Techmeme
February 15, 2012, 1:10 PM

Top News

David Sarno / Los Angeles Times:
Twitter stores full iPhone contact list for 18 months, after scan  —  Twitter Inc. has acknowledged that after mobile users tap the “Find friends” feature on its smartphone app, the company downloads users' entire address book, including names, email addresses and phone numbers, and keeps the data on its servers for 18 months.
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
iOS apps and the address book: who has your data, and how they're getting it  —  Over the course of the past week, a firestorm has erupted in the world of iOS apps, thanks to the discovery that Path was uploading data from your iPhone's address book without asking for explicit permission.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:
Transcript: Apple CEO Tim Cook at Goldman Sachs  —  Forty five minutes with the man who took over when Steve Jobs stepped down  —  For those of you who missed Tim Cook's keynote presentation at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco Tuesday …
Reuters:
Exclusive: Proview says any ban of iPad exports hard to impose  —  (Reuters) - A Chinese technology firm seeking to ban all shipments of Apple's popular iPad tablet into and out of the country has been told that China's customs authorities are unlikely to intervene in the trademark battle.
Joel Rosenblatt / Bloomberg:
Apple Asks for Court Approval to Sue Bankrupt Kodak in N.Y. Over Patents  —  Apple Inc. (AAPL) asked a bankruptcy judge for permission to sue Eastman Kodak Co. (EK) over allegations it's infringing patents that Apple says cover technologies used in printers, digital cameras and digital picture frames.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Clear: Why This Simple To Do List App Has Everyone Talking  —  Clear, the heavily-anticipated touch-based to-do list app, is launching in the iTunes App Store tonight.  And by heavily anticipated, I mean this app was getting tech blog coverage based on demos, previews and teaser videos.
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Exclusive: HTC rumored to be working on a streaming music service  —  HTC Corp., one of the earliest champions of Android-based smartphones seems to have fallen on hard times, thanks to growing power of Samsung and Apple.  But the Taiwanese phone maker isn't ready to call it quits …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Gartner: Apple's iPhone Stole The Smartphone Show In Q4, 2011  —  We've seen handset makers like HTC, LG and Nokia all warning of declines in smartphone sales.  But if there is a slowdown affecting some, it's not because people are not buying smartphones; it's because they're all buying iPhones.
Kunur Patel / AdAge:
Apple Slashes iAd Pricing Again as Mobile Ad Share Declines  —  Moves Are Reaction to Competition From Google and Realities of Mobile-Ad Market  —  Apple is once again slashing the minimum amount it charges advertisers to run a campaign on its iAd mobile ad system and boosting the amount …
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Kindle Touch breakthrough: Startup debuts handwriting recognition in puzzle book  —  Puzzle technology startup Puzzazz is giving Amazon's Kindle Touch a capability that even Amazon didn't envision — letting users input numbers and letters by writing them naturally with a finger on the screen …
Seth Weintraub / 9to5Mac:
Siri leaks her own upcoming ability to speak Japanese  —  Siri is many things, but it seems she is not a good secret keeper.  A few tipsters reached out and told us that Siri now speaks Japanese.  Rumors earlier this month said Apple's AI speech recognition interface would gain Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and possibly Russian.
Wall Street Journal:
Apple's Size Clouds Market  —  To Get a Picture of Corporate Health, Analysts Cut Tech Giant Out of the Frame  —  In analyzing U.S. corporate earnings and stock-market trends, apples-to-apples comparisons may now require tossing out the Apple.  —  Apple Inc.'s success selling consumer gadgets …
More: 9to5Mac
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Walter Isaacson's ‘Steve Jobs’  —  What is Apple at heart: a software company, or hardware company?  —  This is a perennial question.  The truth, of course, is that Apple is neither.  Apple is an experience company.  That they create both hardware and software is part of creating the entire product experience.
Jon Mitchell / ReadWriteWeb:
Google+ For iPhone Gets Instant Photo & Video Uploads  —  Google has updated the Google+ iOS app today, adding a key mobile feature, which was previously only available to Android users.  Instant Upload, once enabled, automatically sends all photos and videos taken from the Google+ app to a private Google+ album.
More: eWeek and Anton Lopyrev
Jesse Hamilton / Bloomberg:
AT&T Must Let Beastie Boy Vote on Net Neutrality, SEC Says  —  Feb. 14 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has told AT&T Inc. and other telecommunications companies they must include a resolution supporting wireless net-neutrality in annual shareholder votes.
John Paul Titlow / ReadWriteWeb:
How Developers Are Shaping the Future of Music  —  That the music industry has radically changed in the last decade is a serious understatement.  Technology has altered everything from the creation of music to its distribution, upending retailers, studios and business models across the industry.
More: GigaOM
Vlad Savov / The Verge:
Did Samsung just reveal a Galaxy Note 10.1 for MWC?  —  Samsung's official website may have revealed the name of a heretofore unannounced product: a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1.  The name appears on the company's invitation to a Samsung Developer Day at MWC this year, alongside the Galaxy Note …
Ryan Kim / GigaOM:
Chirpify turns Twitter into a payment and commerce platform  —  Twitter has become a high-powered news, information and interest network but it hasn't really flexed its potential as a commerce platform.  But a new Portland, Ore. start-up called Chirpify is looking to leverage …

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Eric Eldon / TechCrunch: