Top Items:
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Why the feds smashed Megaupload — The US government dropped a nuclear bomb on “cyberlocker” site Megaupload today, seizing its domain names, grabbing $50 million in assets, and getting New Zealand police to arrest four of the site's key employees, including enigmatic founder Kim Dotcom.
Discussion:
TeleRead
RELATED:
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
Before shutdown, Megaupload ate up more corporate bandwidth than Dropbox — Before being shut down by the feds today, the file-sharing site Megaupload was extraordinarily popular with home Internet users—so much so that the file downloading habit was spilling over into the workplace in a significant way.
Discussion:
Gizmodo and Techie Buzz
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 …
Discussion:
eWeek, Threat Level, The United States Department …, TorrentFreak, InfoWorld, SecurityWeek, Social Markets, Ars Technica, Neowin.net, BBC, Betabeat, gHacks Technology News, Lifehacker, CircleID, BetaNews, The Not-So Private Parts, The Tech Herald Technology …, Digital Trends, paidContent and WebProNews, more at Mediagazer »
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 …
Chris Ziegler / The Verge:
Anonymous claims DOJ and record label site takedowns in response to MegaUpload suit
Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:
The Mega empire: Details of the MegaUpload indictment
Discussion:
CNET, VentureBeat, PandoDaily, Gizmodo and Guardian, more at Mediagazer », Thanks:loyalelectron
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:
Discussion:
Gizmodo, VentureBeat, SiliconFilter, MacRumors, The Verge, ReadWriteWeb, The Ed Bott Report Blog, PandoDaily, 9to5Mac, The Next Web, TUAW, Business Insider, L.A. Times Tech Blog, PC World, SiliconFilter, Matt Gemmell, Rex Hammock's RexBlog.com, 9to5Mac, Mashable!, MacStories, Techie Buzz, GadgeTell, iDownloadBlog.com, Business Insider, GigaOM, @segphault, MacRumors, Apple Gazette, Ubergizmo, SlashGear, Pulse2 and Ars Technica, more at Mediagazer »
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.
Discussion:
ZDNet, The Apple Core Blog, Apple, The Next Web, 9to5Mac, GigaOM, dailywireless.org, The Register, AppleTell, Digital Trends, Laughing Squid, Engadget and The Verge, more at Mediagazer »
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?
Discussion:
Examiner, Computerworld, Epicenter, GigaOM, MacRumors, USA Today, CNET, Techland, PadGadget, TUAW, Dice Blog Network, Gizmodo, The Next Web and TechCrunch, more at Mediagazer »
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.
Paul Carr / PandoDaily:
iBooks Author Is Not Going To Hurt Publishers. It Might Even Help Them
Discussion:
Engadget, TeleRead and GigaOM, more at Mediagazer »
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% …
Discussion:
John Battelle's Search Blog, eWeek, L.A. Times Tech Blog, AllThingsD, The Next Web, MediaNama, SplatF, Ars Technica, The Next Web, CNET, TechCrunch, Forbes, Gizmodo, VentureBeat, ReadWriteWeb, The Verge, Search Engine Watch, @ldignan, The Tech Trade, Mercury News, Gizmodo UK, Marketing Land, MobileSyrup.com, Mercury News, Engadget, Forbes, Inside Social Games, Telegraph, Between the Lines Blog, Social Markets, Business Insider, WebProNews, AdExchanger.com, GeekWire, Search Engine Land, WinBeta, Tech Trader Daily and ITworld.com
RELATED:
Eric Eldon / TechCrunch:
Larry Page Is Super Excited To Announce That Google+ Has 90M Users [Update: Engagement+?]
Discussion:
AllThingsD, Vic Gundotra, TechCrunch, Business Insider, Mixed Media, The Register, SlashGear, Marketing Land, Mashable!, VentureBeat and SiliconFilter
Devindra Hardawar / VentureBeat:
Google: 250M Android devices activated, 11B Android Market app downloads
Discussion:
GigaOM, IntoMobile and Gotta Be Mobile
New York Times:
Dodd Calls for Hollywood and Silicon Valley to Meet — WASHINGTON — When Jack Valenti walked the halls of Congress, friends by the dozen gripped, grinned and took note of what was worrying the movie industry's dapper chief lobbyist. — Christopher J. Dodd now fills Mr. Valenti's shoes.
Discussion:
@johnolilly
RELATED:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
SOPA Protests Sway Congress: 31 Opponents Yesterday, 122 Now
Discussion:
The ProPublica Nerd Blog, @paulg, Gizmodo, Techland and Neowin.net, Thanks:mjburnsy
David Edwards / The Raw Story:
After Internet blackout, all GOP candidates agree SOPA sucks
Discussion:
Mediaite and Alexander Howard
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 …
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 …
Discussion:
Neowin.net, Spatially Adjusted, Search Engine Land, IntoMobile, The Verge, The Nokia Blog and Nokia Windows Phone
Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:
The Valley Girl Takes On Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg (Video) — Double snaps to Jesse Draper, whose kookified online interview show, “The Valley Girl Show,” managed to get a very decent interview with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. — And by decent, I mean that Draper actually elicits …
Discussion:
TechCrunch
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 …
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Why Kodak's bankruptcy should scare Nokia — Yesterday, a friend of mine, someone who is quite savvy about technology and the startup landscape stopped by for a chat. Our conversation veered towards the state of the web, media and of course Silicon Valley.
Discussion:
The Economist and Forbes
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Damning Evidence Emerges In Google-Apple “No Poach” Antitrust Lawsuit — Next week a class-action civil lawsuit will be heard in San Jose to determine if Google, Apple, Pixar, Lucasfilm, Adobe, Intel, and Intuit conspired to eliminate competition for skilled labor.
Discussion:
9to5Mac
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 …
Discussion:
Bloomberg, Microsoft, The Register, The Verge, AllThingsD, Guardian, Ars Technica, All about Microsoft Blog, GeekWire, BetaNews, BGR, New York Times, VentureBeat, PC World, eWeek, Electronista and SlashGear
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.
Discussion:
Inside Search, Latest From SNC, PandoDaily and Search Engine Journal
Adrianne Jeffries / Betabeat:
Layoffs at Lot18: 15 Percent of Employees Were Just Let Go From Fast-Growing Luxury Discount Site — Lot18, the membership-based luxury item site that raised a whopping $45 million over the last year, just laid off 14 people, or 15 percent of the staff. — “A lot of this is a natural part …
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:
AllThingsD, 9to5Mac and CNNMoney.com
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 …
Discussion:
VentureBeat, Business Wire, Business Insider, NikeInc.com, IntoMobile, Gotta Be Mobile, PC World, AllThingsD, GeekSugar, Electronista and Gizmodo UK
