Top Items:
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:
PC Magazine, GeekWire, VentureBeat, Engadget, TechCrunch, PhoneArena, MobileTechWorld, Gizmodo, mocoNews, MobileSyrup.com, The Tech Trade, @jdolcourt, The Verge, Gizmodo UK and Electronista
RELATED:
Wall Street Journal:
Microsoft, Nokia Flirted With RIM — Microsoft Corp. and Nokia Corp. in recent months flirted with the idea of making a joint bid for Research In Motion Ltd., according to people familiar with the matter. — The status of the talks remains unclear. But the fact that the discussions took place …
Discussion:
The Verge, Business Insider, Engadget, parislemon, Electronista, Neowin.net, My Nokia Blog and WinRumors
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.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, CNET News, AllThingsD, Digital Trends, InfoWorld, Business Insider, The Tech Trade, TechFlash, The Ed Bott Report Blog, PC Magazine, VentureBeat, SlashGear, BetaNews, TechSpot, SiliconFilter, MediaFile, ReadWriteWeb, Mercury News, The Verge, NBC Bay Area, Washington Post, Ars Technica, Search Engine Land, Engadget, The Next Web, Technologizer, parislemon and Asa Dotzler
RELATED:
Ina Fried / AllThingsD:
ITC Initial Ruling: Motorola Infringes Single Microsoft Patent, but Not Six Others — Microsoft won a partial victory in its patent dispute with Motorola, as the International Trade Commission issued an initial ruling that certain Motorola products infringe on one of the software maker's patents.
Discussion:
PC Magazine, Ars Technica, Guardian, All about Microsoft Blog, Computerworld, paidContent, GigaOM, GeekWire, Engadget, FOSS Patents, Business Insider, SlashGear, Neowin.net, WinRumors, Electronista and WMPoweruser
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.
Discussion:
Gizmodo, Inside Facebook, MediaPost, Digital Trends, WebProNews, Neowin.net, SlashGear, ReadWriteWeb, Mashable! and All Facebook, Thanks:joshconstine
Charles Arthur / Guardian:
Nokia and Microsoft fingered over comments on adverse Lumia review — An Indian site's ‘reviewing’ of the Nokia Lumia 800 phone purely on its specifications was a strange thing to do - but anonymous commenting apparently from Nokia and Microsoft staff didn't help matters
Discussion:
CNET News, Hardware 2.0 Blog, Computerworld, WMPoweruser and Neowin.net
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 …
Discussion:
The Verge, VentureBeat, BGR, SlashGear, PadGadget, Computerworld, GigaOM, RazorianFly, TUAW, Ars Technica, Macworld and Insanely Great Mac
Thomas Ricker / The Verge:
Kickstarted: How one company is revolutionizing product development — Kickstarter is funding an era of product development uncompromised by focus groups and committees — The million dollar idea. We've all had it at one time or another, with very few luxuries to show for our sudden fits of brilliance.
Discussion:
Gizmodo
Electronista:
Google halts Nexus S Android 4.0 updates, Galaxy Nexus hit — Google Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus hit by battery bug — Google's Android 4.0 update for the Nexus S stalled out Tuesday. The company posted on its forums that it was holding the update to “monitor feedback” after users reported unusually high battery drain.
Discussion:
SlashGear, CNET News and Softpedia News
Chris Foresman / Ars Technica:
Half a billion dollars: why Apple's acquisition of Anobit matters — Apple reportedly acquired the Israeli flash memory design firm Anobit in a deal that cost the company $500 million dollars. Anobit management told its staff of the acquisition this week, according to Israeli newspaper Calcalist …
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.
Discussion:
Phone Scoop, Engadget, Android Life, Between the Lines Blog, ExtremeTech, Digits, MobileBurn.com, Smartphones …, SlashGear, Gizmodo, AT&T, BGR and Deutsche Telekom
RELATED:
Maria Sheahan / Reuters:
Deutsche Telekom could be forced into arms of Sprint
Discussion:
GMSV, Digital Trends, Techland, TmoNews and Bloomberg
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:
VentureBeat and @eldon, Thanks:joelhousman
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:
The Register, eWeek, Between the Lines Blog, Beyond Search and Mercury News
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 …
Corynne McSherry / Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Ninth Circuit Puts Lump of Coal in UMG's Stocking, Affirms DMCA Safe Harbors for Veoh — Today the Ninth Circuit handed the Internet a bittersweet and crucial victory by affirming a district court's holding that the safe harbors created by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) …
Discussion:
MediaPost, Ars Technica, San Francisco Chronicle, Courthouse News Service, Techdirt, Electronista and GigaOM
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.”
Discussion:
AllThingsD, YouTube, The Technology Chronicles, Fortune, DealBook, TechCrunch and Venture Capital Dispatch
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:
VentureBeat, Electronista, Geekosystem and CNET News
Ina Fried / AllThingsD:
LightSquared Asks FCC to Declare GPS Interference Not Its Fault — Aspiring wholesale wireless provider LightSquared wants the Federal Communications Commission to declare that any interference between its network and GPS systems is the fault of the way those systems are designed.
Discussion:
FierceWireless, dailywireless.org and GigaOM
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.
Discussion:
CNET News, GigaOM, Reuters, 9to5Mac, Computerworld, MacRumors, Apple Fan Site, PhoneArena, Redmond Pie, iDownloadBlog.com, BetaNews, BGR, Appolicious Advisor, TUAW, Electronista, Engadget, RazorianFly, The Verge and GMSV
Jeff Roberts / paidContent:
Publishing Insider Tipped Law Firms About E-Book Price Fixing Conspiracy — The decision by major publishers to strike a pricing deal with Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) has been the source of speculation and several antitrust investigations. Now, a new court filing suggests someone inside the industry …
Discussion:
Electronista and TeleRead, more at Mediagazer »
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 …
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 …
Discussion:
US News, Business Insider, VTDigger, Burlington Free Press, PC Magazine and BRYCE DOT VC
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.
Discussion:
iPodNN, Macworld, iDownloadBlog.com, TUAW, GigaOM, Apple Bitch, App Advice and Softpedia News
Seth Rosenblatt / CNET Download.com:
New RockMelt socializes Chrome's Omnibox, new tabs — The Omnibox has been beefed up in RockMelt beta 5 with deep hooks directly into Facebook. — While the big browser conflagration between Chrome and, oh, just about everybody else tends to suck the oxygen from a room …
Discussion:
Xconomy
Daniel Terdiman / CES 2012:
CES setting up its own startup alley — Dot, from Kogeto, makes it possible to shoot 360-degree video from an iPhone, and soon, an Android device. — When you think of the companies at the annual Consumer Electronics Show, you tend to think of giants like Sharp, Samsung, Nokia, Fuji, and so forth.
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.
Discussion:
The Next Web and The Not-So Private Parts
