Techmeme
December 22, 2012, 12:05 PM

Top News

Facebook Newsroom:
Introducing Poke for Mobile  —  Today we're announcing Poke, an iPhone app that makes it fun and easy to say hello to friends wherever you are.  The poke feature has been a part of Facebook since 2004.  Now we're excited to share a new poke experience for mobile.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Mark Zuckerberg Is The Voice Behind The “Poke” Notification Sound And Wrote Code For The App  —  Mark Zuckerberg invented Poking, one of Facebook's earliest features, so it's fitting he was part of the small team that built the new Poke app over the last 12 days.
Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:
Google finds its design voice on iOS  —  From the beginning, Google's design sensibilities on the web and Android have been unique.  Whether you were a fan of the spare, utilitarian feel of products like Search or not, you knew when you were looking at something built by Google.
Tweets: @viticci
New York Times:
Instagram Reversal Doesn't Appease Everyone  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook may have quelled a full-scale rebellion by quickly dumping the contentious new terms of use for Instagram, its photo-sharing service.  But even as the social network furiously backpedaled, some users said Friday they were carrying through on plans to leave.
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:
Apple lifts block on combo 30-pin+Lightning charging accessories  —  The POP station from Kickstarter aimed to combine Lightning and 30-pin connectors into a single charging device.  —  The Kickstarter campaign that was “shut down” by Apple for creating a charging station that had both Lightning …
Louis Goddard / The Verge:
Flickr offers three months of free Pro access to new and existing users  —  Flickr, the popular photo-sharing service owned by Yahoo, has given an early Christmas present to all users, offering three months of its Pro service for free.  Pro accounts generally cost $24.95 per year and offer …
Suw Charman-Anderson / Forbes:
Amazon Is Ripe For Disruption  —  Amazon, the great disintermediator that put a spanner — in fact, a set of 25 spanners in a handy case, yours for just $9.99 — in the businesses of many a retailer, is going to face exactly the same fate if it doesn't start to address its weaknesses soon, particularly in the area of publishing.
More: O'ReillyTweets: @janefriedman and @tcarmody
Federico Viticci / MacStories:
Apple Airs New iPad mini Commercial: I'll Be Home  —  Just in time for Christmas, Apple has aired a new TV commercial for the iPad mini.  Focused on FaceTime, the commercial shows a girl and her grandfather sharing a moment of holiday cheer with the girl playing and singing the classic hit “I'll Be Home for Christmas”.
Amir Efrati / Wall Street Journal:
Google Designing ‘X Phone’ to Rival Apple, Samsung  —  Engineers at Motorola are hard at work on a sophisticated handset, to be released next year, that parent Google Inc. hopes will provide more potent competition for devices like Apple Inc.'s iPhone, said people familiar with the matter.
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Amazon Instant Video app finally available for LG Google TV, more devices ‘soon’  —  Google TV users have today been given another option for streaming movies and TV shows in the form of an official Amazon Instant Video app.  Amazon's video service joins Netflix, HBO Go …

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