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7:30 AM ET, January 20, 2012

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Why the feds smashed Megaupload  —  The US government dropped a nuclear bomb on “cyberlocker” site Megaupload today, seizing its domain names, grabbing $50 million in assets, and getting New Zealand police to arrest four of the site's key employees, including enigmatic founder Kim Dotcom.
RELATED:
Molly Wood / CNET:
Anonymous goes nuclear; everybody loses?  —  #OpMegaUpload: like watching “War Games” play out, but with cyber-bombs.  —  In the aftermath of the Jan. 18 SOPA/PIPA blackout protests, the Internet community had amassed quite a bit of goodwill, flexed its muscles in a friendly, humorous …
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
Feds, Please Return My Personal Files Stored at MegaUpload!  —  The feds shut down MegaUpload a few hours ago.  Eight people we charged with criminal copyright infringement charges, and all files hosted on the site were pulled offline.  However, do the feds realize that hundreds of thousands …
Adrian Chen / Gawker:
The Evil New Tactic Behind Anonymous' Massive Megaupload Revenge Attack  —  The hacktivist collective Anonymous is in the middle of a huge revenge spree after the Feds shut down popular filesharing site Megaupload today.  But they're using an evil new tactic that tricks people into helping their attack if they click an innocuous link.
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
Before shutdown, Megaupload ate up more corporate bandwidth than Dropbox  —  Before being shut down by the feds today, the file-sharing site Megaupload was extraordinarily popular with home Internet users—so much so that the file downloading habit was spilling over into the workplace in a significant way.
Zack O'Malley Greenburg / Forbes:
Swizz Beatz Does Not Own Megaupload, Says Court Filing  —  Megaupload.com was shut down today after the U.S. Department of Justice indicted seven owners of the popular file-sharing site.  But contrary to some of the rumors floating around online, superproducer Swizz Beatz was not among …
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Justice Department calls MegaUpload an 'international organized criminal enterprise …
Andrew Tarantola / Gizmodo:
Jailed MegaUpload Employees Denied Bail
Chris Ziegler / The Verge:
Anonymous claims DOJ and record label site takedowns in response to MegaUpload suit
Devlin Barrett / Wall Street Journal:
FBI Charges Seven With Online Piracy
Billboard:
Swizz Beatz's Resume: The History of a Multi-Tasker
Discussion: BET.com
Dan Wineman / venomous porridge:
The Unprecedented Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA  —  Apple just released iBooks Author, a free Mac app for creating digital books for the new version of iBooks.  I haven't played with it much, but so far it looks like a very good tool.  However, a curious thing happens when you go to export your work in iBooks format:
RELATED:
Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
Do we want textbooks to live in Apple's walled garden?  —  Apple's launch of a new suite of textbook-related services for the iPad is being widely celebrated, and with good reason.  The ability to have beautiful, interactive and easy to use e-books on the tablet makes a huge amount of sense …
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:   Kno CEO Osman Rashid To Apple: “Now We Will Fight On Who Has The Better Product”
Paul Carr / PandoDaily:
iBooks Author Is Not Going To Hurt Publishers. It Might Even Help Them
Megan Garber / The Atlantic Online:
A Brief History of Textbooks, or, Why Apple's ‘New Textbook Experience’ Is Actually Revolutionary
Discussion: CNET, AnandTech, Epicenter and Snarkmarket
Google Investor Relations:
Google Announces Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2011 Results  —  Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced financial results for the quarter and the fiscal year ended December 31, 2011.  —  “Google had a really strong quarter ending a great year.  Full year revenue was up 29% …
RELATED:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
SOPA Protests Sway Congress: 31 Opponents Yesterday, 122 Now  —  Yesterday the Internet cried out in protest of SOPA-PIPA, and congress heard us loud and clear.  At the beginning of Janaury 18th, there were 80 members of congress who supported the legislation, and 31 opponents.
RELATED:
Nate Cochrane / Sydney Morning Herald:
Father of the web backs SOPA protests
Discussion: Business Insider
Larry Kramer / C-Scape:
SOPA: We Can Fix This  —  The problem with the fight over SOPA …
Discussion: The Raw Story, Thanks:@niubi
Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:
Mannheim court rejects the first one of Samsung's German lawsuits against Apple  —  Judge Andreas Voss of the Mannheim Regional Court just pronounced his ruling on the first one of Samsung's seven patent infringement claims against Apple in Germany.  Samsung's complaint over a patent declared essential …
Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:
The Valley Girl Takes On Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg (Video)  —  Double snaps to Jesse Draper, whose kookified online interview show, “The Valley Girl Show,” managed to get a very decent interview with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.  —  And by decent, I mean that Draper actually elicits …
Discussion: TechCrunch
Stuart Miles / Pocket-lint:
Bing Maps to get Nokia branding on all devices - including rivals'  —  Nokia CEO, Stephen Elop, has told Pocket-lint that we shall soon be seeing the Nokia brand name within other devices and not just the company's own phones.  —  “You'll starting seeing the word ‘Nokia’ on a map …
Summify:
Summify Joins The Flock At Twitter!  —  You've probably noticed we've been quiet lately.  Well, we're extremely excited to announce that Summify has been acquired by Twitter!  I know, right?  We can hardly believe it ourselves!  —  Roughly 2 years ago, we moved from Romania to Vancouver …
Greg Sandoval / CNET:
Facebook in talks to replace YouTube as Vevo's host  —  Facebook has held talks with Vevo about moving the music-video service away from YouTube and over to the social network's platform, sources with knowledge of the talks told CNET.  —  While the sources said the discussions are very preliminary …
David Goldman / CNN Money:
At $400 billion, Apple is worth more than Greece  —  NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Apple's value on the stock market briefly rose to $400 billion on Thursday, a record high for what was already the world's most valuable technology company.  —  The company's market cap slipped below the $400 billion mark …
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Does Google Have An Interest In Pinterest?  —  I've spent about a week trying to track down the rumors that Google had expressed interest in a Pinterest acquisition and here's what I know thus far (here's where to email if you know more): So Google never gave an official offer …
Discussion: Electronista
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Why Kodak's bankruptcy should scare Nokia  —  Yesterday, a friend of mine, someone who is quite savvy about technology and the startup landscape stopped by for a chat.  Our conversation veered towards the state of the web, media and of course Silicon Valley.
 
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 More Items: 
Donald Melanson / Engadget:
Don't call it an ultrabook  —  Every year at CES …
Forbes:
Hackers Target Children as Adults Wise Up to Spam
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Bitly Rolls Out New Enterprise Dashboard, Providing Better Access To The Real-Time Social Web
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Damning Evidence Emerges In Google-Apple “No Poach” Antitrust Lawsuit
Discussion: 9to5Mac
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Apple Store coming to London's world-famous Harrods department store
Adrianne Jeffries / Betabeat:
Layoffs at Lot18: 15 Percent of Employees Were Just Let Go From Fast-Growing Luxury Discount Site
Antonio Rodriguez / The Grain:
How iOS can lose: the independent developer as a canary in the coal mine
 Earlier Items: 
Matt Lynley / Business Insider:
Path Is Raising A Big Funding Round To Go With Its Shiny New App
Nancy Messieh / The Next Web:
Death sentence for Iranian programmer accused of developing software used by porn sites
Melanie Lee / Reuters:
China's challenge to the iPad raises a red flag
Discussion: TechEye, Techland, CNET and PadGadget
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Microsoft Reports Record Revenue: Up 5% To $20.9B, Earnings At $0.78 Per Share
John Paczkowski / AllThingsD:
Amazon Makes More Than $100 Off Each Kindle Fire
 

 
From Mediagazer:

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”

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

Patrick Frater / Variety:
Tencent Music reports Q4 revenue down 7% YoY to $971M and a $198M profit; in 2023, paying subscribers rose 21% YoY to 107M and net profit rose 36% YoY to $735M

 
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