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10:20 PM ET, January 20, 2012

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Follow the traffic: What MegaUpload's downfall did to the web  —  MegaUpload, the file-sharing community, has had its physical offices raided by the FBI and its site shut down (although it may be back up) because the U.S. government says it has violated copyright.
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Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Explainer: How can the US seize a “Hong Kong site” like Megaupload?  —  The Megaupload takedown, and the arrest of its key employees, might seem to vindicate late 1990s worries about the Internet and jurisdiction.  Does putting a site on the 'Net, though it might be hosted anywhere in the world …
Discussion: Technologizer
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 …
Jeremy Pelofsky / Reuters:
Megaupload site wants assets back, to fight charges  —  (Reuters) - The Internet website Megaupload.com, shut down by authorities over allegations that it illegally peddled copyrighted material, is trying to recover its servers and get back online, a lawyer for the company said on Friday.
Josh Harkinson / Mother Jones:
Inside Anonymous' “Largest Attack Ever”
Discussion: SlashGear and Fast Company
Molly Wood / CNET:
Anonymous goes nuclear; everybody loses?
Y Combinator:
RFS 9: Kill Hollywood  —  Hollywood appears to have peaked.  If it were an ordinary industry (film cameras, say, or typewriters), it could look forward to a couple decades of peaceful decline.  But this is not an ordinary industry.  The people who run it are so mean and so politically connected …
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Nick Bilton / Bits:
Investment Firm Y Combinator Goes on Offensive Against Hollywood  —  After the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect Intellectual Property Act were shelved on Friday, some Web sites and venture capitalists went on the offensive against the people and companies behind the controversial piracy bills.
Sarah Lacy / PandoDaily:   Killing Hollywood Will Require Learning Hollywood's Game
Paul Kane / Washington Post:
SOPA, PIPA votes to be delayed in House and Senate  —  Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), author of the Stop Online Privacy Act, said on Friday that he is postponing consideration of the bill in response to concerns from critics who said the bill could lead to censorship.
RELATED:
Matthew Yglesias / Slate:   5 Lessons From The SOPA/PIPA Fight
Dan Gillmor / Guardian:
The struggle against Sopa and Pipa is not over
Steven Sinofsky / MSDN Blogs:
Engineering Windows 8 for mobile networks … People want similar mobility on their PCs as they get on their smartphones.  —  It is unlikely that your end goal is just to get connected to the Internet.  Instead, connecting to the Internet is a step (or a hurdle) towards what you really want to do …
Frederic Lardinois / SiliconFilter:
Google to Shut Down Picnik, Social Graph API and Urchin, Open-Sourcing Sky Map  —  Google's spring cleaning campaign continues, the the company just announced the closure of a number of products, including the popular Picnik online photo editor which, until recently, was integrated into Yahoo's Flickr, for example.
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 …
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.
Rebecca J. Rosen / The Atlantic Online:
Microsoft Calls for Gay Marriage in Washington State  —  The company argues that it's hard to hire the best people in the world when the state where it's based discriminates against them.  —  In a week of tech industry protests about censorship, one company — Microsoft …
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+.
John Biggs / TechCrunch:
Foxconn Responds To CEO's “Employees Are Animals” Comment  —  Foxconn responded to yesterday's kerfuffle about the CEO of Foxconn, Terry Gou, commenting that he cared for “a million animals” - namely his employees.  They said it was an off-the-cuff remark, similar to saying that managing is like …
Discussion: Business Insider and PandoDaily
Matt McGee / Search Engine Land:
Bing's New Ad Campaign: Bing Is For #Doing  —  Bing is set to launch a new ad campaign this weekend that includes a subtle change from its previous messaging.  —  Rather than promoting the idea of making decisions, the new campaign is about people doing interesting things and uses the slogan, Bing is for #Doing.
Tricia Duryee / AllThingsD:
Zynga Confirms It Is Seeking Partners for Online Gambling Initiatives  —  Zynga is getting ready to try its hand at online gambling.  —  The company has confirmed to All Things D that it is actively investigating several opportunities, and is in talks with several partners about gambling on the Internet.
Nitasha Tiku / Betabeat:
Layoffs Underway at Gilt Groupe Right Now: ‘General Atmosphere Is Terrifying’  —  Last Wednesday, Betabeat broke the news of impending layoffs at Gilt Groupe.  Later that morning, CEO Kevin Ryan downgraded the estimates we had heard, telling AllThingsD that the company intended to …
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 …
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 More Items: 
Kori Schulman / White House.gov Blog:
The White House Joins Google+
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Home Depot Acquires Home Services Marketplace Redbeacon
Discussion: GigaOM, VatorNews and Redbeacon
Tanzina Vega / New York Times:
For Online Privacy, Click Here
Danielle Kucera / Bloomberg:
PayPal Will Expand In-Store Payments
Discussion: CNET, GigaOM, PhoneArena and Phone Scoop
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
First Look: Backplane, The Lady Gaga-Backed Community Platform With All-Star Investors (Invites)
Discussion: PC Magazine and The Verge
Neil Callanan / Bloomberg:
Facebook Weighs Expanding European HQ
 Earlier Items: 
Adrianne Jeffries / Betabeat:
Union Square Ventures Leading Series B in Iowa-Based Dwolla for About $10 M.
Ben Drawbaugh / Engadget:
TiVo Premiere updates rolling out to the masses
Discussion: SlashGear and Electronista
David Carnoy / CNET:
Exede: The satellite broadband service you've been waiting for?
Discussion: Examiner
Farhad Manjoo / Slate:
The Great and Powerful Reddit
Discussion: The Atlantic Wire
Donald Melanson / Engadget:
Don't call it an ultrabook  —  Every year at CES …
Discussion: Technologizer
Arik Hesseldahl / AllThingsD:
Who Says Intel Is Weak? Just Look at Those Crazy Numbers!
 

 
From Mediagazer:

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

Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch:
Tubi launches Scenes, a mobile feature that lets viewers watch 60-to-90-second trailer-style clips from its library to help with content discovery

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

 
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