Top Items:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Google In Discussions To Acquire Yelp For A Half Billion Dollars Or More — Google and Yelp are in advanced acquisition negotiations, we've confirmed from multiple sources. And while the deal isn't done, we've heard that it's very likely to close. The price is supposedly at least $500 million.
Discussion:
MediaMemo, CNET News, The Register, Mark Evans Tech, New York Times, Search Engine Land, Softpedia News, Search Engine Roundtable, Silicon Valley Watcher, VentureBeat, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, GigaOM, The Next Web Network, paidContent, AndroidGuys, Silicon Alley Insider, Scobleizer, Gizmodo, bizjournals, Seeking Alpha and Lost Remote
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Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Twitter Hacked, Defaced By “Iranian Cyber Army” — We've received multiple tips right around 10 pm that Twitter was hacked and defaced with the message below. The site is currently offline. We're looking into this and waiting on a response from Twitter. — The message reads: — Iranian Cyber Army
Discussion:
Between the Lines, Digits, Mashable!, The Register, Guardian, dot.life, Damon Cortesi's Blog, DailyTech, GigaOM, Gizmodo, PC World, Boy Genius Report, Twitter Status, CNET News, Computerworld, Appfrica, Twittercism, TechTicker, CloudAve, The Huffington Post, Fudzilla, eWeek, SiliconIndia.com, Download Squad, Silicon Alley Insider, Donna's SecurityFlash, Pocket-lint.com, Technologizer and UMBC ebiquity
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Biz / Twitter Blog:
DNS Disruption — As we tweeted a bit ago, Twitter's DNS records were temporarily compromised tonight but have now been fixed. As some noticed, Twitter.com was redirected for a while but API and platform applications were working. We will update with more information and details once we've investigated more fully.
Paul Boutin / VentureBeat:
Android closes in on iPhone ad traffic in AdMob's latest report — Google's open-source Android operating system accounted for more than one in four of the smartphone ads served in November by AdMob, the mobile ad network that Google agreed to buy for $750 million six weeks ago.
Discussion:
paidContent
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Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
DRM Fiasco Ruins James Cameron's Avatar 3D Preview — ‘Avatar’ from Titanic director James Cameron is certainly the most anticipated film of the year. — Set on a moon under siege by humans determined to exploit its resources, this science fiction epic has been in the planning for many years …
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Google's Nexus One lacks multitouch — Our buddy Tnkgrl just had a sit down with Google and HTC's lovedroid, the Nexus One. She “wasn't allowed” to take pictures or video but she came away with plenty of detail. The biggest point of clarification might not be what's included in the handset, but what's missing: multitouch.
Sophie Hardach / Reuters:
French court rules against Google over book copying — A Paris court on Friday found U.S. Internet giant Google (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) guilty of violating copyright by digitising books and putting extracts online, following a legal challenge by major French publishers.
Barry Collins / PC Pro:
Mozilla: Firefox Mobile will kill off app stores — Mozilla claims that its new Firefox Mobile browser could be the beginning of the end for the hugely popular app stores created by Apple and its ilk. — Mozilla is releasing the first version of Firefox Mobile (codenamed Fennec) …
Philipp Lenssen / Google Blogoscoped:
Google Guru? — Chris writes in to say he's spotted a new service on his Google account services page: “Google Guru”, which points towards guru.google.com/guru/ ... which is non-existent at the moment. The account page reads, “Guru ... Ask questions and get answers from online users”.
Michael Calore / Webmonkey:
Google: Mobile Gmail Exemplifies HTML5's Power — Over the last few months, Google has been busy optimizing its free Gmail service for mobile phones. — In a post on the Google Mobile blog, the Gmail team highlights the various optimizations it has steadily been building into the mobile version of the webmail site.
Discussion:
Google Mobile Blog
Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
Former Microsoft evangelist Don Dodge on Google vs. Microsoft (Q&A) — At Microsoft, Don Dodge was known as the software giant's ambassador to an at-times skeptical startup community. When he was laid off in November, TechCrunch's Michael Arrington declared, “This is a huge mistake,” …
Stuart Dredge / Music Ally:
Rdio makes its debut... as an iPhone app — Rdio is set to be one of the more intriguing music startups of 2010 - it's a streaming subscription service set up by Skype/Kazaa founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom. It's still in stealth mode, but has today launched an iPhone app …
Discussion:
9 to 5 Mac, TechCrunch, The Next Web Network, Pocket-lint.com and hypebot, Thanks:beamadelica
John Letzing / MarketWatch:
Privacy groups file FTC complaint against Facebook — SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Ten privacy and consumer groups announced Thursday they've filed a complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission alleging that Facebook Inc.'s privacy-policy changes violate federal law.
RELATED:
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:Next Step in the Facebook Privacy Blowback: The FTC Complaint.
Discussion:
PC World, Technology Liberation Front, internetnews.com, The Register, VentureBeat and WebProNews
Dieter Bohn / PreCentral.net:
Palm Confirms 1.3.5: Speed, Battery, App Limit all to be improved, Plus Investor Call Notes — Allowing for installation of more apps — Increased speed and responsiveness on the Palm Pixi — We're still listening in and hearing good things about what's coming.
Discussion:
Softpedia News, Business Wire, WebOS Arena, Gizmodo, PhoneDog.com, Pocket-lint.com and PalmAddicts
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
JooJoo/CrunchPad Company Responds To Mike Arrington's Lawsuit — Fusion Garage, the Singapore-based company behind the JooJoo tablet — formerly known as the CrunchPad — has responded to the lawsuit that TechCrunch founder Mike Arrington filed earlier this month.
Aaron / The EtherPad Blog:
EtherPad Open Source Release — As promised, we hereby release all the source code to EtherPad. — http://code.google.com/p/etherpad/ — Our goal with this release is to let the world run their own etherpad servers so that the functionality can live on even after we shut down etherpad.com.
Ryan Singel / Threat Level:
Netflix Spilled Your Brokeback Mountain Secret, Lawsuit Claims — An in-the-closet lesbian mother is suing Netflix for privacy invasion, alleging the movie rental company made it possible for her to be outed when it disclosed insufficiently anonymous information about nearly half-a-million customers …
The Official Google Blog:
Go thataway: Google Maps India learns to navigate like a local — Have you ever been lost? Perhaps you missed a turn because a street sign was poorly labeled, hard to see in the dark, or just not where it should have been? These are problems we've all faced, but they're especially complicated in India …
Discussion:
Google LatLong, Softpedia News, ReadWriteWeb, MediaNama and Google Maps Mania, Thanks:atul
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Groupon Valued At $250 million — Multiple sources tell us that Groupon, the surging Chicago-based startup, was valued at $250 million when they closed their recent $30 million venture round with Accel Partners and previous investors. In that post we wrote that “the company is going gangbusters …
Discussion:
Widgets Lab
E.B. Boyd / BayNewser:
Personal Appeal from Jimmy Wales Nets Wikipedia $430K in 24 Hours — Wikipedia's parent organization—the Wikimedia Foundation—is in the middle of its sixth annual fundraising drive—think NPR pledge drive without the annoying interruptions. The goal: $7.5 million.
Ilinca Nita / Unwired View:
Lots of Samsung bada OS screenshots leaked — For one reason or another, Samsung's been a bit reluctant in showing screenshots of its newly-announced bada smartphone OS. — Well, in case you want to know what the new mobile platform looks like (and you probably do want), there are many leaked screenshots available.
Discussion:
GSMArena Blog, Electronista, MobileCrunch, Pocket-lint.com, SlipperyBrick.com and Gizmodo
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Brainstorm Tech:
Where in the world are Apple's 78 million handsets? — Mostly in the U.S., but Japan, France, Australia and China are coming on fast, says AdMob — Click to enlarge. Source: AdMob — By the end of December, according to Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster, Apple's (AAPL) will have sold 78 million iPhones and iPod touches worldwide.
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
More on PastryKit — A bit more regarding PastryKit, Apple's web framework for creating iPhone web apps with a look and feel very close to that of native iPhone apps. — Apple's Various JavaScript Frameworks — Jonathan “Wolf” Rentzsch posted this terrific overview of the known JavaScript frameworks …
Discussion:
rentzsch.tumblr.com
Kelsey Volkmann / bizjournals:
Bing! Information Design sues Microsoft — Bing! Information Design in St. Louis has sued Microsoft Corp. for alleged trademark infringement and unfair competition over Microsoft's new Bing search engine. — The suit, filed this week in St. Louis City Circuit Court …
Discussion:
The Microsoft Blog, internetnews.com, Agence France Presse, Ars Technica, eWeek, TechFlash and Seattle Times
Jonny Evans / 9 to 5 Mac:
Apple iPhone is big, big, big in Japan — Apple is big - really big - in Japan, where the iPhone now accounts for 46.1 percent of the smartphone market, according to the latest data from Impress. — The company achieved sales accounting for almost half of the entire Japanese smartphone market across 2009, the analysts said.
Discussion:
AppleInsider
Naty / Real-Time Rendering:
US Gov Requests Feedback on Open Access - ACM Gets it Wrong (Again) — In 2008, legislation was passed requiring all NIH-funded researchers to submit their papers to an openly available repository within a year of publication. Even this modest step towards full open access was immediately attacked …
Rene Ritchie / The iPhone Blog:
WordPress and Tumblr show iPhone Tweetie and Twitterrific Not Just for Twitter Anymore — Tweetie 2 and Twitterrific 2 aren't just two of the best Twitter clients for the iPhone, they're two of the best mobile micro-blogging interfaces on the planet and now both WordPress and Tumblr …
Associated Press:
Hackers Steal SKorean-US Military Secrets — text sizeAAA — South Korea's military said Friday it was investigating a hacking attack that netted secret defense plans with the United States and may have been carried out by North Korea. — The suspected hacking occurred late last month …
Discussion:
Agence France Presse
Ben Fritz / Company Town:
Carl Icahn's new target: Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two Interactive — Take-Two Interactive Chairman Strauss Zelnick may have a new best friend. Activist investor Carl Icahn has been gobbling up shares in the video game publisher best known for the wildly popular Grand Theft Auto series.
