Techmeme
April 18, 2012, 7:10 AM

Top News

Adam Messinger / Twitter Blog:
Introducing the Innovator's Patent Agreement  —  One of the great things about Twitter is working with so many talented folks who dream up and build incredible products day in and day out.  Like many companies, we apply for patents on a bunch of these inventions.
Fred Wilson / A VC:
The Twitter “Patent Hack”  —  Yesterday Twitter announced that they plan to amend the assignments agreements that they sign with their employees.  They call this proposed amendment the Innovator's Patent Agreement.  I've been aware of this effort inside of Twitter for a while and I like to call …
Wall Street Journal:
In Facebook Deal for Instagram, Board Was All But Out of Picture  —  On the morning of Sunday, April 8, Facebook Inc.'s youthful chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, alerted his board of directors that he intended to buy Instagram, the hot photo-sharing service.
Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:
CEO Scott Thompson To Cut 50 Properties: “Yahoo Has Been Doing Way Too Much”  —  CEO Scott Thompson outlined his vision today for how Yahoo can start growing again.  His big theme: Focus, focus, focus.  —  “Yahoo has been doing way too much for too long and was only doing a few things really well,” Thompson said.
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Sources: current Windows Phone devices will not get ‘Apollo’ upgrade  —  Earlier today, a developer evangelist for Microsoft was quoted as saying that all Windows Phone devices would get an upgrade to the “next major version” of the operating system.  Now, a trusted source close to Microsoft tells us …
Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:
Apple and Samsung CEOs and chief lawyers agree to meet in San Francisco court for settlement talks moderated by magistrate judge  —  Apple and Samsung, the number one and number two in the mobile devices industry, are embroiled in litigation against each other in nine countries …
Brent Schlender / Fast Company:
The Lost Steve Jobs Tapes  —  A treasure trove of unearthed interviews, conducted by the writer who knew him best, reveals how Jobs's ultimate success at Apple can be traced directly to his so-called wilderness years.  —  If Steve Jobs's life were staged as an opera, it would be a tragedy in three acts.
Ian Katz / Guardian:
Government urged to stop snooping bill  —  Exclusive: Extension of surveillance powers ‘a destruction of human rights’  —  The government's controversial plans to allow intelligence agencies to monitor the internet use and digital communications of every person in the UK suffered a fresh blow …
Mark Sullivan / PC World:
3G and 4G Wireless Speed Showdown: Which Networks Are Fastest?  —  We tested 3G and 4G wireless data transfer speeds—indoors and out—for AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon, at multiple locations in 13 major cities.  Here's what we found.  —  It's been a year since we looked closely …
Tricia Duryee / AllThingsD:
Square's Next Round Could Swipe a $4 Billion Valuation  —  Square is seeking to raise a fresh round of capital at a massive valuation of up to $4 billion, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation.  —  If the company is successful, it will have quadrupled …
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Google's next OpenFlow challenge: taking SDNs to the consumer  —  Urs Hölzle, SVP of technical infrastructure at Google  —  Google is running all of its backbone traffic on a software-defined network built using OpenFlow, and it hopes that this year it can begin the process of extending …
More: Forbes
Poornima Gupta / Reuters:
Apple investors brace for more turbulence  —  (Reuters) - Apple Inc's results will be dissected more closely than ever next week, after a share swoon raised concerns on Wall Street that the stock's gravity-defying rally may be losing steam.  —  Five straight days of stock losses for the world's …
Rich Miller / Data Center Knowledge:
Apple: Greenpeace's Cloud Math is Busted  —  A view of the huge roof of the Apple data center in Maiden, North Carolina.  Apple said today that the facility will use 20 megawatts of power, far less than an estimate by Greenepace.  (Image: Apple).  —  Apple says it will use 20 megawatts …
Andy Baio / Wired:
Memeorandum Colors 2012: Visualizing Bias on Political Blogs  —  I don't watch sports, but every four years, I lose myself in the horse race of the U.S. presidential elections.  That competition kicked off in earnest Monday, as Gallup started its daily tracking polls for the general election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.
Mark Milian / Bloomberg:
Rejected By VCs, Pebble Watch Raises $3.8M on Kickstarter  —  When it comes to the road to success in Silicon Valley, Eric Migicovsky was definitely on the right path.  —  His idea for creating a watch that can display messages from your smartphone was embraced by Y Combinator, the prestigious business incubator.
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Chrome For Android Gets Desktop View, Home Screen Bookmarks, File Downloads  —  Chrome for Android is becoming somewhat of a flagship mobile app for Google, but given that it's only available on phones and tablets running Ice Cream Sandwich, its reach is pretty limited.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
New “Listen” Button On Facebook Musician Pages Instantly Plays Their Songs In Your Favorite Streaming App  —  Today Facebook co-opts the best thing about Myspace pages — rapid music discovery — by prominently adding a “Listen” button to musician Pages right next to the Like button.
Alexandra Chang / Wired:
Intel Shows Off Ultrabook-Tablet Hybrid Running Windows 8  —  Super-thin, super-light and super-speedy, ultrabooks were designed to make us forget about traditional PC notebooks.  They were all the rage at their big CES coming-out party in January, but now even “traditional” ultrabooks are passe.
Brendan Sasso / Hillicon Valley:
GOP chairman: Google ‘supportive’ of controversial cybersecurity bill CISPA  —  Google has been working behind the scenes with lawmakers in the House on a controversial cybersecurity bill, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) told The Hill.  —  Rogers, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee …
Christiaan Adams / Google LatLong:
Balloon and kite imagery in Google Earth  —  Here at Google we publish a lot of imagery, most of which comes from the satellite and aerial imagery providers with whom we partner.  Last week we published something a bit different: images collected from balloons and kites!

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Mark Milian / Bloomberg: