Techmeme
February 15, 2012, 3:05 PM

Top News

John Paczkowski / AllThingsD:
Apple: App Access to Contact Data Will Require Explicit User Permission  —  After a week of silence Apple has finally responded to reports that dozens of iOS applications have been accessing, transmitting and storing user contact data without explicit permission.
David Sarno / Los Angeles Times:
Twitter stores full iPhone contact list for 18 months, after scan  —  Twitter Inc. has acknowledged that after mobile users tap the “Find friends” feature on its smartphone app, the company downloads users' entire address book, including names, email addresses and phone numbers, and keeps the data on its servers for 18 months.
Matt Brian / The Next Web:
Congress sends letter to Apple questioning the Path debacle, developer data access  —  Having been the subject of questions regarding its collection of user locations in the past, Apple has been sent a letter over concerns that developers may be accessing and storing user data on its products.
Terril Yue Jones / Reuters:
Apple iPad plant conditions better than the norm: agency  —  (Reuters) - Working conditions at Chinese manufacturing plants where Apple Inc's iPads and iPhones are made are far better than those at garment factories or other facilities elsewhere in the country, according to the head of a non-profit agency investigating the plants.
Nick Wingfield / Bits:
Apple Chief Unveils a New Product: Himself  —  When he was alive, Steven P. Jobs, Apple's former chief executive, treated investors as if they were biohazards, rarely deigning to meet with them.  The disdain was not mutual, as an Apple stock chart for the last ten years shows.
Joel Rosenblatt / Bloomberg:
Apple Asks for Court Approval to Sue Bankrupt Kodak in N.Y. Over Patents  —  Apple Inc. (AAPL) asked a bankruptcy judge for permission to sue Eastman Kodak Co. (EK) over allegations it's infringing patents that Apple says cover technologies used in printers, digital cameras and digital picture frames.
Reuters:
Exclusive: Proview says any ban of iPad exports hard to impose  —  (Reuters) - A Chinese technology firm seeking to ban all shipments of Apple's popular iPad tablet into and out of the country has been told that China's customs authorities are unlikely to intervene in the trademark battle.
Vlad Savov / The Verge:
Did Samsung just reveal a Galaxy Note 10.1 for MWC?  —  Samsung's official website may have revealed the name of a heretofore unannounced product: a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1.  The name appears on the company's invitation to a Samsung Developer Day at MWC this year, alongside the Galaxy Note …
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Judge: Microsoft's Android tactics were ‘hard bargaining,’ not patent misuse  —  We learned a couple weeks ago that Barnes & Noble lost a key preliminary decision to Microsoft in their patent dispute.  A new court filing explains the judge's reasoning, and sheds light on some of the legal …
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Exclusive: HTC rumored to be working on a streaming music service  —  HTC Corp., one of the earliest champions of Android-based smartphones seems to have fallen on hard times, thanks to growing power of Samsung and Apple.  But the Taiwanese phone maker isn't ready to call it quits …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Gartner: Apple's iPhone Stole The Smartphone Show In Q4, 2011  —  We've seen handset makers like HTC, LG and Nokia all warning of declines in smartphone sales.  But if there is a slowdown affecting some, it's not because people are not buying smartphones; it's because they're all buying iPhones.
Paul O'Brien / MoDaCo:
EXCLUSIVE: LG to attack the high-end with Tegra 3 powered P880 / X3 (screenshots!)  —  Well, it looks like the HTC Endeavor (or whatever it shall eventually be called) won't be the only device appearing at MWC sporting a Tegra 3 chip... as it will be joined by the LG X3 (internal name P880), LG's new flagship device!
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Kindle Touch breakthrough: Startup debuts handwriting recognition in puzzle book  —  Puzzle technology startup Puzzazz is giving Amazon's Kindle Touch a capability that even Amazon didn't envision — letting users input numbers and letters by writing them naturally with a finger on the screen …
Seth Weintraub / 9to5Mac:
Siri leaks her own upcoming ability to speak Japanese  —  Siri is many things, but it seems she is not a good secret keeper.  A few tipsters reached out and told us that Siri now speaks Japanese.  Rumors earlier this month said Apple's AI speech recognition interface would gain Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and possibly Russian.
Arik Hesseldahl / AllThingsD:
Cisco Appeals Europe's Approval of Microsoft's $8.5 Billion Skype Acquisition  —  Networking giant Cisco Systems today appealed to European regulators to reconsider their approval of Microsoft's $8.5 billion acquisition of the Internet calling service Skype.  The EU approved the deal without conditions in October.
Jon Mitchell / ReadWriteWeb:
Google+ For iPhone Gets Instant Photo & Video Uploads  —  Google has updated the Google+ iOS app today, adding a key mobile feature, which was previously only available to Android users.  Instant Upload, once enabled, automatically sends all photos and videos taken from the Google+ app to a private Google+ album.
More: eWeek and Anton Lopyrev

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