Techmeme: Cherry Is Shutting Down Its On-Demand Car Wash Service, Will Refund Pre-Paid Customers (Anthony Ha/TechCrunch)

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December 24, 2012, 4:27 AM

Top News

Gabe Rivera / Techmeme News:

Techmeme's top 20 headline terms of 2012, and what they signify — We can uncover a variety of patterns analyzing the data Techmeme has accumulated over the years, and given Techmeme's pan-industry focus, these findings can signal large-scale trends developing across the tech industry.

Tweets: @theromit and @cschweitz

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Report claims next-gen, thinner, lighter full-sized iPad due in March with iPad mini design elements — Even with Apple's launch of the fourth-generation iPad last month, Apple is rumored to be preparing to launch yet another new iPad in the coming months. According to Macotakara, a thinner …

More: AppleInsider, Business Insider, Pocketnow, iClarified, everythingiCafe, iPhone Hacks, MacRumors and iDownloadBlog.com

Wall Street Journal:

Websites Vary Prices, Deals Based on Users' Information — It was the same Swingline stapler, on the same Staples.com website. But for Kim Wamble, the price was $15.79, while the price on Trude Frizzell's screen, just a few miles away, was $14.29. — A key difference: where Staples seemed to think they were located.

More: Digits. Tweets: @craigelimeliah

David Streitfeld / New York Times:

Amazon Book Reviews Deleted in a Purge Aimed at Manipulation — Giving raves to family members is no longer acceptable. Neither is writers' reviewing other writers. But showering five stars on a book you admittedly have not read is fine. — After several well-publicized cases involving writers buying …

More: The Verge and Gizmodo. Tweets: @nicopitney, @oliverkamm and @counternotions. See also Mediagazer

Suw Charman-Anderson / Forbes:

Amazon Is Ripe For Disruption

Tweets: @janefriedman. See also Mediagazer

Richard Lai / Engadget:

Huawei's 6.1-inch 1080p Ascend Mate flaunted by exec, leaves little surprise for CES — How big is too big? Well, that's clearly not Huawei's concern, as it's about to introduce a 6.1-inch 1080p Android phone at CES. But even two weeks (before the company's CES press day) …

More: PC Magazine, The Verge, TechRadar.com, The Next Web, Gizmodo, PhoneArena, Neowin and Phones Review

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

After hacker disappears from Twitter, Verizon reveals customer data was leaked by a marketing firm — Verizon is sharing more details about the alleged leak of customer data that occurred over the weekend. The company still insists there was no breach, but the carrier has now revealed …

More: Pastebin.com, Engadget, VentureBeat, PC World, The Next Web, ZDNet, Examiner, PC Magazine, BetaNews, Forbes, PhoneArena, Gizmodo and HackRead

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Cherry Is Shutting Down Its On-Demand Car Wash Service, Will Refund Pre-Paid Customers — Cherry, a startup that has been described as “Uber for car washes,” is shutting down its service as of today, according to a statement from the company. — Cherry says that it plans to “pursue an exciting opportunity.”

Tweets: @anthonyha, @mikejmahon, @jacob and @semil. Thanks:@chrisvelazco

Robin Wauters / The Next Web:

Inside the nest: After 3 years of Angry Birds, what's next for Rovio? — Darkest Fear. CyberBlood. Dragon & Jade. Wolf Moon. Those are the names of only a handful of the more than 50 games that were developed by a small Finnish upstart called Relude between 2003 and 2009.

Thanks:@martinsfp

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

VLC for Windows 8 reaches $65,000 funding goal on Kickstarter with five days to spare — A Metro version of VLC, the popular free and open-source media player, is coming to Windows 8. On Sunday, the VideoLAN organization reached its funding goal on Kickstarter for its Windows 8-specific app.

More: WMPoweruser, The Verge and Neowin

Tim Wu / New York Times:

The Best Way to Regulate Urban-Living Apps — NOBODY ever said that big cities make for easy living. The apps of the moment, Uber and Airbnb, try to mitigate matters by letting you book a car ride or rent someone's apartment using your smartphone or computer.

More: The Verge and Skift. Tweets: @timharv

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

Intellectual Ventures: Don't Mind Our 2000 Shell Companies, That's Totally Normal — Back in 2010, we wrote about a report suggesting that Intellectual Ventures was using somewhere around 1000 shell companies to hide many of its patent shakedown attempts. For years, IV itself liked …

More: Guardian and PlainSite

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:

Pirate Bay Censorship Backfires as New Proxies Bloom — As reported earlier, the UK Pirate Party has taken the difficult decision to shut down their Pirate Bay proxy service. — Music industry group BPI threatened legal action against six members of the party, who would each have to risk bankruptcy to fight for their ideals.

More: The Verge and Boing Boing. Tweets: @tpb

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