Techmeme: FCC Chair Hints at Spectrum-Allocation Idea (Wall Street Journal)

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December 3, 2013, 9:30 AM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:

Apple acquires Topsy, a company specializing in Twitter search and analytics, for more than $200M — Apple Taps Into Twitter, Buying Social Analytics Firm Topsy — Apple Inc. has acquired social-media analytics firm Topsy Labs Inc. for more than $200 million, according to people familiar with the matter.

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

Apple Buys Topsy For Price Reportedly North Of $200M, Could Use Social Signals To Bolster Siri, App Store Relevance

Kit Chellel / Bloomberg:

Nokia Gets Ruling Blocking Sales of HTC's One Mini Phone in U.K. — A London judge said HTC Corp. (2498) couldn't sell its One Mini phone in the U.K. from Dec. 6 after it was found to have infringed patents owned by Nokia Oyj. (NOK1V) — While Judge Richard Arnold also ruled that HTC's …

More: Engadget, CNET, BGR, The Next Web, Inquirer, Gigaom, PhoneArena, Softpedia News, Phones Review, pocketnow.com and WMPoweruser

Foreign Policy:

Accused of Cyberspying, Huawei Is ‘Exiting the U.S. Market’ — The CEO of the world's biggest telecommunications equipment maker, which for years has been labeled by U.S. officials as a proxy for Chinese military and intelligence agencies, says he's giving up on America.

More: eWeek, DSLreports, TechCrunch, Ubergizmo, Electronista, ZDNet, Softpedia News, Lastest ITProPortal news, Android Community, SlashGear, ecns, Telecompaper and Gigaom

Tweets: @niubi and @csoghoian

Stuart Dredge / Guardian:

Spotify opens up analytics in effort to prove its worth to doubting musicians — Streaming music firm opens Spotify Artists website and claims when it reaches 40m subscribers, even ‘niche indie albums’ will earn $17k a month — Streaming music service Spotify is hoping to win …

More: Spotify for Artists, The Verge, Telegraph, Engadget, TechCrunch, Music Week, The Next Web, I4U News, SlashGear, Digital Music News, Music Ally and Socialnomics. Tweets: @tobias_nielsen. Thanks:@stuartdredge. See also Mediagazer

TechCrunch:

Google's Compute Engine Hits General Availability, Drops Instance Prices 10%, Adds 16-Core Instances & Docker Support — Google today announced the general availability of the Google Compute Engine, the cloud computing platform it launched in the summer of 2012.

More: Google Cloud Platform Blog, New York Times, SiliconANGLE, The Verge, CNET, ZDNet, Network World, Digits, Forbes, Gigaom, The Next Web and The Register

Tweets: @robynbergeron and @bdelacretaz

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

Scientist-developed malware covertly jumps air gaps using inaudible sound — Topology of a covert mesh network that connects air-gapped computers to the Internet. — Hanspach and Goetz — Computer scientists have developed a malware prototype that uses inaudible audio signals to communicate …

More: Engadget, Softpedia News, Gizmodo and Graham Cluley

Tweets: @gammacounter, @chrisnahr, @qthrul and @suffert

Derrick Harris / Gigaom:

Netflix is balancing its streaming traffic across Amazon's cloud — Netflix is fighting back outages in the Amazon Web Services cloud computing platform with a new architecture that has its streaming-video service running live across multiple regions of the AWS cloud and balancing user traffic between them.

More: The Netflix Tech Blog, SlashGear and GeekWire

Agam Shah / PC World:

HP Slate tablets running Android Jellybean hit the market — Hewlett-Packard's latest Android tablets with multiple screen sizes are available through the company's website. — HP Slate 7 Extreme — The tablets run Android 4.2, code-named Jellybean, and are listed at the company's tablet page.

More: Digital Trends, Android Police, Engadget, Phandroid, Android Authority, Android Community, Unwired View and Android and Me

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Salesforce Says Hackathon Winner Didn't Cheat But Declares Tie, Gives Two Finalists $1M Each — Microsoft Rolls Out Student Advantage, Giving Students Free Access To Its Office Suite — Salesforce has responded to cries of foul play in its $1 million hackathon by announcing …

More: Developer Relations, PR Newswire, CNET, The Next Web, VentureBeat, The Register, ReadWrite, Business Insider, Forbes, Valleywag, ZDNet and NYT Bits

Tweets: @om and @rjonesy

Thanks:@joshconstine

Rob Wile / Business Insider:

Stockholm-based KnCMiner sells $8 million worth of bitcoin mining hardware in 24 hours — Bitcoin Developer Sells $8 Million Worth Of Hardware In 24 Hours, As Mining Technology Arms Race Goes Insane — Stockholm-based KnCMiner sold $8 million worth of their new $10,000-a-pop bitcoin miners …

Guardian:

Edward Snowden revelations prompt UN investigation into surveillance — UN's senior counter-terrorism official says revelations ‘are at the very apex of public interest concerns’ — The UN's senior counter-terrorism official is to launch an investigation into the surveillance powers …

More: Gigaom. Tweets: @mariongroves. See also Mediagazer

Aman Sharma / The Econonomic Times:

India seeks US help to intercept chats from online platforms — NEW DELHI: India will ask the US to share its technology on how to decrypt conversations over various services like Viber, Whatsapp, Skype, Wechat and Blackberry messenger while complaining about service providers in US …

More: ZDNet and MediaNama. Tweets: @economictimes

Seth Rosenblatt / CNET:

Google Glass gets official Play Music app — Google continues to add apps to its MyGlass app page with an official Glass-ification of its Play Music app. Google released an official version of its Play Music app for Google Glass on Monday. The app, announced in a Google+ post …

More: Stephen Lau, Gigaom, 9to5Google, Android Police, Gizmodo, The Next Web, AndroidGuys, SlashGear, Android Beat, Glass Almanac, Android Central and Engadget

San Francisco Chronicle:

Hangar 3: Google building three floating retail stores for $35 million, to be docked in SF, LA and NY — Google plans ‘floating retail store,’ builder says — It turns out that the mysterious high-tech barge that Google is building at Treasure Island is just the first of three floating wonders …

More: TheStreet.com, Electronista, Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, BGR, SlashGear, The Verge and AppleInsider

Danielle Kucera / Bloomberg:

Cyber Monday Sales Increase 19%, Aided by Mobile, IBM Says — Cyber Monday online sales increased 19 percent compared with last year, setting the foundation for what's projected to be the biggest online shopping day of 2013. — Retailers catering to smartphone and tablet users are especially benefiting …

More: internetretailer.com

Sean Buckley / Engadget:

Engadget's Cyber Monday 2013 roundup

More: Xbox Live's Major Nelson, Softpedia News, Droid Life, Gigaom, The Next Web, PhoneNews.com, Android Beat, CNET, 9to5Google, IntoMobile, TechnoBuffalo and pocketnow.com

Wall Street Journal:

FCC Chair Hints at Spectrum-Allocation Idea — Regulator Indicates He Favors Making Sure Smaller Wireless Carriers Get Airwaves — The nation's top telecommunications regulator on Monday gave his strongest indication to date that he might support limiting big carriers like AT&T Inc …

More: The Switch, Variety and Union Square Ventures. See also Mediagazer

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

E La Carte Scores Deal With Applebee's, Bringing 100,000 Tableside Tablets To All U.S. Locations By Year-End 2014 — Applebee's, the largest casual dining chain in the U.S., has signed a deal with restaurant tablet hardware and software provider E la Carte, which will see it introducing 100 …

More: USA Today, The Next Web, AllFacebook, Y Combinator Posthaven, Engadget, TIME and Business Insider. See also Mediagazer

Amy Gesenhues / Search Engine Land:

Yahoo's Year In Review Includes Top Searches For 2013 & First Ever Posting Of Top Tumblr Trends — Yahoo has assembled an impressive list of search trends for 2013, covering 38 different “Top Searched” lists on everything from top searches overall to top searched cookies (yes, the ones you eat).

More: The Next Web, Yahoo and Mashable

Ryan Nakashima / Associated Press:

Comcast testing full ad loads for on-demand shows — LOS ANGELES (AP) — Pay TV customers who are used to watching fewer ads on on-demand shows may have to put up with longer commercial breaks. — Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable TV provider, says it is testing out a system …

More: Reuters, Variety, Digital Trends, bizjournals, Benzinga, Consumerist, Fast Company, Broadcasting & Cable, FierceCable and Deadline.com. See also Mediagazer

Parmy Olson / Forbes:

Landmark Princeton Study Sends Bots Across The Web To Track Discrimination — Privacy advocates have long argued that the commercialization of our online data is a worrying trend, but it's been hard to argue why since the advertising and marketing firms who track much of what we do, operate in obscurity.

Thanks:@parmy

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