Techmeme: Kim Dotcom To Host Mega's Launch Event At His New Mega Zealand Mansion Next Month (Matt Burns/TechCrunch)

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December 30, 2012, 8:30 PM

Top News

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Game Over: Zynga Shuts Down PetVille And 10 Other Titles To Cut Costs — Executing the cost reduction plan CEO Mark Pincus announced in November, Zynga has shut down, pulled from the app stores, or stopped accepting new players to eleven games, with some turning off today.

Tweets: @carnage4life, @adamdempsey and @brettwdiamond. Thanks:@ryanlawler

Nick Bilton / NYT Bits:

Disruptions: The Real Hazards of E-Devices on Planes — A pilot uses the FlySmart with Airbus app on an Apple iPad. The F.A.A. has no proof that electronic devices can harm a plane's avionics, but it still perpetuates such claims. — Over the last year, flying with phones and other devices has become increasingly dangerous.

More: Gawker, Gizmodo and The Verge. Tweets: @brianstelter

Martin Bryant / The Next Web:

Foursquare updates privacy policy to show users' full names publicly and share more data with venues — Foursquare has sent an email to its users detailing changes to its privacy policy that are due to come into effect late next month. — The company says that the changes are aimed at making …

More: TechCrunch, Foursquare, CNET, Business Insider, Foursquare, PC Magazine, Android Phone Fans, AllThingsD, The Verge, Engadget, TweakTown News, Mashable! and About Foursquare

Sebastien Page / iDownloadBlog.com:

Hackulous shuts down: piracy app Installous is gone — In what seems like a small victory against app piracy, the Hackulous team announced today on its site that it is shutting down, bringing down its most popular apps in the process: Installous and AppSync.

More: TechCrunch. Tweets: @idannyocean

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Intel's Cable TV Service And Set Top Box Will Soon Roll Out City By City — Intel is preparing to launch its rumored virtual cable TV service and set top box and has a plan to overcome licensing hurdles. Rather than roll out nationwide, the launch will happen on a city-by-city basis so Intel …

More: Forbes, digitaltrends.com, PC World, I, Cringely, Electronista and The Verge. Tweets: @joshconstine

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Google blocks TwitPic over alleged malware, causing Chrome to deny access to some Twitter pages — Google's malware checker on Sunday has for some reason detected TwitPic.com as a threat. As a result, if you try to access the site from Google.com using any browser (link), you'll get a malware warning.

More: CNET, The Verge, BrowserFame, BGR India, The Hacker News and Mashable!

Tweets: @twitpic, @tomwarren and @twitpic

Matt Burns / TechCrunch:

Kim Dotcom To Host Mega's Launch Event At His New Mega Zealand Mansion Next Month — Kim Dotcom doesn't do things small. The man behind the Megaupload empire is about to launch his next service dubbed simply Mega. But don't expect a simple press event in a hotel conference room.

More: Business Insider, Softpedia News and CNET

Tweets: @kimdotcom and @kimdotcom

Salman Masood / New York Times:

Pakistan Lifts YouTube Ban, for 3 Minutes — ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A ban on YouTube, which Pakistan imposed after an anti-Islam video caused riots in much of the Muslim world, was lifted Saturday, only to be reinstated — after three minutes — when it was discovered that blasphemous material was still available on the site.

More: AllThingsD, Times of India, Examiner, The Verge, CHINAdaily, The Lede and Business Insider

Dave McClure:

Why Menus Suck + Other Deep Thoughts on the Food Tech Revolution. — abstract: menus suck. … everyone eats, everyone is online; what the hell we waiting for? — disclosure: 500 Startups is an investor in E la Carte, and other food-tech startups like Blissmo, Chewse, ClubW, CraftCoffee …

More: Business Insider. Thanks:@davemcclure

Josh Miller / Medium:

Tenth Grade Tech Trends — A few months ago, my fifteen-year-old sister told me that Snapchat was going to be the next Instagram. Many months before that she told me that Instagram was being used by her peers as much as Facebook. Both times I snickered.

More: Elapsed Time. Tweets: @hunterwalk, @joshconstine, @mathewi, @grobertson and @joshm

Jenna Wortham / NYT Bits:

Facebook Poke and the Tedium of Success Theater — There's a big problem in social media right now. — It's boring. — A crucial and indispensable source of news and information, absolutely. But more often than not, it's also tedious and predictable.

More: GigaOM. Tweets: @pkafka

Sharif Sakr / Engadget:

Samsung expands Silicon Valley crib with 1.1 million square foot R&D center — Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the most extravagant flashy lifestyle, the deluxe villa, the fly palace of Samsung Semiconductor Inc. It only exists as a pile of architects' drawings right now …

More: TechCrunch, IntoMobile, SiliconANGLE, AllThingsD, Business Wire, Android News, Rumours …, SlashGear and Android Community

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