Techmeme: Apple did offer to buy Waze, but Waze politely declined (Matt Brian/The Next Web)

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January 4, 2013, 6:55 PM

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Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Let Jason Kilar Take a Bow — Hulu CEO Jason Kilar is headed out the door, as is CTO Rich Tom. Other employees at the video site are going soon, as well. — None of that is surprising, and if you're trying to figure out what that means for Hulu, you're asking the wrong question.

More: GigaOM, GeekWire, CNNMoney.com and The Verge. See also Mediagazer

Anna Heim / The Next Web:

Hulu CEO Jason Kilar and CTO Rich Tom to leave company in Q1

More: Hulu Blog, CNET, Engadget, Business Insider, VentureBeat, BGR, Gizmodo, GigaOM, TechCrunch, The Verge, Tech Trader Daily, Reuters, Trust But Verify, FierceOnlineVideo News, ValueWalk and Media Decoder

Tweets: @pkafka and @bloombergnews

See also Mediagazer

Dave Heiner / TechNet Blogs:

The FTC and Google: A Missed Opportunity — Vice President & Deputy General Counsel, Microsoft — The FTC took steps today to address some of Google's improper business practices. We find it troubling that the agency did not adhere to its own standard procedures that call for the agency …

Rik Henderson / Pocket-lint:

Spotify suspends music download service in the UK — EXCLUSIVE: No longer supporting purchases — Spotify is no longer allowing users to buy music through its streaming service, Pocket-lint has discovered. — When trying to buy tracks, even Premium subscribers are met with a notice that states …

More: TechCrunch, digitaltrends.com, T3 News, CNET, Evolver.fm, Electronista, Softpedia News, VatorNews, Engadget, hypebot, AllThingsD, Inquirer, Know Your Cell, The Next Web, WebProNews and The Verge. Tweets: @ingridlunden. Thanks:@stuartmiles

Hyunjoo Jin / Reuters:

Samsung expected to widen smartphone lead over Apple this year — (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co Ltd is expected to widen its lead over Apple Inc in global smartphone sales this year with 35 percent growth, helped by a broad product lineup, market researcher Strategy Analytics told Reuters on Friday.

More: CNET, Examiner, digitaltrends.com, iDownloadBlog.com, iPhone Hacks, TechCrunch, App Advice, IntoMobile, Ubergizmo, BGR, InvestorPlace, LAPTOP Magazine, GadgeTell, everythingiCafe, DailyTech, PhoneArena and The Next Web

Katie Notopoulos / BuzzFeed:

How Almost Anyone Can Take You Off Facebook (And Lock You Out) — Getting your buddy's Facebook account turned into a “Memorial” state is surprisingly easy — and locks them out of Facebook . Warning: this will seriously mess up someone's account. — Source: brotographs.com

More: Business Insider, GigaOM, Gizmodo, The Next Web and The Verge

Matt Brian / The Next Web:

Apple did offer to buy Waze, but Waze politely declined — Rumors of the potential Apple acquisition of Waze lit up the blogosphere this week, only to be extinguished the very next day. However, a deal was very much on the cards, but the Israeli startup politely declined Apple's offer.

More: The Next Web, VentureBeat, Ubergizmo, FierceMobileContent News, IntoMobile, Business Insider, Macgasm and TUAW

Aries Poon / Wall Street Journal:

HTC Vows to Step Up Innovation — TAIPEI—The head of HTC Corp. said the beleaguered Taiwanese smartphone maker didn't market their products aggressively enough last year, but vowed to win consumers back by developing more innovative products. — HTC had one of its worst years in 2012 …

Dante D'Orazio / The Verge:

Amazon Prime Instant Video adds A&E, History, and Lifetime after Netflix's deal falls through — Months after Netflix users lose access, Amazon strikes a deal with A&E — Amazon's Prime Instant Video streaming service is continuing to fill out its selection with today's announcement …

More: Amazon.com, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, internetretailer.com, 9to5Mac, Engadget, The Next Web, CNET, Mashable!, WebProNews, Geek News Central, GeekWire and paidContent

Eric Slivka / MacRumors:

Best Buy Complains About Walmart's iPhone 5 Holiday Sale, Claims $65,000 Profit Loss in One Day — The Wall Street Journal notes that several retailers including Best Buy and Toys “R” Us have complained to attorneys general in a handful of states about advertising practices of Walmart.

More: Wall Street Journal, AllThingsD, Ars Technica, Gizmodo, SlashGear, Business Insider, iPhone Hacks, TUAW and VentureBeat

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:

Google Quietly Removes Censorship Warning Feature For Search Users In China (Updated) — Google has quietly disabled a feature that notified users of its search service in China when a keyword had been censored by the Chinese government's internet controls, according to censorship monitoring blog GreatFire.org.

More: GreatFire.org, Engadget, The Verge, Guardian, Softpedia News and The Next Web. Thanks:@chris_beaumont

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Surface Pro release date set for late January — Microsoft's Surface Pro tablet is set to go on sale in late January. After unveiling the pricing for its Windows 8 tablet late last year, Microsoft has remained relatively quiet about the exact timing of release outside of a promised January timeframe.

More: CNET, PC Magazine, AllThingsD, PC World, Electronista, ExtremeTech, WebProNews, Softpedia News, SlashGear, dailywireless.org, Neowin and WinBeta

Rip Empson / TechCrunch:

Now 2.5M Users Strong, Crowdsourced Learning Platform StudyBlue Grabs $9M To Help Students Study On The Go — Founded in 2009, Wisconsin-based startup StudyBlue set out with a simple and straightforward mission: Leverage technology to help students improve their academic performance.

More: BetaKit, The Next Web, GigaOM, VentureBeat, VatorNews, Tech Cocktail and AllThingsD

Jeff Barr / Amazon Web Services Blog:

AWS Management Console Improvements - Tablet and Mobile Support — Managing your AWS resources has become easier and more direct over the years! Let's do a quick recap before we dig in: — We launched Amazon SQS (2004) and Amazon S3 (2006) as pure APIs, with no tool support whatsoever.

More: ZDNet, The Next Web and TechCrunch

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

U.S. Department Of Defense Signs New Deal With Microsoft To Bring Windows 8 To 75% of Employees — For the most part, the news about Windows 8 hasn't been very positive for Microsoft, but the company today announced a major win. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) just signed a new three-year

More: Microsoft, Mobile Marketing Watch, PC Magazine, Forbes, Business Insider, GeekWire, TechNet Blogs, TechNet Blogs and Neowin

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Blekko Launches Izik, A Tablet-Optimized Search App — Search startup Blekko is launching a new app today called Izik (pronounced “Isaac"), which it says has been designed specifically for the search experience on tablets. — CEO Rich Skrenta said Izik is an attempt to recapture …

More: digitaltrends.com, 9to5Mac, Search Engine Land, Associated Press, Softpedia News and WebProNews

Alex Williams / TechCrunch:

Forrester Report Says Apple Will Sell $39 Billion In Macs and iPads To Businesses Over Next 2 Years — Forrester Research is reporting that Apple will sell $39 billion in Macs and iPads through 2014. — According to the firm's latest report, Apple will sell $7 billion worth of Macs …

More: MacNN, Forrester.com, PadGadget, ZDNet and CNET

Justin Rubio / The Verge:

RCA's upcoming Mobile TV Tablet features two tuners for live television broadcasts — RCA has announced that it will be launching a Mobile TV Tablet with a pair of tuners for those who want to watch live television on the go. Priced at $299 and set for release in the spring …

More: AllThingsD, MarketWatch, Engadget and FierceOnlineVideo News

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Zipcar Adds A New No-Fee Membership Option In Canada, But Limits Driving To Weekdays — Hot on the heels of an acquisition by Avis announced earlier this week, Zipcar will be piloting a no-fee membership option beginning today in Toronto and Vancouver. The new ‘Access Plan’ pilot project carries …

More: PR Newswire and The Next Web

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Download Me Maybe: U.S. Music Market Up By 3.1%, Fuelled By 1.3B Digital Track Sales In 2012, Says Nielsen — Today news broke that Spotify was halting its music download service in favor of pushing more of its streaming services — raising some questions about how well downloads are doing compared to streaming music.

More: Business Wire, GeekWire, Digital Media Wire, TechSpot, VentureBeat, The Verge and Bloomberg

Don Melton:

Keeping Safari a secret — For much of the time we spent developing Safari — long before it was called by that name — it pretended to be Microsoft Internet Explorer. Specifically, Internet Explorer for Mac, which Apple had provided with the OS since 1998.

More: iMore, Fortune, TUAW, The Verge, VentureBeat, iPhone Hacks, iPhone in Canada Blog, GigaOM, Neowin, MacRumors and Daring Fireball

Tweets: @richdemuro, @spencerchen and @counternotions

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