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 »
Still undecided what to get someone on your holiday gift list? From backup phone batteries, to warm gloves you can wear while tapping on your iPhone, we’ve collected some essential items and accessories all under $100 that any iPhone or iPad users could use. Read more »
A Fox news story about the Newtown tragedy came with an ad for a bloody t-shirt while Facebook showed an ad for a shooting game. In the past, editors could have screened these ads — this is less possible online where fewer humans are involved in the ad-buying process. Read more at paidContent »
Getting Netflix streams to play on all of your devices requires a whole lot of encoding: The company is preparing 120 different versions of each movie to deal with different screen sizes and bandwidth requirements, according to a recently published behind-the-scenes video. Read more »
Google launched a free music match service for MP3 files in Europe in October and now brings the same service to the U.S. Apple and Amazon also provide the same, but charge for the convenience of not having to upload a music library. Read more »
When releasing the software update, Apple didn’t specify the nature of the bug. But a look at the company’s online support forums show a variety of complaints of problems related to accessing some local networks. Read more »
For the Makers is part of a new trend of DIY boxes that allow would-be makers to try their hand at creating crafts and accessories. The New York-based company launched out of private beta in December and has deals with Anthropologie and Gilt City. Read more »
Everyone’s talking about the greatness of big data, but we’re nowhere near the promised land of what’s possible when we turn data loose on our lives. Here are three things to watch that could affect how companies and everday people consume all that info. Read more »
How do you connect people who have no Internet? How do you build a wireless network outside of the official wireless ISPs? These are questions the Open Technology Institute wants to answer in Detroit with Commotion, an open source, wireless mesh networking technology trial. Read more »
Coworking spaces have become popular among startups, and they’re popping up all over the city. Our intrepid reporter spent much of the past month camping out at various coworking spaces in New York to see what the fuss is all about. Read more »
For 6Wunderkinder, taking task management app Wunderlist native meant killing off the company’s second product, project management app Wunderkit. So it’s no surprise to see sharing get a big boost in the new version of 6Wunderkinder’s flagship. Read more »
According to one report, Apple is considering a partnership with Foursquare that would involve using the location-based service’s data inside Apple’s maps. That would be a smart move for Apple at a time when its maps have come under heavy fire for a lack of features. Read more »
Cisco is the latest vendor to get into the policy management game. It’s planned acquisition of BroadHop will give it the foundation for new sets of service tiers that prioritize certain types of traffic over others. Read more »
Amazon’s audiobook company, Brilliance, is expanding with the launch of Grand Harbor Press, a self-help and inspirational publishing division that will release books in print, digital and audio formats. Its first title is by Will Bowen, who previously published two books with Random House’s Doubleday. Read more at paidContent »
Samsung’s Galaxy Grand looks like a large Galaxy S III, but the 5-inch display uses a low 800 x 480 resolution. Still, the Grand may be a smart strategy thanks to other decent specs and dual-SIM support which should generate interest in China, India and Africa. Read more »
Catbird, a company providing security for virtualized environments has taken on a small funding round from Medina Capital Partners, the venture firm set up by Manny Medina, the former CEO of Terremark. The new fund seeks to invest growth capital in enterprise IT deals. Read more »
As newspaper book sections shrink or disappear, the Guardian is teaming up with the Amazon-owned Audible.co.uk to sponsor much of its books content in print and online. The companies are also launching “The Guardian Audio Edition,” a free weekly selection of articles read aloud. Read more at paidContent »
