Techmeme
May 19, 2012, 2:30 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Facebook's IPO Sputters  —  Underwriters Forced to Prop Up IPO of Social Network; Only a 23-Cent Rise  —  Facebook Inc. took eight years to stage one of the most anticipated initial public offerings ever.  The anticlimax came Friday, as Wall Street bankers struggled to prevent …
Larry Dignan / CNET:
Steven Sinofsky / MSDN Blogs:
Creating the Windows 8 user experience … At the D: All Things Digital conference in June 2011, we demonstrated for the first time the new user interface that we developed for Windows 8.  This new UI is fast and fluid to use, and optimized for mobile form factors such as laptops, tablets …
Alex Wilhelm / The Next Web:
Windows 8's desktop UI changes unveiled  —  If you have been following Windows 8 for any amount of time, you must have run across the Building Windows 8 Blog, the official organ of the Windows team.  It is not for massive, Internet-bending pieces of non-fiction that pack in enough context …
Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:
The story of the ‘secret’ room at Pixar, frequented by Steve Jobs and many other celebrities  —  Truthfully, I thought everyone knew about the ‘Lucky 7 Lounge’.  It's a secret room at Pixar that's really not so secret now.  But I took a quick poll of some friends and coworkers and drew a blank, so here goes.
Matt Brian / The Next Web:
China finally approves Google's Motorola Mobility acquisition, deal likely to close next week  —  Google may have announced its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility last August and gained approval from both EU and US authorities but it's taken until today for the search giant to gain clearance in China.
Paul Mozur / Wall Street Journal:
Tencent to Restructure Business  —  BEIJING—Tencent Holdings Ltd. said Friday it will restructure its business operations into six groups and named a new chief operating officer as the Chinese Internet company moves to improve efficiency and grow beyond its core gaming business.
Bryan Bishop / The Verge:
ePub standards body proposes new ‘lightweight’ DRM for ebook platform interoperability  —  Tor and several other related imprints may be going DRM-free in July, but that doesn't mean the rest of the publishing industry is ready to jump on board.  Instead, the International Digital Publishing Forum …
Andrew Webster / The Verge:
Motorola Droid RAZR and RAZR Maxx getting Android 4.0 in Q2, Bionic in Q3  —  Motorola has updated its timeline for Ice Cream Sandwich updates for a number of devices, several of which should see Android 4.0 within the next few months.  In the US, both the Droid RAZR and RAZR Maxx are expected …
Matthew O'Brien / The Atlantic Online:
Why Did Zynga's Stock Drop After Facebook Went Public?  —  Believe it or not, other stocks besides Facebook traded on Friday.  Although Zynga probably wishes it wasn't one of them.  —  While Facebook's much-ballyhooed IPO didn't pop, Zynga's stock went cliff-diving.
John Biggs / TechCrunch:
GameStop To Sell SIM Cards  —  GameStop is hurting.  Same store sales fell 5%-11% and revenue was down 17% to $2 billion.  Profit fell to $72.5 million.  Arguably, those are still huge numbers and presumably a new console refresh should push the company out of the doldrums.

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Featured Podcasts

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Google's AI Infrastructure Chief, Amin Vahdat, on the Physics & Economics of Frontier AI
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Reflection's founders on building a DeepSeek of the West
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
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Earlier Picks

Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:
Om Malik / GigaOM: