Techmeme
December 10, 2012, 5:10 PM

Top News

Matt Buchanan / BuzzFeed:
Facebook Democracy Is Dead  —  Democracy dies on Facebook in an hour.  The night before Thanksgiving, Facebook quietly announced that it wanted to end a process that's been in place since 2009, which allows users to vote on changes to the way the site's governed.
More: CNET, The Next Web and Slate
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
Microsoft Leaks References to ‘Office Mobile for iPhone’, ‘Excel for iPad’ and ‘PowerPoint for iPad’  —  Building upon a series of reports about Microsoft's apparent efforts to bring its Office productivity suite to iOS, The Verge last month shared a few screenshots and noted that the suite …
Matt Smith / Reuters:
Russia backs down on proposals to regulate the Internet  —  (Reuters) - A Russia-led coalition on Monday withdrew a proposal to give governments new powers over the Internet, a plan opposed by Western countries in talks on a new global telecom treaty.  —  Negotiations on the treaty mark …
Charles Arthur / Guardian:
Apple redraws maps after Australian drivers led astray in the bush  —  Mildura police issue warning after motorists lose way in scorching temperatures because town misplaced on Apple Maps  —  Apple has updated its new maps system after police in Mildura, Australia, said a number of people trying …
Jennifer Van Grove / VentureBeat:
Instagram's next move: a novel new camera for iOS and a fresh filter for all  —  Embroiled in a photo turf war with Twitter, Instagram's deadly weapon of choice is a revamped iOS application that allows users to snap better, more stylized shots.  —  The Facebook-owned entity today released …
Sachin Agarwal / Twitter Blog:
New profiles for everyone  —  A few months ago, we introduced new Twitter profiles so that you could make your profile beautiful and display your style on your profile page.  By uploading a header photo on twitter.com or our mobile apps on iPhone, iPad or Android, you can make your profile more uniquely yours.
Katherine Rushton / Telegraph:
Dell founder ‘turned down Autonomy’  —  Billionaire entrepreneur Michael Dell has revealed that Autonomy was offered to him before it was bought by Hewlett-Packard, but that he rejected the British software firm because it was “overwhelmingly obvious” that it was overpriced.
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
25-GPU cluster cracks every standard Windows password in < 6 hours  —  Welcome to Radeon City, population: 8.  It's one of five servers that make up a high-performance password-cracking cluster.  —  Jeremi Gosney  —  A password-cracking expert has unveiled a computer cluster …
More: CNET, nbcnews.com and TechSpotTweets: @siracusa
Jessica Guynn / Los Angeles Times:
FTC: Most mobile apps for kids secretly collect and share information  —  A study from the Federal Trade Commission has found that most mobile apps for kids are secretly collecting information from children including device IDs, phone numbers, locations, and other private information without their parents' knowledge or consent.
Jon Russell / The Next Web:
Samsung hints it is announcing ‘something new’ at CES in January; could it be the Galaxy S4?  —  It's less than seven months since Samsung released the Galaxy S3, its flagship smartphone, in May, but already it appears that the Korean electronics giant is getting ready to unveil its sequel …
Robin Wauters / The Next Web:
Nike to kick off a Nike+ startup accelerator in March 2013, powered by TechStars  —  Well, this is interesting: apparently TechStars delivers its acceleration programs out-of-the-shoebox these days.  —  TechStars has teamed up with sports footwear and apparel giant Nike to power …
Etan Vlessing / Hollywood Reporter:
Detained John McAfee Sells Life Rights for Movie, TV  —  Montreal-based Impact Future Media says it has secured the exclusive IP rights to the embattled anti-virus pioneer, now wanted in Belize over the death of his neighbor.  —  TORONTO - U.S. anti-virus pioneer John McAfee …
Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:
In “Seismic Shift,” New COO De Castro Planning to Move Yahoo Ad Sales to Category Model (Backed Up by “Marissa Halo")  —  In what will be a major shift in how the Silicon Valley Internet giant sells online advertising, Yahoo's new COO Henrique De Castro has briefed employees on a plan to move …
Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:
Microsoft combats Google Knowledge Graph by adding people and places to its Snapshot sidebar  —  Back in August, Google launched its Knowledge Graph product on Search.  It's essentially a sidebar that provides direct contextual information about searches for people, places or things.

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Featured Podcasts

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Jon Fingas / Engadget:

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