Techmeme
December 21, 2012, 6:20 PM

Top News

Facebook Newsroom:
Introducing Poke for Mobile  —  Today we're announcing Poke, an iPhone app that makes it fun and easy to say hello to friends wherever you are.  The poke feature has been a part of Facebook since 2004.  Now we're excited to share a new poke experience for mobile.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook Launches Snapchat Competitor “Poke”, An iOS App For Sending Expiring Text, Photos, And Videos  —  Facebook has just announced its newest standalone app called “Poke” which lets people send their friends photos, videos, pokes, or text Facebook messages that expire after a few seconds.
More: PetaPixelThanks:@ryanlawler
Amir Efrati / Wall Street Journal:
Google Designing ‘X Phone’ to Rival Apple, Samsung  —  Engineers at Motorola are hard at work on a sophisticated handset, to be released next year, that parent Google Inc. hopes will provide more potent competition for devices like Apple Inc.'s iPhone, said people familiar with the matter.
Nokia:
Nokia and RIM enter into new patent license agreement  —  RIM payments to Nokia settle all legal actions between the companies  —  Espoo, Finland - Nokia has entered into a new patent license agreement with Research In Motion.  The agreement will result in settlement of all existing patent …
Reuters:
Steve Jobs superyacht impounded over unpaid Starck designer bill  —  (Reuters) - A superyacht built for Apple Inc's late co-founder Steve Jobs has been impounded in Amsterdam because of a dispute over an unpaid bill to designer Philippe Starck, a lawyer said on Friday.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Apple Reaches Highest-Ever U.S. Smartphone Sales Share At 53.3%; Android Consolidates In Europe  —  Apple's shares, as you may have seen, have been sliding in the market on the back of strong competition from Android device makers.  Today, some new figures on recent smartphone sales …
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Why the Instagram debacle just taught every tech company to be shadier than ever  —  Last night Instagram announced that it was retracting a controversial terms of service change that was widely and inaccurately interpreted to mean that the company would be selling user photos.
Nielsen Wire:
Nielsen Tops of 2012: Digital  —  Smartphone owners became the majority of mobile phone users for the first time this year, growing from 49 percent of mobile subscribers in Q1 2012, to 56 percent by Q3 2012.  Mobile app usage also continued to grow.  Among the top 10 mobile apps …
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Google Poaches a Partner's Top Marketer: Samsung Exec Brian Wallace Goes to Motorola  —  Samsung has done a very good job selling its brand of Google's Android phones.  And apparently Google has paid attention: It is bringing over the guy who headed up Samsung's marketing to do the same job at its Motorola unit.
More: The Verge and Business InsiderTweets: @pkafka
Matt Brian / The Next Web:
Merry Christmas from Google: Employees get to choose from a free Chromebook, Motorola RAZR M or Nexus 7  —  Every year, just before the company closes for the festive period, Google likes to give its employees a little something for Christmas, just to say thank you for all their hard work.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Groupon Buys CommerceInterface To Improve How Vendors Sell On Groupon Goods  —  Groupon wants to be the king of local commerce, but with Groupon Goods it has a platform for online sales that compete with the likes of Amazon to sell goods from everyone everywhere.
Reuters:
EU charges Samsung with abusing vital telecoms patent  —  (Reuters) - The European Commission charged Samsung Electronics on Friday with abusing its dominant position in seeking to bar rival Apple from using a patent deemed essential to mobile phone use.  —  The Commission sent a …
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
Adobe Acquired Portfolio Service Behance For More Than $150 Million In Cash And Stock  —  Adobe announced yesterday that it had acquired New York-based company Behance.  With 1 million members, the startup developed a LinkedIn for artists, allowing users to showcase their visual work.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Zynga Confirms It Will Close Its Japan Operation At The End Of January As Consolidation Continues To Bite The Social Gaming Company  —  Social gaming giant Zynga has now confirmed that it will be closing down its Japan operation, as it continues to consolidate its operations and cut less profitable parts of its business.
Phil Muncaster / The Register:
Apple shifts iTunes to HTTPS, sidesteps China's censors  —  Great Firewall foiled ... for now  —  Apple has adopted HTTPS for searches and downloads on the version of iTunes used in China.  The move comes at a time when China's government prepares to step up regulation of online app stores and continues its crackdown on VPNs.
Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:
Dropbox Poaches Top Sales Execs From Salesforce, Apple and Google  —  Dropbox has been aggressively staffing up as the year comes to a close, with talent acquisitions of Audiogalaxy and Snapjoy, and hires of the creator of the programming language Python and the designer of the Facebook “Like” button.
DSLreports:
It's Clear Verizon Is Blocking Google Wallet Anti-Competitively - Google Wallet Delayed to Give Isis Development Time  —  Verizon has been trying to justify their blocking of Google Wallet on Verizon phones, insisting the app is blocked because Google Wallet uses the “secure element” on devices to store a user's Google ID.
Eli Dourado / Ars Technica:
Behind closed doors at the UN's attempted “takeover of the Internet”  —  Eli Dourado is a research fellow with the Technology Policy Program at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, a co-founder of WCITLeaks, and a member of the US delegation to the WCIT.  The views expressed here are his own.
More: The Verge
Bloomberg:
HTC Said to Plan Windows Tablets to Challenge Apple-Led Market  —  HTC Corp. (2498) plans to make tablets based on the Windows operating system, giving Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) another ally in its challenge to Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Google Inc. (GOOG) in the $63.2 billion market, people familiar with the matter said.

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