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5:15 PM ET, January 23, 2012

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
“Don't Be Evil” Tool — Backed By Facebook & Twitter — Gets Them Into Google's “Search Plus Your World”  —  I've written that Google has plenty of public data to allow parts its new Search Plus Your World feature to be inclusive of rival social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
RELATED:
John Battelle / John Battelle's Search Blog:
Facebook Coalition To Google: Don't Be Evil, Focus On The User  —  Last week I spent an afternoon down at Facebook, as I mentioned here.  While at Facebook I met with Blake Ross, Direct of Product (and well known in web circles as one of the creators of Firefox).
Bradley Horowitz / Google+:
Toward a more inclusive naming policy for Google+  —  With Google+, we aspire to make online sharing more like sharing in the real world.  And during the Google+ signup process, we've asked users to select the name they commonly use in real life.  —  Since launch we've listened closely …
RELATED:
Lance Ulanoff / Mashable!:
Handle This: Google+ Finally Allows Pseudonyms  —  The Google+ Common Name policy will never be the same.  Google promised it would take a close look at the requirement that only real names and identities reside on its seven-month-old social network, and now the search giant has reversed course …
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb
John Paczkowski / AllThingsD:
350,000 Textbooks Downloaded From Apple's iBooks in Three Days  —  Though nascent and unproven, Apple's new textbook initiative appears to be gaining lots of momentum — and quickly, too.  Within days of its debut, Apple's iBooks textbook store had already racked up a significant number of downloads.
Lee Rainie / Pew Internet:
Tablet and E-book reader Ownership Nearly Double Over the Holiday Gift-Giving Period  —  The share of adults in the United States who own tablet computers nearly doubled from 10% to 19% between mid-December and early January and the same surge in growth also applied to e-book readers …
Wall Street Journal:
RIM CEOs 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, turned over the top job late Sunday to a little-known insider as part of a board and management shuffle.
RELATED:
Tom Krazit / mocoNews:
Denial Is Not A Turnaround Strategy: Why RIM's New CEO Needs To Get Real
Discussion: CNET and Toronto Standard
Bloomberg:
Nokia Lumia Sales Seen Topping 1 Million  —  Nokia Oyj (NOK1V)'s first phones running Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) software may have sold enough units last year to help rebuild investor confidence in the Finnish company, which lost $19 billion in market value in 2011.
Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
Cyberlocker Ecosystem Shocked As Big Players Take Drastic Action  —  While the shutdown last week of Megaupload and the arrest of its founder and management team was certainly dramatic, a situation of perhaps even greater gravity is beginning to emerge.  —  Over the past 48 to 72 hours …
Alexei Oreskovic / Reuters:
Exclusive: YouTube hits 4 billion daily video views  —  (Reuters) - YouTube, Google Inc's video website, is streaming 4 billion online videos every day, a 25 percent increase in the past eight months, according to the company.  —  The jump in video views comes as Google pushes YouTube beyond …
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:
Our Apple whisper numbers  —  Averaging the Q1 2012 estimates of the six analysts with the best track records  —  Whisper numbers, according to Wikipedia, emerge from widening cracks in the spreadsheets maintained by Wall Street analysts.  Quoting an article by Daniel Svensson, the entry explains:
Discussion: parislemon, MacRumors, GeekWire, CNET and 9to5Mac
David Kravets / Threat Level:
Supreme Court Court Rejects Willy-nilly GPS Tracking  —  The Supreme Court said Monday that law enforcement authorities might need a probable-cause warrant from a judge to affix a GPS device to a vehicle and monitor its every move — but the justices did not say that a warrant was needed in all cases.
Danny Sullivan / Daggle:
Dear Rupert Murdoch: Let's Talk Piracy & “The Simpsons”  —  Rupert, my son had a simple request.  “Daddy, can we watch last week's episode of The Simpsons?”  No, son, we can't.  You can blame Rupert Murdoch for that.  —  Rupert, I know you're all upset about all those SOPA & PIPA protests last week.
Jay Greene / CNET:
Google nearly doubles lobbying spending in 2011, tops Microsoft  —  Google nearly doubled its federal lobbying expenditures last year, surpassing rival Microsoft in dollars doled out to persuade legislators to consider its policy positions.  —  The Web giant spent $9.68 million in 2011 on federal lobbying …
Roger Cheng / CNET:
Android will be the platform of choice for developers, study says  —  It seems the Android momentum can't be stopped.  —  This guy is everywhere now.  —  Google's Android will become the preeminent platform for developers over the next 12 months, according to a study by research firm Ovum.
Discussion: The Register, Electronista, Ovum and BGR
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch Europe:
Evi arrives in town to go toe-to-toe with Siri  —  When Siri arrived on the iPhone 4S I thought to myself, who else could do this?  It would need to be a search engine with natural language processing, but also behave in the manner of artificial intelligence and respond to voice recognition.
Dan Lyons / Real Dan Lyons Web Site:
Rumor: Apple spent $100 million in its first case against HTC — and got almost nothing  —  As I reported in this week's Newsweek, Apple's “thermonuclear war” on Android smartphone makers has been fizzling out lately.  Most of Apple's legal claims have been tossed out, and the two minor victories Apple …
Discussion: MacRumors and BGR
The Mozilla Blog:
Crowdsourcing the State of the Union  —  Mozilla partners with public media to empower citizen engagement in U.S. election coverage  —  Tuesday's State of the Union Address from U.S. President Barack Obama will include something special: crowdsourced captions and subtitles provided by everyday citizens around the world.
Michael Geist Blog:
The Behind-the-Scenes Campaign To Bring SOPA To Canada  —  The Internet battle against SOPA and PIPA generated huge interest in Canada with many Canadians turning their sites dark (including Blogging Tories, Project Gutenberg Canada, and CIPPIC) in support of the protest.
Discussion: Ars Technica
Tricia Duryee / AllThingsD:
Gilt Groupe Cuts Include 10 Percent of Employees and Two Executives  —  Gilt Groupe, a luxury e-commerce and flash sales site, has trimmed roughly 10 percent — as many as 90 — of its employees, including some of its management team.  —  Earlier this month, Gilt Groupe CEO Kevin Ryan downplayed rumors …
Discussion: Betabeat and Business Insider
Sam Byford / The Verge:
HDR video and improved low-light sensitivity headed to smartphones via new Sony CMOS sensors  —  New backside-illuminated CMOS sensors from Sony are to allow for greater low-light shooting capabilities, along with the ability to record HDR video.  Sony's “RGBW Coding” adds a white pixel to the arrangement …
David Kushner / GQ:
The Hacker is Watching  —  Every online scam begins more or less the same—a random e-mail, a sketchy attachment.  But every so often, a new type of hacker comes along.  Someone who rewrites the rules, not just the code.  He secretly burrows his way into your hard drive, then into your life.
Troy Hunt / Troy Hunt's Blog:
Breaking CAPTCHA with automated humans  —  We're all familiar with CAPTCHA right?  That impenetrable fortress of crazy squiggly characters that only a real human can decipher.  Whilst they tend to drive us a bit nuts, they do actually provide a valuable function in that they prevent the automation of requests against online services.
Sean Ludwig / VentureBeat:
Joyent grabs $85M from Weather Investment II, Telefonica to take on Amazon in cloud computing  —  Cloud computing startup Joyent has raised a humongous $85 million round of funding, which will help the company with its plan of out-innovating Amazon in cloud computing technology.
Akky Akimoto / Asiajin:
Japan's #2 Carrier KDDI Pushing Ads On Android Notification Bar  —  KDDI, Japan's second largest cellphone carrier is being blamed by users on Twitter [J] by displaying advertising on Android “as a system notification”.  —  Here is a sample screenshot informs from KDDI to you “Diet by an App”,
 
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 More Items: 
Tom Loftus / Digits:
T-Mobile, AT&T File For FCC Approval Of Spectrum Transfer
Discussion: The Verge and Engadget
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Digital Music Sales Grow Worldwide, but Big Music Still Frets About Pirates
Discussion: PhoneArena and paidContent
Anna Heim / The Next Web:
NBC News is launching a Publishing arm to bring video into the e-book format
Cornelius Rahn / Bloomberg:
EU Privacy Rules to Include Leak Disclosure Within 24 Hours
Discussion: Financial Times and The Register
Jack Purcher / Patently Apple:
Apple Attempts to Bring Ericsson into Discovery for Defense in Motorola Case
Zack Whittaker / Between the Lines Blog:
Intel buys QLogic's InfiniBand assets for $125 million
Brad Reed / Network World:
LTE spectrum: How much do the big carriers have?
 Earlier Items: 
Bloomberg:
Startups Size Up Loan Candidates With Algorithms Rather Than FICO Scores
Discussion: @eghosao
Zee / The Next Web:
UFC website gets hacked due to its support for SOPA
Frédéric Filloux / Monday Note:
Piracy is part of the digital ecosystem
Discussion: paidContent
Angela Watercutter / Wired:
Anonymous Documentary We Are Legion Peels Back Hacktivist Group's History
Nicole Perlroth / New York Times:
Flaws in Videoconferencing Systems Make Boardrooms Vulnerable
Discussion: Threat Level
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Lachlan Cartwright / The Ankler:
Sources: MSNBC renewed Rachel Maddow's contract early this fall, but with a pay cut; MSNBC bosses' plan to shake up daytime and weekend programming

Caitlin Huston / The Hollywood Reporter:
Internal memo: Hearst Magazines president announces layoffs as part of a decision to “reallocate resources” to “continue our focus on digital innovation”

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced she will leave the agency on January 20; she was the first woman to be confirmed to lead the agency

 
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