Techmeme
March 19, 2012, 1:15 PM

Top News

Apple:
Apple Announces Plans to Initiate Dividend and Share Repurchase Program  —  Expects to Spend $45 Billion Over Three Years  —  Apple® today announced plans to initiate a dividend and share repurchase program commencing later this year.  —  Subject to declaration by the Board of Directors …
Chris Ziegler / The Verge:
Apple announces $10b share buyback starting in fiscal 2013, $2.65 dividend for Q4  —  Ahead of a conference call this morning, Apple has announced a pair of initiatives for its massive stockpile of cash totaling approximately $100 billion: a stock buyback beginning in fiscal 2013 …
Jillian Berman / The Huffington Post:
Apple Not Bringing Overseas Cash Back Home, Blames U.S. Tax Policy … FOLLOW:  —  Apple, Video, Business News, Repatriation Tax Holiday, Apple Announcement, Apple Cash, Apple u.s.  Tax Law, Apple-Buy-Back, Apple-Cash-Plans, Tax Holiday, Tax Repatriation Holiday, Business News
Mike Daisey:
Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated  —  “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”  —another American monologist Many consider this week's THIS AMERICAN LIFE episode one of the most painful they've ever listened to.  In particular the segment with me is excruciating …
Faith Hung / Reuters:
Foxconn not to take legal action after retraction  —  (Reuters) - Foxconn Technology Group, the top maker of Apple Inc's iPhones and iPads, said on Monday it had no plans to take legal action over a U.S. radio program about its activity in China, parts of which have been retracted.
Stephen Chapman / Between the Lines Blog:
New iPad feature ‘Dictation’ sends/stores private data to Apple servers  —  Summary: Dictation is one of the key features of the new iPad; however, using it requires more than meets the eye.  Read all about it in this post.  —  After spending a solid weekend with the new iPad …
Kim-Mai Cutler / TechCrunch:
Zynga Is In Talks To Buy “Draw Something” Maker OMGPOP  —  Zynga is in talks to acquire OMGPOP, the maker of massive hit Draw Something, according to a source with direct knowledge of the discussions.  Talks are still in an earlier stage and it's my understanding that there may be other foreign buyers …
Ellen McGirt / Fast Company:
“Boy CEO” Mark Zuckerberg's Two Smartest Projects Were Growing Facebook And Growing Up  —  Mark Zuckerberg, oft-parodied young CEO, didn't build the most important company of the Internet era by accident.  How he fashioned Facebook—and himself—for success.
Richard Lawler / Engadget:
Linux kernel 3.3 released with merged Android code and more  —  The latest refresh of the Linux kernel, 3.3, is now available, and the second release of 2012 brings with it the long-awaited merging of code from Google's little side project.  While that is particularly interesting …
AppleInsider:
AT&T sets single-day record for iPad sales, activations  —  AT&T announced on Monday that the launch of the new iPad set a new single-day record for sales and activations of Apple's touchscreen tablet.  —  The new 4G LTE-capable iPad went on sale last Friday, March 16, and in that 24-hour span …
More: Macgasm, TUAW and MacNN
Jack Clark / ZDNet:
Netflix: How we got a grip on AWS's cloud  —  Q&A  —  In 2011, Netflix's online video rental service regularly accounted for 30 percent of all US download internet traffic.  —  To support this combination of huge traffic and unpredictable demand spikes, Netflix has spent the past few years developing …
Dwight Garner / New York Times:
The Way We Read Now  —  The case against electronic books has been made, and elegantly, by many people, including Nicholson Baker in The New Yorker a few years ago.  Mr. Baker called Amazon's Kindle, in a memorable put-down, “the Bowflex of bookishness: something expensive that …
More: BuzzFeed
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Twitter and Facebook Are Tomorrow's News Service.  For Now, Though ...  If you're like me, you increasingly rely on Twitter and Facebook as your news editors.  But that means we're in a small minority.  —  Just 9 percent of American adults frequently get their news from their pals at the two services.
John Paczkowski / AllThingsD:
With “Coveted Brand,” Dell Will Breach Tablet Market … - Dell CEO Michael Dell on what has surprised him most about the evolution of the tech industry  —  2012 isn't going to be another year of the iPad, if Dell can help it.  Though it was forced to beat a humbling retreat from the tablet market …
More: Reuters and The Verge
Brian Womack / Bloomberg:
Facebook Mimics Apple by Spending Less on R&D Than Rivals  —  Facebook Inc. (FB) spends a smaller percentage of revenue on engineering than other Internet companies, mimicking Apple (AAPL) Inc.'s strategy of keeping costs low by relying on outside developers for research and development.
More: WebProNews
Myriam Joire / Engadget:
NetZero launches ‘4G’ wireless service, we go hands-on  —  Remember NetZero?  Today the company announced that it's launching NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband, a wireless service rolling out in 80 US cities and offering value-priced monthly data plans without activation fees, contracts, commitments or overage charges.

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:
What will the next generation of developers do when AI writes the code?  —  Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon are betting that the junior devs we train today will be the senior engineers of tomorrow.
Will Reed:
The best sales leaders aren't job hunting.  Here's how to reach them without months of cold outreach.  —  Our team came from Box, Square, and Brex, so we already know the GTM leaders worth meeting.
Zoho:
UK tax compliance with Zoho Books  —  The evolving tax landscape in the UK has added an additional responsibility to business owners, accountants, and bookkeepers to ensure their choice of accounting software supports compliance …
IDrive:
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