Techmeme: Twitter Wanted to Buy Instagram, But Facebook Beat it to it (Matt Brian/The Next Web)

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April 14, 2012, 5:10 PM

Top News

New York Times:

Instagram Founders Were Helped by Bay Area Connections — SAN FRANCISCO — Past midnight, in a dimly lighted warehouse jutting into the San Francisco Bay, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger introduced something they had been working on for weeks: a photo-sharing iPhone application called Instagram.

More: The Verge, Friending Facebook Blog, VentureBeat, VentureBeat, Android Phone Fans, Business Insider and MacNN

Tweets: @eldon, @jonathanwald, @cdixon, @pkafka and @hunterwalk

Matt Brian / The Next Web:

Twitter Wanted to Buy Instagram, But Facebook Beat it to it — Facebook may have secured the $1 billion acquisition of Instagram last week but it appears it wasn't the only social network that was interested in the service, with a recent New York Times report suggesting that Twitter was also in the running.

More: Business Insider. Tweets: @davezatz

Matt Rosoff / Business Insider:

EXPLAINER: Everything You Need To Know About Google's Weird Stock Split — Yesterday, in the second paragraph of the press release announcing its Q1 2012 earnings, Google said its board had unanimously approved “a stock dividend proposal.” — But as the company explained in a letter from its founders, it's not a dividend.

More: Datamation.com, parislemon, SiliconANGLE and The CIO Report. Thanks:@mattrosoff

Felix Salmon / Reuters:

Google's evil stock split

More: Digits, Mobile, Pulse2 Technology … and Forbes

Brian Womack / Bloomberg:

Google Stock Plan Irks Governance Watchdogs

Agam Shah / PC World:

Asus to Ship Quad-core Transformer Pad 300 Tablet on April 22 — Asus' latest Transformer Pad 300 will start shipping in the U.S. on April 22, the company said Friday. The tablet is being pitched as a laptop replacement with 4G LTE network capabilities. — The new Transformer Pad …

More: The Verge, Electronista, Phones Review, PhoneArena, Liliputing, TechnoBuffalo, Engadget, Android Phone Fans and Android Community

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:

Pirate Party Ordered to Shut Down Pirate Bay Proxy — After two Dutch ISPs were ordered to censor The Pirate Bay earlier this year, there was an influx of visitors to Pirate Bay proxy sites. — These proxies render the court order useless, which is a thorn in the side of local anti-piracy outfit BREIN.

Jamillah Knowles / The Next Web:

Wikileaks announces new Assange TV show to launch on April 17 — According to a statement on the Wikileaks Twitter account, Julian Assange has completed filming twelve episodes of his forthcoming show, “The World Tomorrow”. The first episode will be aired on RT and released online on Tuesday 17 April 2012 …

More: TwitLonger, Sydney Morning Herald, Reuters, WikiLeaks World Tomorrow, The Lede, Mashable!, Guardian, newsfeed.time.com, Deadline.com, AllThingsD and Mediaite. See also Mediagazer

Greg Sandoval / CNET:

U.S. says MegaUpload's hosting service is no innocent bystander — MegaUpload's U.S. legal team leaves courts following a hearing about preserving the company's data servers. From left to right: Jared Smith, William Burck, Derrick Shaffer and Ira Rothken. — (Credit: Greg Sandoval/CNET)

More: Electronista, ITworld.com, Wired, WatchingTV Online, Ars Technica, The Verge, BGR and CNET

AppleInsider:

Apple releases Flashback removal tool — Coming on the heels of its Thursday Java update, Apple has released a separate program to remove the so-called Flashback trojan that has affected over 600,000 Macs worldwide. — Apple on Friday released version 1.0 of its “Flashback malware removal tool” …

More: Ars Technica, Fortune, Quick Online Tips, Softpedia News, MacRumors, TUAW and MacDailyNews

Sean Hollister / The Verge:

Valve reveals mystery hardware project: wearable computing — This morning, Valve Software set the world of gaming news abuzz by attempting to hire hardware engineers. Now, Valve developer (and well-known programmer) Michael Abrash has revealed what kind of hardware the company is prototyping: computer technology you can wear.

More: VentureBeat, Valve, Kotaku, Geekosystem, Electronista, IGN, Engadget and Inquirer

Damon Poeter / PC Magazine:

Scientists Build First Working Quantum Network — Scientists at the Quantum Dynamics division of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ) in Garching, Germany announced Wednesday that they have built the very first, elementary quantum network comprised of a pair of entangled atoms …

Ryan Tate / Gawker:

Silicon Valley's Secret, Vicious Lust for Hollywood Fame — Motivations are supposed to be pure in Silicon Valley. Facebook, for example, was developed to make the world a better place; its billions of dollars in revenue are just a happy accident. And when a Facebook scion eagerly promoted …

More: Betabeat. Tweets: @owenthomas

Daniel Eran Dilger / AppleInsider:

Apple CEO Tim Cook spotted at video game designer Valve's headquarters — Apple's chief executive Tim Cook reportedly visited the Bellevue, Washington headquarters of Valve Corporation earlier today, inciting questions about new potential for collaboration between the two companies.

More: The Verge, Appolicious Advisor, Gotta Be Mobile, VG247, GeekWire, Kotaku, IGN, Cult of Mac, App Advice, Electronista, iDownloadBlog.com, Touch Arcade, Macgasm, MacRumors, GamesIndustry International, Destructoid and Edible Apple. Thanks:@kessler

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