Techmeme
May 17, 2012, 1:15 PM

Top News

AllThingsD:
Exclusive: Japan's Rakuten Wins the Heart of Pinterest in $100M Funding Race With $1.5B Valuation  —  Rakuten, the largest e-commerce site in Japan, is expected to be the lead investor in the much-contested next round of funding for Silicon Valley's hottest start-up, Pinterest.
Quentin Hardy / New York Times:
A Facebook Co-Founder Reflects on the Path Forward  —  Eduardo Saverin can escape the United States, but he can't slip Facebook.  —  “Everything I do in my personal life, in my professional life, it's completely there,” said Mr. Saverin, a Facebook co-founder, in his first major interview.
Alex Wilhelm / The Next Web:
US-citizenship renouncing Facebook cofounder Saverin may be effectively banned from the country  —  Oh dear, I don't think that too many people saw this coming.  I do hope that Eduardo Saverin did, however, as his move to renounce his US citizenship may carry a penalty …
Nick Bilton / Bits:
Twitter Implements Do Not Track Privacy Option  —  It's no secret that Facebook is worth about $100 billion because it collected personal data about its users.  A lot of data.  —  Although Twitter tracks its users too — albeit in a much less aggressive way — the company has decided to take a different route.
Business Week:
How Mark Zuckerberg Hacked the Valley  —  In 2006, when he was 22, Mark Zuckerberg gave up writing computer code to focus on managing his rapidly growing startup.  Like Jim Brown retiring from football at 29 or E.M. Forster abandoning the novel in his forties, the prodigy who programmed …
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
HTC shipping custom Android builds on US devices to avoid Apple patents  —  The HTC One X for AT&T and Evo 4G LTE for Sprint already bear the distinction of being the first Android devices to face an import block at US Customs for potentially infringing an Apple patent, but the ignominy may be fleeting …
Matthew Braga / Ars Technica:
Say hello to the real real-time Web  —  It's not just a buzzword, but a technological shift—the instantly accessible Web.  —  Real-time technologies are making Web apps faster—and in some cases, indistinguishable from desktop apps.  —  Garret Voight  —  It started with a simple idea …
Evelyn M. Rusli / DealBook:
Spotify Is Raising Millions in a Deal That Would Value It at $4 Billion  —  The mega funding rounds are back.  —  Spotify, the social music service, is in the process of raising hundreds of millions of dollars in a deal that would value the company at as much as $4 billion …
Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:
Netflix launches sexy new web-based video player  —  Netflix just rolled out a completely revamped video player for browser-based viewing, and I gotta say, it's pretty slick: Not only does it come with lightbox-like text overlays while a video is paused, users can also preview entire seasons …
Kim-Mai Cutler / TechCrunch:
Eduardo Saverin Backs Mobile Wallet Contender Crowdmob  —  Eduardo Saverin may no longer be a U.S. citizen.  But that's not stopping him from investing in American companies.  —  In fact, he just closed a deal.  He's backing Crowdmob, a startup that's blending app promotion with discounts from local merchants.
Josh Lowensohn / CNET:
Retina MacBook screens: Already here — and pricey  —  A pixelated MacBook screen.  —  (Credit: CNET)  —  Apple is said to be on the verge of rolling out new high-resolution displays for its computers that, up until now, have only been available on its iPhones and iPads.
Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post:
White House's cybersecurity official retiring  —  The White House's cybersecurity coordinator said Thursday that he is stepping down at the end of this month after a 2 1 / 2-year tenure in which the administration has increased its focus on cyber issues but struggled to reach agreement …
Ellis Hamburger / The Verge:
Pipe: file sharing in the Facebook age is about to get real  —  The appeal of Pipe can't be witnessed on paper, but is instead evident in its visual simplicity.  You drag a file from your desktop onto a Super Mario-esque green pipe on your screen and the file disappears …
Sinead Carew / Reuters:
FCC chooses spectrum for wireless medical devices  —  (Reuters) - The U.S. telecommunications regulator is expected to announce plans on Thursday to set aside spectrum to connect wireless medical devices for more convenient health monitoring.  —  The Federal Communications Commission …
Antony Savvas / Computerworld UK Public Sector:
Met Police uses ‘quick’ mobile data extraction system against suspects  —  Police will have immediate access to data on handset  —  The Metropolitan Police has rolled out a mobile device data extraction system to allow officers to extract data “within minutes” from suspects' phones while they are in custody.
Nathan Ingraham / The Verge:
T-Mobile to launch new no-contract mobile broadband plans on May 20th  —  T-Mobile's making it easier for customers to use its growing HSPA+ network for mobile broadband by introducing some new, contract free plans.  As of May 20th, T-Mobile will offer four new prepaid mobile broadband plans …
More: Engadget
Josh Lowensohn / CNET:
Flashback makers missed out on their payday, Symantec says  —  The high-profile Flashback Trojan that is estimated to have infected more than 600,000 Macs at its peak earlier this year would have earned its creators $14,000 in the course of three weeks.  —  The only hitch is that the money isn't going anywhere.
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Plastic Logic shutters US offices, gets out of making its own e-readers  —  Plastic Logic has something of a rollercoaster history, having had to drop the QUE proReader before it even shipped and getting a $700 million cash injection that ultimately swung its attention to Russian schoolchildren.
More: GigaOM
Cathy Avgiris / Comcast Voices:
Comcast to Replace Usage Cap With Improved Data Usage Management Approaches  —  Today, the way people use video and access information has changed dramatically.  Four years ago, when we first instituted a broadband Internet data usage threshold, the iPhone had just been introduced …
Emil Protalinski / ZDNet:
Wikileaks has been under DDoS attack for the last three days  —  Summary: The Pirate Bay is down.  Wikileaks is down.  Visa was down.  Are all these Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks a coincidence?  Right now it's not clear, but something is definitely happening.

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Mike Beasley / 9to5Mac: