Techmeme
December 31, 2012, 2:40 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.
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 …
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
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.
Steve Stecklow / Reuters:
Exclusive: Huawei partner offered embargoed HP gear to Iran  —  (Reuters) - A major Iranian partner of Huawei Technologies offered to sell at least 1.3 million euros worth of embargoed Hewlett-Packard computer equipment to Iran's largest mobile-phone operator in late 2010, documents show.
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 …
Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:
Microsoft confirms zero-day bug in IE6, IE7 and IE8  —  Second time in two years it's had to deal with late-December vulnerabilities  —  Microsoft on Saturday confirmed that Internet Explorer (IE) 6, 7 and 8 contain an unpatched bug — or “zero-day” vulnerability — that is being used by attackers to hijack victims' Windows computers.
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.
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.
Josh Ong / The Next Web:
Yahoo completes its planned exit from South Korea  —  True to its word, Yahoo has pulled out of the South Korean market by the end of 2012, as noted by the Yonhap News Agency.  A notice on the company's site provides detailed instructions to users on when exactly all of its services will go dark …

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Shopify: Revolutionizing Commerce with Winter Edition '26  —  Over 150+ new features transform how merchants build, design, and grow—with technology that amplifies creative vision.
Zoho:
Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control  —  Picture this: It's Monday morning.  You walk into the office feeling energized and ready to take on the week.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI's 2026 Priority, Disney's AI Play, Datacenter Buildout Trouble
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Hard Fork:
Australia Kicks Kids Off Social Media + Is the A.I. Water Issue Fake? + Hard Fork Wrapped
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Access:
Why the next AI frontier is phone calls, with Beside CEO Maxime Germain
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Great Chat:
So what happens after AGI?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Lachlan Cartwright Started in Tabloids. Now He's a Must-Read Media Gossip.
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:40 PM ET, December 31, 2012.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Earlier Picks

Salman Masood / New York Times:
Martin Bryant / The Next Web: