biomedical research, but handy for large scale data visualization) …
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Microsoft says it opposes SOPA ‘as currently drafted’  —  Much of the tech world's attention is focused on the Stop Online Piracy Act this week, with Wikipedia and others planning to black out their sites Wednesday to protest the bill and its companion Protect IP Act.
Nielsen Wire:
More US Consumers Choosing Smartphones as Apple Closes the Gap on Android  —  According to the latest research from Nielsen, the high-profile launch of Apple's iPhone 4S in the Fall had an enormous impact on the proportion of smartphone owners who chose an Apple iPhone.
RELATED:
Neil Hughes / AppleInsider:
NPD data suggests ‘soft’ sales of 4.9M Macs in December quarter
Discussion: Fortune
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Sarah Lacy / PandoDaily:   Here's Why Roy Bostock Isn't Out....Yet
Charles Cooper / CBS News:
Can the naysaying and give Jerry Yang his due
Discussion: CNET
Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:
Jerry Yang's Decision to Leave Yahoo Was His Own — Even if It Was Inevitable
Adam Lashinsky / Fortune:
The secrets Apple keeps  —  Undercover meetings!  Stealth product developments!  The world's most successful company is obsessed with privacy.  In his new book, Fortune senior editor-at-large Adam Lashinsky finds out what it's really like to work at Apple and how its secretive behavior pays off.
Discussion: 9to5Mac and MacRumors
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
Exclusive: EU moves early on Google antitrust probe  —  (Reuters) - European regulators will decide around the end of March whether to file a formal complaint against Google for misuse of its market position, potentially bringing the internet company's squabble with competitors to a head much sooner than expected.
Mike Isaac / Gadget Lab:
Q&A: Nokia's CEO Explains Plan for Smartphone Dominance  —  Nokia CEO Stephen Elop is ready for mobile war.  Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com  —  LAS VEGAS — Stephen Elop doesn't have much time.  As Nokia's head honcho, he's tasked with ushering a once-dominant mobile phone company …
Discussion: AllThingsD
Matt Rosoff / Business Insider:
New Google Board Member Gets $1 Million For Joining  —  Former VMWare leader Diane Greene is getting a one-time payment of $1 million in Google stock for joining Google's board of directors.  —  That's according to Google's offer letter, which was filed with the SEC.
Discussion: 9to5Google
Reuters:
Samsung says not interested in buying RIM  —  (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co said on Wednesday it was not interested in taking over Research In Motion after shares of the BlackBerry smartphone maker jumped more than 10 percent following a tech blog report that it was seeking to sell itself to the South Korean firm.
Jessica E. Vascellaro / Wall Street Journal:
Apple Turns to iWork Executive for Textbooks  —  As Apple Inc. prepares to unveil a new digital-textbook service on Thursday, the spotlight is falling on its vice president who is leading core aspects of the new service: Roger Rosner.  —  According to people familiar with the matter …
Paul Venezia / InfoWorld:
Fundamental Oracle flaw revealed  —  A design decision made by Oracle architects long ago may have painted some of Oracle's largest customers into a corner.  Patches have arrived, but how much will they correct?  Over the past two months, InfoWorld has been researching a flaw …
Jenna Wortham / New York Times:
For Some Internet Start-Ups, a Failure Is Just the Beginning  —  Every entrepreneur hopes to start the next big thing.  But sometimes the first try doesn't go as planned.  —  Bradford Shellhammer remembers the exact moment he realized his fledgling Web start-up, Fabulis …
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Why Are Android Smartphones Bigger Than the iPhone?  —  Interesting theory from Jin Kim: … Kim makes a good case that an Android phone with a 3.5-inch display and 300+ pixels per inch resolution would reduce on-screen tap targets (like buttons) and text to an uncomfortably small size.
David Barnard / App Cubby Blog:
Free and Low-Cost Apps  —  After stirring some interesting discussion yesterday with a 2-year-old post about price deterioration in the App Store, I thought the topic worth revisiting.  Much has been written about it, but most of that was done in 2008 and 2009 when the trend appeared most dire.
Devindra Hardawar / VentureBeat:
Presents for social gifting service Wrapp: $5M more funding, Reid Hoffman joins board  —  Who says gift cards aren't cool?  After landing $5.5 million in a first round of funding last November, the social gifting service Wrapp, which lets you easily send gift cards to friends through Facebook …
Eric Eldon / TechCrunch:
Chegg Launches Mobile Reader For Online Textbooks  —  Having built, bought and partnered its way into the textbook distribution business, Chegg is launching a long-promised mobile web version today that lets readers easily read and mark up their textbooks.  Of course the move is timed …
Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:
Oracle says each day's worth of Android activations generates $10 million in annual revenues for Google — and strengthens Google+  —  In the previous blog post, I have just reported on Oracle's bold move to propose to the court that it stay (or dismiss without prejudice) …
Zeljka Zorz / Help Net Security:
Hackers steal $6.7 million in bank cyber heist  —  A perfectly planned, coordinated and executed bank robbery was executed during the first three days of the new year in Johannesburg, and left the targeted South African Postbank - part of the nation's Post Office service - with a loss of some $6.7 million.
Discussion: SlashGear
 
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 More Items: 
Chris Ziegler / The Verge:
Samsung has ‘not made a firm decision’ to merge Bada OS into Tizen
Kim-Mai Cutler / Inside Mobile Apps:
6Waves-Lolapps acquires Escalation Studios as it pushes into mobile gaming
Discussion: TechCrunch, AllThingsD and GigaOM
Nancy Messieh / The Next Web:
Clean up your email settings for Twitter, Facebook, YouTube & more in one go, with Notification Control
Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:
Chill moves from live chat to social video discovery
Discussion: TechCrunch
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Developing for BlackBerry 10
Mikey Campbell / AppleInsider:
Apple axes last remaining Mac purchase rebate
 Earlier Items: 
Electronista:
iPhone 4S ship times shrink to 3-5 days
Discussion: Fortune and Macgasm
Darren Murph / Engadget:
HP appoints Bill Veghte as chief strategy officer, will lead ‘cloud and webOS open source initiatives’
Discussion: Computerworld and Softpedia News
Dina Bass / Bloomberg:
Facebook, Zynga Luring Employees to Hog Bandwidth at Work Hours
Haaretz:
Israeli hackers bring down Saudi, UAE stock exchange websites
Royal Pingdom:
Internet 2011 in numbers
Discussion: CNET