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5:40 PM ET, January 20, 2012

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Molly Wood / CNET:
Anonymous goes nuclear; everybody loses?  —  #OpMegaUpload: like watching “War Games” play out, but with cyber-bombs.  —  In the aftermath of the Jan. 18 SOPA/PIPA blackout protests, the Internet community had amassed quite a bit of goodwill, flexed its muscles in a friendly, humorous …
RELATED:
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
Feds, Please Return My Personal Files Stored at MegaUpload!  —  The feds shut down MegaUpload a few hours ago.  Eight people we charged with criminal copyright infringement charges, and all files hosted on the site were pulled offline.  However, do the feds realize that hundreds of thousands …
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Why the feds smashed Megaupload  —  The US government dropped a nuclear bomb on “cyberlocker” site Megaupload today, seizing its domain names, grabbing $50 million in assets, and getting New Zealand police to arrest four of the site's key employees, including enigmatic founder Kim Dotcom.
Jeremy Pelofsky / Reuters:
Megaupload site wants assets back, to fight charges  —  (Reuters) - The Internet website Megaupload.com, shut down by authorities over allegations that it illegally peddled copyrighted material, is trying to recover its servers and get back online, a lawyer for the company said on Friday.
Adrian Chen / Gawker:
The Evil New Tactic Behind Anonymous' Massive Megaupload Revenge Attack
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Follow the traffic: What MegaUpload's downfall did to the web
Discussion: USA Today and Ars Technica, Thanks:@ryanlawler
Greg Sandoval / CNET:
Megaupload assembles worldwide criminal defense
Paul Kane / Washington Post:
SOPA, PIPA votes to be delayed in House and Senate  —  Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), author of the Stop Online Privacy Act, said on Friday that he is postponing consideration of the bill in response to concerns from critics who said the bill could lead to censorship.
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Carl Franzen / TPM Livewire:
Former Sen. Chris Dodd, MPAA CEO, Blasts Congress For Halting SOPA and PIPA  —  Former Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), now the CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, released a statement late Friday morning responding to the sudden announcements earlier from Congressional leaders …
Discussion: MPAA Blog and @dannysullivan
Marco Arment / Marco.org:
The next SOPA  —  Every few years, the MPAA's lobbying power, rhetoric, and immense campaign contributions succeed in purchasing a bill in Congress to advance their agenda in a way that's hostile to the technology industry and consumers.  —  Their bills have had mixed success and usually die …
Dan Gillmor / Guardian:
The struggle against Sopa and Pipa is not over
Matthew Yglesias / Slate:   5 Lessons From The SOPA/PIPA Fight
New York Times:
Dodd Calls for Hollywood and Silicon Valley to Meet
David Pierson / Los Angeles Times:
U.S. website blackout draws praise in China
Discussion: Letter from China and ReadWriteWeb
Greg Sandoval / CNET:
Facebook in talks to replace YouTube as Vevo's host  —  Facebook has held talks with Vevo about moving the music-video service away from YouTube and over to the social network's platform, sources with knowledge of the talks told CNET.  —  While the sources said the discussions are very preliminary …
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Publisher Terry McGraw on Steve Jobs and Digital Textbooks: “This Was His Vision”  —  After Apple's big education presentation yesterday, McGraw-Hill CEO Terry McGraw chatted with a gaggle of reporters, and explained things like the logic behind $15 digital textbooks.
RELATED:
Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
New Google Accounts Require Gmail and Google+  —  If you try to create a Google account from Google's homepage, you'll notice that Google redesigned the page, but that's not all.  You'll now have to create a Gmail account, a Google Profile and you'll automatically join Google+.
Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:
Mannheim court rejects the first one of Samsung's German lawsuits against Apple  —  Judge Andreas Voss of the Mannheim Regional Court just pronounced his ruling on the first one of Samsung's seven patent infringement claims against Apple in Germany.  Samsung's complaint over a patent declared essential …
RELATED:
Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:
Apple says Galaxy Nexus infringes slide-to-unlock utility model in Germany
Discussion: PhoneArena and Electronista
Steven Sinofsky / MSDN Blogs:
Engineering Windows 8 for mobile networks … People want similar mobility on their PCs as they get on their smartphones.  —  It is unlikely that your end goal is just to get connected to the Internet.  Instead, connecting to the Internet is a step (or a hurdle) towards what you really want to do …
Discussion: Computerworld, AnandTech and WinBeta
RELATED:
Tricia Duryee / AllThingsD:
Zynga Confirms It Is Seeking Partners for Online Gambling Initiatives  —  Zynga is getting ready to try its hand at online gambling.  —  The company has confirmed to All Things D that it is actively investigating several opportunities, and is in talks with several partners about gambling on the Internet.
Nitasha Tiku / Betabeat:
Layoffs Underway at Gilt Groupe Right Now: ‘General Atmosphere Is Terrifying’  —  Last Wednesday, Betabeat broke the news of impending layoffs at Gilt Groupe.  Later that morning, CEO Kevin Ryan downgraded the estimates we had heard, telling AllThingsD that the company intended to …
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
‘Absinthe A5’ Brings First Untethered Jailbreak for iPhone 4S and iPad 2  —  Noted iOS jailbreak author pod2g has teamed up with the Chronic Dev Team to release “Absinthe A5”, an enhancement to the popular Greenpois0n jailbreaking tool which adds the ability to perform an untethered jailbreak …
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
First Look: Backplane, The Lady Gaga-Backed Community Platform With All-Star Investors (Invites)  —  Early last summer we wrote about Backplane, a mysterious startup with impressive backers and some major star power behind it: one of its cofounders, Troy Carter, is Lady Gaga's manager.
Discussion: PC Magazine and The Verge
 
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 More Items: 
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Home Depot Acquires Home Services Marketplace Redbeacon
Discussion: Redbeacon
PR Newswire:
Netflix Announces Management Changes
Discussion: Tech Trader Daily
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Tremor Video Acquires ‘InPlay’ Video Analytics Tech From TubeMogul
Tanzina Vega / New York Times:
For Online Privacy, Click Here
Danielle Kucera / Bloomberg:
PayPal Will Expand In-Store Payments
Discussion: GigaOM, PhoneArena and Phone Scoop
Neil Callanan / Bloomberg:
Facebook Weighs Expanding European HQ
Adrianne Jeffries / Betabeat:
Union Square Ventures Leading Series B in Iowa-Based Dwolla for About $10 M.
 Earlier Items: 
Ben Drawbaugh / Engadget:
TiVo Premiere updates rolling out to the masses
Discussion: SlashGear
David Carnoy / CNET:
Exede: The satellite broadband service you've been waiting for?
Discussion: Examiner
Farhad Manjoo / Slate:
The Great and Powerful Reddit
Discussion: The Atlantic Wire
Donald Melanson / Engadget:
Don't call it an ultrabook  —  Every year at CES …
Discussion: Technologizer