Techmeme
January 22, 2013, 12:40 PM

Top News

Stormy Peters / Mozilla Hacks:
Announcing the Firefox OS Developer Preview Phone!  —  Firefox OS is a new mobile operating system built entirely using open web standards.  In Firefox OS, HTML5 apps can do “phone things” - they can make the phone vibrate, make a phone call or send a text message.
Roger Cheng / CNET:
Verizon Q4 loss doubles thanks to Sandy, pension costs  —  The telecommunications provider saw revenue rise nearly 6 percent on strong customer growth in the wireless business.  —  Superstorm Sandy and mounting pension costs took its toll on Verizon.  —  The New York telecommunications provider posted …
Seth Fiegerman / Mashable!:
Verizon Activated 6.2 Million iPhones in Q4, Almost Half Were iPhone 5  —  We just got our first glimpse at iPhone 5 sales for the fourth quarter.  —  Verizon revealed during its earnings call Tuesday that it activated 6.2 million iPhones in the fourth quarter, almost half of which were LTE-enabled iPhone 5 devices.
Wall Street Journal:
Inside H-P's Missed Chance To Avoid a Disastrous Deal  —  Days before Hewlett-Packard Co. dived into an $11 billion software deal it almost instantly regretted, it missed a chance to back away.  —  During a call with an H-P delegation, outside auditors for British software maker Autonomy Corp. mentioned …
Nick Summers / The Next Web:
AT&T acquires Alltel's US retail wireless business for $780m to boost its rural coverage  —  American telecommunications giant AT&T has signed an agreement with Atlantic Tele-Network to acquire its retail wireless operations, which currently operate under the Alltel brand …
Jessica E. Lessin / Wall Street Journal:
Investors Struggle to Get Handle on Apple  —  Apple Inc. is expected to report record iPhone sales and revenue when it releases its earnings for the holiday period on Wednesday.  —  But it isn't current sales that Wall Street has focused on as Apple's stock has swooned recently.
Hugo Miller / Bloomberg:
Samsung Ventures Buys Fixmo Stake to Take on BlackBerry  —  Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) bought a stake in Canadian security software maker Fixmo Inc., looking to extend its smartphone growth with businesses and government customers traditionally served by Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM)
More: Fixmo and The Next Web
Ed Bott / ZDNet:
A close look at how Oracle installs deceptive software with Java updates  —  Summary: Oracle's Java plugin for browsers is a notoriously insecure product.  Over the past 18 months, the company has released 11 updates, six of them containing critical security fixes.
Farhad Manjoo / Slate:
The Happiness Machine How Google became such a great place to work  —  A cube at Google's global headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.  —  Courtesy Google.  —  A few years ago, Google's human resources department noticed a problem: A lot of women were leaving the company.
Tweets: @sheelahk
Kevin C. Tofel / GigaOM:
Windows Phone makes gains in EU, passing BlackBerry in late 2012  —  Windows Phone hasn't quite been the success story that Microsoft may have hoped, as Android and iOS continue to dominate the smartphone scene.  Two recent news bits offer some positive news however.
John Battelle / John Battelle's Search Blog:
Portrait of Twitter As A Young Media Company  —  The post Portrait of Twitter As A Young Media Company appeared first on John Battelle's Search Blog.  —  Last year I predicted that Twitter would become a media company.  However, I focused mainly on the new “Discover” functionality, and I probably should have gone a lot further.
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Amazon developing ‘Zombieland’ series as part of push into original programming  —  Amazon may be lagging behind Netflix when it comes to delivering original programming to users, but the company just scooped up a fairly recognizable brand in Zombieland.  A TV series set in the same zombie-filled universe …
Sarah Kessler / Fast Company:
Who Needs Starbucks?  Dwolla Gets Into Gov't With Iowa Tax-Paying Plan  —  This could save you money—and make the company much more of it.  —  Paying taxes in Iowa could soon be a tad less annoying than in other states.  —  That's because Iowa is accepting some tax payments using startup …
Bill Rigby / Reuters:
Former Microsoft executive says CEO Ballmer culls internal rivals to retain power  —  (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer is not the right leader for the world's largest software company but holds his grip on it by systematically forcing out any rising manager who challenges …
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Peer-To-Peer Lending Marketplace Prosper Raises $20M From Sequoia, Eric Schmidt And Others; Brings On New CEO  —  Prosper.com, a peer-to-peer lending marketplace in the U.S., has raised $20 million in new funding led by Sequoia, with the company's existing investors, including Draper Fisher Jurvetson …

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Jon Russell / The Next Web:

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