Techmeme
December 19, 2012, 10:25 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: Forbes and 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.
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Apple and Google benefit as Kodak sells patents for $525 million  —  Kodak, which filed for bankruptcy in early 2012, has successfully sold off its patent portfolio, one of its last remaining assets.  In a release today, Kodak announced that it had agreed to transfer its imaging patents …
Felix Salmon:
How capitalism breaks the web  —  I share most if not all of Anil Dash's nostalgia for the web we lost.  Once upon a time, in the wake of the dot-com crash, there was a real feeling that the mammals would supplant the dinosaurs, and that the web would increasingly become a real network of individual sites …
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 …
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sara Forden / Bloomberg:
Google Antitrust Decision by FTC Delayed Until Next Year  —  The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will delay a final decision on how to resolve its 20-month antitrust investigation of Google Inc. (GOOG) until next year, said two people familiar with the situation who asked not to be named because the talks aren't public.
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 …
Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:
Apple removes popular AppShopper app from sale as it falls afoul of App Store's new app promotion clause  —  Today brings a high profile removal from the App Store, as the popular AppShopper app is now missing from the store.  The removal, publisher Arnold Kim confirmed to us …
More: TUAW, App Advice, Pulse2 and MacgasmThanks:@alex
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
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 …
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.
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:
Alex Howard / O'Reilly Radar:
DARPA and Defense Department look to a more open source future  —  As the United States military marches further into the age of networked warfare, data networks and the mobile platforms to distribute and access them will become even more important.  —  This fall, the (retired) …
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