Techmeme
November 21, 2012, 4:30 PM

Top News

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft ‘Xbox TV’ device due in 2013 with casual gaming and streaming  —  A set-top box to compete with Apple TV and others  —  Microsoft is building an Xbox set-top box.  Multiple sources familiar with Redmond's plans have confirmed to The Verge that the company plans to introduce …
Peter Burrows / Bloomberg:
Jobs's Spaceship-Like Apple Offices to Arrive Later Than Planned  —  Apple Inc. (AAPL) said the construction of a new spaceship-like headquarters with a circular design in Cupertino, California, won't be completed until mid-2016, later than originally projected, as the company revises its plans.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook Asks Users If It Can Abolish Their Right To Vote On Future Site Governance Changes  —  Today Facebook will send its largest email blast to date, informing all 1 billion users that it's proposing to modify the site's governance structure and remove the ability for users to vote on changes.
Alexei Oreskovic / Reuters:
Facebook to share data with Instagram, loosen email rules  —  (Reuters) - Facebook Inc is proposing to combine user data with that of recently acquired photo-sharing service Instagram, and will loosen restrictions on emails between members of the social network.
BBC:
Kickstarter sued over 3D Systems' printer patent  —  Formlabs's printer was developed by researchers working at Massachusetts Institute of Technology  —  Crowd-funding website Kickstarter is being sued for its promotion of a new 3D printer.  —  More than 2,000 users contributed over $2.9m …
More: WebProNews and WiredThanks:@leokelion
Spencer E. Ante / Wall Street Journal:
Checking In on Foursquare's Valuation  —  Facebook's IPO, Flattening Valuations Put Hurdles Before Social Media Startups  —  Some social media startups are finding investors a lot less friendly in the wake of Facebook Inc.'s messy initial public offering.  —  A few months before Facebook went public …
Arnold Kim / MacRumors:
AT&T Seems to Be Extending FaceTime-Over-Cellular to All Customers  —  AT&T appears to be quietly extending FaceTime-Over-Cellular capabilities to all their iPhone customers.  Earlier this month, AT&T announced that they would allow any customer “with an LTE device” on a “tiered data plan” to use iOS 6's FaceTime over Cellular feature.
Alex Wilhelm / The Next Web:
BlackJet, the Uber for private air travel, is now live  —  BlackJet, the Uber for private air travel, founded by the co-founder of Uber, is now live.  If you managed to score an invite, and have the cash - you bastard - you can now “book seats, manage [...] travel and invite [...] friends.”
Tweets: @blackjet
Stephen Hall / WindowsWave:
Security Hole Allows Pirates to Get a Legitimate Windows 8 Activation for Free  —  A new security hole has been discovered in Microsoft's product activation process that allows pirates to get a free legitimate activation of Windows 8 using the current Windows Media Center upgrade promotion.
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
A Peek at TV's Future, Via Google Fiber  —  The Google Fiber experiment/maybe-not-an-experiment in Kansas City is important because it shows Google's ability to compete directly with broadband providers for control of the Internet pipe itself.  —  If Google doesn't need to rely on the Comcasts …
More: 9to5Google
Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:
Apple and HTC fine with showing license agreement to Samsung — but not the royalty rate  —  On Friday Samsung's counsel in the Apple case in California brought a motion to compel, demanding access to the newly-minted Apple-HTC license agreement that settled Apple's first Android patent case ever.
Andrew Roberts / Bloomberg:
Bionic Mannequins Spy on Shoppers to Boost Luxury Sales  —  Store mannequins are meant to catch your eye.  Soon you may catch theirs.  —  Benetton Group SpA is among fashion brands deploying mannequins equipped with technology used to identify criminals at airports to watch over shoppers in their stores.
More: Globe and Mail and PSFK
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Evernote Outlines Its Roadmap To “Fix” And Improve Skitch 2.0 For Mac  —  At first, the marriage between Skitch and Evernote looked like a perfect match, but after Evernote launched the completely redesigned Skitch 2. for Mac, the company faced quite a bit of backlash as the new version …
Julian Pecquet / Hillicon Valley:
Report: French officials accuse US of hacking Sarkozy's computers  —  The United States used U.S.-Israeli spy software to hack into the French presidential office earlier this year, the French cyberwarfare agency has concluded, according to the newsmagazine l'Express.
Kashmir Hill / Forbes:
Google's Eric Schmidt Tells Parents To ‘Have Online Talk Before Sex Talk’ With Kids.  Survey Suggests Many Do.  —  “We need to fight for our privacy or we will lose it,” said Google chairman Eric Schmidt to Reuters in a recent on-camera chat.  “[All of the user generated material on the web] …

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