Techmeme: Judge dismisses lawsuit over Google privacy changes (Brendan Sasso/Hillicon Valley)

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February 24, 2012, 7:15 PM

Top News

Rene Ritchie / iMore:

Apple getting ready to ditch the traditional iPhone, iPad, and iPod dock connector — An updated “micro dock” would make room for bigger batteries, 4G radios, and other components far more important to the iPhone and iPad in a PC free world. — We've heard that Apple is getting ready …

Ian Paul / PC World:

Apple Dumping 30-pin Connector? How About Dumping Cords Altogether?

More: Daring Fireball and BGR

Tom Warren / The Verge:

How Microsoft is killing off the Zune and Windows Live brands in Windows 8 — Microsoft appears to be killing off two of its key user-facing brands with the upcoming Consumer Preview release of Windows 8. Windows Live applications have been rolled into preinstalled apps that work as the core …

More: BGR, Gizmodo, GadgeTell, The Next Web, InfoWorld, Computerworld, Pulse2 Technology …, WMPoweruser, Electronista, The Tech Report, WinBeta and Seattle Times

Cade Metz / Wired Enterprise:

Facebook Shakes Hardware World With Own Storage Gear — Facebook's hardware team is now building storage gear — while decorating the walls at the company's new HQ in Menlo Park, California. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com — Facebook already built its own data center and its own servers.

More: All Facebook, GigaOM, adafruit industries blog and Pulse2 Technology …

Mike Daisey:

David Pogue Is Only Competent To Review Gadgets — David Pogue weighed in yesterday about the Nightline piece. — I have been trying to engage with Mr. Pogue, but it hasn't gone well. — I hate to take the gloves off, but I feel like there's little choice after this latest column.

More: Business Insider. Tweets: @mdaisey, @antderosa, @felixsalmon, @edbott and @romenesko

David Pogue / Pogue's Posts:

What Cameras Inside Foxconn Found

More: Boing Boing, Fast Company and PC Magazine

Chris Ziegler / The Verge:

CNBC: Sprint board rejects $8b MetroPCS acquisition ‘hours’ before announcement — CNBC is reporting that Sprint and regional carrier MetroPCS were literally hours from announcing an $8 billion merger when Sprint's executive board rejected it — even after it had CEO Dan Hesse's sign-off.

More: PC Magazine, DSLreports, PandoDaily, Engadget, Android Phone Fans, androinica.com, CNBC, MacNN, PhoneArena and Dow Jones Newswires. Tweets: @davidfabercnbc

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:

Sony Music Boss: Censored YouTube Videos Cost Us Millions — For years the music industry has blamed Internet piracy for all their troubles. — Slowly, however, the record labels are starting to realize that the Internet is the future and it will ultimately do more good than harm.

Jack Purcher / Patently Apple:

Google Invents an Original Search Gesture for Future Devices — Google has invented an original search based gesture for future Android devices. In some cases, the new “continuous gestures” will allow a user to simply and quickly draw a circle around what they want to search for in the form of the letter …

More: 9to5Google, Engadget, SlashGear, Android Community, Android Phone Fans and Electronista

James B. Stewart / New York Times:

A Law Apple Would Like to Break — These days, it's hard to find a superlative that adequately describes Apple. But maybe simplest is best: biggest. — Measured by market capitalization, Apple is the world's biggest company. This week it solidified its lead over Exxon Mobil …

More: Daring Fireball

Rafe Needleman / CNET:

We're not paying enough for apps — Rafe Needleman tries to convince a developer he's charging too much for his utility, ends up convincing himself that a lot of software is underpriced instead. — If the cool automatic monitor and computer location algorithm gets things wrong …

Brooke Crothers / CNET:

Google may enter tablet market with 7-inch design — Google is set to dip its toes in the tablet market with a 7-inch design later this year, says an analyst. — The Google tablet would be in the same size class as Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet. — Wondering when Google is going to jump into the tablet fray?

Associated Press:

Judge awards iPhone user $850 in throttling case — SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (AP) — When AT&T started slowing down the data service for his iPhone, Matt Spaccarelli, an unemployed truck driver and student, took the country's largest telecommunications company to small claims court. And won.

More: 9to5Mac, Geek.com, WebProNews, Geekosystem, everythingiCafe, MacRumors, App Advice, iClarified and BGR

Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:

Caterina Fake: Fast Growth for a New Social App Is a Very Bad Thing — Social Web entrepreneurs with successful careers just can't seem to find their way to a happy and boring retirement. Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake just announced Pinwheel, joining Ev Williams and Biz Stone of Twitter and now Obvious …

More: Business Insider and Social Media. Tweets: @owenthomas and @owenthomas

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

Microsoft Office 15 apps to include ‘touch mode’ — Summary: The coming Office 15 client apps all seem to be getting a new ‘touch mode’ button that will enable them to work better on touch-centric devices. — It looks like Office 15 client apps are going to get more touchy …

More: Neowin.net, The Verge, PhoneArena, WinBeta, Microsoft News, Pulse2 Technology … and Softpedia News

Vlad Savov / The Verge:

Google to sell stake in Clearwire for $47m, a tenth of the price it originally paid — Google has filed documents with the SEC today in preparation for the sale of its entire stake in the troubled Clearwire Corporation. Having spent $500 million to acquire a 6.5 percent share back in 2008 …

More: StreetInsider.com, GeekWire, SlashGear, VentureBeat, CNET, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, TechSpot, TechFlash, dailywireless.org, BetaNews, The Next Web, Engadget, Pulse2 Technology …, WebProNews, The Tech Trade, DSLreports and Electronista

Zach Epstein / BGR:

Nokia becomes top Windows Phone vendor after just one quarter — Nokia was late to the game with regard to Windows Phone (among other things). The Finnish phone giant announced early last year that it would be dumping Symbian in favor of Microsoft's mobile platform, and its first two Windows Phones …

More: Electronista, Digits, PC World, Inquirer, Computerworld, the Econsultancy blog, Engadget, Gotta Be Mobile, GigaOM, AllThingsD, SoMobile, TechCrunch, The Next Web, Between the Lines Blog, VentureBeat, GeekWire, PhoneArena and Pulse2 Technology …. Thanks:@aktiwary

Sebastian Anthony / ExtremeTech:

Mozilla partners up with LG to combat Apple and Google with its own device — At Mobile World Congress, which begins in three days, Mozilla will finally take the wraps off the Mozilla Marketplace and allow developers to submit their open web technology (HTML5, JavaScript, CSS) apps.

More: Hardware 2.0 Blog, Ars Technica, PhoneArena, FierceMobileContent, Pocket-lint, Pulse2 Technology … and WebProNews

Bloomberg:

Apple Is Said to Pay About $50 Million for Search Startup Chomp — Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) — Apple Inc., the world's most valuable company, acquired San Francisco-based Chomp Inc., which helps users sort through the widening array of software applications for mobile devices.

More: The Next Web, USA Today, GigaOM, InvestorPlace, PC Magazine, MarketingVox News & Trends, FierceMobileContent, The Apple Core Blog, TechSpot, Search Engine Land and Chip Chick. See also Mediagazer

Andy Greenberg / The Firewall:

Two Cases' Lessons: If Cops Don't Know What You Encrypted, They Can't Make You Decrypt It — The last 24 hours have produced two opposite rulings about whether suspects in legal cases have to cough up the password to potentially incriminating data that they've encrypted on a hard drive.

More: Law Blog, Wired, Electronista, The Verge, Gizmodo, Ars Technica and The H Security

Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Appeals Court Upholds Constitutional Right Against Forced Decryption

More: Wired and GamePolitics blogs

Alastair Sharp / Reuters:

Netflix: no plan to support BlackBerry, PlayBook — (Reuters) - Online and mail-order video company Netflix has no plans to bring its streaming service to Research In Motion's PlayBook tablet. — “We don't have any current plans to support BlackBerry devices, including PlayBook,” …

More: Gotta Be Mobile, Geek.com, TechCrunch, BGR, Ars Technica, Macgasm, Electronista, Pulse2 Technology … and PhoneArena

Jack Purcher / Patently Apple:

Microsoft Invents New Kinect Feature Called the “Seekbar” — At this year's CES, Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer revealed that Kinect was coming to the PC - and on February one they introduced Kinect for Windows. Even though we're not quite sure what Kinect for Windows will offer PC users …

More: Electronista

Jason Kincaid:

A Farewell Ahoy — Thanks For Everything, TechCrunch — It isn't easy to feel sad when you're standing in front of a 14-foot ape who's wearing a polo shirt, a backwards baseball cap, and, for reasons only its designer could explain — no pants. And yet, there I was. — Actually, “sad” would be an understatement.

More: Uncrunched, Betabeat, WebProNews, PandoDaily and bub.blicio.us

Tweets: @jonathanjoseph and @paulcarr

Nicola Clark / New York Times:

Selecting a Seatmate to Make Skies Friendlier — PARIS — On his eight-hour flight to New York from Switzerland last month, Jeff Jarvis, a well-known blogger and journalism professor, found himself seated next to a woman eager to discuss the finer points of management theory.

More: AllThingsD, Marketing Pilgrim and Business Insider

Peter / The Mac Security Blog:

Flashback Mac Trojan Horse Infections Increasing with New Variant — We recently reported about a new variant of the Flashback Trojan horse which is using novel techniques to infect Macs. Since then, we have discovered a number of samples of this latest variant, Flashback.G …

More: 9to5Mac, TechNewsDaily.com, Dennis Fisher, SecurityWeek, MacRumors, The Register, Zero Day Blog and Ars Technica

Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:

Google Drive Will Support Third Party Apps — Back in November 2010, a comment from the Google Docs source code revealed some new features that will be available: third party apps, Cloud Print integration and sync. — It turns out that the upcoming Google Drive release will add support …

More: The Verge and Gizmodo

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