Keep the Internet free and open
Starting in 1973, when my colleagues and I proposed the technology behind the Internet, we advocated for an open standard to connect computer networks together. This wasn't merely philosophical; it w...
iTunes Music Store Launches in 56 New Countries, Movies Arrive in Four
Earlier today, we noted that the iTunes Music Store had gone live in Russia and Turkey, but now that changes have propagated throughout iTunes and we've had time to collect reports, it now appears tha...
News Corp. Shutters The Daily iPad App
The Daily, News Corp.'s attempt to create a newspaper for the iPad era, is shutting down after less than two years. — The media giant, which also owns this Web site, said it will “cease standalone p...
How the Tumblr worm spread so quickly
Although Tumblr is now cleaning-up pages which were affected by today's worm, SophosLabs was able to briefly explore how the infection spread. — It appears that the worm took advantage of Tumblr's r...
Hackers Behind Tumblr Worm Say They Warned Tumblr of Vulnerability Weeks Ago
Tumblr has been flooded by a worm that's spamming thousands of user's feeds with an anti-Tumblr rant. In an interview, a spokesman for the group that's apparently behind the hack claims they warned T...
Texting SMS pioneer Matti Makkonen 20 years on
In a world first, on 3 December 1992, an engineer sent the message “Merry Christmas” from a PC to a mobile device using Vodafone's UK network. — But the origins of the idea date back further to Matt...
No, Facebook's Not Buying WhatsApp (But Keep an Eye on It)
WhatsApp hit the tech news circuit today because of a somewhat speculative article in TechCrunch asserting that Facebook has been sniffing around the mobile messaging company. — But the Facebook acq...
McAfee Security founder says he's now out of Belize, eluding investigators (Updated)
UPDATE: Many sites have pointed out that Vice Magazine, which is accompanying John McAfee as he runs away from Belizean law enforcement, seems to have accidentally revealed his location taken by an ac...
Ashton Kutcher's portrayal of Steve Jobs to debut at the Sundance Film Festival in January
This coming January is likely to be the first time that anyone outside of a production facility will get a look at jOBS, the new biopic of Steve Jobs starring Ashton Kutcher.
Legacy iPhones Biting Apple in the ASP
The launch of Apple's iPhone 5 was unquestionably a successful one. The company sold more than five million units during the device's first three days of availability, setting a new opening-weekend s...
Intel to slash power consumption on Ivy Bridge chip
Chip giant plans to make Ivy Bridge more power efficient than the versions that are currently used in the MacBook Air and Windows 8 ultrabooks. — Intel is on a mission to cut the power consumption o...
Apple announces iPhone 5 hitting South Korea on Dec. 7, 50 additional markets across December
Following its Chinese iPad announcements last week, Apple has announced that it will launch the iPhone 5 in South Korea on Friday, December 7, releasing the smartphone in more than 50 additional count...
Vice leaves metadata in photo of John McAfee, pinpointing him to a location in Guatemala
Oops. Vice, an online magazine known for in-depth pieces on often salacious topics today bragged that it is with the embattled technologist John McAfee, keeping tabs with his him during his time on t...
Here's Mary Meeker's Big Year-End Presentation On The State Of The Internet
Kleiner Perkins partner Mary Meeker is out with a year-end presentation on the state of the Internet. — As usual, it's a must read for anyone in the industry, or anyone with interest in the state of...
Nobody Is Crying For You When You Are Worth Billions
I did a talk with Bill Werde at Billboard's FutureSound conference a few weeks ago. The entire talk is online (in two parts) here. If you go to 7:45 minutes in on the first video (embedded below) yo...
New filing: Apple knew almost nothing about jury foreman in Samsung case
There have been many, many post-trial machinations following this summer's $1.05 billion patent infringement verdict in Apple v. Samsung. But the most provocative is surely Samsung's theory that the ...
Judge: Patents in Apple-HTC settlement deal can't be sealed
A California judge says the list of patents included in Apple and HTC's settlement cannot be sealed as part of Apple's court spat with Samsung. — Major details of the legal settlement made between A...
iTunes Event Taking Place In Moscow On Dec 4: Is Russia Finally Getting Apple's Music Service?
At long last, Apple appears to be approaching a launch date for iTunes in Russia — and it could come as soon as tomorrow. A tipster has forwarded us an email, in Russian …
Firefox Gets Social with Facebook
Today, we're excited to announce that Firefox is getting social with Facebook Messenger for Firefox, which is built on a new Social API for the Web. — Firefox is the Web browser of choice for hundre...
A Free-Market Fix for the Copyright Racket
While most of the punditocracy was chattering earlier this month about Mitt Romney's “gifts” gaffe, another Republican took an unexpectedly bold stand about a huge and controversial special-interest h...
Movie Studios Ask Google To Censor Their Own Films, Facebook and Wikipedia
Ever since Google announced that it would publish the DMCA requests it receives as part of their transparency report, the number of notices being sent have shot through the roof. — While the majorit...
Cops to Congress: We need logs of Americans' text messages
State and local law enforcement want wireless providers to store detailed information about your SMS messages for at least two years — in case they're needed for future criminal investigations. — AT...
Mitsubishi seals the fate of rear-projection TVs, discontinues its last line
Mitsubishi has announced that it will be discontinuing its line of rear-projection televisions, marking the end of the affordable but clunky television technology. The company bet it all on RPTVs las...
Tim Berners-Lee's Open Data Institute Gets Its First Outside Investment
The Open Data Institute, a UK-based incubator and promoter of open-data businesses that was first conceived by Tim Berners-Lee and artificial intelligence pioneer Nigel Shadbolt …
Facebook Users Have 7 Days Starting Now To Vote On Clarified Policy Changes And If They'll Keep Voting
Facebook has integrated feedback from regulators and users into a clarified set of site governance and privacy policy changes, and starting now users will have seven days to vote for or against them.
Steam's TV-friendly Big Picture mode comes out of beta, Valve holds week-long sale to celebrate
Steam's Big Picture mode, which aims to carve Valve's gaming platform a presence in your living room, today moved out of beta and is ready for general public consumption.
Motorola Droid RAZR HD, Maxx HD to get Android 4.1 update as soon as next week
Verizon Wireless has announced that the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update for its Motorola Droid RAZR HD and Maxx HD smartphones will begin rolling out to users starting next week.
Verizon Shutting Down the Mobile Video Service It Launched in 2005
Verizon Wireless is pushing the “off” button on the pioneering mobile video service once known as Vcast Video. — The service, which launched in 2005, will go dark on Dec. 15, although the carrier wi...
Same-Day Delivery Becomes a Costly Web Battleground
SAN FRANCISCO—To gain a competitive edge in online sales this holiday season, companies including eBay Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. are turning to a new weapon: people like Jaclyn Widtfeldt. — On a...
Google launches new Maps API with better tablet maps, Google Play services, new layers and more
Google has today launched v2 of its Google Maps API, bringing along better support for maps on tablets, integration with Google Play services, new information layers and more.
Gmail update for Android 4.0 and 4.1 users adds resizable messages and swipe to archive feature
Gmail received a few nice updates when Android 4.2 Jelly Bean launched — at long last, emails resized to fit your device, and you could swipe a message to automatically archive it.
Instagram vulnerability on iPhone allows for account takeover
A security researcher has found a vulnerability in Instagram involving how it handles cookies — A security researcher published on Friday another attack on Facebook's Instagram photo-sharing service...
Tweetro+ Windows 8 app released for $9.99
A few weeks ago, we reported that the popular third party Twitter app Tweetro for Windows 8 had been removed from the Windows Store. This was due to the app, from developer Lazyworm Applications, usi...
SEC Filing: Ray Ozzie's Startup Talko Raises $4 Million To Develop Cloud-Based Mobile Backend Services
According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Ray Ozzie's startup, Talko, has raised $4 million to fund the development of its mobile communications apps and services.
Alibaba reaches 1 trillion RMB ($157B) in sales to become biggest e-commerce company in the world
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba sold one trillion RMB worth of goods in 2012, the company announced today. That's $157 billion U.S. in gross merchandise volume (GMV) …
Facebook ‘Sponsored Stories’ settlement wins judge's approval
A federal judge gave preliminary approval Monday to a negotiated settlement of a class-action lawsuit over Facebook's use of its members' names and photos in online advertising, while a public interes...
Microsoft claims 100% + increase in app downloads, developer revenue after WP8 debut
On Twitter Microsoft's Todd Brix, Senior Director, Windows Phone Apps Team, has announced that Windows Phone app downloads and developer revenue has more than doubled since the advent of Windows Phone...
China Unicom begins iPhone 5 reservations, 100,000 customers sign up on first day
After Apple announced late last week that the iPhone 5 is coming to China on December 14, China Unicom, the country's second-largest wireless operator, began taking reservations on Monday, quickly rec...
AOL Eliminates CMO Position in Another Corporate Restructuring
PR Chief Caroline Campbell Also Slated to Leave Company — Jolie Hunt, AOL's CMO and head of communications, is leaving the company in a corporate restructuring less than five months after the compan...
Autonomy's Founder Takes His Fight Against H.P. to the Web
Mike Lynch, the founder of the British software firm Autonomy, is not to walk away from his fight with Hewlett-Packard over the technology giant's claims of accounting fraud. — In fact, he apparentl...
OMGPOP's Chief Revenue Officer Wilson Kriegel Becomes President, COO of Video Chat Startup Paltalk
Another one of Zynga's recent departures has landed. — Wilson Kriegel, who was OMGPOP's chief revenue officer until the Draw Something maker was acquired for $210 million in cash and retention …
On the Facebook Menu at Zuckerberg's Recent Dinner With Game Developers: Sushi and a Sliding Pay Scale
As mobile gaming gets hotter, Facebook is trying hard to keep more game developers, beyond Zynga, interested in its platform. — Last week, Facebook let its longtime dominant gaming partner Zynga …
Oracle to Pay Three Dividends in December
Oracle Corp. said it will pay dividends for the next three quarters early, joining other companies that are accelerating payouts ahead of likely tax increases next year. — The software company will ...
Meet Turntable's Piki, The First Music App To Do Social Music Sharing Right
Turntable today introduced Piki, a Pandora-like, human-powered radio app combined with powerful Twitter-inspired social features. With Piki, the most impressive part is that Turntable is one of the f...