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8:55 PM ET, December 16, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
David Kravets / Threat Level:
Stop Online Piracy Act Vote Delayed  —  The House Judiciary Committee is considering whether to send the Stop Online Piracy Act to the House floor abruptly adjourned Friday with no new vote date set — a surprise given that the bill looked certain to pass out of committee today.
RELATED:
Joshua Kopstein / MOTHERBOARD:
Dear Congress, It's No Longer OK To Not Know How The Internet Works  —  I remember fondly the days when we were all tickled pink by our elected officials' struggle to understand how the internet works.  Whether it was George W. Bush referring to “the internets” or Senator Ted Stevens describing …
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
How SOPA 2.0 Sneaks In A Really Dangerous Private Ability To Kill Any Website
Discussion: Geekosystem
Michael Arrington / Uncrunched:
Why Heather Matters  —  TechCrunch CEO Heather Harde announced her departure today.  —  I'm so angry.  —  Drift back to the end of 2006.  TechCrunch was a year and a half old.  My hobby had turned into a business.  Federated Media was selling our standard ads and sent a small check every month.
RELATED:
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Goodbye, Heather  —  Heather Harde, the business brains behind TechCrunch, will be stepping down at the end of the year as general manager of AOL's technology properties (including TechCrunch, Engadget, Joystiq, and TUAW).  AOL GM Jay Kirsch, who oversees Autos, Finance, and Industry on the business side …
Jamie Lendino / PC Magazine:
Google's Android Update Alliance Is Already Dead  —  At the Google I/O conference in May, many Android phone vendors and U.S. wireless carriers made a long-awaited promise: From then on, any new Android phone would receive timely OS updates for at least 18 months following launch …
Discussion: Business Insider and parislemon
Alexei Oreskovic / Reuters:
Exclusive: Google CEO's inner circle: Meet the L Team  —  (Reuters) - The most powerful group at Google Inc used to be known simply as “The OC,” short for operating committee.  Now, it goes by a more telling name: “L Team,” short for Larry's Team.  —  The change is more than a mere rebranding …
Discussion: Business Insider and @karaswisher
Darren Murph / Engadget:
Android 4.0.3 announced, bringing ‘variety of optimizations and bug fixes’ to phones and tablets  —  Merely a day after Verizon's version of the Galaxy Nexus was gifted with v4.0.2, Google itself is announcing Android 4.0.3, a so-called “ incremental release of the Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) platform.”
RELATED:
JR Raphael / Computerworld:
Android Ice Cream Sandwich now rolling out to Nexus S (GSM versions)
Dan Seifert / MobileBurn.com:
Sprint: Carrier IQ has been disabled on our devices  —  A recent rumor has hit the internet stating that Sprint has asked its manufacturer partners to remove Carrier IQ's software from all of the devices that it carries.  We reached out to Sprint for a comment on the matter …
RELATED:
Timothy B. Lee / Ars Technica:
UMG claims “right to block or remove” YouTube videos it doesn't own  —  Universal Music Group has responded to Megaupload's request for a temporary restraining order barring the music giant from further interference with the distribution of its “Mega Song.”  UMG insists that it had a right …
RELATED:
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:   An Explanation For Why UMG May Be Right That It Can Pull Down MegaUpload's Video [Updated]
Poornima Gupta / Reuters:
Exclusive: Made in Texas: Apple's A5 iPhone chip  —  SAN FRANCISCO - Apple Inc is famous for relying on low-cost Asian manufacturers to both source and assemble its popular gadgets, but the consumer device giant recently started receiving a critical component in its iPad and iPhones from closer to home - Texas.
Steven Sinofsky / MSDN Blogs:
Signing in with a picture password … The experience of signing in to your PC with touch has traditionally been a cumbersome one.  In a world with increasingly strict password requirements—with numbers, symbols, and capitalization—it can take upwards of 30 seconds to enter a long, complex password on a touch keyboard.
Tricia Duryee / AllThingsD:
Amazon Paid You $5 to Leave a Store; Now eBay Is Giving You $10 to Return  —  EBay is partnering with three major retailers to get online shoppers to also buy at brick-and-mortar stores.  —  The partnership is an obvious comeback to last weekend's promotion by Amazon, which motivated consumers …
Discussion: VentureBeat and The PayPal Blog
Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:
Samsung hits Apple with four new patents in Germany but backtracks on the iPhone 4S  —  Today the Mannheim Regional Court held two hearings involving Apple and Samsung.  In the first one, Apple was the defendant; in the second one, Samsung faced a lawsuit from Apple over a rather famous (slide-to-unlock) patent.
Zack Whittaker / Between the Lines Blog:
Zynga shares slump 10 percent below IPO in first day  —  Summary: While there was hope for Zynga, the largest technology flotation since Google's public debut in 2004, the company's share price dropped by nearly 10 percent in its first day.  —  At the end of Zynga's first day of public trading today …
RELATED:
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
iPhone 4S Debuts in Over 20 New Countries, Pricing Starts as High as $1400  —  In line with our report from earlier this month, Apple has launched the iPhone 4S in a number of new countries today.  Based on an examination of Apple's site and those of its carrier partners …
Max Wang / DigiTimes:
Apple to launch 7.85-inch iPad in 2012, say sources  —  Apple is likely to launch a 7.85-inch iPad prior to the fourth quarter of 2012 in addition to a new iPad scheduled to be released at the end of the first quarter, according to sources in the supply chain.
Matt McGee / Search Engine Land:
Bing, Yahoo Now Neck & Neck In US Search Market Share  —  Bing's slow growth in US search market share continues, and Microsoft's two-and-a-half-year-old search engine is now practically neck-and-neck with Yahoo.  Both, however, remain far behind Google.  —  The latest comScore numbers …
Adrianne Jeffries / Betabeat:
Stanford Pulls Bid for New York Tech Campus  —  Stanford was the frontrunner in the application for an applied sciences sciences and engineering campus on Roosevelt Island.  But according to a press release from the Stanford news service, that's no longer the case.
Discussion: NYConvergence.com and Digits
Seth Weintraub / 9to5Google:
Verizon Galaxy Nexus Review: Bigger, faster, cheaper and less Google  —  LTE just makes that Ice Cream Sandwich all the more tasty...  The biggest difference philisophically is demonstrated in the logos above.  No longer a Google Phone, the Verizon Galaxy Nexus is a Verizon LTE phone, for all that is worth.
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Adobe Pays $400 Million for Efficient Frontier  —  Last month Adobe said it was buying search marketing firm Efficient Frontier, but didn't disclose a purchase price.  Yesterday it came clean: The deal will end up costing around $400 million.  —  That brings the price tag for Adobe's …
Discussion: WebProNews
Arron / RazorianFly:
Siri Can Now Help You Shop At Best Buy  —  As Apple's intelligent voice assistant grows in popularity amongst existing (and future potential) iOS users, business owners around the world are looking to grab a piece of the action.  One particular retailer which has managed to do that this week is Best Buy …
T.C. Sottek / The Verge:
Video: Microsoft's Steve Kaneko on design unification and the challenges of moving to Metro  —  While Windows 8's Metro overhaul goes a long way towards completely reinventing the OS, in some ways it hasn't gone far enough — there are still places where the classic Windows interface resurfaces.
Discussion: Neowin.net, WinBeta and WMPoweruser
 
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 More Items: 
Laura Bly / USA Today:
In-flight dating? Using social media to find a seatmate
Rip Empson / TechCrunch:
The Echo Nest To Power New Spotify Radio (Which Begins Rolling Out Today)
Discussion: The Echo Nest Blog and VentureBeat
Federal Trade Commission:
FTC Warns That Rapid Expansion of Internet Domain Name System Could Leave Consumers More Vulnerable to Online Fraud
Discussion: Epicenter
Timothy Hay / Wall Street Journal:
Mobile Ad Start-Up Millennial Media Eyes IPO
Monica Chen / DigiTimes:
Foxconn, Nvidia to set up joint venture R&D center in China
Discussion: Electronista
Alyson Shontell / Business Insider:
This Is The First Pitch Deck Foursquare Ever Showed Investors
 Earlier Items: 
Julie Bort / Business Insider:
This Is Like The Third Reorg Since Cisco Hit The Panic Button Last Year
Discussion: Network World
Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:
Yelp, YouTube and 23andMe Co-Founders All Working on New Start-Ups
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
‘For Dummies’ Publisher Sues BitTorrent Users to “Educate and Settle”
Discussion: The Pondering Primate
Hunter Walk / Elapsed Time:
“I'd love if tech writing as a whole held itself to a higher standard:” …
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb
Ben Elowitz / AllThingsD:
With Siri TV, Apple Will Dismantle the TV Networks
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Financial Times:
Sources: New York Sun owner Dovid Efune is close to striking a deal to buy The Telegraph for £550M+, more than what others like National World offered

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
Kamala Harris, who has mostly avoided interviews over the past few months, readies a media blitz, including the Call Her Daddy podcast, The View, and 60 Minutes

Matthew Jordan / The Conversation:
As Congress tries to force carmakers to install AM radios as a matter of public interest, it should push licensed stations to abide by public interest standards

 
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