Techmeme: Tim Berners-Lee's Open Data Institute Gets Its First Outside Investment, $750K From The Omidyar Network … (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News

December 3, 2012, 7:00 AM

Top News

TechCrunch:

What's Up With Whatsapp? Facebook Might Want To Buy It, That's What — Whatsapp, the multiplatform mobile messaging app that has been one of the runaway success stories for ad-free, paid services, has been in talks to be acquired by Facebook, according to sources close to the matter.

More: CNET, iDownloadBlog.com, Techie Buzz, Pocket-lint, PandoDaily, Ubergizmo, memeburn, The Next Web and iClarified

Tweets: @markgurman, @cjamesmusic and @jonrussell

Paul Graham / Y Combinator:

YC W13 Will Be Smaller — We just finished interviews for the winter 2013 YC cycle. We funded a lot fewer startups this time than last. We funded 84 in summer 2012. We don't know yet exactly how many we'll have in winter 2013 because we usually add a handful after interviews and sometimes …

More: Forbes, TechCrunch, The Next Web and GigaOM

Tweets: @semil, @blake, @hncomments, @santiagojara, @hunterwalk and @shaig

Chris Dixon:

The product lens — There has been a lot of discussion lately about the markets for startup financing. Many of the discussions use words like “valuations” “bubble” “crunch” etc. Words like that generally mean the writer is discussing the world through the lens of finance.

More: broadstuff. Tweets: @bill_gross, @infoarbitrage, @bznotes and @pkafka

Cade Metz / Wired:

How Amazon Followed Google Into the World of Secret Servers — Chris Pinkham was walking through a data center that would one day house Amazon's seminal cloud computing service — the Elastic Compute Cloud — when he came face to face with a cage of Google machines.

Tweets: @nrfrancescon, @iblamm and @sequoia_capital

Vint Cerf / The Official Google Blog:

Keep the Internet free and open — Starting in 1973, when my colleagues and I proposed the technology behind the Internet, we advocated for an open standard to connect computer networks together. This wasn't merely philosophical; it was also practical. — Our protocols were designed …

More: BBC, Techdirt, ZDNet, BetaNews, Guardian, Wired, Rev2.org, International …, Delimiter, The Mozilla Blog and Google Maps Mania. Tweets: @mattcutts

Adi Robertson / The Verge:

New World Order: is the UN about to take control of the internet?

More: David Talbot, ZDNet, The Huffington Post and PC World

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Tim Berners-Lee's Open Data Institute Gets Its First Outside Investment, $750K From The Omidyar Network To Top Up UK's $16M — The Open Data Institute, a UK-based incubator and promoter of open-data businesses that was first conceived by Tim Berners-Lee and artificial intelligence pioneer Nigel Shadbolt …

More: ZDNet and The Next Web

Brian X. Chen / New York Times:

App Maker Uber Hits Regulatory Snarl — WASHINGTON — Summoning a taxi or car service with your smartphone feels like the future. City governments around the world can agree on that. But many of them are proposing new rules that would run Uber, one of the most prominent ride-requesting apps, off the road.

More: NYT Bits. Tweets: @agpublic, @brettgurewitz and @kzaleski

Virginia Postrel / Bloomberg:

A Free-Market Fix for the Copyright Racket — While most of the punditocracy was chattering earlier this month about Mitt Romney's “gifts” gaffe, another Republican took an unexpectedly bold stand about a huge and controversial special-interest handout that largely benefits Democratic constituencies.

More: Dynamist

Brooke Crothers / CNET:

Intel to slash power consumption on Ivy Bridge chip — Chip giant plans to make Ivy Bridge more power efficient than the versions that are currently used in the MacBook Air and Windows 8 ultrabooks. — Intel is on a mission to cut the power consumption of its chips. But that's not only future silicon.

More: TechEye, SlashGear, Neowin and Fudzilla

Mikey Campbell / AppleInsider:

Some new iMacs marked as being ‘Assembled in USA’ — Apple may be taking some of the burden of assembling the new iMac off Chinese supply partners by performing parts of assembly in the U.S., as a number of newly-purchased standard units are showing an “Assembled in America” notation usually reserved for made-to-order machines.

More: 9to5Mac, CNET, Gizmodo, iDownloadBlog.com, Mashable!, MacRumors, TUAW, Fortune and Examiner. Tweets: @jyarow

Dan Seifert / The Verge:

Motorola Droid RAZR HD, Maxx HD to get Android 4.1 update as soon as next week — Verizon Wireless has announced that the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update for its Motorola Droid RAZR HD and Maxx HD smartphones will begin rolling out to users starting next week.

More: Softpedia News

Kimber Streams / The Verge:

Mitsubishi seals the fate of rear-projection TVs, discontinues its last line — Mitsubishi has announced that it will be discontinuing its line of rear-projection televisions, marking the end of the affordable but clunky television technology. The company bet it all on RPTVs last year …

More: ZDNet, Engadget, SlashGear, CE Pro News Stories and TechSpot

Sponsor Posts

Soxton:

Fast, affordable law for startups — Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better. We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts. Join the waitlist for early access!

F5:

Accelerate AI Adoption at F5's AI Virtual Summit — Learn how to architect, secure, and scale AI for production with real-world insights from industry leaders on June 23. Register now to save your spot.

Zoho:

Don't Do. Just Tell. With Zoho MCP for Bigin. — Dear small business owners,This one's a little different.We're not here to walk you through a checklist of features. We're here to tell you about something …

IDrive:

Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Invest Like the Best:

Alex Sacerdote - How to Invest Through Technology Cycles

The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.

Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.

Lenny's Podcast:

Father of the iPod and iPhone on building taste, judgment, and creativity in the AI era | Tony Fadell

Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.

Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.

Big Technology Podcast:

Will Apple (Finally) Get AI Right At WWDC?, Anthropic's Worry, Microsoft vs. OpenAI

The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.

Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.

The Upstarts Podcast:

Vanta's Christina Cacioppo: The Underdog Turning 'Nonsense' Compliance Into A $4.2B Security Standout

Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.

Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.

Hard Fork:

Hot I.P.O Summer + What Is A.I. Doing to Math? + HatGPT

The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.

Subscribe to Hard Fork.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

AI's Mythos Moment: Rishi Sunak on preparing governments for AI

Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.

Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:00 AM ET, December 3, 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.