Techmeme: RIM CEOs to Give Up Top Posts in Shuffle (Wall Street Journal)

9:45 PM ET, January 22, 2012

Top Items:

RIM CEOs to Give Up Top Posts in Shuffle — WATERLOO, Ontario—After 20 years together at the helm of Research In Motion Ltd., Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, the company's co-chief executives, said they planned to turn over the top job early Monday to a little-known company insider as part of a board and management shuffle.

Discussion: TechCrunch, Tech Check, New York Times, Engadget, BGR, mocoNews, The Verge, Tech Trader Daily, Reuters, Bloomberg, IntoMobile and Neowin.net

Iain Marlow / Globe and Mail:

At Research In Motion, a new CEO vows to silence the doomsayers — Research In Motion Ltd.'s RIM-T new chief executive officer says the company is doing everything right and does not need a change in strategy, and must instead focus on harnessing its talent to improve the BlackBerry and revive sales.

Discussion: MobileSyrup.com and The Next Web

New York Times:

Apple, America and a Squeezed Middle Class — When Barack Obama joined Silicon Valley's top luminaries for dinner in California last February, each guest was asked to come with a question for the president. — But as Steven P. Jobs of Apple spoke, President Obama interrupted with an inquiry of his own …

Seth Weintraub / 9to5Mac:

NYTimes: Why Apple builds its products in China — The NY Times just published an absolutely fascinating piece on Apple and why it builds almost all of its stuff in China. Go read it. Clearly some of our politicians could learn a lot from it. — The short of it is that companies …

Discussion: Business Insider

Enigmax / TorrentFreak:

Filesonic Kills File-Sharing Service After MegaUpload Arrests — To users of systems like BitTorrent, file-sharing means just that - the sharing of files with others. But this weekend users of Filesonic, one of the Internet's leading cyberlocker services, sharing files is currently a thing of the past.

Discussion: CNET, Ars Technica, The Verge, Between the Lines Blog and Neowin.net

Sean Ludwig / VentureBeat:

MediaFire CEO: Unlike Megaupload, our business model isn't built on piracy — As the strange case of file-sharing site Megaupload continues to unfold, many wonder if the federal government will begin to clamp down on similar sites that function like Megaupload, with easy sharing and hosting of copyrighted files.

Discussion: Digital Trends and Gizmodo, Thanks:@seanludwig

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:

Uploaded.to Blocks US Visitors After MegaUpload Shutdown — Uploaded.to, one of the most popular file-hosting sites in the Internet, has closed its doors to US visitors. The move is most likely a response to the FBI crackdown on MegaUpload two days ago. US visitors of Uploaded.to currently get the following message.

Discussion: Prefix Magazine and Techie Buzz

Mark Hendrickson / TechCrunch:

The Uphill Battle Of Social Event Sharing: A Post-Mortem for Plancast — Editor's note: Mark Hendrickson is the founder and CEO of Plancast, a social site for planning events, which he has decided to stop working on full-time. In this guest post, Hendrickson takes us through a detailed analysis …

Discussion: @peteskomoroch and Silicon Valley Watcher

Fred Wilson / A VC:

A Post PIPA Post — On my way from a breakfast meeting to the office yesterday I got a phone call on my cell phone with a 202 area code on it. I picked up the call and on the other end of the line was someone in Congress who I've known for a decade or more.

Discussion: TNL.net, VentureBeat, PC World, Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog and PandoDaily, more at Mediagazer »

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
MPAA Directly & Publicly Threatens Politicians Who Aren't Corrupt Enough To Stay Bought

Discussion: Fox News, CNET, TorrentFreak, Hillicon Valley, @joshconstine, @jonhenke, @beschizza, The Greenroom, Telegraph, @wllegal, Slashdot, @gaberivera, @cshirky, parislemon and Public Knowledge, more at Mediagazer »

Joel Spolsky / Google+:
Two things about SOPA/PIPA and then I'll shut up :)

Discussion: GigaOM, TorrentFreak and Business Insider

Alex Howard / O'Reilly Radar:
The week the web changed Washington

Discussion: Reuters, PC World, @digiphile, TPM Idea Lab, Mashable! and VatorNews

Reuters:

Europe to issue tough new data-protection rules soon — (Reuters) - The European Union will propose tough new rules in the coming days on how corporations handle Internet users' personal data, a long-awaited move that could have far-reaching implications for Web giants such as Google Inc and Facebook.

Discussion: BuzzMachine, CNET, London Calling Blog, The Next Web, The Verge, TechCrunch Europe and Electronista

Chester Yung / Wall Street Journal:

Hong Kong Freezes Megaupload Assets — HONG KONG—In an enforcement action Friday, Hong Kong Customs froze more than 300 million Hong Kong dollars (US$39 million) in assets held by the popular file-sharing site Megaupload.com, which was shut down by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation Thursday.

Discussion: Reuters, HK Customs, CNET, Fast Company, Techdirt and MOTHERBOARD

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