Blogging superstar Andrew Sullivan dropped a bombshell on Wednesday by saying he is leaving The Daily Beast and setting up his own subscription-based website. Can he become the first prominent success story in what some have called the move towards “post-industrial” journalism? Read more »
After users complained about bad online video experiences, France’s telecom regulator launched an investigation trying to figure out if a local ISP was blocking YouTube or if it was just underinvesting in its network. A decision is expected soon, and could have worldwide repercussions. Read more »
Inspired by Codecademy’s learn-to-code CodeYear initiative, New York-based Greatist this week launched HealthYear to help people take a more proactive approach to their health. Read more »
One of the most popular Linux distributions will arrive on smartphones this year: Canonical is bringing Ubuntu to the small screen. But this isn’t a special version of Ubuntu; it’s the actual desktop software platform with touch-friendly mobile interface that could be a disruptor. Read more »
BuzzFeed became a disruptive media force in 2012 by adding serious news to the silly and sleazy stuff it’s long produced. Here are some questions that will determine whether BuzzFeed can shape news in the long run. Read more at paidContent »
Don’t like the look and features of your Google TV’s home screen? Now you can change it with Open Launcher, the first dedicated launcher app for Google TV devices. The first release replaces Google TV’s app launch bar with a more customizable version. Read more »
Andrew Sullivan announced Wednesday that his immensely popular politics-and-other-stuff blog, The Dish, is striking out on its own and leaving the Daily Beast, which has owned it since 2011. The new site will charge $19.99 per year. Read more at paidContent »
With 9 billion people set to live on the planet by 2050, sharing — enabled by IT — will be one of the most important tools to emerge and companies that build brands now will be well positioned to capitalize on this future. Read more »
Google’s mapping and local search data is making its way into more connected car platforms. Automakers aren’t quite ready to let us download Google Maps directly into our dashboards, but they’re definitely leaning more heavily on the search giant to power their nav systems. Read more »
The claims of trademark infringement and unfair competition are still pending. But Amazon’s small win could prove to be very important as the company continues to turn its mobile content and hardware business into a more direct competitor of Apple’s. Read more »
There were fewer IPOs, mergers and acquisitions in 2012—but on average they were worth more, according to new research. Read more »
Mobile app downloads over the week from Christmas to New Year’s Eve increased to 1.76 billion, up from 1.2 billion a year ago. It’s also a significant spike over the 1.07 billion weekly average recorded earlier in December. Read more »
Oodle was one of the largest digital classified ad operators. Now it has fallen in to multiple hands after Adzuna snaps up UK assets of the firm recently sold to QVC. Read more at paidContent »
Mobile industry trade group CTIA hopes that replacing its two suffering conferences with a single fall event will halt its fall into trade show irrelevance. MWC and CES have been stealing CTIA’s thunder, but it might be too late to steal it back. Read more »
The Nearly New program offers barely-used smartphones at cut-rate prices. It’s available to contract users, but pre-pay customers are the main focus – post-Nexus 4, is this the new battleground? Read more »
Reports about Apple and TSMC striking a contract for mobile chip production have floated around since summer. In October, supply chain analysts in Asia said Apple was moving to TSMC. Now, reports peg the Taiwanese chipmaker with a first-quarter 2013 production trial for the A6X. Read more »
Hearst Magazines president David Carey says the company has nearly 800,000 monthly digital subscribers in the U.S. across platforms, and over 80 percent of the digital subscribers “are new to our files.” Read more at paidContent »
Apple will launch a fully fledged iBookstore in Japan this year. Kobo, Kindle and Google all launched Japanese ebookstores in 2012 — greasing the wheels for Apple’s launch in a country that has been slow to embrace ebooks. Read more at paidContent »
Avis Budget is buying Zipcar for $500 million in cash as it takes a big leap into the car-sharing market. Zipcar will get a big backer who can make it more efficient and help it grow. Read more »
The good news: digital formats now make up a quarter of UK entertainment sales thanks to 2012 growth. The bad: ongoing physical decline on the high-street means overall sales are shrinking. Read more at paidContent »
Despite a new agreement with Google, Belgian media will launch their own shared user management and payment system, reducing the amount of free content on their sites. Read more at paidContent »
If 2012 taught us anything, it was that today’s startups become slow moving giants at astonishing speed these days. I don’t expect 2013 to be any different. The pace of technological change with only increase in momentum. And that will be the story of 2013. Read more »
Congress approved a fiscal cliff deal on Tuesday and in it included an extension of the wind energy tax credits for wind projects built in 2013. The wind energy industry is breathing a sigh of relief and says 37,000 jobs will be saved. Read more »
No, Intel won’t be announcing its TV service at CES. But the company is definitely getting closer to revealing what it’s been working on, and a number of juicy new the details about the project, which has been developed stealthily, do sound intriguing Read more »
Both Amazon Web Services and Netflix — its most-prominent customer — have released details on AWS outage that took down Netflix’s streaming service on Christmas Eve. AWS attributes the issue primarily to human error. Netflix just wants to avoid this situation again, whatever the cause. Read more »
On the tail end of a very difficult year for electric car company Fisker, the company reveals that its insurance claim for 338 Karmas, worth $33 million, was denied by the insurance company, and Fisker is now suing XL Insurance America in court. Read more »
My pick for Android app of the year? AirDroid, which provides wireless management of your Android phone or tablet from any browser on the same Wi-Fi network. You can manage files, videos, music, ringtones and more on any computer, making for a great free companion application. Read more »
An image of someone wearing Google’s Project Glass prototype in New York City was snapped yesterday, just in time for the big New Year’s Eve bash on Times Square this evening. Even more exciting: this prototype supports lenses that could be used for prescription eyewear. Read more »
Google is excelling on Apple’s own platform with popular iOS apps, but it’s not alone among its fellow consumer internet companies. Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo also had some success on their rival’s platform in 2012. Here’s a look at who did better. Read more »
It’s time once again to watch the ball drop on Times Square. Don’t want to actually wait in person on Times Square? No worries, there are plenty of opportunities to watch all the action on the web, on your iPhone and on your Android handset. Read more »
Goodbye Eee PC and all other netbooks from Asus; the company is no longer producing the small laptops. Acer followed Asus into the netbook market and is following it out as well. What happened to this once quickly growing market? Tablets disrupted the space. Read more »
The Tribune Co. officially emerged from bankruptcy Monday with a new board including former Yahoo exec Ross Levinsohn and former Disney exec Peter Murphy. The company plans to sell off its 23 television stations, eight daily newspapers and stakes in websites like CareerBuilder.com. Read more at paidContent »
Fab is just 18 months into its existence as an online design store, but it’s been an eventful ride. Here’s a look at far the company has come based on some figures and slides provided by CEO Jason Goldberg. Read more »
2012 wraps with a year-end mobile tech podcast that looks both forward and back. With hardware cycles advancing rapidly, neither host is expecting blockbuster news out of the Consumer Electronics Show. Matt is looking deeper into uses for NFC, while Kevin is addicted to TuneIn Radio. Read more »
Runkeeper is updating to 3.0 for iOS just in time for the New Year. The improvements include a cleaner UI, better photo sharing and tracking abilities and refactored code base that should enable faster and better improvements in the future. Read more »
Startups and enterprises alike face barriers when it comes to cloud adoption. This includes security, speed of access to cloud resources, and runaway network costs. However, multiple solutions for direct access are being provided to address this issue for companies big and small. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Last year, AWS saw big success and big snafus; Superstorm Sandy prompted worry about data center location; legacy IT giants bought their way into SaaS; VMware regroups; the OpenStack crowd got their clouds off the ground; and Europe starts to buy into cloud. Read more »
Chicago app developer MiGym is giving health clubs an app store presence, but it has bigger plans. It hopes to make the gym a critical element in the quantified self, tracking members’ workout data and sharing that information with fitness and health platforms. Read more »
Two of the funniest women in comedy today. A channel that brought together cop show parodies and sci-fi drama. A series that created a community. And a brand that pushed the boundaries of serialized content. For those who like web video, 2012 was a great year. Read more »
An ode to the Delhi gang-rape victim, iTunes as a discovery service, what science stories to watch for in 2013, the rise of Snapchat, robots everywhere, manly origins of cheerleading, history of the GIF in video and web-UX trends of 2012. Read more »
