Techmeme
April 10, 2012, 3:55 PM

Top News

Paul Ford / New York Magazine:
Facebook and Instagram: When Your Favorite App Sells Out  —  Facebook, a company with a potential market cap worth five or six moon landings, is spending one of its many billions of dollars to buy Instagram, a tiny company dedicated to helping Thai beauty queens share photos of their fingernails.
Andy Baio / Wired:
Instagram's Buyout: No Bubble to See Here  —  Instagram's billion-dollar sale to Facebook raised eyebrows Monday, renewing fears of a new tech bubble.  But compared to other major acquisitions since the dot-com bust, turns out it's a pretty sane deal.  —  To put the acquisition in perspective …
Charles Arthur / Guardian:
Instagram and Facebook: the next tech bubble?  —  Facebook has bought the photo-sharing service for $1bn.  What does history tell us about the wisdom of such mega-deals?  —  A company with no revenues and barely any staff gets acquired for a billion dollars?  It has to be a bubble, doesn't it?
More: Xconomy and Vitrue
Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:
It's Official: Yahoo Reorgs Itself Just Like We Said (Memo Time!)  —  Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson just sent this note to Yahoo employees, about a new organization for the company.  —  “It's time for Yahoo! to move forward, and fast,” wrote Thompson (using punctuation I really, with nice comma deployment).
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google's Chrome OS Will Soon Look More Like Windows Than A Browser  —  It's hard to say how popular Chrome OS, Google's browser-centric operating system, really is.  There can be little doubt, though, that Google is quite serious about this initiative.  Today, Google launched …
Jason Snell / Macworld:
iTunes: Time to right the syncing ship  —  When Apple introduced iTunes in 2001, it served one purpose: As a music jukebox app.  Later that year, it added its most important feature: The ability to sync tracks with the just-introduced iPod.  Originally, you could just drag tracks onto …
More: Macgasm, MacStories and TUAW
Rolfe Winkler / Wall Street Journal:
Carriers Band to Fight Cellphone Theft  —  The nation's major wireless providers have agreed to a deal with the U.S. government to build a central database of stolen cellphones—part of a broad effort to tame an explosion of thefts nationwide.  —  The database, which the wireless companies …
Matt Brian / The Next Web:
A million Instagram Android app downloads in a day isn't cool.  You know what's cool? 5 million in 6 days.  —  Instagram is enjoying the biggest week in its existence.  The company, already riding high on its iOS success, launched its Android app and captured 1 million downloads …
Neil Hughes / AppleInsider:
Availability of Apple's 15-inch MacBook Pros constrained ahead of redesigned models  —  Multiple authorized resellers this week are reflecting stock outs of 15-inch MacBook Pros, suggesting that Apple is ramping down production of existing models before introducing redesigned offerings …
Kim-Mai Cutler / TechCrunch:
Amazon's Takes In-App Purchases Out Of Beta: Here's How They Compromised On Revenue Share  —  Amazon is taking the wraps off a new in-app purchasing service today in an effort to make its app store competitive with what Apple and Google offer developers.  That should let developers …
Agence France Presse:
Iran denies has plan to cut Internet access  —  TEHRAN — Iran has denied online reports surfacing Tuesday that it plans to cut access to the Internet in August and replace it with a national intranet, according to a statement by the ministry of communication and information technology.
David Pierce / The Verge:
Toshiba introduces 13.3-inch Android 4.0 tablet, new Excite range  —  Toshiba announced its back-to-school tablet lineup today, adding three models to its Excite brand.  The first one you'll notice is the Excite 13, which you can hardly avoid — its 13.3-inch display is absolutely enormous, nearly twice the size of a 7-inch slate.
Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:
Apple CEO Tim Cook to Appear as Opening Speaker at the D10 Conference  —  Walt Mossberg and I could not be more thrilled to announce that Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, will be the opening-night speaker at our 10th D: All Things Digital conference.  —  It will be Cook's first appearance at D …
John Paczkowski / AllThingsD:
Apple's Market Cap Hits $600 Billion  —  Another market cap milestone for Apple.  —  With the broader market in decline, shares in the company rose to a new 52-week high this morning: $644.  And that jump was enough to carry Apple's market cap across the $600 billion threshold.
Vlad Savov / The Verge:
The 4 inch iPhone 5  —  In the past year of so the smartphone landscape has seen a trend of screen size increasing from around 3.2/3.5 inches to 4.3, 4.65 and as high as 5.3 inches in the case of the Samsung Galaxy Note.  The iPhone screen however, has remained at 3.5 inches since its debut in 2007.
Andrew Nusca / Between the Lines Blog:
Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn resigns  —  Summary: Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn resigned this morning.  Director G. Mike Mikan will serve in the interim.  —  Brian Dunn, chief executive of tech big box retailer Best Buy, resigned this morning.  —  “There were no disagreements between Mr. Dunn …
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
SAP Acquires Enterprise Mobile App Platform And Development Partner Syclo  —  SAP is furthering its mobile presence today by acquiring Syclo, a company that provides an enterprise mobile app platform.  Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.  —  Syclo helps companies build …
CNET:
Why Microsoft spent $1 billion on AOL's patents  —  Microsoft dropped an eye-popping $1 billion on 800 AOL patents today, an astonishing amount likely spent to keep the intellectual property trove away from rival Google.  —  But according to a source close to the situation, Google didn't even bid on the portfolio.

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Build AI that works  —  Tribe builds tech for top AI companies.  Get in touch to learn how our bench of 500+ engineers and researchers can accelerate your roadmap.
Kulkan Security:
Hire Kulkan as your penetration testing partner  —  Kulkan prioritizes deep-dive manual security reviews, dissecting your software and infrastructure to find issues that once remediated can truly reduce security risk.
Zoho:
Navigating the workday with Zoho Cliq's task management capabilities  —  As Monday dawns and I settle into my workday with a steaming cup of coffee, I brace myself for the usual storm of tasks headed my way.
Mastodon:
Donate to Mastodon  —  Mastodon gGmbH, the non-profit behind the open-source software powering the social web, relies entirely on support from users like you.  Donate directly with a credit card or through Patreon.
The Kevin Rose Show:
Magatte Wade, Unlocking Prosperity in Africa (#53)
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Tue. 04/16 - What Should An AI Wearable Be: AI Pin Or Limitless Pendant?
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:55 PM ET, April 10, 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.

More News

Earlier Picks