Techmeme
March 13, 2012, 7:35 PM

Top News

Andy Baio / Wired:
A Patent Lie: How Yahoo Weaponized My Work  —  While most of the tech world was partying at South by Southwest in Austin yesterday, Yahoo announced it was filing a lawsuit against Facebook for allegedly infringing on 10 patents from their 1,000+ patent warehouse.  —  I'm no fan of Facebook, but this is a deplorable move.
Mark Cuban / blog maverick:
I Hope Yahoo Crushes Facebook in its Patent Suit  —  Anyone who reads this blog knows how much I hate patent laws.  I think 99pct of the time they are anti-competitive, corruptive, impede creativity and innovation and can kill small businesses.  I think the ratio of patent law doing …
More: Gizmodo and Dalton Caldwell.  Tweets: @wadhwa
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
AOL Has Some Pretty Sweet Patents, Too, Tim Armstrong Tells Wall Street  —  Yahoo's Facebook lawsuit doesn't seem to have done much for its share price.  And it is going over like a lead balloon with the digerati (Union Square Ventures portfolio companies shouldn't expect a Sunnyvale deal anytime soon).
More: Washington Post and TechCrunch.  Tweets: @zamosta
Julie Bosman / Media Decoder:
After 244 Years, Encyclopaedia Britannica Stops the Presses  —  After 244 years, the Encyclopaedia Britannica is going out of print.  —  Those coolly authoritative, gold-lettered sets of reference books that were once sold door to door by a fleet of traveling salesmen and displayed …
Bloomberg:
Apple Said to Be Subpoenaed by U.S. Regulators on Google's Mobile Search  —  The U.S. Federal Trade Commission subpoenaed Apple Inc. (AAPL) as part of its antitrust probe of Google Inc. (GOOG), seeking information on how the computer maker uses the search engine on the iPhone and iPad, two people familiar with the matter said.
John Paczkowski / AllThingsD:
FTC Subpoenas Apple in Google Antitrust Probe  —  The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has subpoenaed Apple as part of its antitrust inquiry into Google's business practices, according to Bloomberg News.  Sources familiar with the matter tell Bloomberg that the agency is particularly interested …
James Whittaker / MSDN Blogs:
Why I left Google  —  Ok, I relent.  Everyone wants to know why I left and answering individually isn't scaling so here it is, laid out in its long form.  Read a little (I get to the punch line in the 3rd paragraph) or read it all.  But a warning in advance: there is no drama here …
Arnold Kim / MacRumors:
Peter Pachal / Mashable!:
Google Confirms It's Working on Chrome for Windows 8  —  Google says it's working on a version of Chrome that will run in the Metro environment of Windows 8.  The news follows the revelation that Mozilla is building Firefox for Metro as well.  —  A Google spokesperson told Mashable …
Rdio Blog:
Introducing: New Rdio  —  Welcome to new Rdio.  We built it for you — it's faster, simpler, and more social.  —  New Rdio is a visually beautiful and dynamic way to play Rdio's massive catalogue of 15 million songs.  New features include the oft requested drag and drop playlist creation …
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Exclusive: Spotify family plans ‘definitely coming’  —  We just caught up with Spotify's chief content officer Ken Parks outside of his “Future of Music” panel here at SXSW, and he told us that Spotify family plans are “definitely coming.”  That would fulfill a longstanding request …
Bloomberg:
Zynga Said to Plan Secondary Offering  —  Zynga Inc. (ZNGA), the social-gaming company that held its initial public offering in December, is planning an offering of additional shares, two people familiar with the matter said.  —  The move is designed to let Zynga (ZNGA) …
Seth Weintraub / 9to5Google:
Google I/O registration opens 7am PDT March 27th, last year it took less than an hour to sell out  —  Google opens its registration for its annual I/O conference on March 27th this year.  Remember, last year tickets sold out in under an hour so set your alarms!
Nick Bilton / Bits:
AOL Slashes Staff at AIM Unit; Wider Cuts Expected  —  On Friday, AOL notified more than 40 employees from its West Coast offices that they would be out of jobs by the end of the month.  More cuts are scheduled in the coming weeks across AOL, according to a number of executives …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Camera+ Sees Major Update: Dozens Of Features, New API, Integration With WordPress, Foodspotting & More  —  Following increasing competition, most recently from SmugMug's nifty Camera Awesome app, everyone's favorite iPhone camera replacement app Camera+ is rolling out a major update today.
Chris Davies / SlashGear:
Apple to spend $11bn on Samsung parts in 2012 claims exec  —  Apple may be attempting to reduce its reliance on Samsung components, but its bill from the Korean firm is likely to be the largest to-date according to one exec: up from $7.8bn in 2011 to as much as $11bn by the end of 2012.
Antoine Leblond / MSDN Blogs:
Licensing apps … The Store's app licensing model centers on the idea of providing customers with access to all of their apps on all of their Windows 8 devices.  It gives customers control over their apps and keeps them connected to those apps across the multiple PCs that they'll use over time.
John Paczkowski / AllThingsD:
Nice Try: Motorola Demanded a License to Every One of Apple's Patents  —  Motorola Mobility's request that Apple pay it patent royalties of 2.25 percent on sales of some iPhones and iPads in return for a license to its standards-essential patents, while aggressive, was not the most onerous demand …
Marguerite Reardon / CNET:
Will 4G LTE devices ever roam internationally?  —  The widespread acceptance of 4G LTE was supposed to unite wireless operators around the globe.  But the worldwide spectrum crunch is making international roaming a tough problem to solve.  —  It's true that today iPad owners …
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft to provide Azure users with 33 percent credit for February outage  —  Summary: Microsoft officials have posted a detailed analysis of what led to a widespread leap-year-day outage of its Azure public cloud service.  —  Microsoft is issuing many of its Windows Azure users with a 33 percent credit …

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