Techmeme
February 20, 2012, 7:40 PM

Top News

MSDN Blogs:
Google Bypassing User Privacy Settings  —  When the IE team heard that Google had bypassed user privacy settings on Safari, we asked ourselves a simple question: is Google circumventing the privacy preferences of Internet Explorer users too?  We've discovered the answer is yes …
MSDN Blogs:
Connecting your apps, files, PCs and devices to the cloud with SkyDrive and Windows 8 … A few months ago we published our vision for designing personal cloud storage.  While SkyDrive can store all types of files, the category of personal cloud storage is focused on the content that people create or capture themselves.
Josh Davis / LLSocial:
New code lets websites opt-out of Pinterest.  —  In my discussion this week with Ben Silbermann, the CEO of Pinterest, he laid out a number of future plans for the site, and three of them have been implemented in the past few days.  Pinterest has . . . Clarified their business model …
John Rath / Data Center Knowledge:
Google Seeks To Plant Antenna Farm in Iowa  —  An example of an array of 4.5 meter satellite dishes.  Google is seeking permission to deploy an array of 4.5 meter satellite dishes near its data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa.  (Source: SETI Institute)  —  Google subsidiary Google Fiber …
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Netflix, Whitney Houston and the Great Streaming Video Outrage That Didn't Happen  —  That story about an evil Hollywood studio pulling “The Bodyguard” away from Netflix, so it could sell more DVDs?  —  Totally evil.  —  Also, totally untrue.  —  So says Netflix PR rep Steve Swasey.
Bill Slawski / SEO by the Sea:
Google Acquires Cuil Patent Applications  —  According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) assigment database, Google has acquired the pending patent applications of one time search rival Cuil, touted when launched as a potential Google Killer.
Elaine Kurtenbach / Associated Press:
DigiTimes:
E Ink lands 6-inch color e-book reader module orders from Amazon, says paper  —  EPD maker E Ink Holdings (EIH) reportedly has landed orders for 6-inch color e-book reader modules from Amazon with shipments to begin in March, according to a Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN) report.
Kyle Orland / Ars Technica:
Fake Pokemon Yellow rises to No. 3 position on iTunes app charts  —  For years now industry wags have been saying Nintendo should get out of the portable hardware business and just bring its popular game franchises directly to Apple's iOS devices.  So when an app called Pokemon Yellow appeared …
Ed Bott / The Ed Bott Report Blog:
Microsoft quietly extends consumer support for Windows 7, Vista  —  Summary: This month, with almost no fanfare, Microsoft has revised its support policy for consumer versions of Windows.  The two most recent releases, Vista and Windows 7, now qualify for a full 10 years of support.  I've got the details.
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
Why LightSquared failed: It was science, not politics  —  The seeds of LightSquared's failure to win government clearance to build a 4G-LTE network can, ironically, be found in the “approval” the company received just 13 months ago.  —  In January 2011, the Federal Communications Commission …
Vlad Savov / The Verge:
Nook 8GB Tablet coming on February 22nd to better compete with Kindle Fire  —  The Nook Tablet's biggest problem so far has been that it costs $50 more than Amazon's Kindle Fire while targeting the same budget-conscious Android tablet market.  That's likely to change soon, however …
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:
Nielsen: 66% of Americans ages 24-35 own a smartphone  —  But 55- to 64-year olds who make more than $100,000 a year are big buyers too  —  “Whether or not you have a smartphone is closely related to both how old you are and how much money you make,” finds a Nielsen survey of 20,000 Americans with mobile phones conducted in January.
Darrell Etherington / BetaKit:
Convore Shutting Down as Founder Focuses on New Startup  —  Updated with comment from Convore co-founder Leah Culver.  Group communication is a crowded space, as we wrote about when we covered the reaction of messaging startups to Apple's OSX iMessage expansion.
Peter Sayer / PC World:
LightSquared Defaults on $56M Payment to Spectrum Owner Inmarsat  —  LightSquared has defaulted on a US$56.25 million payment due under a 2007 wireless spectrum cooperation agreement with Inmarsat, the U.K. satellite communications operator said Monday, adding that it could terminate the agreement …
Robert McMillan / Wired Enterprise:
Intel Chefs Bake WiFi Into Mobile Chips  —  Intel's Rosepoint chip combines a digital WiFi radio with a CPU  —  Researchers at Intel have come up with a way to make WiFi faster and more energy efficient.  —  It's a chip called Rosepoint, and although it's just a research project today …
Bill Weir / ABCNEWS:
A Trip to The iFactory: ‘Nightline’ Gets an Unprecedented Glimpse Inside Apple's Chinese Core  —  A worker at a Foxconn factory in Shenzen, China, puts the finishing touches on an Apple iPad.  ABC News Nightline's Bill Weir was the first journalist allowed onto the Apple production line in China …
Josh Halliday / Guardian:
The Pirate Bay could be blocked in UK  —  Filesharing site unlawfully shares copyrighted music, says UK high court  —  The filesharing website The Pirate Bay has come a step closer to being blocked in the UK after the high court ruled that the site breaches copyright laws on a large scale.

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Eric Slivka / MacRumors: