Techmeme: Facebook, Google, Zynga Ask Courts To Reject Patents On Abstract Ideas That Plague Tech Innovation (Josh Constine/TechCrunch)

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December 9, 2012, 11:10 PM

Top News

Mike Isaac / AllThingsD:

Confirmed: Effective Immediately, Say Goodbye to Instagram Photos Inside of Twitter — Instagram completely turned off support for Twitter Cards technology on Sunday, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed to AllThingsD. — While users can still post links to their Instagram photos on Twitter …

More: Engadget, TechCrunch, GigaOM, iMore, BuzzFeed, CNET, The Verge, Gizmodo, Business Insider, Business Insider, Mashable!, PC Magazine, SeekingAlpha.com, TechCrunch, PhoneArena, PetaPixel, iDownloadBlog.com, iPhone Savior and AllThingsD

Tweets: @spencerchen, @semil, @parislemon, @mikeisaac and @levie

Harrison Weber / The Next Web:

Twitter's photo filters may already be live, as employees test them in new iOS and Android apps

More: Neowin, CNET, TechCrunch, Business Insider, The Verge, Mashable!, PC World, iPhone Hacks, Mashable!, 1001 Noisy Cameras, Bloggers Blog and VentureBeat. Tweets: @mediaredef

Jon Russell / The Next Web:

Yahoo teams up with NBC Sports to share online and broadcast sports news and coverage — Yahoo has announced a partnership with NBC Sports that will see the two pool their sports reporting, broadcasts and news coverage in an effort to build the US' largest dedicated sports news platforms.

More: CNET, The Verge, Yahoo! Inc., TechCrunch, AllThingsD, Media Decoder, Broadcasting & Cable and Associated Press. Tweets: @pkafka

Jean-Louis Gassée / Monday Note:

The enduring Apple TV Fantasy — We all want TV Done Right, free of the Soviet Era set-top box, UI and opaque contracts. We imagine Apple will put all the pieces together. But what's desirable and “obvious” might not be so simple or soon... “When I go into my living room and turn on the TV …

More: DailyTech. Tweets: @jblin and @pkafka

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Facebook, Google, Zynga Ask Courts To Reject Patents On Abstract Ideas That Plague Tech Innovation — Just because you take an abstract idea and say you do it “on a computer” or “over the Internet” doesn't mean you deserve a patent, according to an amicus brief filed on Friday by Google, Facebook and six other tech companies.

More: AllThingsD, Web 2.0 Asia Blog and CNET. Thanks:@eldon

Jon Russell / The Next Web:

Square integrates Apple's Passbook and introduces gift cards for iOS app users — With the Christmas season bearing down on us, red hot mobile payment service Square has made a major move after it introduced gift cards to its iOS app and integrated Passbook to allow gifted money to be spent.

More: GigaOM, CNET, TechCrunch, AppleInsider, Engadget, VentureBeat, MacRumors, AllThingsD, iPhone Hacks, The Verge, PhoneArena and iPhone Savior

Tweets: @jack and @square

Thanks:@philtoronto

Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:

Apple's “Made in USA” computer likely to be Mac Pro — The Mac Pro is the only Apple product that fits the bill, and a new one is due in 2013 — FORTUNE — When Tim Cook announced Thursday that Apple (AAPL) would be investing $100 million to build one of its Mac line of computers exclusively …

More: MacRumors, ZDNet, mangochutney, Cult of Mac, iDownloadBlog.com, iClarified, The Loop, MacDailyNews and Business Insider

Quentin Hardy / NYT Bits:

Why Apple Got a ‘Made in U.S.A.’ Bug

More: USA Today and Digits

Randall Stross / New York Times:

Air Force Stumbles Over Software Modernization Project — IN policy circles, problems that are mind-bogglingly difficult or impossible to solve, like global warming, are formally termed “wicked.” — For the United States Air Force, installing a new software system has certainly proved to be a wicked problem.

More: Bloomberg

Juli Clover / MacRumors:

Australian Police Warn Against Use of Apple Maps Due to Safety Concerns — Police in Victoria, Australia issued a warning to motorists this weekend regarding Apple Maps after several travelers became stranded in the Murray-Sunset National Park trying to reach the city of Mildura using Apple's directions.

More: vicpolicenews.com.au, The Age, The Register, ABC News and TheAustralian. Tweets: @carnage4life

Agence France Presse:

Iran launches own ‘YouTube’ website — TEHRAN — Iran has launched its own video-sharing website to compete against Google's popular YouTube whose content is deemed inappropriate by the Islamic regime, the state television reported on Sunday. — The website (http://www.mehr.ir) called ‘Mehr’ …

More: The Register, The Verge, CNET, The Next Web, AllThingsD, Gizmodo and PC Magazine. See also Mediagazer

Alex Howard / digiphile:

The White House joins Pinterest, invites users to holiday social — The White House joined Pinterest today. Over the past several years, the White House digital team has sought to leverage the growing unprecedented scale of its connections on these networks to influence national debates on proposed laws …

More: CNN, Associated Press, The Droid Guy, The Verge and White House.gov Blog

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Half A Million People Voted Against Facebook's Governance Changes, But Not Enough As Polls Close Tomorrow — 619,000 people have cast their ballot in Facebook's vote on site governance and policy, and 87% want to block the changes. But unless 299.4 million more people vote by tomorrow morning …

More: Nyack and rt.com

Neuro Bonkers / Scientific American:

The Meteoric Ascent of the Patent Troll and the Devastating Consequences for Innovation — Today it is perfectly legal for companies to buy and sell the rights to unlimited numbers of ideas, a company is not required to have any interest in making these ideas a reality.

Tweets: @brandonjon

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