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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.
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GeekWire, VentureBeat, Mitchell's Blog, Business Insider, The Mozilla Blog, OpenDNS Blog, CNET, TechCrunch, Ars Technica, TomsTechBlog.com, FlowingData, Computerworld, msnbc.com, ongoing, New York Times, @robertandrews, @youranonnews, FT Tech Hub, AJE, Wall Street Journal, @mpetricone, @firefox, @fivethirtyeight, The Daily What, Forbes and Epoch Times, more at Mediagazer »
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Search Engine Land, paidContent, Techdirt, @mattcutts, @rob_sheridan and @scepticgeek

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. …
Discussion:
GigaOM, The Next Web, Android Phone Fans, What's Trending …, CNNMoney.com and WebProNews


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 …
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Michael Geist Blog, danah boyd, Beth's Blog, TechCrunch and The Register

Need Wikipedia Wednesday? Here's How to Access It — Wikipedia's planned blackout won't be completely dark. — While the free encyclopedia is planning to blackout the English version of its site on Wednesday to protest antipiracy legislation, people still will be able to access Wikipedia information via other sources.
Discussion:
The Atlantic Online, Bits, PandoDaily, The Verge, Engadget, @benhuh, Associated Press, Gizmodo and @pkafka

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.
Discussion:
ZDNet, The Verge, Marketing Land, Seattle Times, Techdirt, Search Engine Land, Between the Lines Blog, PC World and The Next Web, Thanks:johnhcook

A technical examination of SOPA and PROTECT IP
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The Next Web, Digital Trends, Mashable!, PC World, Business Insider, TechCrunch and 1001 Noisy Cameras

Stop Online Piracy Act Markup to Resume in February
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O'Reilly Radar, GeekWire, ReadWriteWeb, Fortune, Politico, The Firewall, PC Magazine, Social Media, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Mashable!, Reuters, @eldon, SlashGear, VentureBeat, CNET, Techdirt, Electronista, MediaPost, Dice Blog Network, Business Insider and dailywireless.org, more at Mediagazer »

The Pirate Bay: PIPA/SOPA Won't Stop Us!
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AllThingsD, Gizmodo, Mashable!, Webmonkey, Tech Daily Dose, Politico Pro and TechCrunch

Yahoo! Announces Resignation of Jerry Yang — SUNNYVALE, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)— Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO), the premier digital media company, today announced that Jerry Yang has resigned from its Board of Directors and all other positions with the company, effective today.
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Reuters, Business Insider, CNET, PandoDaily, The Tech Trade, AllThingsD, Deal Journal, New York Times, @dangillmor, BBC, DealBook, Engadget, Search Engine Land, Boing Boing, CNNMoney.com, PhysOrg.com, The Next Web, Ubergizmo, GottaBeMobile, SlashGear, Financial Post, eWeek, Wired, MediaNama, Marketing Land, Mercury News, The Huffington Post, Deadline.com, CBS News, GigaOM, USA Today, Social Markets, Guardian, LiveSide.net, The New Persuaders, The Register, Neowin.net, The Seattle Times, Dice Blog Network and NBC Bay Area, more at Mediagazer »
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Sources: Four More Board Members Will Be Following Yang Out the Door — According to sources close to the situation, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang is just the first shoe to drop in what is shaping up to be what looks like a large exodus of board members from the Silicon Valley Internet company.
Discussion:
Macworld, PC Magazine and Electronista, more at Mediagazer »




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.
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The Tech Trade, Appboy Blog, Engadget, PhoneArena, GottaBeMobile, Android Phone Fans, TmoNews, AllThingsD, MediaFile, MobileSyrup.com and Electronista
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Research In Motion pushing for sale to Samsung
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VentureBeat, Ars Technica, The Verge, T3 News, PadGadget, Geek.com, AndroidGuys, WebProNews, TechSpot, Pocketables, LAPTOP Magazine, GottaBeMobile, Android Phone Fans, ITworld.com, The Next Web, Bloomberg, PhoneArena, The Tech Trade, Macgasm, Electronista, Between the Lines Blog, Tech Trader Daily, Business Insider and paidContent


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 …
Discussion:
Gizmodo, 9to5Mac, Electronista and MacRumors, more at Mediagazer »

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 …
Discussion:
eWeek, Ars Technica, Dennis Fisher and Business Insider


Rethinking Information Diversity in Networks — How do your friends shape the information you see and read online? Social networking technologies like Facebook let us connect to hundreds, even thousands of people — and have fundamentally changed how people get their information.
Discussion:
Slate, PC Magazine, Mashable!, ReadWriteWeb, MediaPost and Friending Facebook Blog
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Facebook Is Totally Not an Echo Chamber, Says Facebook
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PC World


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 …

Will Windows 8 on ARM be an OEM-only product? — Summary: Will Windows 8 on ARM be available only as something preloaded on new tablets and PCs from selected vendors? We still don't know for sure. — All the recent back and forth over Microsoft disallowing the installation …
Discussion:
WebProNews
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Windows 8 Secrets: PC and Device Requirements
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Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips, Softpedia News, Gizmodo, Electronista, Pocketables and PC World, Thanks:theromit


Israeli hackers bring down Saudi, UAE stock exchange websites — In fresh round of cyber warfare, Israel hackers, who go by the name IDF-TEAM, retaliate against Saudi attack on Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, El Al websites. — Get Haaretz on iPhone — Get Haaretz on Android
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Ars Technica, The Next Web, Pastebin, VentureBeat, @jspepper, Betabeat, TG Daily and Liquidmatrix Security Digest


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:
InfoWorld

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.
Discussion:
DisplayBlog


Apple axes last remaining Mac purchase rebate — Apple's promotion that offered a $100 rebate to customers who purchased a Mac and qualifying printer has been discontinued with no alternative incentives announced. — In a change to its promotion information webpage on Tuesday …

Facebook, Zynga Luring Employees to Hog Bandwidth at Work Hours — Jan. 17 (Bloomberg) — Social-network users are hogging more computer-network bandwidth — from the cubicle next door. — A growing proportion of the capacity on corporate networks is being taken up by employees actively …


HP appoints Bill Veghte as chief strategy officer, will lead ‘cloud and webOS open source initiatives’ — Bill Veghte was already having his checks cut by HP (after cutting ties with Microsoft), but now he'll be filling a slightly different corner office. The company today announced …
Discussion:
HP, Reuters and The Register


Developing for BlackBerry 10 — “If you have a codebase, we're making it easy for you to bring your codebase to the platform.” — One of the bigger issues for developers in the wake of the BlackBerry Developer's Conference last October was the massive array of development platforms available on PlayBook and, by extension, BB10.


Internet 2011 in numbers — So what happened with the Internet in 2011? How many email accounts were there in the world in 2011? How many websites? How much did the most expensive domain name cost? How many photos were hosted on Facebook? How many videos were viewed to YouTube?
Discussion:
ReadWriteWeb