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11:50 AM ET, January 20, 2012

Techmeme

 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.
RELATED:
Molly Wood / CNET:
Anonymous goes nuclear; everybody loses?  —  #OpMegaUpload: like watching “War Games” play out, but with cyber-bombs.  —  In the aftermath of the Jan. 18 SOPA/PIPA blackout protests, the Internet community had amassed quite a bit of goodwill, flexed its muscles in a friendly, humorous …
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
Feds, Please Return My Personal Files Stored at MegaUpload!  —  The feds shut down MegaUpload a few hours ago.  Eight people we charged with criminal copyright infringement charges, and all files hosted on the site were pulled offline.  However, do the feds realize that hundreds of thousands …
Adrian Chen / Gawker:
The Evil New Tactic Behind Anonymous' Massive Megaupload Revenge Attack  —  The hacktivist collective Anonymous is in the middle of a huge revenge spree after the Feds shut down popular filesharing site Megaupload today.  But they're using an evil new tactic that tricks people into helping their attack if they click an innocuous link.
Josh Harkinson / Mother Jones:
Inside Anonymous' “Largest Attack Ever”  —  Yesterday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, working with police in New Zealand, arrested the leaders of the popular file sharing service MegaUpload.com and scrubbed the site from the internet, alleging that it supports widespread copyright infringement.
Greg Sandoval / CNET:   Megaupload assembles worldwide criminal defense
Aaron / Senate Democrats:
Reid Statement On Intellectual Property Bill … Washington, D.C. - Nevada Senator Harry Reid released the following statement today on the Senate's PROTECT I.P. Act:  —  “In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday's vote on the PROTECT I.P. Act.
RELATED:
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
PIPA and SOPA votes shelved.  Your move, web.  —  Update: After this story was published, the House Judiciary chairman and cosponsor of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) also said he would postpone the vote to bring SOPA out of committee (it's buried at the bottom of his statement on the Protect IP Act here).
Nate Cochrane / Sydney Morning Herald:
Father of the web backs SOPA protests
Discussion: Business Insider
David Pierson / Los Angeles Times:
U.S. website blackout draws praise in China
Discussion: Letter from China
David Edwards / The Raw Story:
After Internet blackout, all GOP candidates agree SOPA sucks
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Publisher Terry McGraw on Steve Jobs and Digital Textbooks: “This Was His Vision”  —  After Apple's big education presentation yesterday, McGraw-Hill CEO Terry McGraw chatted with a gaggle of reporters, and explained things like the logic behind $15 digital textbooks.
RELATED:
Dan Wineman / venomous porridge:
The Unprecedented Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Kno CEO Osman Rashid To Apple: “Now We Will Fight On Who Has The Better Product”
Discussion: LAPTOP Magazine, PC World and Techland
Megan Garber / The Atlantic Online:
A Brief History of Textbooks, or, Why Apple's ‘New Textbook Experience’ Is Actually Revolutionary
Greg Sandoval / CNET:
Facebook in talks to replace YouTube as Vevo's host  —  Facebook has held talks with Vevo about moving the music-video service away from YouTube and over to the social network's platform, sources with knowledge of the talks told CNET.  —  While the sources said the discussions are very preliminary …
Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
New Google Accounts Require Gmail and Google+  —  If you try to create a Google account from Google's homepage, you'll notice that Google redesigned the page, but that's not all.  You'll now have to create a Gmail account, a Google Profile and you'll automatically join Google+.
Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:
Mannheim court rejects the first one of Samsung's German lawsuits against Apple  —  Judge Andreas Voss of the Mannheim Regional Court just pronounced his ruling on the first one of Samsung's seven patent infringement claims against Apple in Germany.  Samsung's complaint over a patent declared essential …
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.
Farhad Manjoo / Slate:
The Great and Powerful Reddit  —  How the site went from a second-tier aggregator to the Web's unstoppable force.  —  Of all the sites that went dark on Wednesday to protest Congress' misguided anti-piracy legislation, Reddit was the one I missed most.  Sure, there were a couple times …
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% …
Arik Hesseldahl / AllThingsD:
Who Says Intel Is Weak?  Just Look at Those Crazy Numbers!  —  Chipmaker Intel has grown its annual revenue by nearly $20 billion in two years.  Let that thought sink in for a minute.  —  In 2011, it crossed the threshold of $50 billion in annual sales for the first time, having hit the $40 billion mark only last year.
Geoff Duncan / Digital Trends:
Is ‘5G’ mobile broadband just around the corner?  IMT-Advanced explained  —  Can't wait to get on the 4G LTE bandwagon?  Think bigger.  A new standard called IMT-Advanced promises speeds up to 10 times faster, and it's just been approved.  —  With Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint racing …
Discussion: itu.int, Phone Scoop and The Verge
David Carnoy / CNET:
Exede: The satellite broadband service you've been waiting for?  —  ViaSat's Exede satellite broadband service has officially launched, with an entry-level package that starts at $50 a month and promises “feels-like-fiber” performance.  —  Buried among the gadgets, superthin screen OLED TVs …
Donald Melanson / Engadget:
Don't call it an ultrabook  —  Every year at CES, the tech-watching masses engage in a bit of trendspotting — an attempt to identify the one or two big themes of the show that may or may not come to define the year in technology.  Some years those are easy to spot (tablets and 3D TV …
 
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 More Items: 
Ben Drawbaugh / Engadget:
TiVo Premiere updates rolling out to the masses
Discussion: Electronista
Hana Stewart-Smith / Unboxing Asia Blog:
China expands micro-blogging ‘online accountability’ regulation
Discussion: PandoDaily and SocialTimes.com
Richard Lawler / Engadget:
Time Warner Cable app streams live TV to iPhones, no longer iPad-only
Discussion: Gotta Be Mobile and Electronista
Forbes:
Hackers Target Children as Adults Wise Up to Spam
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Bitly Rolls Out New Enterprise Dashboard, Providing Better Access To The Real-Time Social Web
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Does Google Have An Interest In Pinterest?
Discussion: Electronista
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Apple Store coming to London's world-famous Harrods department store
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Why Kodak's bankruptcy should scare Nokia
 Earlier Items: 
Adrianne Jeffries / Betabeat:
Layoffs at Lot18: 15 Percent of Employees Were Just Let Go From Fast-Growing Luxury Discount Site
Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:
The Valley Girl Takes On Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg (Video)
Antonio Rodriguez / The Grain:
How iOS can lose: the independent developer as a canary in the coal mine
Nancy Messieh / The Next Web:
Death sentence for Iranian programmer accused of developing software used by porn sites
Discussion: CNET, WebProNews, The Register and Gizmodo