Techmeme
March 19, 2012, 2:10 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  —  Apple has a bone to pick with the U.S. and its tax laws.  Apple's CFO Peter Oppenheimer slammed U.S. tax policy on overseas profits as part of a highly anticipated announcement Monday detailing Apple's plans to spend nearly half of the $100 billion in cash.
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 Japanese buyers …
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:
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 …
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.
Amanda Lenhart / Pew Internet:
Teens, Smartphones & Texting  —  Teens are fervent communicators.  Straddling childhood and adulthood, they communicate frequently with a variety of important people in their lives: friends and peers, parents, teachers, coaches, bosses, and a myriad of other adults and institutions.
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Vimeo Gets a New Boss: AOL, Yahoo Vet Kerry Trainor  —  Earlier this year, video site Vimeo showed off a new look.  Now it has a new CEO: Kerry Trainor, who just left his job overseeing AOL's entertainment and video properties.  —  Trainor replaces Dae Mellencamp, who has been running the site since 2009.
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 …
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.
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
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
enigmax / TorrentFreak:
Pirate Bay ‘Financier’ Will Serve Sentence Electronically Tagged  —  Carl Lundström, one of the persons convicted in The Pirate Bay trial, will not be going to jail for his role in the operations of The Pirate Bay.  The millionaire, who gave the site a crucial helping hand with hardware …
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.

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Featured Podcasts

Lenny's Podcast:
Father of the iPod and iPhone on building taste, judgment, and creativity in the AI era | Tony Fadell
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
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Big Technology Podcast:
Will Apple (Finally) Get AI Right At WWDC?, Anthropic's Worry, Microsoft vs. OpenAI
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
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Hard Fork:
Hot I.P.O Summer + What Is A.I. Doing to Math? + HatGPT
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
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The Upstarts Podcast:
Vanta's Christina Cacioppo: The Underdog Turning 'Nonsense' Compliance Into A $4.2B Security Standout
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
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Great Chat:
Who are the billboards for?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
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Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
AI's Mythos Moment: Rishi Sunak on preparing governments for AI
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
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