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AT&T drops bid for T-Mobile

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The actions by the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice to block this transaction do not change the realities of the U.S. wireless industry. It is one of the most fiercely competitive industries in the world, with a mounting need for more spectrum that has not diminished and must be addressed immediately. The AT&T and T-Mobile USA combination would have offered an interim solution to this spectrum shortage. In the absence of such steps, customers will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled.

Skype sponsors free Wi-Fi for holiday travelers

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Frederic Lardinois for SiliconFilter: From December 21st thru December 27th, Skype (and, by extension, Microsoft), will offer free access to third-party WiFi hotspots through its Skype WiFi program in over 50 airports all across the U.S. You sign in using … Continued

CleanMyMac 40% discount [Sponsor]

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It’s the perfect time for a Holiday CleanUp! Get CleanMyMac with 40% off until December 25th. CleanMyMac is an easy-to-use cleaning tool for your Mac. It helps you free up space on your hard drive by cleaning logs, caches, system junk and apps leftover. Includes a set of maintenance utilities.Try CleanMyMac for free, and get it with 40% off during this week.

Fusion Garage goes AWOL

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Nilay Patel for The Verge: It appears that the wild story of Fusion Garage has come to a sadly ignominious close: the manufacturer of the failed JooJoo and Grid10 tablets has all but disappeared, leaving behind only a database error … Continued

Studiometry

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Get organized! Studiometry helps small businesses track all their clients, projects and invoices — all in one place. From leads and planning to invoicing and more, the award-winning business management software works as hard as you, keeping your business organized and your projects managed.Download our FREE 30-day trial. Frequent free updates and a developer who actually listens give you the best project management experience for Mac, Windows, and iOS devices.

Why RIM needs to fire its co-CEOs

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Tom Krazit for paidContent.org: As they tried once again Thursday evening to urge financial analysts to look ahead to a brighter future while once again delaying the release of a crucial product, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis failed to give … Continued

R2-D2 Heineken keg

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Knowing my love of Heineken, Igor Venturi sent me this picture today. I must have one of these.

Google’s 2011 Zeitgeist

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This year marks our 11th annual look back at the searches that compose the year’s Zeitgeist—the spirit of the time. With Zeitgeist, we look at the most popular and the fastest rising terms—the terms with the highest growth in 2011—in many categories across many countries around the world.

Tech reporters on their craft

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Hunter Walk has rounded up some comments from prominent technology journalists about what they think about the state of tech journalism today. Apple comes up a couple of times. for example: Jason Kincaid, TechCrunch: “… if you compare the traffic … Continued

Time’s Person of the Year

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While I, of course, agree that the protests this year were of enormous significance, I cannot help but feel that this award is somewhat contrived.The inclusion of the Occupy movements across the United States in the same article as the bloody overthrow of Gaddafi? Seems a bit much.

I’ve seen a number of comments similar to this today.

Microsoft co-founder launches space project

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Microsoft Corp co-founder Paul Allen is planning to build a spaceship that could replace the Space Shuttle and put paying passengers into orbit this decade.

I think I’ll wait a little bit.

Nokia can’t give its phones away

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Om Malik talking about his trip to Helsinki: Walking around the downtown (where I am staying), I have seen many more iPhones than Nokia phones. And most of the startup people I met have some variation of the iPhone. One … Continued

FCC to ban loud TV ads

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Consumer Reports: The Federal Communications Commission will pass regulations today to limit the volume levels of TV commercials and penalize broadcasters that bombard consumers with loud ads between televised shows and programs. We live in a fairly small house with … Continued

2011 Best App Ever Awards

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The Best App Ever Awards were created to celebrate the best mobile apps and games available, as chosen by our readers. Our goal is to help gather together the very favorite apps of the real users, not just the best-selling ones. This year we are making a big change, including Android applications and games in the mix. For each category there will be winners in iOS (both iPhone and iPad combined) and Android divisions.

Studiometry [Sponsor]

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Get organized! Studiometry helps small businesses track all their clients, projects and invoices — all in one place. From leads and planning to invoicing and more, the award-winning business management software works as hard as you, keeping your business organized and your projects managed.

Download our FREE 30-day trial. Frequent free updates and a developer who actually listens give you the best project management experience for Mac, Windows, and iOS devices.

TextExpander

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Thanks to TextExpander for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed on The Loop.

Typing the same things over and over? Get TextExpander from Smile. You’ll save time and tedium by using short abbreviations to insert frequently-typed text. Use it for email addresses, company names, boilerplate paragraphs — there’s even special snippet libraries for correcting typos or coding HTML. The more you use TextExpander, the more uses you’ll find for it. Get a free demo of TextExpander: if you’re not using it, you’re wasting time.

Jawbone offers Up customers a refund

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Mat Smith for Engadget: While Jawbone attempts to fix the handful of substantial issues plaguing its new Up fitness band, it’s now announced that it will begin giving free refunds to dissatisfied customers — and you can even keep hold … Continued

Justice asks judge to postpone AT&T/T-Mobile case

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Brent Kendall for the Wall Street Journal: In a setback for AT&T Inc., a Justice Department lawyer told a federal judge Friday the agency wants to postpone its antitrust case seeking to block the acquisition of T-Mobile USA. The request, … Continued

Why QR codes aren’t catching on

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Amy Gahran for CNN: Archrival, a research group that focuses on youth marketing, surveyed 500 students at 24 colleges and universities across the United States. They found that although about 80% of students owned a smartphone and had previously seen … Continued

Eight Ferraris Crash

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Bloomberg:

Eight Ferraris and a Lamborghini were part of a 14-car crash in Japan yesterday that wrecked more than $1 million of vehicles.“The accident occurred when the driver of a red Ferrari was switching from the right lane to the left and skidded,” said Mitsuyoshi Isejima, executive officer for Yamaguchi Prefecture’s Expressway Traffic Police unit. “It was a gathering of narcissists.” The drivers were aged between 37 and 60 years old, he said.

When Shawn King showed me this, I almost cried. There is also a video of the aftermath.

Netflix boss: ‘We got overconfident’

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Julianne Pepitone, for CNNMoney: “We did so many difficult things this year that we got overconfident,” Hastings said. “Our big obsession for the year was streaming, the idea that ‘let’s not die with DVDs.’” Netflix CEO Reed Hastings’ comments came … Continued

PayPal regrets Regretsy kerfuffle

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Regretsy, the “fail blog of hand crafts,” recently notified users that it wouldn’t be able to give donations as part of its Christmas gift fund-raising effort because the program ran afoul of payment service PayPal’s terms of service. Regretsy explained … Continued

A look inside Heineken’s new US headquarters

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Business Insider: “Some of the concepts we wanted were transparency, openness, representing a very progressive upscale, and a feeling of having one Heineken,” said Heineken VP of Business Integration John Kennedy. “So it’s very tied in with design elements with … Continued

Dell dumps Android-based Streak 7

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Electronista: Dell on Monday confirmed that it had stopped selling the Streak 7. The tablet is no longer available online and is withdrawing just months after Dell axed the Streak 5. In a statement, it said it would still be … Continued

Note to RIM re: Playbooks

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Hey, RIM – if you’re wondering what to do with all those unsold Playbooks, maybe it’s time consider how Atari handled its glut of E.T. cartridges.