Instagram’s been forced to insist that it has no intention of selling its users’ photos. But EyeEm, a key rival that is very likely to do just that, says the key lies in just being upfront and honest. Read more »
Snapjoy is officially joining up with Dropbox, the two companies announced Wednesday, bringing its talents for storing photos in the cloud to the larger, more established cloud storage company. Both alumni of Y Combinator, the two companies will be joining forces. Read more »
In January, Boost Mobile will start throttling speeds to its “unlimited” customers after they exceed 2.5 GB. Clearwire is experimenting with usage-based plans. It’s getting harder and harder to find a truly unlimited data plan anymore as carriers impose more restrictions. Read more »
Here’s what I think have been the top 10 best, and the top 10 worst, things that have landed on the cleantech scene in 2012. Feel free to add your own in the comments. Read more »
The commission instituted new rules that state app makers have to get parental consent when it comes to sharing the personal information, like photos and location. The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple and Google lobbied heavily to get an app store exemption into the rules. Read more »
Rumors are again surfacing that Nokia plans to build and sell a 10-inch Microsoft Windows RT tablet. Whether this is true or not, there isn’t much upside for Nokia here: it doesn’t have expertise in this area, and it can’t afford another product flop. Read more »
San Francisco-based online video platform Mevio has shifted almost all of its production to Los Angeles, where it is currently building a new studio. Next year, the company plans to relaunch under the name Bitesize Entertainment, and capture one billion views a month. Read more »
Evernote Food wants to be the only food app users need. With the upgrade to Evernote 2.0 for the iPhone and iPad, users can not just remember past meals but get restaurant recommendations and recipe ideas for future meals. Read more »
Across the 12,000 apps and 12 ad networks it tracks, MoPub saw impressions from devices using iOS 6 rise 29 percent between last Tuesday and Saturday. MoPub believes that change came from people finally upgrading to iOS 6, after holding out for Google Maps. Read more »
Redbox Instant by Verizon officially launched its beta test Wednesday, offering consumers online streaming and four DVD rental credits for $8 a month. Many of these details had been reported before, but we were able to obtain a video demonstrating the service on PCs and Macs. Read more »
Facebook’s new Nearby local search feature could become a Foursquare killer one day. So far, however, it’s not as comprehensive, deep or personal for users. But if Facebook can get its 600 million mobile users to think of it as a local search utility, look out. Read more »
For every high point of 2012, there were also a few forehead-slapping moments. From Apple Maps to HP’s Autonomy to the Facebook IPO, here’s the best of the worst. Read more »
SecondMarket, the New York-based online platform for trading shares in privately-held companies, on Wednesday announced that it is partnering with AngelList to enable qualified investors on its site to invest amounts starting at $5,000 or less in early stage tech startups. Read more »
By taking in a huge WCS spectrum haul from NextWave, Comcast and others, AT&T has nearly all the components in place to create a nationwide 4G band for its own exclusive use. Now AT&T just has to build it. Read more »
The “mobile first” philosophy is under way today. That means a new generation of mobile-centric data centers will arise over the next three years, with chips, servers, and power architectures customized for mobile workloads. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The IAB, which surveys a wide range of web sites and online services, reports that advertising revenue is growing rapidly as marketers tap into new forms of digital engagement. Read more at paidContent »
Instagram has come under fire — as other services based on user-generated content have — for changing its terms of service in a way that suggests it might experiment with advertising. But should that really be a surprise? What else should we expect from a free service? Read more »
It’s official: you can now download all your old tweets. What does mean? In the short, a trip down memory lane but, in the long term, a rich cultural treasure. Read more »
How low can PaaS pricing go? AppFog says it’s cutting the price of the paid version of its polyglot, multi-cloud PaaS in half for developers. That’s great for developers, but will it boost corporate adoption? Read more »
Clean Power Finance is releasing a federally-funded survey to quantify the challenges solar installers face when they try to get all the necessary permits to construct solar electric systems and connect them to the local grid. Read more »
Publishing industry newsletter Publishers Lunch has opened an online bookstore in partnership with Random House. Bookateria’s goal is to aid discovery of new titles and “merchandise the daily book publishing news.” It includes over 2 million titles with affiliate links to bookstores. Read more at paidContent »
A flaw in certain Samsung Exynos chips has been verified by Samsung, which is taking corrective action to fix the problem. It’s not likely that many devices have been affected, but the company is taking no chances and plans to close the security hole quickly. Read more »
Examining Amazon Web Services usage is a cottage industry for a dozen or so startups. One of them, Newvem, has offered its service free to select customers. Now that the service is broadly available, it’s time to monetize. Read more »
Wednesday’s announcement confirms what had been reported last week. The sale price will help Kodak meet its bankruptcy obligations, while 12 companies will receive licenses to Kodak’s image patents. The deal also settles outstanding patent disputes. Read more »
Last week SpotHero announced a $2.5 million round. This week competitor and fellow Chicago parking outfit ParkWhiz announced its Series A. ParkWhiz started out selling parking spaces online for special events like the Super Bowl, but it’s expanded into day-to-day spot reservations. Read more »
Fab is getting ready for a big expansion into India and has lined up a “seven-figure” investment from The Times of India. The investment comes on the heels of Fab’s acquisition of India-based technology partner True Sparrow. Read more »
The UK’s director of public prosecutions has published provisional social media guidelines for the country’s police and courts, reminding them that there’s a difference between bad taste and serious threats. Read more »
On the heels of a successful Kickstarter campaign for its smart posture sensor, LUMO Body Tech on Wednesday announced that it had raised $5 million in a Series A round led by Madrona Venture Partners and including Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors and Jerry Yang. Read more »
The efforts to sell Cisco’s Linksys business and Google’s attempts to sell Motorola’s set top business both indicate changes in the market for consumer boxes is changing. Soon we’ll see fewer of them. And maybe we’ll even lose the ISP-provided modems and routers. Read more »
There are video discovery apps, and there is Stevie – a leanback app that plays a stream of videos, complete with tickers that are reminiscent of MTV in the 80ies. The app just launched on the iPhone, and its makers raised $1.5 million. Read more »
A consortium of European technology companies and universities wants to identify the technologies beyond 4G. Given a broad mandate, METIS is investigating everything from super-dense small cell deployments to virtualizing the radio network in the cloud. In 30 months we’ll see its first recommendations. Read more »
With investment souring on consumer-focused companies, 2013 will be more about the social enterprise, with a different set of companies driving innovation and perhaps a little disruption. Look for the likes of Salesforce.com, Jive Software, and other enterprise players to make headlines in the new year. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Instagram released new terms of service on Monday that enraged users who worried that their content would be used for advertising without their permission. Instagram clarified on Tuesday, but it’s unclear if the damage is already done among its customers. Read more »
Penguin, which is merging with Random House, has settled with the Department of Justice in the ebook pricing lawsuit, which alleges that Apple and publishers conspired to set ebook prices. Penguin had planned to fight the case in court, but the pending merger has changed that. Read more at paidContent »
Critics of the kind of real-time verification that National Public Radio editor Andy Carvin practices on Twitter during events like the Sandy Hook shootings say the process introduces too many errors and sows confusion — but the benefits of this approach arguably outweigh the disadvantages. Read more »
Despite the hype around its high-end engineered “Exa” systems, Oracle hardware revenue continued to swoon in the second quarter when it was off 23 percent year over year. But, CEO Larry Ellison said that the company has just about turned the corner. Read more »
Instagram responded to user complaints over the update to its privacy policy on Monday. It explained that it does not intend to sell user photos, and that users can still set their photos to private to maintain privacy controls. Read more »
After launching a barebones mobile app earlier this year, Bloglovin, a Betaworks-backed startup that aggregates blog posts in a highly-visual way, has retooled its app to improve discovery and social engagement. Read more »
Whether they’re building big data applications or just trying to gather some insights from their mobile apps, developers have more need than ever for analytics tools. It’s a good thing so many companies are building tools designed with developers’ needs and skills in mind. Read more »
Social learning startup Grockit on Tuesday announced a $20-million-dollar round of financing led by Discovery Communications. The company launched in 2007 to help students with text prep but with the May release of Learnist expanded to a wider audience of lifelong learners. Read more »
