Techmeme
April 18, 2012, 6:55 PM

Top News

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.
Evelyn M. Rusli / DealBook:
With Instagram Deal, Facebook Shows Its Worth  —  To win over Instagram, Facebook was forced to show its hand.  —  In early April, Facebook bought the photo-sharing service for $1 billion, agreeing to pay roughly 30 percent in cash and 70 percent in stock, according to people briefed on the negotiations.
Sergey Brin / Google+:
I believe the internet has been one of the greatest forces for good in the world over the past quarter century.  So when the Guardian requested that I speak to them over the past few months about internet freedom, I decided it was important to participate.  —  I think the article is a pretty …
Walt Mossberg / AllThingsD:
Permission to Procrastinate: Wait to Get a New Laptop  —  If you're thinking of buying a new laptop this spring, my advice is to think again.  Unless your laptop is on its last legs and you have to move quickly, there are compelling reasons to wait until at least the summer, and probably the fall …
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 …
Laura Stampler / Business Insider:
Tumblr Will Start Selling Ad Units On May 2  —  In a 2010 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Tumblr CEO and founder David Karp said, “We're pretty opposed to advertising.  It really turns our stomachs.”  —  How times have changed.  Karp announced at Ad Age's Digital Conference that on May 2 …
Grant McCool / Reuters:
Apple wants trial on e-book price-fixing: lawyer  —  (Reuters) - Apple Inc wants to go to trial to defend itself against U.S. government allegations that it conspired with publishers to raise prices of electronic books, a lawyer for the Silicon Valley giant said in court on Wednesday.
Horace Dediu / asymco:
Apple Stores have seventeen times better performance than the average retailer  —  Thanks to RetailSails we have some data on retailers in the US which can be used to calibrate the performance of Apple retail.  RetailSails compiled a table of the top 20 chains by sales per square foot (annual basis).
Alexis Madrigal / The Atlantic Online:
The Jig Is Up: Time to Get Past Facebook and Invent a New Future  —  After five years pursuing the social-local-mobile dream, we need a fresh paradigm for technology startups.  —  We're there.  The future that visionaries imagined in the late 1990s of phones in our pockets and high-speed Internet in the air: Well, we're living in it.
Ben Kuchera / Penny Arcade Report:
The ugly side of Kickstarter: the risks in backing game dev campaigns are greater than you think  —  The Penny Arcade Report has an email address for story leads and tips, and a significant percentage of those “tips” are solicitations for coverage of indie game Kickstarter projects.
More: Bloomberg
Biz Stone / Obvious:
Why Obvious Invested in Neighborland  —  We need only glance at the headlines—from Arab Spring to Occupy—to understand that people are passionate about connecting over issues.  We all have issues, big and small.  Toppling oppressive regimes and protesting corruption are appropriately top of mind.
Robert McMillan / Wired:
Amazon's Secretive Cloud Carries 1 Percent of the Internet  —  An Amazon data center in Sterling, Virginia.  Photo: Eric Hunsaker/Flickr  —  Amazon's cloud computing infrastructure is growing so fast that it's silently becoming a core piece of the internet.
More: GeekWire
Leslie Horn / Gizmodo:
AT&T Stores Are Almost Completely Out of Lumia 900 Stock  —  Both Nokia and Microsoft need the Lumia 900 to succeed.  Windows Phone is struggling.  So is the once-top handset maker.  But while they and AT&T has been pushing the Lumia 900 hard it looks like the carrier just doesn't have enough to go around.
Stuart Dredge / Guardian:
Draw Something gets more social with chat and Facebook/Twitter sharing  —  Dan Porter talks new features, TV possibilities and localisation plans for popular game.  By Stuart Dredge  —  50m downloads and a $180m acquisition by Zynga later, hit mobile game Draw Something is getting even more social with its latest update.
Brandon Bailey / Mercury News:
Larry Page evasive with Oracle's lawyer, but admits Google never obtained Java license  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Google (GOOG) CEO Larry Page completed his testimony in federal court Wednesday morning after an hour of laborious grilling by an attorney for tech rival Oracle (ORCL) …
More: WebProNews
Cyrus Farivar / Ars Technica:
Security researcher unearths plans for Iran's halal Internet  —  Iran appears to have recently published a Persian-language “Request for Information” (RFI) for an even-more filtered and monitored version of the Internet than what presently exists in the Islamic Republic.
Barb Darrow / GigaOM:
Amazon, seeking to relieve partner angst, launches partner program  —  Amazon, the provider of public cloud services which have — at times - made its technology partners nervous, is launching an official partner program.  —  The new AWS Partner Network, (APN) targets ISVs, SaaS companies …

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:
Cultivating creativity and innovation in the modern workspace  —  In the realm of modern business, success depends on more than just delivering products or services—it requires an environment where creativity thrives and new ideas are welcomed.
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:
How to Cultivate Everyday Dharma, Suneel Gupta (#54)
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Tue. 04/23 - Microsoft's Own LLMs and Perplexity's Big Raise
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 6:55 PM ET, April 18, 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

Erin Bury / BetaKit:
Brent Schlender / Fast Company: