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6:10 PM ET, December 20, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
The Mozilla Blog:
Mozilla and Google Sign New Agreement for Default Search in Firefox  —  We're pleased to announce that we have negotiated a significant and mutually beneficial revenue agreement with Google.  This new agreement extends our long term search relationship with Google for at least three additional years.
RELATED:
Christian Zibreg / 9to5Google:
It's official: Google remains default search engine in Firefox for 3 more years
Discussion: PC World and Business Insider
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
Apple Rolls Out ‘Complete My Season Pass’ for TV Shows  —  While Apple has long offered a “Complete My Album” feature in the iTunes Store to allow users who have previously purchased individual tracks to upgrade to the full album at a discounted price reflecting their single-track purchases …
Chris Ziegler / The Verge:
T-Mobile to get seven-year 3G roaming deal, 128 markets of AWS spectrum from AT&T  —  Deutsche Telekom now is detailing the consolation prize it's getting from AT&T in the aftermath of its failed acquisition of T-Mobile — and in looking through the details, calling it a “consolation prize” really doesn't do it justice.
RELATED:
Maria Sheahan / Reuters:
Deutsche Telekom could be forced into arms of Sprint  —  (Reuters) - Deutsche Telekom may be forced into a tie-up of its sub-scale U.S. wireless unit with Sprint Nextel after a $39 billion deal with AT&T collapsed.  —  AT&T said on Monday it had dropped its bid for T-Mobile USA …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook Sponsored Story Ads To Appear In The Web News Feed In 2012  —  Starting in January 2012, Facebook will gradually begin showing Sponsored Stories social ads in the main news feed of the web version of the site, a representative of the company tells us.
Joe Schneider / Bloomberg:
Apple Claims Samsung Tablet, Phone Cases Infringe Patents  —  Dec. 20 (Bloomberg) — Apple Inc., which on Dec. 9 lost a bid to keep Samsung Electronics Co.'s Galaxy 10.1 tablet out of Australia, claims the case for the device and cases for Samsung phones infringe its patents and registered design.
Janice Wood / Psych Central News:
Meta-Twitter Analysis Shows Happiness Trending Down  —  Using Twitter, a team of scientists from the University of Vermont has created a happiness graph, which shows happiness has fallen over the last few years.  —  “After a gradual upward trend that ran from January to April 2009 …
RELATED:
Bryce Roberts / BRYCE DOT VC:   A Reluctant Twitter Experiment
Jolie O'Dell / VentureBeat:
First Round Capital rings in the holidays with “Friday” spoof  —  First Round Capital is famous in these parts for its irreverent, awkward and often hilarious holiday e-greetings.  —  This year, the team and its family of startups pitched in to create an elaborate send-up of Rebecca Black's soulless mistake of a song, “Friday.”
Joel Housman:
This Week In Douchebaggery: AllThis  —  Well, it's Monday - I guess that means it's time for another douchebag to create a startup on the Internet.  —  Introducing, Allthis.com.  They list themselves as being in “beta” on their website and claim to be “the ten-minute exchange”.
Discussion: @eldon, Thanks:joelhousman
Sara Forden / Bloomberg:
Verizon Wireless Probed Over Cable Deals  —  Verizon Wireless's deals for spectrum with cable companies are under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department for their potential to hurt competition in the wireless and cable industries.  —  Gina Talamona, a Justice Department spokeswoman …
Arik Hesseldahl / AllThingsD:
Oracle Falls Short on Weak Software Sales  —  Software giant Oracle reported quarterly results that fell short of the expectations of analysts, as licenses for new software rose only slightly and sales were $430 million below what analysts had forecast.  Hardware sales were down by 14 percent year on year.
Discussion: Market Wire and Mercury News
Frederic Lardinois / SiliconFilter:
Super Bowl to be Streamed Live for the First Time  —  There is no other television event in the U.S. that commands as much attention and viewership as the annual Super Bowl.  Last year's event attracted 111 million viewers.  NBC and the National Football League (NFL) today announced …
Richard Lawler / Engadget:
iPhones, iPod Touches still on iOS 3.1.3 can't download new apps directly from the App Store  —  While fragmentation is a rare(r) problem on iOS there's still quite a few users rocking older versions on their devices.  Unfortunately for them, ever since a recent update on the 16th …
Matthew Humphries / Geek.com:
Sony sued over PSN “can't sue us” clause  —  Following the huge security breach of the PlayStation Network, Sony realized that not only did it require better security for PSN, it also needed to protect itself as a company from millions of gamers potentially suing it in the future.
Discussion: CNET News, Electronista and Geekosystem
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
Apple Indeed Replacing Recalled iPod Nano Units with Current-Generation Models  —  Just hours after we reported that Apple appeared to have begun shipping out current-generation iPod nanos as replacements for recalled first-generation units, users are beginning to report in that they are indeed receiving the current models.
Jack Purcher / Patently Apple:
Apple Wins Patent for iPhone GUI Supporting Application Switching during a Call and More  —  The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of eight newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today.  This morning's report mainly focuses in on two of these patents.
Nadia Damouni / Reuters:
Exclusive: Amazon weighed buying RIM but interest cooled:sources  —  (Reuters) - Research In Motion Ltd has turned down takeover overtures from Amazon.com Inc and other potential buyers because the BlackBerry maker prefers to fix its problems on its own, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
Discussion: The Tech Trade and The Verge
Matt McGee / Search Engine Land:
RIAA Scolds Google, Wants Search Algorithm Changed To Fight Online Piracy  —  Saying that Google has a “special responsibility” to fight copyright infringement, the RIAA has issued a report card that scolds Google for not following through on promises to fight piracy.
Discussion: TorrentFreak and Epicenter
Mark Suster / Both Sides of the Table:
The End of the Web?  Don't Bet on It.  Here's Why  —  Fred Wilson recently posted a great video on his blog with the CEO of Forrester Research, George Colony.  The money slide is the graphic below.  —  The chart shows three scarce resources and their improvements over time.
Discussion: Global Nerdy
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Kindle Fire On Track For Hundreds Of Millions Of Monthly Ad Impressions; Growing Faster Than The iPad In Early 2010  —  Mobile ad network Millennial Media is releasing its monthly data for November.  While Millennial, which is the largest independent mobile ad network, has focused on tracking iOS …
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Health 2.0 startup Keas gets $6.5 million in new funds  —  Keas, a San Francisco-based startup co-founded by veteran technologist Adam Bosworth and enterprise software entrepreneur George Kassagbi, has raised $6.5 million in new funds from existing investors Atlas Ventures and Ignition Parters.
Frederic Lardinois / SiliconFilter:
YouTube in 2011: Over 1,000,000,000,000 Playbacks, 140 Views for Every Person on Earth  —  We'll leave it up to the cultural anthropologists of the future to unravel the significance of the fact that Rebecca Black's “Friday” was the most watched video on YouTube in 2011.
comScore, Inc.:
Heaviest Week in U.S. Online Holiday Shopping History Pushes Season-to-Date Total to $32 Billion, Up 15 Percent vs. Year Ago  —  Spending Approaches 2010 Holiday Season Total of $32.6 Billion with Nearly Two Weeks Remaining in 2011 Season  —  comScore (NASDAQ : SCOR), a leader in measuring …
Amazon.com:
The Hottest Holiday Gift Just got Hotter: Free Two-Day Shipping on All Kindles - Including Kindle Fire - in Time for Christmas  —  It's not too late to order Amazon's most popular gifts in time for Christmas - customers who order by 8 pm PT on December 21 will receive free two-day shipping on the $79 Kindle …
Deadline.com:
‘Wolverine’ Pirate To Serve Year In Prison  —  LOS ANGELES - A New York man who admitted illegally uploading to the Internet a pirated, nearly final “workprint” copy of the movie “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” was sentenced this afternoon to one year in federal prison.
Discussion: GMSV, VentureBeat and Betabeat
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Lamar Smith Says ‘Just Joking...’ About Tomorrow; SOPA Markup Postponed  —  Well, look at that.  There's been a lot of back and forth over the past few days concerning whether or not Lamar Smith was serious about holding the continuation of the SOPA markup tomorrow morning.
Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:
Busy Signal Service Targets Cyberheist Victims  —  A new service on the cyber criminal underground can be hired to tie up the phone lines of any targeted mobile or land line around the world.  The service is marketed as a diversionary tactic to assist e-thieves in robbing commercial customers …
Discussion: SecurityNewsDaily
 
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 More Items: 
Jeff Roberts / paidContent:
Publishing Insider Tipped Law Firms About E-Book Price Fixing Conspiracy
Corynne McSherry / Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Ninth Circuit Puts Lump of Coal in UMG's Stocking, Affirms DMCA Safe Harbors for Veoh
Reuters:
Iran moves websites to guard against cyber attacks
Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:
Twitter will open source security software from its Whisper Systems acquisition
Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
“Spanish Napster” Victorious As Court Rejects Major Label Copyright Case
Discussion: GigaOM and Billboard.Biz
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Kayak Consolidates iPhone And iPad Apps; Updates UI, Adds Trip Itineraries And More
Discussion: VentureBeat and GigaOM
 Earlier Items: 
Jeffrey Gettleman / New York Times:
U.S. Considers Combating Somali Militants' Twitter Use
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb and The Verge
Hunter Walk / Elapsed Time:
Hyperbolic Headlines: Five Ways the Zynga IPO Changes Everything!!!
Thanks:samrzrkat
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Cable News Finally Realizing That SOPA And PROTECT IP Are Bad News
Horace Dediu / asymco:
The parable of RIM  —  Here are the highlights from RIM's latest quarter:
Discussion: SplatF
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Apple reportedly puts the final ink on $400-500 million purchase of Anobit, an Israeli flash-storage company
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Authentic Brands licenses Sports Illustrated's publishing rights to The Players' Tribune owner Minute Media for 10 years, with plans to keep the print edition

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
Ofcom rules that five GB News programs presented by Conservative politicians have broken its due impartiality rules and puts the channel “on notice”

Todd Spangler / Variety:
YouTuber MrBeast announces a deal with Prime Video for Beast Games, a reality-competition show with 1,000 contestants, promising the winner a $5M cash prize

 
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