Techmeme: I'm Bored. What's Next? (Michael Arrington/TechCrunch)

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December 31, 2012, 6:30 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 11 games, with some turning off today.

More: Business Insider, digitaltrends.com, Good Morning Silicon Valley, Reuters, CNNMoney.com, TUAW, Digits, VentureBeat, GamesIndustry International, ValueWalk, PC Magazine, Geek.com, Betabeat, SlashGear, GamePolitics blogs and destructoid

Tweets: @carnage4life and @adamdempsey

Thanks:@ryanlawler

Gabe Rivera / Techmeme News:

Techmeme's biggest (i.e. tallest) stories of 2012 — Now that we've examined the year's trending terms, our final retrospectacular tour of 2012 examines the stories themselves. On Techmeme, the biggest stories usually become the tallest stories as different angles of reporting and analysis pile up …

Tweets: @mathewi and @fmanjoo

Jon Russell / The Next Web:

Samsung reportedly set to sell its first Tizen-based smartphone in 2013 — The world will finally see the fruits of Tizen, the open sourced mobile operating system that has support from Samsung, DoCoMo, Vodafone and others, in 2013, according to a report from Japan's Daily Yomiuri …

More: Daily Yomiuri Online, Examiner, CNET, PC Magazine, Computerworld, Engadget, BGR, Geek.com, TechCrunch, LAPTOP Magazine, SlashGear, AllThingsD, Pocket-lint, Gizmodo, Electronista and PhoneArena

Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:

I'm Bored. What's Next? — It's just about 2013 and I gotta say, I'm a little bored. — At least, the blogger in me is. As an investor things are just peachy. All this panic about overpriced consumer startups has led to a nice softening of the market (periodic reports of Blubbles are great for that).

More: TechCrunch, The Verge, TechCrunch, dylan tweney and Business Insider

Tweets: @alexismadrigal, @eoghanmccabe and @loyalelectron

Keith Teare / TechCrunch:

Unnatural Acts And The Rise Of Mobile — Editor's note: Keith Teare is General Partner at his incubator Archimedes Labs and CEO of recently funded just.me. He was a co-founder of TechCrunch. — As all predatory, or formerly predatory, men and women know, if you're at a party and still …

More: Distribution Hacks, Guardian, ECPM BLOG and LAUNCH. Thanks:@stormbridges

Danielle Kucera / Bloomberg:

Amazon Apologizes for Christmas Eve Outage Affecting Netflix — Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) apologized for a Dec. 24 disruption in its cloud-computing services that hindered Netflix Inc. (NFLX) customers from watching movies, and said it is taking steps to prevent a recurrence.

More: Amazon Web Services, The Netflix Tech Blog, TechCrunch, AllThingsD, CNET, Business Insider, Engadget, The Verge, Los Angeles Times, PC Magazine and MarketWatch. See also Mediagazer

Associated Press:

Obama Signs FISA Warrantless Wiretapping Program Extension Into Law — WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has signed into law a five-year extension of the U.S. government's authority to monitor the overseas activity of suspected foreign spies and terrorists.

More: Hit & Run, The Verge and Hillicon Valley

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Microsoft releases temporary fix for vulnerability in IE6, IE7, and IE8; security patch coming soon — Microsoft on Monday released a temporary one-click “Fix it” tool for old versions of Internet Explorer. Running it will prevent the recently-discovered vulnerability in IE6, IE7 …

Justin Rubio / The Verge:

Instagram rings in the new year with desktop-optimized NYE photo stream — As the world rolls into 2013, Instagram is showcasing celebrations from around the globe with the help of a New Years Eve photo stream that can be viewed from mobile devices and desktop browsers.

More: Instagram, PC Magazine, The Next Web, VentureBeat, Ubergizmo and Mashable!

Robin Wauters / The Next Web:

RunKeeper aims to keep its 14 million users running with new app UI and improved photo sharing — The end of the calendar year appears to be a good time for mobile health and fitness startups to launch and update smartphone apps to assist people with making good on their New Year's resolutions.

More: RunKeeper, TechCrunch, everythingiCafe, TUAW, Apple Bitch, GigaOM, iClarified and SlashGear

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft offers up free month of Xbox Live following Cloud Saved Games outage — Microsoft says it will provide affected users with an automatic one-month extension to the company's Xbox Live gold service following an outage related to a Cloud Saved Games feature.

More: Xbox Live's Major Nelson, Kotaku, CNET, Neowin, SlashGear, WinBeta, Geek.com and Joystiq

Sebastien Page / iDownloadBlog:

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: TorrentFreak, The Verge, AppleInsider, ReadWrite, Techie Buzz, SlashGear, Gizmodo, Geek.com, PandoDaily, MacRumors, DailyTech, everythingiCafe, TUAW, Macgasm, MacDailyNews, MobileBurn.com, MacNN, Techie Buzz, App Advice and TechCrunch. Tweets: @idannyocean

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