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9:50 PM ET, January 19, 2012

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Dan Wineman / venomous porridge:
The Unprecedented Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA  —  Apple just released iBooks Author, a free Mac app for creating digital books for the new version of iBooks.  I haven't played with it much, but so far it looks like a very good tool.  However, a curious thing happens when you go to export your work in iBooks format:
RELATED:
Tom Neumayr / Apple:
Apple Unveils All-New iTunes U App for iPad, iPhone & iPod touch  —  Entire Courses from Top Universities Now Available in One App  —  Apple® today announced an all-new iTunes® U app, giving educators and students everything they need on their iPad®, iPhone® and iPod touch® to teach and take entire courses.
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Apple's New Math.  Or: Why A $15 E-Book Equals a $75 Paper Book.  —  McGraw-Hill normally sells high-school textbooks for $75 a pop. Now it says it will sell electronic versions of the same books, via Apple, for $15 apiece.  How can the publisher make that work?
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Kno CEO Osman Rashid To Apple: “Now We Will Fight On Who Has The Better Product”  —  Apple's latest foray into digital textbooks today raises a lot of questions about the future of the textbook publishing industry and digital textbook startups who now find themselves going up against Apple.
Megan Garber / The Atlantic Online:
A Brief History of Textbooks, or, Why Apple's ‘New Textbook Experience’ Is Actually Revolutionary
Discussion: CNET and AnandTech
Darrell Etherington / GigaOM:
Apple announces new iPad textbook experience with iBooks 2
Google Investor Relations:
Google Announces Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2011 Results  —  Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced financial results for the quarter and the fiscal year ended December 31, 2011.  —  “Google had a really strong quarter ending a great year.  Full year revenue was up 29% …
RELATED:
Eric Eldon / TechCrunch:
Larry Page Is Super Excited To Announce That Google+ Has 90M Users [Update: Engagement+?]  —  The official numbers are in for Google's new social network, Google+.  Beating out most previous third-party estimates that we've seen, the company said today that it now has 90 million users worldwide.
Dan Gallagher / MarketWatch:
Google earnings rise 6%, but miss targets
Discussion: Bloomberg
Devlin Barrett / Wall Street Journal:
FBI Charges Seven With Online Piracy  —  WASHINGTON—The Federal Bureau of Investigation moved against a group of suspected online pirates Thursday, targeting the popular file-sharing website megaupload.com a day after Washington lawmakers were besieged by complaints about legislation designed …
RELATED:
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Justice Department calls MegaUpload an ‘international organized criminal enterprise,’ founder Kim Dotcom arrested in New Zealand  —  The United States Justice Department filed charges against MegaUpload today, calling the file-sharing service an “international organized criminal enterprise …
Chris Ziegler / The Verge:
Anonymous claims DOJ and record label site takedowns in response to MegaUpload suit  —  By all appearances, Anonymous isn't too happy with the Department of Justice's move to take down file sharing site MegaUpload today, because it's now claiming that it's knocked the DOJ's site off the internet …
Billboard:
Swizz Beatz's Resume: The History of a Multi-Tasker
Discussion: BET.com
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Why the feds smashed Megaupload
Discussion: TeleRead
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
Before shutdown, Megaupload ate up more corporate bandwidth than Dropbox
Summify:
Summify Joins The Flock At Twitter!  —  You've probably noticed we've been quiet lately.  Well, we're extremely excited to announce that Summify has been acquired by Twitter!  I know, right?  We can hardly believe it ourselves!  —  Roughly 2 years ago, we moved from Romania to Vancouver …
RELATED:
Mike Davidson / mikeindustries.com:   Twitter Buys Summify, Gives Everyone a Reason to Use It
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Microsoft Reports Record Revenue: Up 5% To $20.9B, Earnings At $0.78 Per Share  —  Microsoft just reported its second quarter 2012 earnings with revenues of $20.9 billion, an 5% increase from the same period of the prior year.  Microsoft's operating income, net income, and diluted earnings per share …
RELATED:
Stuart Miles / Pocket-lint:
Bing Maps to get Nokia branding on all devices - including rivals'  —  Nokia CEO, Stephen Elop, has told Pocket-lint that we shall soon be seeing the Nokia brand name within other devices and not just the company's own phones.  —  “You'll starting seeing the word ‘Nokia’ on a map …
John Paczkowski / AllThingsD:
Amazon Makes More Than $100 Off Each Kindle Fire  —  The hardware and manufacturing costs of the Kindle Fire may exceed the device's retail price, but Amazon is not losing any money on it.  Every Kindle sold is another annuity revenue stream for the company, strengthening its core retail business.
RELATED:
Eric Savitz / The Tech Trade:
Amazon Kindle Fire: More Profitable Than Expected?
David Goldman / CNN Money:
At $400 billion, Apple is worth more than Greece  —  NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Apple's value on the stock market briefly rose to $400 billion on Thursday, a record high for what was already the world's most valuable technology company.  —  The company's market cap slipped below the $400 billion mark …
Discussion: 9to5Mac, AllThingsD and CNNMoney.com
Antonio Rodriguez / The Grain:
How iOS can lose: the independent developer as a canary in the coal mine  —  Try as I might to find objective data in their financials to show the slow of the platform, I found it difficult to observe any cracks in the iOS money-making machine.  Apple is continuing to spend fewer dollars …
Jack Purcher / Patently Apple:
Apple introduces us to Siri, the Killer Patent  —  On October 4, 2011Apple launched the iPhone 4S with Siri, just one day prior to Steve Jobs passing.  Today, the first killer patent application behind Siri was published by the US Patent and Trademark Office.
Discussion: AppleInsider, BGR and CNET
Adam Lashinsky / Fortune:
Larry Page: Google should be like a family  —  In an exclusive Q&A, Google's co-founder and CEO explains how he built a No. 1 workplace — and why it matters.  —  Google also claimed the top spot on our list in 2007 and 2008 - making it the only three-time champion.
Krystal Peak / VatorNews:
Nike announces FitBit, JawboneUP competition ‘FuelBand’  —  As consumers demand more from mobile health, Nike pours fuel on the fire  —  With everyone trying to uphold their New Year's resolutions — or resuscitate them — Nike took some time out on Thursday to announce a new tool to track …
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Pages With Too Many Ads “Above The Fold” Now Penalized By Google's “Page Layout” Algorithm  —  Do you shove lots of ads at the top of your web pages?  Think again.  Tired of doing a Google search and landing on these types of pages?  Rejoice.  Google has announced that it will penalize sites with pages that are top-heavy with ads.
Matt Lynley / Business Insider:
Path Is Raising A Big Funding Round To Go With Its Shiny New App  —  Find out more out the future of disruptive technology and companies like Facebook, Google, Zynga, Disney, NBC and more at IGNITION West!  —  Path is in the beginning stages of raising a new funding round, Business Insider has learned.
Nancy Messieh / The Next Web:
Death sentence for Iranian programmer accused of developing software used by porn sites  —  Iran's stranglehold on Internet use in the country is no secret.  From monitoring its users to blocking sites quicker than you can say Ahmadinejad, Iranian authorities will stop at nothing to ensure …
Discussion: Gizmodo
 
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 More Items: 
Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:
The Valley Girl Takes On Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg (Video)
Discussion: TechCrunch
T.C. Sottek / The Verge:
US military to crowdsource software testing with games
Discussion: Nextgov.com
Kevin Woodward / Internet Retailer:
Shoppers convert as often on tablets as on PCs
Discussion: Fast Company and Business Wire
Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:
High-res images in iBooks 2 are no accident, they're for the iPad 3′s Retina display
Discussion: @sonnydickson, Gizmodo and 9to5Mac, Thanks:padandquill
Matt Wirz / Wall Street Journal:
Icahn Buys LightSquared Debt as Distressed Investors Circle
Discussion: GigaOM and Wall Street Journal
J.B. / Fusible.com:
Facebook registers domains for something called “FB Origin”
Melanie Lee / Reuters:
China's challenge to the iPad raises a red flag
Discussion: CNET, Techland and PadGadget
 Earlier Items: 
Kathleen De Vere / Inside Mobile Apps:
Exclusive: Xbox Live games coming to other platforms
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Appstores.com Launches An ‘AdSense For Mobile Apps’
Discussion: PandoDaily and ReadWriteWeb
Paul Graham:
A Word to the Resourceful  —  A year ago I noticed a pattern …
Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:
As Weak Q4 Earnings Loom, Yahoo Freezes Hiring and Also Contemplates Layoffs
Discussion: BGR
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Alex Sherman / CNBC:
Analyzing Comcast's spinoff of cable networks, purposefully structured with low debt: the move might be a signal to the industry that it's time to consolidate

Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:
James Harding says the Tortoise-Observer deal could create a profitable media group and there isn't a guaranteed future for the Observer with the Guardian

John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Substack, very deliberately, tries to have it both ways by saying publications on their platform are independent while presenting them all as parts of Substack

 
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