Techmeme
December 21, 2012, 10:35 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.
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.
Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:
Apple lifts block on combo 30-pin+Lightning charging accessories  —  The POP station from Kickstarter aimed to combine Lightning and 30-pin connectors into a single charging device.  —  The Kickstarter campaign that was “shut down” by Apple for creating a charging station that had both Lightning …
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.
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
The Wall Street Journal Signs Up for Apple's Subscription Service  —  It took a while, but they're in: The Wall Street Journal is now selling digital subscriptions via Apple's “Newsstand” service.  —  That means Dow Jones' business newspaper has joined thousands of other magazines and newspapers …
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.
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 …
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.
Michael Wilson / New York Times:
Police Dept. to Use Internet to Try to Stop Mass Shootings  —  Top intelligence officials in the New York Police Department met on Thursday to examine ways to search the Internet to identify potential “deranged” gunmen before they strike, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said.
Tweets: @jmseabrook
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 …
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 …
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.
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.
Chris Dale / YouTube Blog:
Gangnam Style Makes YouTube History: First Video to Hit 1 Billion Views  —  A million views?  You know what's cool?  A billion views.  —  Today, a 34-year-old K-Pop artist made online video history when his viral video, Gangnam Style, smashed our records and became the first video ever to reach one billion views.
Matt Tatham / Experian:
Facebook was the top search term in 2012 for fourth straight year  —  Experian Marketing Services analyzed the top 1,000 search terms from Hitwise data for 2012 , and Facebook was the top-searched term overall in the US.  This is the fourth year that the social networking Website …
Ken Yeung / The Next Web:
YouTube launches its native Player API for Android, enabling in-app video plays, ad support, more  —  At Google I/O 2012, YouTube announced that it was releasing a native Player API for Android.  Six months later, it has finally arrived, although it's still being treated as an experiment.
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.
Christina Bonnington / Wired:
Apple's Passbook Is a Surprise Success for Developers  —  Apple's Passbook feature of iOS 6 has become a surprise hit for developers.  —  Passbook is virtual file folder for all those bits of paper you accumulate in your wallet: tickets, boarding passes, coupons and so forth.
More: Street Fight and Tnooz.  Thanks:@strngwys

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