Techmeme: AOL Sells 800 Patents For $1 Billion To Microsoft [Memo To Staff] (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

April 9, 2012, 1:30 PM

Top News

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

AOL Sells 800 Patents For $1 Billion To Microsoft [Memo To Staff] — This just in: one chapter of AOL's patent journey is coming to an end. The company is selling 800 patents to Microsoft for just north of $1 billion. — Tim Armstrong, the CEO of AOL, says that the company will continue …

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Attention Marc Andreessen: Microsoft Just Bought (Part Of) Netscape — Here's a deal that would have made many minds explode back in the 1990s: Microsoft is buying Netscape. Or at least, most of the important parts of the company that used to be synonymous with “Internet”.

More: eWeek, BetaNews, SlashGear, Paints The Future and Business Insider. Tweets: @theromit

Robin Wauters / The Next Web:

AOL sells more than 800 patents to Microsoft in $1 billion+ cash deal — Huge news from the patent front this morning, as AOL (note: my employer until very recently) and Microsoft have struck a deal that will see the former sell more than 800 of its patents to the Redmond software giant.

More: Business Wire, Forbes, Reuters, TechFlash, Tech Trader Daily, Bloomberg, GeekWire, AllThingsD, BBC, Seattle Times, Between the Lines Blog, DailyTech, The Verge, Mashable!, Ars Technica, DealBook, Business Insider, SlashGear and Mixed Media. Tweets: @eldon

Larry Dignan / Between the Lines Blog:

Microsoft's purchase of AOL patents may be about a Google map war

More: Forbes, The Tech Report and VentureBeat

Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook:

I'm excited to share the news that we've agreed to acquire Instagram — I'm excited to share the news that we've agreed to acquire Instagram and that their talented team will be joining Facebook. For years, we've focused on building the best experience for sharing photos with your friends and family.

More: newsroom.fb.com, Instagram, TechCrunch, Business Insider, GigaOM, VentureBeat, CNET, The Verge, 9to5Mac, DealBook, Marketing Land, Inside Facebook, Gizmodo, MacRumors, USA Today, Mercury News, Marketing Pilgrim, BuzzFeed, Electronista, Android and Me, Mashable!, IntoMobile and MobileBurn.com

Tweets: @eldon and @djventurewire

Thanks:@forrestkoba

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Breaking: Facebook to Acquire Instagram for $1 Billion — Facebook has just announced that it will acquire Instagram, the popular photo-sharing service for $1 billion in cash and shares. — The social networking site posted on the acquisition, its biggest yet, on its site …

More: BGR, Engadget and Current Editorials. Tweets: @pkafka

Jonathan Koomey / Technology Review:

The Computing Trend that Will Change Everything — Computing isn't just getting cheaper. It's becoming more energy efficient. That means a world populated by ubiquitous sensors and streams of nanodata.

Brian X. Chen / Bits:

On Release Date, Crucial Nokia Phone Is Hard to Buy in New York — AT&T said last month that when Nokia's new Lumia 900 phone went on sale April 8, it would benefit from the company's biggest product introduction ever, exceeding even the iPhone's. — The big day is here.

More: AdAge, VentureBeat, BGR, GeekWire, TechCrunch, Seattle Times, Know Your Cell, IntoMobile, LAPTOP Magazine, The Windows Blog, Business Insider, WMPoweruser, AllThingsD, Engadget, MacDailyNews, Softpedia News, Gotta Be Mobile, iPhone, The Verge, Examiner, Fortune, SlashGear, Appboy Blog, PC Magazine, VentureBeat and Engadget

Tweets: @cisco_mobile, @bxchen and @thurrott

Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:

AT&T's iPhone unlock process detailed: A quick online chat, Apple does the unlocking, requires IMEI only — If you're looking to have your iPhone unlocked from AT&T's service, you can do so over the company's online chat and Apple is the one actually doing the unlocking.

More: eWeek, Examiner, Ars Technica, The Verge, Electronista, The TechBlock, iPhone, DSLreports, MacRumors, Softpedia News, Computerworld, iDownloadBlog.com, everythingiCafe, How To Arena and iClarified

Tweets: @chpwn and @mccarron

Jessica Guynn / Los Angeles Times:

Ex-Facebook insiders building next wave of Silicon Valley firms — An elite group of Facebook friends, most still in their 20s, have already helped change the world. Now they're working together to do it again. — SAN FRANCISCO — All eyes are on Facebook Inc., which is on the verge of a $100-billion initial public stock offering.

More: Dice Blog Network

Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:

Expert: iPad Wi-Fi issues may be linked to power management — Unlikely that faulty hardware causing poor wireless connections — The Wi-Fi reliability problems reported by iPad owners can probably be solved with a software update, a hardware expert said Friday.

More: InfoWorld, Gizmodo, WebProNews, App Advice and everythingiCafe

Jason Del Rey / AdAge:

Google Plots Web Domain-Buying Spree — Search Giant Among Brands That Say They Plan to Apply for Generic Top-Level Domains — This week marks a major step toward a dramatically expanded internet, but only a few brands — including Google and Deloitte — say they'll take advantage of it.

More: WebProNews, Domain Name Wire and DomainIncite. Thanks:@delrey

Robin Parrish / Apple Gazette:

Inside Apple HQ — Outside the main entrance at Apple Headquarters — Insiders call it the Mothership. It's Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California, and to Apple fans, it's a place thought of with romance and wonder. Only the privileged elect have ever been deep within …

More: PhoneArena

Brooks Barnes / Media Decoder:

Google Moves In on Hollywood's Night in Washington — Google and its executive chairman, Eric E. Schmidt, played a leading role in defeating antipiracy legislation last year. — LOS ANGELES — The annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner is Hollywood's big night in Washington.

More: 9to5Google and Hillicon Valley

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

SEC Filing: Chris Sacca Raising $25M For New Fund, Lowercase Spur — Investor Chris Sacca is raising as much as $25 million for his new fund, Lowercase Spur, according to a new SEC filing. He's been working on it for at least a little while — Bloomberg BusinessWeek heard he was working on it a month ago …

More: VentureBeat

Tricia Duryee / AllThingsD:

Woof! Rover.com Fetches $3.4 Million to Be Airbnb for Dogs. — Rover.com has raised $3.4 million to be the Airbnb of the dog-boarding market. — Rover is an alternative to dog kennels, much like how Airbnb offers an alternative to staying in hotels. — In addition to announcing …

More: VentureBeat, VatorNews, TechCrunch and GeekWire

Brian X. Chen / New York Times:

How to Budget Megabytes Becomes More Urgent for Users — Everyone knows how long a minute is. And your cellphone carrier keeps close tabs on how many you have used this month. Now, in the smartphone era, more people are being forced to think about how many megabytes of data they are using.

More: BuzzFeed

Shinichi Saoshiro / Reuters:

Sony to cut global workforce by 10,000: Nikkei — (Reuters) - Sony will cut its global workforce by about 10,000, or 6 percent of its entire workforce, by as early as the end of 2012, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Monday. — The loss-making electronics firm may also request …

More: Wall Street Journal, CNET, Ars Technica, The TechBlock, TechSpot, VentureBeat, Fast Company, Bloomberg, The Verge, WebProNews, Engadget, Business Insider, Electronista and Company Town

Associated Press:

AT&T to sell Yellow Pages business to private equity firm Cerberus for $950M plus stake — NEW YORK — AT&T is selling its Yellow Pages business to the private equity firm Cerberus Capital for $950 million and a minority stake in the new entity that will run the business.

More: CNET, AllThingsD, WebProNews, Bloomberg, Reuters and The Next Web

Sponsor Posts

Channel 9:

Windows Store Weekly — This week we take a look at: Star Trek App, Box, Fling Theory, StumbleUpon, and wordBrush.

Cloud Foundry:

Static.com Adds Hadoop Support for Cloud Foundry — In this guest post, Jake Farrell, CTO for Static.com, explains how the major shift in the hosting industry towards platforms for high developer productivity …

Rackspace Blog:

DevOps: Improved Productivity, Higher Value — Those of us who have been aligned with DevOps for some time already know that the greater agility and closer collaboration it enables deliver real business value for our organizations.

Hortonworks » Blog:

Get Started with Hadoop on Hortonworks Data Platform 1.1 for Windows — We are excited to release the Hortonworks Data Platform 1.1 for Windows as a Generally Available product.

Unison's blog:

Skype in the browser — Whether you like the Skype app or not, until now, you've had no choice but to download something to make voice and video calls — either an app like Skype, or a Flash plugin (yikes) for your browser.

Sponsor Techmeme

Who's Hiring In Tech?

Google: Do cool things that matter.

Automattic: 18% down, 82% to go. WordPress.

CBSi: Have your people call our people.

@WalmartLabs: A thin line between work and play.

Disqus: Build something worth talking about.

FancyCorp: We are real fancy.

imo: Awesome People. Awesome Products.

Zoosk: Fall in love. With your job.

Facebook: Best place to build & make an impact.

Amazon: Work hard. Have fun. Make history.

Square: Come simplify the complex.

Twitter: Less characters; more fulfilling.

Add your company here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 1:30 PM ET, April 9, 2012.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.