Techmeme
January 30, 2012, 10:45 PM

Top News

Aaron Smith / Pew Internet:
How Americans used their phones to assist with purchasing decisions this holiday season  —  Main Findings  —  How Americans used their phones to assist with purchasing decisions this holiday season  —  More than half of adult cell phone owners used their cell phones while they were in a store during …
Christian Zibreg / 9to5Mac:
Apple combats scalpers with new lottery system for iPhone reservations in Hong Kong  —  Apple has implemented an interested system to fight those pesky scalpers who spoiled a recent iPhone 4S launch in Mainland China.  A newly set up page on the Hong Kong Apple online store has a lottery system …
Josh Ong / AppleInsider:
Apple predicted to sell up to 40M iPhones on China Mobile, China Telecom in 2013  —  Investment bank Morgan Stanley believes Apple will partner up with both China Telecom and China Mobile “over the next year” to make its iPhone available on all three Chinese carriers, a move …
Sarah Lacy / PandoDaily:
The Real Story of How Dick Costolo Kicked Investors Off Twitter's Board  —  The dribs and drabs of news about the shakeup of Twitter's board last year has produced a confusing picture.  The message I was hearing from sources while I was out on maternity leave amounted to: “Nothing to see here.
Sean Buckley / Engadget:
Verizon shared data plans show up in employee training materials, still on track?  —  Verizon said it was working on a shared data solution for 2012, and according to an anonymous tipster, the new packages could be rolling out soon.  We've been told that training material for an update …
Matt Rosoff / Business Insider:
Apple Puts New Engineers On Fake Products Until It Can Trust Them  —  Apple is so obsessed with secrecy, it sometimes puts new hires on fake products until they can be trusted.  —  Adam Lashinsky reported this tidbit in his new book “Inside Apple,” and a former Apple employee confirmed …
Nick Bilton / Bits:
Obama and Romney Campaigns Adopt Square for Funding  —  Social media was the game-changing technology that altered the course of the 2008 presidential election.In 2012, mobile payments could be the transformational technology, as millions of political supporters are given the ability to collect money on smartphones for candidates.
Ingrid Lunden / paidContent:
Three Founders Are Out At Demand Media  —  Demand Media is known for churning lots of content through its sites, but today it's notable for another churn, of the executive kind: three of the people who helped found and build up the company are leaving.  —  Larry Fitzgibbon, Joe Perez …
Ina Fried / AllThingsD:
Dick Costolo: Twitter Isn't Looking to Censor Anyone  —  Twitter CEO Dick Costolo on Monday tried to clarify his company's position regarding censorship, saying that Twitter will only censor tweets when it is legally required to do so.  —  The company said last week in a blog post …
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Codecademy Becomes A Platform: Now Anyone Can Write Programming Tutorials  —  One of the most buzzed-about startups over the last few months has been Codecademy — a site that looks to make programming accessible to just about anyone, with a variety of interactive, web-based courses …
David Carr / Media Decoder:
At Sundance, Kickstarter Resembled a Movie Studio, but Without the Egos  —  One night last week there was a late-night party at Sundance — one of many — this one hosted by an outfit that had helped finance 10 percent of the festival's slate, 17 movies in all, including four that were in competition.
Jolie O'Dell / VentureBeat:
Node.js creator Ryan Dahl steps away from Node's day-to-day  —  Ryan Dahl, the hacker who brought the world Node.js, is turning over the reins to Isaac Schlueter.  —  Dahl, who started working on the Node project in 2009, stated in a Google Groups post, “After three years of working on Node …
More: GigaOM
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft Office 15 technical preview kicks off  —  Summary: Microsoft is making available to select testers the technical preview of Office 15 client, server and services as of January 30.  —  Microsoft is kicking off the technical preview for its Office 15 client, servers and cloud services today, January 30.
Brad McCarty / The Next Web:
Facebook: Over 5 billion songs have been shared since September's f8  —  Whether you like the idea of “frictionless sharing” or not, Facebook has made a strong case for the service on stage at the Midem conference.  Dan Rose, the VP of Partnerships for the company, says that over 5 billion songs …
Stuart Dredge / Guardian:
Angry Birds boss: ‘Piracy may not be a bad thing: it can get us more business’  —  Rovio's Mikael Hed tells music industry audience that embracing pirates can attract new fans  —  Rovio Mobile learned from the music industry's mistakes when deciding how to deal with piracy of its Angry Birds games …
Timothy B. Lee / Ars Technica:
As Anonymous protests, Internet drowns in inaccurate anti-ACTA arguments  —  After the Internet's decisive victory over the Stop Online Piracy Act earlier this month, online activists have been looking for their next target, and a growing number of them have chosen the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement …
Brendan Sasso / Hillicon Valley:
Rep. Markey releases draft of cellphone privacy bill  —  Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) released a draft of a cellphone privacy bill on Monday in response to the controversy surrounding cellphone tracking software, Carrier IQ.  —  The Mobile Device Privacy Act would require companies to disclose …
Washington Post:
FDA staffers sue agency over surveillance of personal e-mail  —  The Food and Drug Administration secretly monitored the personal e-mail of a group of its own scientists and doctors after they warned Congress that the agency was approving medical devices that they believed posed unacceptable risks to patients, government documents show.
Tiernan Ray / Tech Trader Daily:
Apple Topples HP for Lead in Q4 ‘Client PC’ Sales, Says Canalys  —  Market research firm Canalys this afternoon offers its update on the PC market in Q4, in which the firm groups together tablet computers such as Apple's (AAPL) iPad among “client PCs,” as they term it.
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Apparently Veoh Isn't Dead Enough For Universal Music; Asks For Rehearing Of Its Bogus Copyright Lawsuit  —  One of the key examples of what happens when you have bad, overly draconian copyright laws that burden companies falsely accused of infringement is Veoh.

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Mathew Ingram / GigaOM: