Techmeme: Japan's Softbank in talks for $12.8 billion Sprint stake (Reuters)

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October 11, 2012, 1:50 PM

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Reuters:

Japan's Softbank in talks for $12.8 billion Sprint stake — (Reuters) - Softbank Corp (9984.T), Japan's third-largest mobile carrier, is in talks to buy a majority stake in U.S. telecoms company Sprint Nextel Corp (S.N) in a deal worth more than 1 trillion yen ($12.8 billion) …

Ina Fried / AllThingsD:

Sprint Confirms Talks With Softbank Over “Substantial Investment” — Sprint confirmed Thursday that it is in talks with Japan's Softbank about a possible deal. — The No. 3 U.S. wireless carrier said the discussions are about a “substantial investment by Softbank” but offered few other details.

More: Examiner, DSLreports and Know Your Cell

Daisuke Wakabayashi / Wall Street Journal:

Softbank in Advanced Talks to Acquire Sprint Nextel — TOKYO—Japanese mobile carrier Softbank Corp. is in advanced talks to buy U.S. operator Sprint Nextel Corp. in a deal expected to exceed ¥1 trillion ($12.81 billion) in value, a person with knowledge of the negotiations said Thursday.

More: Reuters, Digits, PhoneNews.com, SiliconANGLE, SlashGear, Tech Daily Dose, Gizmodo, Engadget, Bloomberg, CNET, SlashGear, Deal Journal, PhoneArena and Digits

Dennis K. Berman / WSJ Blogs:

Sizing Up a Softbank Takeover of Sprint — Japanese mobile carrier Softbank — the country's premier technology investor — is mulling a takeover of the struggling US wireless carrier Sprint Nextel Corp. in a deal expected to exceed $12.81 billion. — An early read on what such a deal would mean.

More: MacRumors, Digits, Deal Journal and Corporate Intelligence

iFixit:

iPod Touch 5th Generation Teardown — We got our hands on Apple's new iPod Touch. First thing we do: get inside to see just how much “funner” the new generation is compared to the older generations. Join us for all the fun to come by following iFixit on Twitter or friending us on Facebook.

More: Ars Technica, CNET, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, Engadget, iLounge, iClarified, Macgasm, Mashable! and IntoMobile

Nilay Patel / The Verge:

Apple iPod nano review (2012)

More: Engadget, Business Insider, MacRumors and TUAW

Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:

Eric Schmidt: Android-Apple Is the Defining Fight in the Industry Today — The fight between Google and Apple over mobile devices is great for consumers, but the patent wars that have resulted are awful, said Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, in conversation tonight with our own Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher.

More: CNET, Tapscape, The Register and Electronista

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Eric Schmidt Can't Wait for Self-Driving Cars, Won't Predict When Google Maps Come Back to Apple

More: Forbes, SiliconANGLE, GigaOM, Business Insider, fiercemobilecontent.com, Search Engine Land, Fortune, CNET, 9to5Google, SlashGear, Inquirer, Mashable!, Ubergizmo, TechPinions, The Verge, SlashGear and memeburn

Casey Chan / Gizmodo:

Eric Schmidt Would Love to Be CEO of Apple, Doesn't Take Microsoft Seriously and Is Wary of Facebook

Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:

Apple's US injunction on Samsung Galaxy Nexus reversed by appeals court — The US injunction on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus that Apple earned by way of a patent judge earlier this year has been reversed by an appeals court, reports Reuters. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit …

More: Mercury News, MacRumors, 9to5Google, VentureBeat, GigaOM, CNET, BGR, Ars Technica, BetaNews, Reuters, Engadget, AllThingsD and The Verge

Matt McGee / Search Engine Land:

Google Starts To Downplay Zagat Scores; It Should Ditch Them Altogether — Google is changing the way it collects local business reviews and displays them in search results, making the Zagat score a less prominent piece of information. — That's a good thing in my opinion, and many people …

More: Zagat Blog, TechCrunch, 9to5Google, Screenwerk, WebProNews, CNET, Search Engine Roundtable and Understanding Google …

Aaron Souppouris / The Verge:

LG Nexus handset revealed in clearest shots yet — Russian site Onliner has got its hands on LG's new Nexus, revealing the device with perfect clarity for the first time. The site confirms what we've already heard about the device: it's a remodeled version of LG's Optimus G. Dubbed the LG-E960 …

Alistair Barr / Reuters:

Exclusive: eBay starts daily deals for services, taking on Groupon — (Reuters) - EBay Inc has quietly launched an online marketplace for deals on local services, taking on Groupon Inc and expanding into a potentially big category. — Called eBay Lifestyle Deals, the offers are being run …

More: CNET, Marketing Pilgrim, Techie Buzz, Street Fight, memeburn, BGR, TPM IdeaLab and Engadget

Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:

Amazon Releases Kindle's Lending Library In UK, Germany, France With 200,000 Books, Increases KDP Royalty Fund — Amazon continues to roll out its content offerings in Europe. Starting today, Amazon Prime members will be able to borrow books from the Kindle owners' lending library.

More: The Verge and The Next Web. See also Mediagazer

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

RockMelt For iPad: A Browser Built For Touch That Turns The Web Into A Feed So Content Comes To You — Surfing the Internet can feel like you're running in circles, constantly checking your favorite sites for updates. The RockMelt team believes that content should be delivered, not hunted …

More: AllThingsD, Techland, CNET, Wired, digitaltrends.com, GadgeTell, ABCNEWS, Forbes, RockMelt Blog, GigaOM and Mashable!

Drew Olanoff / TechCrunch:

Tumblr Puts More Focus On Photos With Photoset, Its New Standalone iOS App — Tumblr is a company that has built a platform that seemingly morphs into something new every single time I visit it. One of the most popular features of the service is its ability to share photos, in sets …

More: SplatF, Tumblr Staff, The Verge, Mashable, Laughing Squid and SocialTimes. Thanks:@thatdrew

Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:

Instapaper creator Marco Arment launches The Magazine, a different kind of periodical for Apple's Newsstand — Back in July, Instapaper creator Marco Arment started thinking about what to do with The Feature. It was a section of the app in which he placed a curated selection of stories worth sharing …

More: Daring Fireball, MacStories, Fortune, Gizmodo, The Magazine and Marco.org. Thanks:@martinsfp. See also Mediagazer

Nicholas Carlson / Business Insider:

A $12 Billion Move In Apple Stock Seems To Have Started With Tweets From A Single Anonymous Source In China — Apple's stock dropped 2.21 percent on Monday. — A few analysts blamed the drop — worth more than $12 billion — on a strike of 4,000 Chinese workers at Apple's manufacturer.

More: Bloomberg

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Google Gives Street View A 250K-Mile Update Across 17+ Countries, Its Biggest Update Ever; Maps API Now Features Time Zones — Google is continuing to gain points on the mapping front, today launching yet more features for the product at a time when Apple's offering continues to appear weak by comparison.

Joe Mullin / Ars Technica:

Netflix settles with deaf-rights group, agrees to caption all videos by 2014 — In an agreement that the National Association for the Deaf (NAD) calls “a model for the streaming video industry,” Netflix has agreed to caption all of its shows by the year 2014.

More: GigaOM, Engadget, CNN, NAD News, MobileBurn.com, SlashGear, WebProNews and WatchingTV Online

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Google's Mod_Pagespeed Is Now Out Of Beta And Ready To Make Your Sites Faster — Google just released the first stable version of mod_pagespeed, the company's open-source module for Apache that can automatically optimize your web pages to improve download and rendering speeds.

More: Google Webmaster Central Blog, Webmonkey, Search Engine Roundtable, CNET and Softpedia News

Cecilia Kang / Washington Post:

Huawei's U.S. competitors among those pushing for scrutiny of Chinese tech firm — Companies in the cutthroat field of telecommunications received a remarkable marketing document recently, one aimed at causing suspicion about one of their biggest competitors, the Chinese firm Huawei.

More: The Verge, ZDNet, DSLreports, Telegraph and Business Insider

Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:

Bridging The Gap Between Pawn Shop And Bank, Borro Raises $26M Led By Canaan Partners — Borro, a personal asset lending platform, has just received a massive $26 million funding round led by Canaan Partners. The service essentially classes up the idea of collateral loans …

More: AllThingsD and London News

Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:

US Congress' Privacy Caucus says DAA's anti-'Do Not Track' stance puts “profits over privacy” — Yesterday, ad industry body Digital Advertising Alliance issued a statement that siad that the “Do Not Track” settings of Microsoft's upcoming Internet Explorer 10 were not an appropriate standard for customers.

More: The Register, WebProNews, Congressman Ed Markey …, Inquirer and Reuters. Thanks:@alex

David Meyer / ZDNet:

EU digital chief attacks Do Not Track ‘watering down’

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