Here is a summary of the top 10 trending tech news articles for December 28, 2012. This summary is created based on NLP and ML algorithms that both detect trending news and are then able to extract the “cliff notes” version of the news for a quick read. This is currently an experimental service that I’m building on the side to play with different algorithms for trend detection and auto-summarization of web content.

Every Doctor Who villain since 1963 – as a spreadsheet and visualised

Includes villains’ appearances from all episodes up to The Snowmen, Christmas 2012 Doctor Who is back for Christmas. We ‘ve been adding loads of new creatures and people- thanks to your suggestions- and we probably still have some more to go. More data journalism and data visualisations from the Guardian Search the world ‘s government data with our gateway Search the world ‘s global development data with our gateway Flickr Please post your visualisations and mash-ups on our Flickr group Contact us at data@guardian.co.uk Get the A-Z of data More at the Datastore directory Follow us on Twitter Like us on Facebook [tweeted by @jsnell]

Very interesting: The most viewed articles of 2012 on @Wikipedia by language

100 most viewed articles on English Wikipedia during 2012. [tweeted by @DataSift]

Good @TechCrunch deeper dive into Instagram figures from @IngridLunden

Basically, it notes that figures from AppData demonstrate that Instagram lost 4 million daily active users nearly a 25% drop to 12.4 million from 16.4 million between December 19 and December 26. Look at Hipstamatic, or Snapseed, orFlickr, whose well-timed launch made some people wonder whether it could replace Instagram. Instagram is a free photo sharing application that allows users to take photos, apply a filter, and share it on the service or a variety of other social networking services, including Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Tumblr, Flickr, and Posterous. [tweeted by @dannysullivan]

Kim Dotcom To Host Mega’s Launch Event At His New Mega Zealand Mansion Next Month

Kim Dotcom doesn’t do things small. The man behind the Megaupload empire is about to launch his next service dubbed simply Mega. Nope, on January 20, 2013, exactly one year after his over-the-top takedown, Dotcom is hosting the launch event at his sprawling New Zealand estate effectively giving the finger to RIAA, MPAA, and the shady US Justice Department. [tweeted by @TechCrunch]

The Senate just approved warrantless phone tapping until 2017

By a vote of 73 to 23, the US Senate just voted for the warrantless surveillance of American citizens until 2017. The vote, set to affirm to eradicate the FAA Sunsets Extension Act of 2012, means we ‘ll be living with Bush-era spy laws for another half decade. In 2007, the Senate voted to grant blanket immunity to companies like AT&T, which conspired with the NSA to monitor American digital conversations without government oversight after 9\/11. [tweeted by @Gizmodo]

Instagram loses 1/4 (4 million) of its daily active users after terms of service debacle.

The app, which Facebook acquired for $ 1 billion earlier this year, may have shed nearly a quarter of its daily active users in the wake of the debacle, according to figures from AppData. The move sparked threats of a mass exodus, with celebrities including Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber expressing outrage. Just about the time the hashtag #boycottinstagram popped up on Twitter, Kevin Systrom, the CEO and co-founder, chalked it up to a big misunderstanding and insisted the company had no intention of selling users photos. [tweeted by @nickbilton]

RIM’s Upfront Payment To Nokia In Patent Dispute Settlement Totals $65M

RIM responded to Nokias request to have its devices removed from sale following a patent decision in the Finnish companys favor by working out a settlement, and now were beginning to get a sense of the specific terms of said arrangement. AllThingsD has uncovered an SEC filing that details RIMs first lump-sum payments, which amounts to 50million( or around $ 65 million). Nokia and RIM announced their new patent license agreement on December 21, sharing only that it would settle all patent litigation between the two telecommunications companies, and that it would include both a one-time payment( the $ 65 million alluded to in the new SEC documents) and ongoing payments from RIM to Nokia. [tweeted by @TechCrunch]

Rethinking The Mobile App “Walkthrough”

Long, step-by-step tutorials are not what users want to see when launching apps. Thats the premise of an article trending on Hacker News, written by Visual and User Interface Designer Max Rudberg. For what its worth, I think Rudberg has a point, even if hes over-generalized the situation. [tweeted by @TechCrunch]

Early Apple Computer And Tablet Designs Reveal The iMac And iPad That Might Have Been

Apple worked closely with Frogdesign during the eighties, creating Apples early design language and charting the visual path of Apple computers from the Apple IIc to the Macintosh. Frogdesign founder Hartmut Esslingers fingerprints are all over those early, iconic designs, and in a new book called Design Forward, he reveals some concepts for Apple computers and tablets that never made it to market, but that would seem perfectly at home in evolutionary charts depicting the design history of the iPad, iMac and other modern Apple products. Esslingers designs show off a tablet-type device called the macphone from 1984, which boasts a corded handset for calling as well as a stylus-based touchscreen for handwritten text entry and a software keyboard, which in some ways resembles the early Newton Apple tablet. [tweeted by @TechCrunch]

RT @digiphile: MT @McAndrew: 14 tech+gov’t+society trends for 2013. Most exciting to me: predictive data analytics.

In 2012, mobile technology, social media and the Internet have given first responders and government officials new ways to improve situational awareness during natural disasters, like Hurricane Sandy. With GOV. UK, the British government both redefined the online government platform and showed how citizen-centric design can be done right. Gartner analyst Andrea DiMaio is now looking at the intersection of government and technology through the lens of smart government. [tweeted by @timoreilly]

Touch Publishing Platform Onswipe Now Reaching 10M Monthly Active Users On iOS

To put that into perspective, CEO and co-founder Jason Baptiste calculates that Onswipes traffic now exceeds the iPad traffic for WordPress and Tumblr combined. Its a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison, since were looking at onSwipes global iOS traffic, not just iPad traffic in one country, but it does suggest that Onswipe has a mobile audience thats comparable to the major web publishing platforms. Most of Onswipes visits( 72 percent) came from the United States, followed by the United Kingdom( 6.6 percent), Canada( 4.8 percent), and Australia( 2.7 percent). [tweeted by @TechCrunch]

Who should I follow on Twitter? Android edition –

Our list is a work in progress, so if you think we ‘ve missed out any important Android-centric 140-character authors, let us know through Twitter or in the comments below. [tweeted by @engadget]

PlayStation 2 reaches retirement age, is discontinued in Japan –

Sony ‘s PlayStation 3 has been on the market so long you ‘d think that production of the relatively ancient PS2 stopped some time ago. We ‘re not sure if the PS2 is still shipping to other regions, but its retirement in Japan is probably the beginning of the end globally, so we ‘d recommend you pick one up now if you intend to explore that extensive back catalogue one day. The PS2 era may be drawing to a close, but its legacy will live on and it can now rub controllers with the other greats in console heaven — we still miss you, Dreamcast. [tweeted by @engadget]

How the Queen of England beat everyone to the internet:

Peter Kirstein is the man who put the Queen of England on the internet. The date was March 26, 1976, and the ARPANET the computer network that eventually morphed into the internet had just come to the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment, a telecommunications research center in Malvern, England. It was Peter Kirstein who set up her mail account, choosing the username HME2. [tweeted by @WIREDInsider]

.@dan_rowinski makes some bold mobile predictions for 2013, including one about Blackberry 10 succeeding.

It seems like every year, that darned rodent in Punxsutawney, Pa., predicts six more weeks of winter. We hail Punxsutawney Phil as the seer of seers, prognosticator of prognosticators. We like to think that Punxsutawney Phil is just giving his best educated guess. [tweeted by @RWW]

Flurry: Santa crammed more tablets than smartphones into Christmas stockings –

Overall activations more than doubled from last Christmas, and were up 332 percent on that single day from the first 20 days of December, combined. As might be expected, Apple came up big with iPad sales, but Flurry said that Amazon was also a winner with its 7-inch Kindle Fire HD tab, showing a “ several thousand percent ” increase over baseline activations. None of this likely comes as a huge shock to our readers, who rather overwhelmingly said that they ‘d rather have a Nexus 7 tablet as a gift if they toiled at Google. [tweeted by @engadget]

Raspberry Pi Hack Turns The Ultra-Affordable Computer Into An AirPlay Receiver

Cambridge engineering student Jordan Burgess managed to convert one of the $ 25 open computer into an AirPlay receiver along the lines of Apples AirPort Express, using open source software, a USB Wi-Fi adapter, SD card, micro USB cable and the Pi itself. The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a UK registered charity( Registration Number 1129409) which builds and develops the Raspberry Pi. [tweeted by @TechCrunch]

China requires real names for internet and phone sign-ups, handovers for illegal posts –

, but the reassurances wo n’t be much help to privacy advocates or those challenging corruption. [tweeted by @engadget]

When Kickstarter Delivers: Thanks To Simple, Effective Design, Supr’s Slim Wallet Exceeds Expectations

I’ve backed an embarrassing amount of Kickstarter projects, almost all of them in the hardware\/gadget categories, and Ive been disappointed more than Ive been delighted. Minneapolis-based Supr Good Co. initially launched the Slim in August, with a funding goal of just $ 10,000 and an estimated shipping date of September for their minimalist wallet design, which essentially is just an elastic sheath measuring only 3mm thick. Kickstarter may not have the security of ordering gadgets from established companies, but when it works, it results in some amazing stuff that you arent likely to be able to pick up elsewhere. [tweeted by @TechCrunch]

Social media: The biggest stories of 2012, from shopping to Pinterest to Google+

The Olympics, the presidential election, disasters such as Hurricane Sandy — social media has become an integral part of how such events are recorded and how communities respond. Though sites like fashion-centric Polyvore — which hit a new financial milestone this year — have long understood that user-generated content is the best type of advertising when selling products, companies like Fab and Fancy took social retail to another level this year. The Fancy, a Pinterest-like site that lets users bookmark things they like and then links those items to online stores for purchase, built its commerce services on top of a social experience. [tweeted by @CNETNews]

Samsung Galaxy Note II reportedly coming in black, triggers monolithic memories –

Samsung gave Galaxy S III buyers a small rainbow of color choices in the summer, and there ‘s signs that the Galaxy Note II might receive a similarly resplendent treatment. When a theoretically niche device is selling like gangbusters, some added diversity could be in order. Just do n’t expect any Starchildren as a result. [tweeted by @engadget]

Gen Y (aged 24-32) takes the cake as the savviest mobile generation.

Overall, the United States has a 19% adoption rate of tablets. LG tends to skew older, though, with 20%- plus adoption rates for Young Boomers, Older Boomers and the Golden Generation( ages 65+). That is a bit of a coup for Motorola, considering that it has fallen behind all of the other major Android manufacturers worldwide, including the struggling HTC. [tweeted by @RWW]

TNW’s top Shareables of 2012

We here at The Next Web have a lot of fun keeping our Shareables channel populated with the most interesting, and of course shareable, content we can find. Dont miss our other 2012 lists for more great recommendations. Image credits: altrendo images, Maker Faire Africa, M [tweeted by @TheNextWeb]

Pearson buys a small stake in Nook Media, wants a fast track for digital education –

New York, NY and London( Dec. 28, 2012) NOOK Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Barnes& Noble, Inc.( NYSE: BKS), the leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products, today announced that Pearson( NYSE: PSO), the world ‘s leading learning company, has agreed to make a strategic investment in NOOK Media, LLC. Pearson has agreed to invest $ 89.5 million in cash in NOOK Media, LLC at a post-money valuation of approximately $ 1.789 billion in exchange for preferred membership interests representing 5% equity stake. Following the closing of the transaction, Barnes& Noble will now own approximately 78.2% of the NOOK Media subsidiary and Microsoft, which also holds preferred membership interests, will own approximately 16.8%. [tweeted by @engadget]

Submissions for Expand’s Insert Coin: New Challengers competition are now open! –

Because you have n’t been living under a rock, by now you know about our big Expand event coming up in San Francisco this March( plus, you ‘re following us on Twitter and Facebook to be the first to get all the news, right ?!) Luckily they ‘re pretty simple, and we ‘ll run them down right here: Full official rules: For the full legalese please be sure to read the Official Rules. Most notably in addition to the above, you must be 13 years of age or older and reside in the U.S. or Canada( excluding Quebec). [tweeted by @engadget]

China launches Beidou satellite GPS services across Asia-Pacific region –

China has launched commercial and public services of its Beidou satellite navigation system across the Asia-Pacific rim in earnest, after finishing trials it started last year. Currently the nation has 16 navigation satellites along with four experimental models, and expects to cover the globe by 2020 when it ‘ll have as many as 40 addition sats in orbit, according to China Daily. China launched the project in 2000 to avoid reliance on the US GPS system, and will join that service, Russia ‘s GLONASS and eventually Galileo in the EU at the sat nav party. [tweeted by @engadget]

10 types of startup that had a breakthrough 2012

The clamor to become the go-to Instagram for video saw startups like Viddy, Socialcamand Klip( and many more) make a real mark on our Facebook timelines this year, as friends shared important and trivial moments alike. There was some debate as to quite how busy Socialcam really was, when werevealed that it was filling out its feed with videos pulled from YouTube, but that didnt stop it becoming the first major acquisition in this field, selling to Autodesk for $ 60 million in July this year. Snapchat has amassed millions users for its ephemeral messaging app that allows users to send multimedia notes that expire just seconds after theyre opened. [tweeted by @TheNextWeb]

Could These 6 Pending Regulations Destroy The Internet In 2013? by @adampopescu

The dust has yet to settle in the wake of the contentious International Telecommunications Union ‘s( ITU) conference in Dubai, but its repercussions could spit the Internet into two parts: One free and open one, the other closed and censored, depending on which country you are in. While the ITU treaty is n’t legally binding, it sets a precedent and tone for Internet regulation, warned Ambassador Terry Kramer. Diverging opinions onInternet governance, content regulation and network security forced the United States to refuse to support it( see5 Reasons Why The U.S. Rejected The ITU Treaty). [tweeted by @RWW]

Pearson buys 5% stake in NOOK Media, the Microsoft-Barnes & Noble joint venture, for $89.5m

A bit of news straight out of left field today: publishing and education company Pearson has announced that it is investing nearly $ 90 million in cash in NOOK Media, the recently formed joint-venture of Microsoft and Barnes& Noble. The strategic investment deal will see Pearson gain a 5 percent stake in the new firm, which operates all of Barnes& Nobles digital businesses, including its NOOK e-reader and tablets, digital bookstore and its 674 college bookstores across America. Subject to certain conditions, Pearson will earn the option to purchase up to an additional five percent ownership in NOOK Media. [tweeted by @TheNextWeb]

Windows 8 app built to let users complain about Windows 8 disappears from the Windows Store

Today it became known that an application, dubbed Windows 8 Complaints, has disappeared from the Windows Store. However, when Neowin pinged Microsoft over its existence, the company was demure: As long as the app follows certification policies, they get admitted to the Store. Now that it is gone cached web copy of its page here some are calling it a deliberate move by Microsoft to squelch dissent among its usersbase. [tweeted by @TheNextWeb]

Stuck For New Year’s Eve In London? Yplan Takes Last-minute Booking Mobile

With over 5 million Twitter followers, UK actor\/author Stephen Fry is the closest thing we get to an Ashton Kutcher, given that he has a big following and occasionally takes an interest in tech startups( sometimes a financial interest). Like HotelTonight, Yplan( iTunes link) is a way to book events( like plays, shows and concerts) via iOS mobile with literally a couple clicks. Founded by Viktoras Jucikas and Rytis Vitkauskas, YPlan provides handpicked London highlights and an ability to then book them, drawing on a team with experience at Time Out, toptable, Songkick and lastminute.com. [tweeted by @TechCrunch]

DirecTV to hike subscription rates in February 2013

DirecTV claims that its own costs for programming will increase about 8 percent next year, and that it ‘s been able to keep rates lower than cable companies by holding firm on negotiations with programming providers. The satcaster settled a very public scuffle with Viacom this summer, for example, wherein channels like Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, MTV, BET and Spike were dropped for about a week. As a result of the settlement Viacom will reportedly collect more than $ 600 millon per year from DirecTV, a 20 percent increase. [tweeted by @CNETNews]

A Few Actual Harms To Be Concerned About From Today’s Government Spying Law

Other than the vague threat of an Orwellian dystopia, as a society we dont really know why surveillance is bad, writes Washington University Law Professor, Neil Richards( PDF). Without the Senates support, FISAs powers were set to expire at the end of the year. Fierce FISA critic, Senator Ron Wyden( CrunchGov Grade: A), who released a hold he put on the bill in exchange for limited congressional debate, worries that evidence of government overreach means that FISA could lead to more unnecessary spying. [tweeted by @TechCrunch]

Curiosity’s greatest hits:

After an acrobatic plunge through the Martian atmosphere, NASA ‘s Mars rover Curiosity touched down safely in Gale Crater. Here, we ‘ve gathered some of our favorite images from( and of) Curiosity. Image: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/Malin Space Science Systems [tweeted by @WIREDInsider]

Google Music puts the bleep in music, automatically:

The Google Music Scan and Match feature has earned the wrath of some users by replacing explicit versions of songs with the kid-friendly clean versions. Even less fun, Droid Life reports that some people are seeing clean versions of songs replaced with explicit versions. Thats bad news when you expect to hear the sanitized version of Radioheads Creep while hanging out with your kids. [tweeted by @WIREDInsider]

Square ends 2012 processing $10b annually, 40k retailers onboard, looks to expand globally in 2013

Now, consumers have choices alongside Square, includingPayPals Here, Intuits GoPayment Reader, iZettle, andGoogle Wallet. Earlier this month, VeriFones SAIL reader, which was released a year and a half ago, announced it was being discontinued because of razor-thin margins and high attrition. At the time, VeriFones chief executive Doug Bergeron elaborated on his companys decision to withdraw from the mobile payment space by saying: I think you can see evidence of other competitors similar experience as they shift their own business models to wallets. [tweeted by @TheNextWeb]

Patent wars: RIM kicks off its settlement with Nokia with a $65M payment

[tweeted by @CNETNews]

Amazon Makes It Easier To Host Static Web Pages On S3

S3 is Amazons 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 easier to run basic sites on S3 with the addition of root domain hosting( using Amazons Route 53 DNS service) so users can access your site without specifying the www in the address and enhanced redirection functionality. While using S3 without the rest of Amazons web services doesnt allow you to host any complex sites, S3 can be a good choice for hosting basic sites and images. [tweeted by @TechCrunch]

Instagram outrage? Other apps that have ‘plunged’: Yahoo Social Bar, Pinterest, FarmVille, Spotify …

Instagram users are outraged over new rules and dumping the service en masse, the New York Post claims, backed by data from AppData. All I know is you see a similar pattern of decreased usage around the Christmas holidays for most popular Facebook-connected apps, according to yes data from AppData: Yahoos Social Bar supposedly dropped from a peak of 5.8 million daily active users on Wednesday 19 December to 1.9 million daily active users on Wednesday 26 December, a 67.2 percent decrease. Same trend for SongPop, CityVille, Diamond Dash and so on. [tweeted by @TheNextWeb]

China tightens the screws on Internet users

The Chinese government is once again effecting new restrictions on Internet use among its people. A decision approved today by the Standing Committee of the National People ‘s Congress institutes an “ identity management policy, ” according to China ‘s official Xinhua news agency. Further, the decision prevents service providers and government agencies from leaking the digital information of Internet users, and from selling or providing this information to others, Xinhua said. [tweeted by @CNETNews]

Archaeologists think hidden Imperial tomb may be too deadly to explore. Somebody call Indiana Jones:

After discovering a secret palace hidden in China ‘s first emperor massive burial complex, Chinese technicians are nervous. Not because Qin Shi Huang ‘s tomb is the most important archeological discovery since Tutankhamun, but because they believe his burial place is full of deadly traps that will kill any trespassers. Image of some of Qin Shihuang ‘s terracota warriors by contax66\/Shutterstock. [tweeted by @Gizmodo]

Coming off its Kickstarter success, Ouya ships its Android game consoles to developers

Developers who ordered an Ouya game console should soon find one in front of their doors. The folks at Oyua confirmed today that 1,200 developer consoles have been shipped and should reach eager buyers in the next few days. Created this past year, Ouya is an attempt to bring gaming back to your TV. [tweeted by @CNETNews]

Mozilla Hispano pranks blog readers with phony Firefox OS Facebook phone announcement

Not ones to be left out of the frivolities, Mozilla Hispano has an interesting post on its blog today. Roughly translated into English, the post goes on to say that Mozilla and Facebook have reached an agreement to distribute a Facebook Phone in the latter half of 2013 and that the phone is based on Firefox OS. Apparently the official presentation will take pace on 26 February at the Mobile World Congress, by none other than Facebook CTO Bret Taylorwhich would be odd, as he left earlier this year. [tweeted by @TheNextWeb]

2013: The Cloud As Savior And Sinner by @TheTechScribe

As the Eastern Seaboard continues to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, data centers up and down the coast are performing after-action reports on how they could have handled the storm better. When ISPs in Lower Manhattan were down to bucket-brigading diesel fuel up 17 flights of stairs, it may have dawned on them that there should be a better way. There was, and Hurricane Sandy and other man-made and natural catastrophes should have driven that lesson home: anyone with a mission-critical or even a mission-gee-it-would-be-nice-to-be-on-the-web needs to give serious thought to re-architecting for the cloud. [tweeted by @RWW]

Pearson buys $89.5m Nook stake to secure book distribution

At that time, Microsoft invested $ 300 million for a 17.6 percent stake. Pearsons announcement today, however, puts Microsofts stake at a reduced 16.8 percent. Barnes& Nobles stake is put at 78.2 percent. [tweeted by @gigaom]

This dumb year: The 57 lamest moments in tech 2012.

Apple, Dell, Google, Microsoft and Nokia were among the giants of the industry who issued at least one apology apiece. Even seemingly innocent bystanders such as Spike Lee and KitchenAid got sucked into the vortex of remorse. As is my wont and in tribute to the late Business 2.0 s 101 Dumbest Moments in Businessand Esquires iconic Dubious Achievement Awards Ive compiled a list of the years biggest tech-related blunders, lapses in judgement, bad behavior and general weirdness. [tweeted by @harrymccracken]

 

Here is a summary of the top 10 trending tech news articles for December 27, 2012. This summary is created based on NLP and ML algorithms that both detect trending news and are then able to extract the “cliff notes” version of the news for a quick read. This is currently an experimental service that I’m building on the side to play with different algorithms for trend detection and auto-summarization of web content.

Just in time for your New Year’s resolutions: Meet PumpUp, a personal iOS fitness coach

If youre committing to losing weight, exercise more or live more healthily in 2013, there are loads of smartphone apps and accessories that can help you achieve your fitness goals. PumpUp, the Waterloo, Ontario-based mobile technology startup behind the application, was founded by Garrett Gottlieb and Phil Jacobson in May 2012, and is located in the University of Waterloos startup incubator, the VeloCity Garage. Also, to celebrate the launch, an annual subscription for PumpUp is only $ 2.99 per month until the end of January 2013. [tweeted by @TheNextWeb]

Computer synthesized speech from 1963, including an eerie rendition of the song “Daisy.”

From the album liner notes: Knowledge developed through such research programs may be useful in devising new techniques for transmitting speech more efficiently over communications systems. Bell Labs is credited with developing the C and C++ programming languages, UNIX, the transistor, the laser, and, in the 1930s, the vocoder( vocoder is short for voice encoder). I think Im going to wake up in the middle of the night with that computer voice in my head, singing this creepy, oddly compelling, and somewhat congested-sounding rendition of Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer true(@ 2:12) Posted by Laura Cochrane| Wednesday December 26th, 2012 10:30 AM Categories: Computers& Mobile, Technology| 3 Comments [tweeted by @make]

Court in China Rules Apple to Pay Authors for Copyright Infringement 

In March of this year, a group of Chinese authors sued Apple for allegedly adding their books to the iTunes Store without authorization. Today, a legal newspaper in Beijing is reporting that the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate court ruled that Apple should pay the original 8 writers who filed the lawsuit a total of $ 68,781 US in damages for its App Store ‘s copyright infringement. Patently Legal| Permalink [tweeted by @PatentlyApple]

‘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 leaked presentation slides. Originating on CrackBerry ‘s forums, the images have been taken down on various sites, leading us to believe they ‘re legit and that strongly worded requests have led to their removal. Another slide details a new task manager for the OS called “ BlackBerry Remember, ” which can sync with Outlook and — based on its description and what was uncovered in the gold SDK — may include Evernote integration. [tweeted by @engadget]

Facebook files for ‘Poke’ trademark (after obtaining and abandoning it earlier)

As for Facebooks Poke application for iPhone, it initially rocketed to the top of the free iOS app chart but came down just as rapidly. [tweeted by @TheNextWeb]

Flexy iPhone someday? Apple patents method to bend glass 

The new patent, first discovered by Wired, was awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Samsung, for instance, plans to show off at CES 2013 next month a 5.5-inch flexible phone screen. Nokia has also toyed with flexible phones in its research labs. [tweeted by @CNETNews]

Apple Reveals Two Retina Display Technologies 

On December 27, 2012, the US Patent& Trademark Office published two display related patent applications from Apple. The second patent relates to LCDs that include a panel having an array of metal oxide TFTs, which may be configured to reduce visual artifacts by providing reduced RC loading and parasitic capacitance, thus improving overall image quality. In one embodiment, the display may be a high-resolution LCD display having more pixels per inch, such as a Retina Display. [tweeted by @PatentlyApple]

Amazons Snafu Rattles Customers

Amazon.com Inc. s latest technical glitch interrupting service for Netflix Inc. and others is causing some companies to rethink their reliance on the Seattle-based company for the bulk of their Web-computing needs. Millions of Netflix customers from Canada to Brazil were unable to stream video on Christmas Eve after technical issues in Amazons servers in Northern Virginia felled service from Dec. 24 through the following morning. Netflix said the outage lasted nearly half a day for some of its users, and stemmed from problems with Amazons Web Services unit, or AWS, which manages online operations for many companies. [tweeted by @allthingsd]

Would you buy this $99 tablet?

Taiwanese PC giant Acer is ready to rock the gadget world with a new $ 99 tablet set to compete in the low-cost market against Amazon and Barnes& Noble. Acer is planning to launch the $ 99 Android tablet, Iconia B1, in early 2013, a source close to the project told the Wall Street Journal. Acer ‘s $ 99 tablet is aimed at emerging markets, according to the Wall Street Journal. [tweeted by @HuffPostTech]

Samsung doubles down on its web-based messaging app with ChatON 2.0 

It works on Android, iOS, Blackberry, Bada and even web browsers to let you send missives to your besties — alone or in groups — with video, audio or images. The updated app \/ website works in over 200 countries and 60 languages, and now includes a multiscreen feature to let you chat with over five separate accounts at once along with the ability to conscript new chat-ees via Facebook or Twitter. You ‘ll still be able to post messages to the “ trunk ” for friends to see before they hit social networks or create a personal profile with status updates — so, hit the source for more info, social butterflies. [tweeted by @engadget]

Apple Tweaks Ongoing Research into Gaming Mouse & Nike + iPod Application 

According to Apple, the invention may have applicability to any electronic system or application capable of receiving input. For example, embodiments of the invention may be useful with video games, file browsing, interactive navigation, communication systems, control systems, military systems, medical devices, and industrial applications. A second patent application that surfaced this morning titled “ Integrated media jukebox and physiologic data handling application ” demonstrates that Apple is still tweaking their Nike+ iPod system which was granted yet another patent earlier this week. [tweeted by @PatentlyApple]

Rumor: Apple Building Bluetooth Smart Watch

According to Chinese gadget news site Tech .163, Apple may be in the process of developing its own smart watch that connects to your Apple devices via Bluetooth. Based on the report, Intel will be working with Apple to create the smart watch, with a 1.5-inch PMOLED display made by RiTDisplays with ITO-coated glass. Sony, for instance, has a new offering called the Smart Watch, and we cant forget how Pebble blew up Kickstarter with its e-paper Smart Watch that connects to iOS and Android devices. [tweeted by @TechCrunch]

Samsung’s Galaxy Note to get Android 4.1 Premium Suite 

Owners of the original Galaxy Note can soon look forward to a host of new features courtesy of Samsung ‘s Android 4.1 Premium Suite. A Popup Note helps you write down information while on a call, while a Popup Video and a Popup Browser allow you to catch a video or surf the Web while doing something else. The suite ‘s S Planner allows you to send handwritten notes to yourself, while the Enhanced S Note feature lets you create notebooks with images, videos, templates, and other effects. [tweeted by @CNETNews]

Apple vs. Google vs. Facebook vs. Amazon

Google, with the $ 12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility under its belt, plans to use the phone maker to release new Android devices to help knock Apples iPhone off its perch. Apples foray is Siri, a voice-activated service that answers queries about topics like the weather or sports scores from the iPhone or iPad homescreen. They are all getting into each others market, said Opus Research analyst Greg Sterling. [tweeted by @prateekpanda]

Daily Report: Changes Afoot at Electronics Factories in China 

Shifts in how Apple deals with manufacturers like Foxconn have convinced executives at other electronics companies that they must also overhaul how they interact with foreign plants and workers, Keith Bradsher and Charles Duhigg report on Thursday in The New York Times. As Apple and Foxconn became fodder for Saturday Night Live and questions during presidential debates in the last year, device designers and manufacturers concluded the industrys reputation was at risk. Apple, the electronics industrys behemoth, has in the last year tripled its corporate social responsibility staff, re-evaluated how it works with manufacturers, asked competitors to help curb excessive overtime in China and reached out to advocacy groups it once rebuffed. [tweeted by @nytimesbits]

In 2013 Apple to have 1.8 Mac Minis made in the US & Shift IGZO Suppliers to Meet Demand 

According to DigiTimes, Apple is likely to move their Mac mini production line from Foxconn Chinato Foxconn US. Other major OEM ‘s that might get the business includes Quanta Computer which has plants in Fremont California and Nashville, Tennessee. Additionally, the report states that Innolux Corporation could enter Apple ‘s supply chain as they ‘ve licensed IGZO technology from Sharp. [tweeted by @PatentlyApple]

Seriously, How Does the Media Still Not Know How Facebook Works? 

You ‘ve probably seen the deeply silly Randi Zuckerberg photo privacy story going around. “ Well, apparently something, th b … privacy settings is thethe issue.( MSNBC) [tweeted by @Gizmodo]

Americans Read More E-Books But Maybe Not on E-Readers -by @LaurenGoode 

Thats according to a new report from the Pew Research Center, which surveyed over 2,000 Americans age 16 and up during a month-long period just before the holidays. This coincided with a decline in those who say they still read dead-tree books, from 72 percent to 67 percent over a 12-month period. As reported recently by the New York Times Bits blog, IHS Suppli estimates shipments of e-book readers will suffer a 36 percent drop this year, falling to 14.9 million units. [tweeted by @allthingsd]

Stealthy Collaboration Platform For Developers, VictorOps Raises $16M From Foundry Group

VictorOps, a stealthy enterprise startup based in Boulder has raised $ 1.58 million in seed funding led by the Foundry Group with participation from Chris Marks at Tango Investments and the startups three co-founders, Todd Vernon, Bryce Ambraziunas and Dan Jones. This is Vernons third startup. He founded Raindance Communications, a web conferencing company that was sold to West Corporation in 2006 for over $ 170 million. [tweeted by @TechCrunch]

Secret Hon Hai Team Predicts Apple’s HDTV for Mid 2013 

According to BrightWire, a business-to-business resource for portfolio managers, there ‘s a hot new rumor published by China Times this morning pertaining toApple ‘s future HDTV. According to the rumor, Hon Hai has a special iTV development team that has already produced components for the upcoming Apple HDTV which the report boldly targets for a mid-2013 debut when Apple is toreveal the integration of its content platform. This rumor supports another one that surfaced last week that stated thatApple HDTV tests were underway at Hon Hai. [tweeted by @PatentlyApple]

Best of 2012: Mathematicians Solve Minimum Sudoku Problem. 

That raises an interesting question for mathematicians: what is the minimum number of Sudoku clues that produces a unique answer? This is a question that has hung heavy over the Sudoku community, not least because they think they know the answer. Enter Gary McGuire and pals at University College Dublin. [tweeted by @techreview]

E-Book Reading Is Up, Study Says

Im hearing from publishers that the percent of e-books keeps rising as expected, said James McQuivey, a Forrester analyst. That would shift the dynamics, giving breathing space to publishers laboring to make the digital transition and perhaps forestalling what some fear will be the total domination of Amazon. Sales of dedicated e-book readers may have peaked last year, but the percentage of Americans owning one rose to 19 percent from 10 percent. [tweeted by @nytimesbits]

Russia’s new spaceship will fly to you the moon, let you swing among the stars  

Russia ‘s protracted attempts at replacing the aging space warhorse that is Soyuz may finally bear fruit. RSC Energia has announced that it has finished the design of a prototype spacecraft under the country ‘s Prospective Piloted Transport System — the equivalent of the Orion program. The as-yet unnamed craft is expected to be ready for testing by 2017, and unlike the current model, will be fully reusable. [tweeted by @engadget]

Dave Winer’s blogger of the year is the Web pioneer and MIT alumnus and CS instructor, Philip Greenspun:

First, I thought it should be Nate Silver, who is most certainly a blogger, even though his writing now appears on nytimes.com. On those grounds Nate Silver certainly belongs in the BOTY seat for this year. Politically and spiritually Nate is a carrier of The Cause. [tweeted by @jason_pontin]

Samsung’s eventual Galaxy S4: This video imagines it impossibly thin, with laser keyboard 

Many are hoping the next flagship phone from Samsung could finally be the legendary and long-foretold Apple eater first documented in the book of Genesis. Unless Samsung has suddenly started running their product development and marketing through Moscow and filming promotional videos with a MacBook in the background, this seems totally out of left field, but I ‘d nonetheless love to see someone make this phone. Let us know in the comments. [tweeted by @CNETNews]

Despite Gains By Amazon, Samsung and Google, Vast Majority of Tablet Web Visits Still Coming From iPads 

While Kindle Fire, Galaxy Tab and Nexus tablet sales continue to rise, most tablet Web surfing is still coming from Apple devices. Roughly 87 percent of tablet Web surfing comes from an iPad, according to the latest numbers from mobile ad company Chitika. The Samsung Galaxy family posted a slight gain, to 2.65 percent, while Google Nexus tablets increased from 0.91 percent to 1.06 percent in December. [tweeted by @allthingsd]

How big was Apple CEO’s paycheck in 2012?

Change from 2010: Up 458 percent [tweeted by @HuffPostTech]

SAIC shows how DARPA’s submarine-tracking drone ship finds its silent targets (video) - 

Thankfully, craft designer SAIC has stepped in with a detailed video tour. If there ‘s suspicions that a diesel sub is in the area, the US Navy can deploy sonar buoys that give the ACTUV an inkling of where to go first. After that, the drone takes over with both long-range and short-range sonar. [tweeted by @engadget]

Technologies that never made it past R&D (thankfully!) in #DailyTech via @cracked: 

Order or Gift a box now! [tweeted by @geeksugar]

Christmas Day brought a record 17.4M iOS and Android device activations. And a first — tablets topped smartphones 

More stockings were stuffed with Android and iOS devices this Christmas than ever before, according to new data released today, and their owners spent much of Dec. 25 downloading apps for them. For a complete look at the numbers, along with some handy charts, check out the company ‘s blog. [tweeted by @CNETNews]

Naftali Bennet, the leader of the Jewish Home Party, profiled @nytimes:

Naftali Bennett — a former chief of staff to President Netanyahu, wealthy software executive, and special forces officer, and now leader of a new right wing party in Israel — scares me. When I heard him speak at the President ‘s Conference in Jerusalem earlier this year he rejected a two-state solution, disputed the very notion that Israel could “ occupy ” what he called Judea and Samaria, and called for the permanent annexation of the West Bank. It ‘s a recipe for preserving a Jewish state in all of Greater Israel, but at the cost of an Israeli democracy. [tweeted by @jason_pontin]

Here are 12 must-have Android apps, according to Google itself

Another popular option is the aptly-named Easy Battery Saver, which you can download here. JuiceDefender, meanwhile, has an official website here, and you can download the freebie version here. WARNING: It will not prevent thieves from stealing your actual cups of juice( grape, orange, pineapple, etc.) [tweeted by @HuffPostTech]

Cheap Tech And Offices Mean Startups Need Less Funding [Infographic] by @jimedits 

This infographic comes from Bob Rizika, CEO of cloud computing, Infrastructure-as-a Service( IaaS) firmProfitBricks USA, who obviously hopes lean startups see an advantage in operating in the cloud. The key points are that creating a startup now is cheaper than ever before, there are new sources of funding available, and the lingering economic issues can reduce competition: [tweeted by @RWW]

Secom offers a private security drone, serves as our eyes when we’re away  

Secom is giving anxious offices a rare solution in what ‘s supposedly the first airborne drone for private security. The automaton can also track moving subjects with a laser sensor and knows enough to keep its distance. Japanese firms wanting Secom ‘s robot sentry will have to wait until after April 2014, when they can rent one at about 5,000( $ 58) per month; the investment could be worthwhile just to freak out a few would-be burglars. [tweeted by @engadget]

Gotopal is the personal assistant for the masses:

It also acts as a sort of personal shopper, keeping a wishlist and searching for deals as they come up. The Indiegogo campaign is still just beginning, but assuming it makes it goal, by May when the service launches you may also be saying, have your people call my people. [tweeted by @WIREDInsider]

Stats on the devices people used to tweet “First tweet from my new [x]” on Christmas Eve. Poor Surface. [tweeted by @nytimesbits]

Good stuff today from @nichcarlson and @om on the decline and fall of poke [tweeted by @MikeIsaac]

This Christmas, Buyers Were Stocking Up on Tablets -by @inafried

On this Christmas Day 2012, more iPhones, iPads, Galaxys, Kindle Fires, and more, were activated than on any other day in history, Flurry said in a blog post. Flurry estimated that 328 million apps were downloaded, up from an average of 155 million per day earlier in the month and more than 250 million last Christmas. [tweeted by @allthingsd]

Meet the year’s most-Instagrammed locations [tweeted by @CNETNews]

Fantastic video series on great literary works: 

Introduction to World Literature) Meet David Damrosch) Quich-Mayan, written in the Roman alphabet ca. 1550s [tweeted by @mrMattSimon]

How the Kindle PaperWhite works. Cool NYT diagram.

For starters, Amazon and Barnes& Noble added lighting systems to their newest readers, the Kindle Paperwhite and the Nook Simple Touch, to make it easier for people to read in the dark. In Amazons Kindle Paperwhite, four LEDs mounted on the bottom of the reader shoot light toward the surface of the display. Barnes& Nobles lighting, called GlowLight, has a similar system with LEDs. [tweeted by @Pogue]

Toshiba has a Lytro-like camera for smartphones, report says 

The device-maker is creating Lytro-like camera technology for mobile devices that should be released before the end of 2013, according to the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun( h\/t Engadget). Much like Lytro ‘s light-field camera, Toshiba ‘s technology reportedly lets users choose what part of a photo they ‘d like to focus on well after they ‘ve taken the shot. For the most part, this type of technology has only been seen in Lytro cameras and has not yet been put to use in smartphones or tablets. [tweeted by @CNETNews]

RT @Marketingland: Forget The Kiss Facebook Now Lets Users Seal New Years Eve With A Private Message by @gregfinn 

In order to partake in the Midnight Messaging, users must allow access to the Facebook Stories app. To sign up users simply need to head to Facebooks new Midnight Delivery page, allow access from the Facebook Stories app and create their message. [tweeted by @dannysullivan]

Have guests often? Generate a QR code with your WiFi details that you can frame for easy access 

Happily, there appears to be a neat way around the issue, as an intrepid Reddit user recently made well-known: big QR codes. If we had learned of this fact before the 21st, we would have taken it as a sign in favor of an impending apocalypse. [tweeted by @TheNextWeb]

DirecTV to Increase Prices by 4.5 Percent 

The company said the programming costs it pays to owners of television channels will increase about 8% next year, according to a post on its customer support Web site. [tweeted by @allthingsd]