China Passes Law Requiring People Identify Themselves Online
China passed rules today requiring people to identify themselves when signing up for Internet and phone services, as the Communist Party tightens control over the world's largest population of web use...
How a bogus claim about Instagram losing users made Facebook's stock drop nearly 3%
Facebook's stock dropped 2.9% in its first minutes of trading this morning. Investors were likely responding to a report in the New York Post that Instagram, the photo-sharing that Facebook acquired ...
Senate votes to let the NSA keep spying on you without a warrant until 2017
The US Senate has voted to approve the FAA Sunsets Extension Act of 2012, which will authorize warrantless surveillance of Americans for counter-terrorism purposes for another five years.
Fujitsu Not Pleased With Windows 8 Demand, Either
Add Fujitsu to the list of Microsoft partners bemoaning soft interest in Windows 8. — Speaking to reporters in Tokyo on Friday, Fujitsu President Masami Yamamoto said initial consumer demand for Win...
Pearson buys $89.5m Nook stake to secure book distribution
Talk about vertical integration. Pearson is taking a five percent stake in newly-reconfigured ebook device and retail brand Nook Media in order to gain favourable distribution for its education books...
Crime Is Up and Bloomberg Blames iPhone Thieves
Hold onto your iPhones! — Crime in New York City inched up this year, and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on Friday fingered the culprit: too many iPhones and iPads were being swiped. — A rise in theft...
Apple to drop patent claims against new Samsung phone
(Reuters) - Apple Inc has agreed to withdraw patent claims against a new Samsung phone with a high-end display after Samsung said it was not offering to sell the product in the crucial U.S. market. —...
For every 100 web pageviews on an iPad, a Kindle gets 5, a Galaxy gets 3, and a Surface gets 0.22
Non-iPad web traffic is growing, but it's still a tiny fraction of what Apple's iconic tablet pulls in. — Advertising and analytics company Chitika released its December 2012 tablet market update …
Next Stop for New York Subway: An App to Track Trains
NEW YORK—America's largest subway system is preparing to launch a smartphone application that will reveal train-arrival times on seven of the city's 24 lines—a leap forward for a service that has lagg...
RIM's First Patent Payment to Nokia: $65 Million
When Research In Motion settled its patent dispute with Nokia last week, the company agreed to make a “one-time payment and on-going payments” to its Finnish adversary. But the size of those payments...
Which headline terms trended in 2012 on Techmeme?
“Help! I'm trending!” — Forget all those other tacky end-of-year lists, and sit back and enjoy Techmeme's latest awesome end-of-year lists. Yep, it's finally time to dive into the terms that trend...
Amazon Makes It Easier To Host Static Web Pages On S3
S3 is Amazon's cloud storage service for developers, but you can also use it to host static web pages on the cheap. Amazon introduced this feature about a year ago and today, it is making it even eas...
Lyft Staffing Up In Seattle And Los Angeles As It Looks To Expand Its Ride-Sharing Service Beyond SF
Lyft, the local on-demand ride-sharing service operated by the startup Zimride, is apparently not letting recent regulatory hurdles cramp its style. — Lyft, which launched …
McAfee Labs predicts the decline of Anonymous
Computer security firm McAfee Labs released its annual Threat Predictions report today, taking a look at what we'll see (and hope not to see) on 2013's deck of malware and viruses. Interestingly, McA...
GitHub Has Big Dreams for Open-Source Software, and More
Software is not merely about automating every aspect of our lives anymore. Some of its makers want to change the way we all interact, spreading their supposed egalitarian excellence. — Whether this...
Rage against rules
Instagram revolt — Instagram users outraged over new rules made good on their threat to dump the popular photo-sharing app. — The app, which Facebook acquired for $1 billion earlier this year, may...
Pinterest Sued by Former Business Partner of Early Investor
Pinterest has arrived at that special milestone for any successful start-up: The day you get sued by someone who says the whole thing was his idea. — Theodore F. Schroeder of Ocean City, N.J., filed...
Stanford Students And Professors Are Bridging The CS Gender Gap One Student At A Time
“Dude, I think that girl sitting in front of us is a CS major.” — “Nah, look at that glittery s**t in her hair.” — Bonnie McLindon, a junior computer science major at Stanford University …
Frog Design's Hartmut Esslinger Reveals Early Apple Designs in New Book
Designboom (via The Verge) today got a hold of some photographs of early Apple computer designs from Hartmut Esslinger's new book, Design Forward. — Esslinger founded Frog Design, the company that A...
Analysis: For tech investors, it's hard to know when to bolt
(Reuters) - When Hewlett-Packard Co agreed to buy British software company Autonomy in August last year for $11.1 billion, two well-known investors made diametrically different bets on how the big dea...
Slingbox co-founder abruptly exits Amazon board as his new startup is sold
Updated at 2:56 p.m. with Amazon comment. — Technology entrepreneur Blake Krikorian, best known for co-founding Slingbox maker Sling Media, has left the Amazon board abruptly, after a little more th...
Adding 415 apps daily, Windows 8 blows past the 35,000 app milestone
Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system now has a total of 35,0000 applications in its Store, according to tracking website MetroStore Scanner. — The total tally, 35,167, represents a growth of 14,55...
Fees undermine fliers' ability to compare fares
WASHINGTON (AP) — For many passengers, air travel is only about finding the cheapest fare. — But as airlines offer a proliferating list of add-on services, from early boarding to premium seating and...
Cycloramic app spins iPhone 5 to take 360-degree video
Cycloramic, a new app, uses the iPhone 5's vibrations to spin the phone around and capture handsfree 360 degree video. — Could this be the coolest app ever? It'll certainly be the center of attenti...
Here come the design patents: new law boosts rights in shapes, designs
One of Apple's key weapons in its legal battle against competitors is a special type of patent that protects the visual appearance of a product. Critics have denounced these patents as a way to own “...
‘Leaked’ BlackBerry 10 info shows video chat and screen sharing in BBM, new task manager
Top dog at RIM Thorsten Heins heavily implied that video chat would be added to BBM when BlackBerry 10 showed up, and now possible confirmation of the feature has come from what are thought to be leak...
The cost of Netflix's political win: $1 million in lobbying over two years and its own PAC
Netflix has a win under its belt heading into 2013: its users will soon be able to share their video viewing history through social channels. A small feature one might think …