Techmeme: Starbucks mobile vets get $10M for Cardfree mobile payments tool (Ryan Kim/GigaOM)

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December 10, 2012, 2:10 PM

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Jesse Drucker / Bloomberg:

Google Revenues Sheltered in No-Tax Bermuda Soar to $10 Billion — Google Inc. (GOOG) avoided about $2 billion in worldwide income taxes in 2011 by shifting $9.8 billion in revenues into a Bermuda shell company, almost double the total from three years before, filings show.

More: CNET, VentureBeat, Betabeat, AllThingsD, Mashable!, Quartz, Softpedia News and Neowin

Katherine Rushton / Telegraph:

Dell founder ‘turned down Autonomy’ — Billionaire entrepreneur Michael Dell has revealed that Autonomy was offered to him before it was bought by Hewlett-Packard, but that he rejected the British software firm because it was “overwhelmingly obvious” that it was overpriced.

More: Business Insider, AllThingsD, DailyFinance.com, Forbes, Bloomberg and Computer Business Review

Juli Clover / MacRumors:

Australian Police Warn Against Use of Apple Maps Due to Safety Concerns — Police in Victoria, Australia issued a warning to motorists this weekend regarding Apple Maps after several travelers became stranded in the Murray-Sunset National Park trying to reach the city of Mildura using Apple's directions.

New York Times:

Bloomberg Weighs Making Bid for The Financial Times — Not long ago, The Financial Times would have been the crown jewel of any media company, instantly conferring prestige and influence on its owner. Now, given the likely bidders, one of the world's most respected and distinctive financial newspapers …

More: Tech Trader Daily, Media Decoder, paidContent and Quartz. Tweets: @danprimack. See also Mediagazer

Felix Salmon:

Why Bloomberg is interested in LinkedIn

More: Business Insider. See also Mediagazer

Zach Epstein / BGR:

RIM teases BlackBerry 10 launch with image of first BB10 smartphone — Hoping to keep interest levels up before its big January 30th launch, Research In Motion (RIMM) has started to tease its own “laptop-killing” BlackBerry 10-powered smartphone on its official website.

More: The Verge, CNET, VentureBeat, Business Insider, Phones Review, IntoMobile, Electronista, Techspressive and Ubergizmo

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

25-GPU cluster cracks every standard Windows password in < 6 hours — Welcome to Radeon City, population: 8. It's one of five servers that make up a high-performance password-cracking cluster. — Jeremi Gosney — A password-cracking expert has unveiled a computer cluster …

More: CNET, gHacks Technology News and TechSpot. Tweets: @siracusa

Ryan Kim / GigaOM:

Starbucks mobile vets get $10M for Cardfree mobile payments tool — Starbucks helped open a lot of eyes to the power of mobile payments and commerce with its Starbucks Card app, which has so far been the most successful mobile payments implementation. Now, some of the key members of that team …

More: The Next Web, TechCrunch, AllThingsD, PYMNTS.com and silicontap.com

Jon Russell / The Next Web:

Samsung hints it is announcing ‘something new’ at CES in January; could it be the Galaxy S4? — It's less than seven months since Samsung released the Galaxy S3, its flagship smartphone, in May, but already it appears that the Korean electronics giant is getting ready to unveil its sequel …

More: SAMSUNG TOMORROW Global, BGR, Engadget, Inquirer, VentureBeat, CNET, Pocket-lint, Electronista, iPhone Hacks, Droid Life, MobileSyrup.com, Mashable!, digitaltrends.com, BetaNews, Softpedia News, PhoneArena, Macgasm and Techie Buzz

Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:

Gmail, other Google services go down for many, repeated Chrome crashes seen by signed-in users — Google's Gmail product is currently down for the count on the web, though the service itself appears to be up. We've confirmed that the Gmail site is down for Apps and regular users of the mail service.

More: TechCrunch, AllThingsD, The Verge, ABCNEWS, CNET, Betabeat, Business Insider, Data Center Knowledge, VentureBeat, CITEworld, The Atlantic Online, GigaOM, ZDNet, 9to5Google, Inquirer, Guardian and Reuters

Tweets: @iandanforth, @theonion, @fwd, @dannysullivan and @bxchen

Jon Russell / The Next Web:

Motorola to exit South Korea in 2013, as Google restructuring claims another 500+ jobs — Motorola Mobility is to close down almost all of its operations in South Korea next year as its reorganization under the ownership of Google continues. The phone maker will keep 10 percent of its local R&D staff …

More: Bloomberg, PC Magazine, CNET, Engadget, Computerworld, Datamation.com, The Verge, FierceWireless, Electronista, SlashGear and PhoneArena

Alex Wilhelm / The Next Web:

Facebook data suggests Microsoft has sold 4.2 million Windows Phone handsets since October — It was big news when Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told the world that Windows Phone devices were selling at four times their rate from 2011. That, along with several other positive factors …

More: BGR, Internet2Go, WMPoweruser, The Register, Tech Trader Daily, IntoMobile, Softpedia News, PhoneArena, Neowin and Pocket-lint

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:

Silicon nanophotonics: IBM's light chips could save data centers from bandwidth traffic jams — IBM is announcing today it has created breakthrough silicon nanophotonics chips, or those that can use traditional silicon technology and laser light to transfer data at extremely high speeds.

More: IBM Research …, The Register, ZDNet, Inquirer, CNET, GigaOM, TG Daily, SlashGear, Engadget, TechEye and Computerworld

Jon Fingas / Engadget:

BBM 7 leaves beta, brings WiFi voice calls into the mix (video) — RIM moves quickly: it was just a few weeks ago that BlackBerry Messenger 7 was in beta, and today we're seeing a finished version roll out to BlackBerry App World. As we saw in mid-November, the revamp lets chatters switch …

More: Inside BlackBerry, TechCrunch, CNET, PC World, The Next Web, PC Magazine, BetaNews, LAPTOP Magazine, GigaOM, Business Insider, The Verge, GSMArena Blog, SlashGear, FierceMobileContent News, Softpedia News, MobileSyrup.com, IntoMobile, VoIP Watch and BerryReview

Jean-Louis Gassée / Monday Note:

The enduring Apple TV Fantasy — We all want TV Done Right, free of the Soviet Era set-top box, UI and opaque contracts. We imagine Apple will put all the pieces together. But what's desirable and “obvious” might not be so simple or soon... “When I go into my living room and turn on the TV …

More: Fortune, BGR, InvestorPlace, iDownloadBlog.com, Gotta Be Mobile, TUAW and ReadWrite

Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:

Microsoft combats Google Knowledge Graph by adding people and places to its Snapshot sidebar — Back in August, Google launched its Knowledge Graph product on Search. It's essentially a sidebar that provides direct contextual information about searches for people, places or things.

More: Bing

Robin Wauters / The Next Web:

Nike to kick off a Nike+ startup accelerator in March 2013, powered by TechStars — Well, this is interesting: apparently TechStars delivers its acceleration programs out-of-the-shoebox these days. — TechStars has teamed up with sports footwear and apparel giant Nike to power …

More: NikeInc.com, CNET, Forbes, TechStars, TechCrunch, GigaOM, GeekWire, Feld Thoughts and Silicon Florist. Thanks:@bradmccarty

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

Five Years In And Profitable, Gilt Refocuses On New Leadership, An IPO In 2013 And More — Alexandra Wilkis Wilson walked into famed celebrity designer Zac Posen's showroom in November 2007 prepared to give the pitch of her life. The Gilt co-founder was attempting to sell Posen and his team …

Thanks:@alexia

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Researchers find Android 4.2′s app verification detects only 15% of known malware — Researchers have put the latest release of Android, version 4.2 (Jelly Bean), to the security test, and the results aren't pretty. Google's app verification service performed very poorly …

More: NC State University, The Verge, The H Open Source, Ars Technica, IntoMobile and Pocketnow

Matthew Lynley / Digits:

Wayfair Raises $36 Million in Search of Home Decor Dominance — Wayfair, a Boston-based network of retail sites that focuses on home decor, has raised $36 million in its second round of funding amid rapid expansion of its third retail branch: a flash-sales site called Joss & Main.

More: The Next Web, PR Newswire, VentureBeat, internetretailer.com and Xconomy. Thanks:@mattlynley

Jessica Guynn / Los Angeles Times:

FTC: Most mobile apps for kids secretly collect and share information — A study from the Federal Trade Commission has found that most mobile apps for kids are secretly collecting information from children including device IDs, phone numbers, locations, and other private information without their parents' knowledge or consent.

More: Federal Trade Commission, The Next Web, Ars Technica, TechCrunch, Hillicon Valley, New York Times, Computerworld, ZDNet, Digits and Washington Post

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

In “Seismic Shift,” New COO De Castro Planning to Move Yahoo Ad Sales to Category Model (Backed Up by “Marissa Halo") — In what will be a major shift in how the Silicon Valley Internet giant sells online advertising, Yahoo's new COO Henrique De Castro has briefed employees on a plan to move …

More: VentureBeat

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