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8:40 PM ET, December 2, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Laurie Segall / CNN Money:
Facebook buys Gowalla  —  NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Facebook has acquired location sharing service Gowalla for an undisclosed sum, according to a source close to Gowalla.  —  Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.  —  Most of Gowalla's employees, including founder Josh Williams …
RELATED:
Matt Rosoff / Business Insider:
Facebook Failed With Its Own Foursquare Killer, So Now It's Buying Competitor Gowalla  —  Facebook is buying mobile location-based check-in service Gowalla, CNN's Laurie Seagall reports.  —  Gowalla was in a neck and neck battle with Foursquare back in 2010, but by this year Foursquare …
Rhoda Alexander / iSuppli®:
Red-Hot Kindle Fire Blazes its Way to Second Place in Media Tablet Market  —  Just two weeks after its introduction, Amazon's Kindle Fire already is shaking up the market, with the device expected to surpass all other iPad rivals to take second place in the global media tablet business in the fourth quarter.
RELATED:
David Sarno / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Carrier IQ disputes spying accusations; security researchers agree  —  Carrier IQ, the beleagured online metrics company that has been accused of installing spy software on millions of smartphones, has broken its silence to say the critics have it wrong.  —  “While a few individuals …
RELATED:
Jeff Roberts / paidContent:
Samsung And HTC Hit By Wiretapping Lawsuit Over Tracking Software  —  The swirling controversy over a company that reportedly installed tracking software on users' mobile phones has already produced its first two lawsuits.  On Thursday, plaintiffs sued the company, Carrier IQ …
Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:
$2.7 billion PER YEAR, possibly $16 billion in total: that's the bond Apple wants Motorola to post in case of early enforcement of German patent injunctions  —  Today I watched a hearing in another patent infringement lawsuit brought by Motorola against Apple in Mannheim.
Discussion: MacRumors and Electronista
Jia Lynn Yang / Washington Post:
Justice Dept. approves Google's AdMeld acquisition  —  The Justice Department on Friday gave the green light to Google's $400 million acquisition of AdMeld, a major display advertising company.  —  The agency said the deal can proceed without any major conditions, because a detailed analysis …
RELATED:
Lee Rainie / Pew Internet:
The internet as a diversion and destination  —  Americans are increasingly going online just for fun and to pass the time.  On any given day, 53% of all the young adults ages 18-29 go online for no particular reason except to have fun or to pass the time.  Many of them go online in purposeful ways, as well.
Roger Cheng / CNET News:
Comcast, Time Warner preparing to bid farewell to Clearwire  —  Cable providers Comcast and Time Warner Cable are planning to end their wholesale relationship with Comcast as a result of the Verizon Wireless deal, CNET has learned.  —  Clearwire is losing a few of its key wholesale customers.
RELATED:
Kevin Fitchard / GigaOM:
Verizon building a spectrum empire with cable deal
Bill Powell / Fortune:
The war over Kai-fu Lee's biography  —  The prominent technology executive has been accused of overstating his relationships with Barack Obama, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.  Now, he's hitting back.  —  By Bill Powell, editor-at-large  —  FORTUNE — A noted whistle blower in Beijing …
Discussion: Seattle Times
Steve Souders / High Performance Web Sites:
Silk, iPad, Galaxy comparison  —  In my previous blog post I announced Loadtimer - a mobile test harness for measuring page load times.  I was motivated to create Loadtimer because recent reviews of the Kindle Fire lacked the quantified data and reliable test procedures needed to compare browser performance.
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb and Zatz Not Funny!
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Apple Sends Match.com's App To The Dog House For Untaxed Subscription Payments  —  Those looking for love won't find it in the App Store.  Apple has removed Match.com's iOS app because it allowed the lonely to pay for Match subscriptions with a credit card through an external link rather than using the in-app purchases system.
Neil Hughes / AppleInsider:
2TB hard drive shortage hits Apple's BTO iMacs with 5-7 week wait  —  Build-to-order iMacs with 2-terabyte hard drives now have an estimated shipping time of 5 to 7 weeks, in what is potentially the first sign of Apple being hit by a lingering global hard drive shortage.
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Why Siri Can't Find Abortion Clinics & How It's Not An Apple Conspiracy  —  “I'm standing in front of a Planned Parenthood,” the CNN reporter says, “And Siri can't find it when I search for abortion clinic.”  No, it can't.  It's not because Apple is pro-life.  It's because Planned Parenthood doesn't call itself an abortion clinic.
Kim-Mai Cutler / Inside Social Games:
Confirmed: EA Acquires KlickNation, Source Says Price is Roughly $35M  —  Electronic Arts said it acquired KlickNation to beef up its RPG games on social networks after we broke the news about the deal yesterday.  The Sacramento, Calif.-based company will become part of BioWare's social gaming team.
Discussion: TechCrunch, VentureBeat and Pulse2
RELATED:
Tricia Duryee / AllThingsD:
Electronic Arts Acquires Another Social Game Company as Zynga's IPO Nears
Discussion: Tech and China
TorrentFreak:
Swiss Govt: Downloading Movies and Music Will Stay Legal  —  In Switzerland, just as in dozens of other countries, the entertainment industries have been complaining about dramatic losses in revenue due to online piracy.  —  In a response, the Swiss government has been conducting a study …
DPA / Haaretz:
Report: Syria bans iPhone to cover up crackdown on anti-Assad protests  —  Statement issued by Customs Department of the Syrian Finance Ministry says, ‘The authorities warn anyone against using the iPhone in Syria’; at least six demonstrators reported killed in Syria on Friday.
Tricia Duryee / AllThingsD:
Zynga Ups the Ante on IPO to Raise as Much as $1.15 Billion  —  Zynga is officially on its way to IPO-Ville.  —  The company has filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission to raise between $850 million to $1.15 billion.  At the high-end that would be roughly $15 million more than it had previously indicated it would raise.
RELATED:
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Video: Zynga CEO Mark Pincus Pitches IPO To Investors
 
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 More Items: 
Melanie Lee / Reuters:
Alibaba Group testing a new social networking product
Matt Brian / The Next Web:
Welcome to Androidland: Australia's (and the world's) first Android store
Chip Cummins / Wall Street Journal:
RIM to Take $485 Million Charge Related to Tablet
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
SOPA on the ropes? Bipartisan alternative to 'Net censorship emerges
Discussion: Computerworld
 Earlier Items: 
Diane Bartz / Reuters:
Cybersecurity bill approved by House panel
Discussion: Washington Post and Bloomberg
Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:
LG Nitro HD For AT&T: Hands-On
Discussion: LAPTOP Magazine and Engadget
Jon Martindale / thinq_:
Movie studios force Lovefilm to drop Flash streaming
Discussion: Geek.com and inside LOVEFiLM
Sean Gallagher / Ars Technica:
Researchers find big leaks in pre-installed Android apps
Discussion: InfoWorld and Gizmodo UK
Zack Whittaker / London Calling Blog:
New Wikileaks files expose iPhone, BlackBerry phone and Gmail hacking technology
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft to drop Desktop App from Windows 8 ARM tablets?
Mike Isaac / Epicenter:
YouTube Revamp Foreshadows Google's Vision of Media
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Winston Cho / The Hollywood Reporter:
The FTC bans noncompete clauses that restrict job switching, potentially complicating hiring in Hollywood as firms try to protect trade secrets and other info

Alexandra Bruell / Wall Street Journal:
An interview with NPR CEO Katherine Maher, who defends NPR and accuses critics of “bad faith distortion” of her past comments about the First Amendment

Rolling Stone:
Ex-AMI CEO David Pecker testifies about agreeing to be Trump's “eyes and ears” and how the National Enquirer used Michael Cohen's prompts to bash Trump rivals

 
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