Techmeme
December 14, 2012, 7:45 AM

Top News

Ryan Tate / Wired:
Why Google Just Made iPhone King: Ads  —  By releasing new versions of Google Maps and Gmail for iOS this month, Google helped make the iPhone the best mobile phone on the planet.  Why is Google, the owner of Android and Motorola, helping its ostensible rival?  —  The answer boils down to advertising.
Brian X. Chen / NYT Bits:
How Google's Maps App for iPhone Hurts Nokia  —  Apple isn't the only company that should feel nervous about Google's release of a new maps app for the iPhone.  Nokia may have lost whatever chance it had to get iPhone owners hooked on its mapping service.  —  Just hours after the Google Maps app …
BBC:
US, UK and Canada refuse to sign UN internet treaty  —  The UN's telecommunications treaty will not be ratified by the US, UK or Canada  —  The US, Canada and UK have refused to sign an international communications treaty at a conference in Dubai.  —  The three countries had objected …
Allen Huang / Google Mobile Ads Blog:
Combating accidental clicks in mobile ads  —  Ads on smartphones are effective, but many of us have at some point clicked on an ad by accident, which ultimately is a bad experience for the user, the publisher, and the advertiser who pays for clicks that may not be valuable.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
Guardian kills its Facebook social reader, regains control over its content  —  A little over a year ago, a big topic of discussion in the newspaper business — apart from the ongoing cataclysmic decline in print advertising revenue, of course — was how to leverage Facebook as a platform for content …
Reuters:
Exclusive: Softbank caps Sprint's Clearwire bid; investors want more  —  (Reuters) - Sprint Nextel Corp's $2.1 billion offer to buy out Clearwire Corp appeared to be running into trouble on Thursday, as some shareholders said they wanted more money while Softbank Corp set a cap on how much Sprint could pay.
More: TechCrunch, ZDNet and Forbes
Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:
Max Levchin Says Marissa Mayer's “Very Ballsy Move” to CEO of Yahoo Was the Reason He Finally Took Board Seat  —  When I asked him to talk to me about why he decided to finally became a director at Yahoo, after what was a very long mulling that started even before former Google exec Marissa Mayer became CEO …
Mat Smith / Engadget:
EE introduces the UK's first 4G tablet: Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 LTE available starting today  —  Adding to its catalogue of flagship 4G slabs, EE's launched its first tablet for its relatively young network.  You can read up our thoughts on how the stylus-friendly tablet handled in our review …
More: Inquirer and SlashGear
Anil Dash:
The Web We Lost  —  The tech industry and its press have treated the rise of billion-scale social networks and ubiquitous smartphone apps as an unadulterated win for regular people, a triumph of usability and empowerment.  They seldom talk about what we've lost along the way in this transition …
Will Richmond / VideoNuze Analysis:
Comcast App Now Allows Video Downloads to Mobile Devices for On-The-Go Viewing  —  Comcast has announced that Xfinity TV subscribers who use the Xfinity TV Player app on their Android and iOS mobile devices can now download certain TV shows and movies, so they can watch when they're not connected to a broadband network.
Brendan Sasso / Hillicon Valley:
Senate panel approves Franken's location privacy bill  —  The Senate Judiciary Committee voted in favor of Sen. Al Franken's (D-Minn.) Location Privacy Protection Act on Thursday.  —  The bill would require companies to get a customer's consent before collecting or sharing mobile location data.
Reuters:
China party chief stresses reform, censors relax grasp on internet  —  (Reuters) - China must deepen reforms to perfect its market economy and strengthen rule of law, Communist Party chief Xi Jinping said in southern Guangdong, echoing groundbreaking comments by reformist senior leader Deng Xiaoping in the same province 20 years ago.
Alexis Santos / Engadget:
VeriFone retreats from mobile payments, says acquiring users ‘fundamentally unprofitable’  —  After joining the mobile payment bandwagon last spring with Sail, VeriFone is ready to scale back its efforts in the venture.  “Our experience through 2012 with tens of thousands of these micro-merchants tells us …
More: Reuters and The Verge
Mike Dano / FierceWireless:
Leap Wireless, MetroPCS launch handset financing programs  —  Leap Wireless (NASDAQ:LEAP) and MetroPCS (NYSE:PCS) both recently launched handset financing options that will allow eligible customers to make a down payment on a smartphone and pay off the remainder in the future.
Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:
Apple rolls out new, far more detailed, status page for general Services, Stores and iCloud systems  —  Apple has today launched a new status page for its iCloud, store and general services that provides far more detail about status and uptimes of its various cloud and backend components.
Bill Callahan / Bloomberg:
Apple, LG Electronics Defeat Alcatel-Lucent Patent Claims  —  Apple Inc. (AAPL) and LG Electronics Inc. (066570) didn't infringe an Alcatel-Lucent SA (ALU) unit's patents for electronic devices including phones and computers, a jury said.  —  The verdict today came after a trial that began Nov. 27 …
David Goldman / CNNMoney:
Massive bank cyberattack planned  —  Security firm McAfee on Thursday released a report warning that a massive cyberattack on 30 U.S. banks has been planned, with the goal of stealing millions of dollars from consumers' bank accounts.  —  McAfee's research upheld an October report from RSA …
Rip Empson / TechCrunch:
With $46M Now In The Bank, textPlus Looks To Go Big Abroad, Launches Cheap International Calling On Android  —  It's been a big year for the artist formerly known as GOGII.  Back in October, the Southern California-based startup raised $18 million in series D financing from The Raine Group …

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Earlier Picks

Ellis Hamburger / The Verge:
Kim Yoo-chul / The Korea Times: