Techmeme
December 19, 2012, 9:10 AM

Top News

Kevin Systrom / Instagram:
Thank you, and we're listening  —  Yesterday we introduced a new version of our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service that will take effect in thirty days.  These two documents help communicate as clearly as possible our relationship with the users of Instagram so you understand how your data will be used …
Derek Powazek:
I'm Not The Product, But I Play One On The Internet  —  “If you're not paying for the product, you are the product.”  —  I don't know who said it first, but the line has achieved a kind of supernatural resonance online.  And for good reason - it describes a kind of modern internet company that provides a free service.
More: GeekSugar
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
No, Instagram can't sell your photos: what the new terms of service really mean  —  Turns out no one really trusts Facebook after all  —  You agree that a business may pay Instagram to display your photos in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions without any compensation to you.
Wayne Lam / iSuppli:
Samsung Displaces Nokia as Top Cellphone Brand in 2012 and Takes Decisive Smartphone Lead Over Apple  —  For the first time in 14 years, wireless communications giant Nokia will not sit atop the global cellphone business on an annual basis at the end of 2012—with Samsung set to seize the mobile handset market's top rank.
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
Pirate Party Shuts Down Pirate Bay Proxy After Legal Threats  —  After expensive court action earlier this year, a group of music labels achieved their aim of having The Pirate Bay website blocked by ISPs in the UK.  —  With the official site inaccessible via direct means, many Pirate Bay users switched over to proxy services.
Graeme Philipson / ITWire.com:
.com is so 20th century - Welcome to ICANN's great domain name auction  —  ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has held its lottery draw for 1,930 new sponsored global top level domains (gTLDs).  —  Successful bidders will be able to use gTLDs like .christmas and .sport …
Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:
To stream everywhere, Netflix encodes each movie 120 times  —  Xboxes, iPads, connected TVs: Netflix streams to a lot of different devices.  More than 900, to be precise.  And many of them have different screen sizes, bitrate requirements and codec support.
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
How spyware on rental PCs captured users' most intimate moments  —  Enlarge / As Brian Byrd played poker using a PC purchased from an Aaron's rent-to-own store, PC Rental Agent surreptitiously captured this screen shot.  It is one of hundreds of thousands of images siphoned by the software.
More: Gizmodo
Bryan Bishop / The Verge:
London ‘crime unit’ to target downloaders as part of UK copyright and patent initiatives  —  Vince Cable, the United Kingdom's Business Secretary, announced a set of new intellectual property initiatives yesterday aimed at improving the way IP is approved and protected in the UK.
More: Guardian and GOV.UK
John Herrman / BuzzFeed:
No, Let's Talk About Video Game Violence  —  Gaming's soul is sick.  And gamers hate talking about it.  —  Adam Lanza was a gamer.  —  This fact has been reported, re-reported, and rehashed to the extent that it's now part of the killer's capsule bio: Young.  White.  Male.  Asperger's.
David Meyer / GigaOM:
Wunderlist 2 finally appears, with features pointing to a more collaborative future  —  Fans of Wunderlist will want to click on ‘update’ - two years after it first delivered for the web and iPhone, Berlin-based 6Wunderkinder has finally rolled out version 2 of the service for iPhone, Mac, Android, Windows and the web.
More: Engadget and TechCrunch
Zachary Lutz / Engadget:
AT&T scores WCS spectrum victory, covers 608 markets and 82 percent of Americans  —  The wireless landscape shifted a bit today, as the FCC has made good on its promise to allow AT&T's deployment of LTE service over the WCS band.  In all, the regulatory agency approved Ma Bell's acquisition …
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Report: data caps just a “cash cow” for Internet providers  —  Why do so many Americans now live with Internet data caps—and what are these caps doing to the future of broadband?  Those are the questions posed by a new paper from the New America Foundation, which wants to shake up the lethargy …
Stephanie Clifford / New York Times:
Once Proudly Web Only, Shopping Sites Hang Out Real Shingles  —  Andy Dunn was fierce about the Internet-only model of his apparel company, Bonobos, after helping to found it in 2007.  He gave a speech, “The End of Apparel as We Know It,” arguing that stores were a bad economic decision.
Josh Ong / The Next Web:
Yahoo follows Google in shutting down music service in China  —  Yahoo China has announced that it will shut down its Chinese music service due to an adjustment of its product strategy on January 20, 2013.  —  A statement posted on the company's music search portal reads:
Ron / WinBeta:
Microsoft doubles the language support with Windows Phone 8, doubles speech recognition too  —  In a new blog post, Microsoft is touting Windows Phone 8 as the most fluent mobile operating system ever with 50 different display languages supported.  This is up from 22 languages supported in the last Windows Phone release.

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Featured Podcasts

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The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
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Father of the iPod and iPhone on building taste, judgment, and creativity in the AI era | Tony Fadell
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Vanta's Christina Cacioppo: The Underdog Turning 'Nonsense' Compliance Into A $4.2B Security Standout
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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.
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