Techmeme
October 11, 2012, 9:55 AM

Top News

Reuters:
Japan's Softbank in talks for $12.8 billion Sprint stake  —  (Reuters) - Softbank Corp (9984.T), Japan's third-largest mobile carrier, is in talks to buy a majority stake in U.S. telecoms company Sprint Nextel Corp (S.N) in a deal worth more than 1 trillion yen ($12.8 billion) …
Dennis K. Berman / WSJ Blogs:
Sizing Up a Softbank Takeover of Sprint  —  Japanese mobile carrier Softbank — the country's premier technology investor — is mulling a takeover of the struggling US wireless carrier Sprint Nextel Corp. in a deal expected to exceed $12.81 billion.  —  An early read on what such a deal would mean.
Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:
Eric Schmidt: Android-Apple Is the Defining Fight in the Industry Today  —  The fight between Google and Apple over mobile devices is great for consumers, but the patent wars that have resulted are awful, said Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, in conversation tonight with our own Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher.
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Eric Schmidt Can't Wait for Self-Driving Cars, Won't Predict When Google Maps Come Back to Apple  —  You wanted new news from Eric Schmidt about the state of the Apple-Google war?  So did all of us.  But the Google chairman was mostly mum on that subject.  He was happy, however …
iFixit:
iPod Touch 5th Generation Teardown  —  We got our hands on Apple's new iPod Touch.  First thing we do: get inside to see just how much “funner” the new generation is compared to the older generations.  Join us for all the fun to come by following iFixit on Twitter or friending us on Facebook.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
RockMelt For iPad: A Browser Built For Touch That Turns The Web Into A Feed So Content Comes To You  —  Surfing the Internet can feel like you're running in circles, constantly checking your favorite sites for updates.  The RockMelt team believes that content should be delivered, not hunted …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Google Gives Street View A 250K-Mile Update Across 17+ Countries, Its Biggest Update Ever; Maps API Now Features Time Zones  —  Google is continuing to gain points on the mapping front, today launching yet more features for the product at a time when Apple's offering continues to appear weak by comparison.
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Google Chrome exploit fetches “Pinkie Pie” $60,000 hacking prize  —  An image displayed on a computer after it was successfully commandeered by Pinkie Pie during the first Pwnium competition in March.  —  A hacker who goes by “Pinkie Pie” has once again subverted the security of Google's Chrome browser …
Joe Mullin / Ars Technica:
Netflix settles with deaf-rights group, agrees to caption all videos by 2014  —  In an agreement that the National Association for the Deaf (NAD) calls “a model for the streaming video industry,” Netflix has agreed to caption all of its shows by the year 2014.
Simon Goodley / Guardian:
Facebook accused of taking UK for a ride  —  Figures suggest only 11% of sales in UK are declared, with company benefiting from basing its HQ in Dublin  —  Facebook has been accused of taking the British taxpayer for a ride after experts suggested the company had depressed sales figures …
More: ZDNet and CNET
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Google Images Dominated By Pictures Of Romney For “Completely Wrong” Search  —  It's not a Google Bomb, but that doesn't make it less embarrassing for US presidential candidate Mitt Romney or Google, that a search on Google Images for “completely wrong” brings up results that are dominated by Romney's picture.
Austin Carr / Fast Company:
No Filter: How Instagram Caused Hipstamatic To Lose Focus And Gamble On Social  —  The inside story of Hipstamatic's struggle to keep pace in the white-hot photo-sharing space.  In part two of the saga, Facebook's billion-dollar acquisition of Instagram rattles Hipstamatic …
Alistair Barr / Reuters:
Amazon gets FCC's OK to sell Kindle Fire 4G tablets  —  (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc received approval from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to sell its high-end Kindle Fire 4G tablets, a company spokeswoman said on Wednesday.  —  Amazon unveiled the new tablets last month, but the devices had not secured FCC clearance.

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Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:
Mike Dano / FierceWireless: