Techmeme: Google, Motorola Mobility Review Temporarily Halted by EU (Aoife White/Bloomberg)

11:01 AM ET, December 12, 2011

Top Items:

David Streitfeld / New York Times:

As Kindle Fire Faces Critics, Remedies Are Promised — The Kindle Fire, Amazon's heavily promoted tablet, is less than a blazing success with many of its early users. The most disgruntled are packing the device up and firing it back to the retailer. — A few of their many complaints: there is no external volume control.

Dieter Bohn / The Verge:

Kindle Fire software update coming in less than two weeks, performance and UI improvements promised — In the wake of many user complaints about web browsing speeds and other performance issues, Amazon has told the New York Times that it will be releasing a software update for the Kindle Fire “in less than two weeks.”

Discussion: New York Times, CNET News, GottaBeMobile and Electricpig.co.uk

Mitch Lipka / Reuters:
Amazon's Kindle Fire lets kids charge up a storm

Discussion: Gadget Lab and Daring Fireball

DigiTimes:

Next generation iPads to be available in 3-4 months, say sources — The next generation iPads are expected to be available in the next 3-4 months as makers in the supply chain have started delivering parts and components for the new tablets to OEM contractors while reducing those prepared for iPad 2 …

Apple:

Apple's Mac App Store Downloads Top 100 Million — Apple® today announced that over 100 million apps have been downloaded from the Mac® App Store™ in less than one year. With thousands of free and paid apps, the Mac App Store brings the App Store experience to the Mac …

Sung-won Shim / Reuters:

Samsung says sells over 300 million mobile handsets in 2011 — (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd (005930.KS) said on Sunday its annual mobile handset sales this year had exceeded 300 million units for the first time in the company's history. — The world's second largest handset maker …

Discussion: PC Magazine, CNET News, BGR, The Verge, 9to5Google, AllThingsD, donga.com, Xinhua News Agency, Engadget, mocoNews, Digital Chosunilbo, Android Phone Fans, DailyTech, MobileSyrup.com, VR-Zone, PhoneArena, MobileBurn.com and Neowin.net

Michael Robertson / GigaOM:

Why Spotify can never be profitable: The secret demands of record labels — Imagine a new hot-dog selling venture. Let's also say there's only one supplier to purchase hot dogs from. Instead of simply charging a fixed price for hot dogs, that supplier demands the HIGHER of the following …

Discussion: Business Insider, SlashGear, Digiday and MacNN

Aoife White / Bloomberg:

Google, Motorola Mobility Review Temporarily Halted by EU — European Union regulators suspended their antitrust review of plans by Google Inc. (GOOG), the biggest maker of smartphone software, to buy Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. after requesting more information about the deal.

Discussion: CNET News, London Calling Blog, SlashGear, PhoneArena and WebProNews

Arik Hesseldahl / AllThingsD:

Intel Slashes Sales Outlook by $1 Billion on Hard Drive Shortage — Chipmaker Intel just warned that fourth-quarter sales will come in below expectations because of hard drive shortages that are hurting the PC industry, and thus sales of its microprocessors.

Discussion: TechCrunch, Business Wire, TechEye, Associated Press, CNET News, The Tech Trade, Business Insider, Between the Lines Blog and Reuters

Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:

Viral coefficients + store feature + branding + influencers = cool apps on iOS first — At LeWeb last week former Google CEO, Eric Schmidt was asked by an audience member why the coolest apps come out on iOS first. Apps like Flipboard and Instagram. He answered:

Discussion: Appboy Blog

Joab Jackson / ITworld.com:

Usenix: Google deploys IPv6 for internal network — Though the project is only halfway finished, Google's IPv6 network is already bearing fruit — In a project that has taken longer than company engineers anticipated, Google is rolling out IPv6 across its entire internal employee network.

Discussion: Fudzilla and Slashdot

Shelly Freierman / New York Times:

One Million Mobile Apps, and Counting at a Fast Pace — Somewhere at a computer last Wednesday, a developer pushed a button and the one millionth mobile app went to market. — Apps shrink the programs that were once available only on a desktop computer to make them usable on smartphones …

Thanks:jasonhiner

Ross Miller / The Verge:

Nook Color update adds Netflix, comics, landscape reading, and more — Already the visual appearance between Nook Tablet and Nook Color made it hard to differentiate, and now with Color's version 1.41 update, the feature set is beginning to look decidedly similar to its successor.

Discussion: Gizmodo, TechCrunch, paidContent, Washington Post, Business Insider, Softpedia News, Ubergizmo, TeleRead, Android Phone Fans, Electronista and Liliputing

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