Techmeme
March 28, 2012, 6:30 AM

Top News

Ina Fried / AllThingsD:
Apple: iPad Battery Nothing to Get Charged Up About  —  While the new iPad has come under some criticism for the way it handles battery charging, Apple says the device operates in the same manner as past iOS devices.  —  The source of the confusion stems from how Apple manages the charging process …
Eric Eldon / TechCrunch:
At Y Combinator's Biggest Demo Day Yet, Mobile Is Taking Over  —  There are plenty of observations to be made about Y Combinator's Demo Day.  It's the biggest ever, with 66 companies in this Winter class.  It's more diverse than past years, with many companies being led by women and people of color.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
TechCrunch's Picks: The 10 Best Startups From Y Combinator Demo Day  —  66 startups showed off today at Y Combinator's Demo Day, and we covered all 39 that were ready to for the public.  After talking to VCs and tech moguls, the TechCrunch teamed huddled up and picked these 10 companies as the best.
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Google Drive: Finally coming this April  —  Google's online storage service, rumored to be called GDrive is like the wolf in the fable, The Boy Who Cried Wolf.  Well, after long history of false alarms, the storage drive might just see the day in early April, according to my well placed sources familiar with company's plans.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Oh, That “Pull To Refresh” Thing In iOS?  Yeah, Twitter Has A Patent App On That  —  Like that “pull-to-refresh” feature found in many popular iOS apps, including Twitter, Facebook, Tweetbot, Sparrow and others?  Been wondering why Apple hasn't implemented the same thing in its own apps …
Lauren Rae Orsini / Daily Dot:
A Pinterest spammer tells all  —  Last week, the Daily Dot taught you how to spot a Pinterest spammer.  Now that same spammer has spotted us.  —  After he read our article about his process of spamming Pinterest through thousands of bot accounts, Steve, who declined to give his last name …
Ron Rosenbaum / Smithsonian Magazine:
Richard Clarke on Who Was Behind the Stuxnet Attack  —  America's longtime counterterrorism czar warns that the cyberwars have already begun—and that we might be losing  —  The story Richard Clarke spins has all the suspense of a postmodern geopolitical thriller.
Andy Greenberg / The Firewall:
Here's How Law Enforcement Cracks Your iPhone's Security Code (Video)  —  Set your iPhone to require a four-digit passcode, and it may keep your private information safe from the prying eyes of the taxi driver whose cab you forget it in.  But if law enforcement is determined to see the data you've stored …
More: TechEye, CNET and 9to5Mac
Jenna Wortham / New York Times:
A Surge in Learning the Language of the Internet  —  Parlez-vous Python?  What about Rails or JavaScript?  Foreign languages tend to wax and wane in popularity, but the language du jour is computer code.  —  The market for night classes and online instruction in programming and Web construction …
More: Gizmodo
Leigh Beadon / Techdirt:
Patents Threaten To Silence A Little Girl, Literally  —  Slashdot points us to a sad story from blogger Dana Nieder, providing yet more evidence of how patent monopolies can hold back innovation and do very real damage to people's lives in the process—and how people are interested in progress, not patents.
Jay Greene / CNET:
The iPad app that will remind you of Microsoft's old Courier project  —  (Credit: Tapose; screenshot by Jay Greene/CNET)  —  Tapose, the iPad app that aims to mimic much of the content creation capability of Microsoft's ill-fated Courier tablet, just won approval from Apple to be sold in iTunes.
Jeff Roberts / paidContent:
Hasbro Can't Stop Sale Of ‘Transformer Prime’ Tablets  —  In a court ruling that reads at times like a pop culture or consumer gadget review, a federal judge gave tablet maker Asus a green light to sell its “Transformer” tablets.  —  Hasbro filed a lawsuit against Asus late last year …
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
RapidShare Declared Legal In Court, With a Twist  —  In the aftermath of the Megaupload shutdown, people have been keeping a close eye on court cases involving other file-hosting services, RapidShare included.  —  During the past several years RapidShare has made tremendous efforts to cooperate …
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
The technical and legal realities of Comcast's Xbox cap spat  —  Comcast said Monday that the content streamed over Microsoft's Xbox won't count against user's 250 gigabyte monthly usage cap prompting outrage among cap-hating websites and consumer groups.  But the reality of the situation is that Comcast is within its rights.
Shay Pierce / Gamasutra:
Turning down Zynga: Why I opted out of the $210M Omgpop buy  —  [When Zynga paid around $210 million for Draw Something developer Omgpop last week, only one person turned down the offer to join the FarmVille house.  Game designer and programmer Shay Pierce writes how a difference in values drove the decision.]
More: CNET, TUAW, App Advice and MacgasmThanks:@marvinvista
Ben Jones / TorrentFreak:
Mass BitTorrent Lawsuits Return to the UK  —  Speculative invoicing - the practice of claiming people pirated files on BitTorrent, listing hundreds or thousands of people in one case to get details, then harassing them outside the courts for payment - was thought to be dead in the UK, after ACS:law collapsed last year.
John Paczkowski / AllThingsD:
Flat-Panel TV Sales Flatten in U.S.  —  After years of consecutive growth, flat-panel TV sales in the U.S. are beginning to stall out.  —  Market research firm IHS iSuppli said Tuesday that U.S.-bound shipments of flat-panel TVs will drop 5 percent in 2012, slipping to 37.1 million units from 39.1 million units in 2011.
Jennifer Van Grove / VentureBeat:
The President now pinning on Pinterest  —  Hello, Pinterest?  The President is calling.  —  Taking inspiration from the legions of web denizens (and potential voters) already hip to the pinning craze, U.S. President Barack Obama is now sharing his collection of favorite politically themed things and family recipes on Pinterest.
Preston Gralla / PC World:
Microsoft's Secret Weapon Against Google Maps — Open Source  —  Microsoft is lending big support and big dollars to the open source map project OpenStreetMap, and it looks as if the tactic is starting to pay off.  —  One of the many areas where Google is far ahead of Microsoft is mapping …
BBC:
Amazon's Kindle Touch comes to Europe, but no Fire news  —  Amazon is launching a touchscreen version of its Kindle e-reader in the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy.  —  The Kindle Touch will be available for delivery from 27 April, five months after it went on sale in the US.
Craig Eisler / Kinect for Windows Blog:
What's Ahead: A Sneak Peek  —  The momentum continues for Kinect for Windows.  I am pleased to announce that we will be launching Kinect for Windows in nineteen more countries in the coming months.  We will have availability in Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan in late May.
Kim-Mai Cutler / TechCrunch:
Bootstrapped Is Better?  Smugmug's Camera Awesome Crosses 4M Downloads, Adds Instagram Support  —  Here's a tale of two photo apps.  One has 27 million users after a year and a half, and comes from a company with 13 employees and $7.5 million in venture funding.  But there's nary a revenue model in sight.

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