TV News: Network nixes programming as carriage stalemate continues
Read MoreBeyond Oblivion, a New York-based music startup is shutting down before even launching a product, having burned through some $87 million worth of funding. Backed by investments from News Corp. (which also owns this Web site) it had sought to bundle the service with hardware and charge a flat fee, but had trouble selling recording labels on the idea.
Read MoreBox Office News: Par actioner takes in $10.7 mil for domestic cume of $113.6 mil
Read MoreApple design guru Jonathan “Jony” Ive has been awarded a second knighthood by the Queen of England as part of her annual list of honors. Ive has been named Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, or KBE for short. When in England or any member of the British Commonwealth like Canada, he will be entitled to be addressed as Sir Jonathan. Its his second honor from the Queen, who named him Commander of the British Empire, or CBE, in 2006. The new title will be conferred by the touch of a sword held by the Queen. Interestingly, Ive is only one of two people being given this particular title this year, from the extensive list of other honors published in the London Gazette. (Ive’s name appears on page 24 of the announcement; there’s a PDF of that page here .) The other KBE recipient is the art historian John Patrick Richardson , who wrote a well regarded biography of Pablo Picasso . The full announcement from the British Embassy is below. Her Majesty the Queen honours Apple designer with knighthood 31 December 2011 Jonathan (Jony) Ive has been appointed by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II a Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE). The honour, for the lead designer at Apple Inc. of products like the iPod and iPad, was part of the New Year 2012 Honours List and was in recognition of Jonathan Ive’s services to design and enterprise.
Read MoreTurns out the iPhone that Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled back in January of 2007 wasn’t the company’s first shot at creating a phone. Apple had tried its hand at creating a smartphone nearly 25 years earlier — a very different smartphone from the ones we’re familiar with today. Designed by Frog Design founder Hartmut Esslinger this device too featured a touchscreen and was reportedly conceptualized with some help from AT&T . But as you can see from the photo above, it was anything but portable and was ultimately consigned to Stanford’s Island of Lost Apple Prototypes. [Image courtesy Jay Mug ]
Read MoreThe cat-and-mouse game between the Bay Area’s legion of mobile developers and app kingmaker Apple Inc. is heating up. Mobile-software developers have long complained about Apple’s limits on them. Chief among their gripes is Apple’s rule that developers registered through its standard developer program cap testing of their app to 100 devices before the software is sold in the app store. Developers say the rule curtails the amount of feedback they receive to improve their apps. Read the rest of this post on the original site
Read MoreThe end the year is a time for many kinds of awards. The Associated Press annually votes on the top news stories of the year . The Wall Street Journal picked the year’s biggest flops in tech . The readers of Footnoted, the Morningstar-owned blog that follows the surprisingly fascinating world of SEC filings, annually select its worst footnote of the year — in other words, the best/worst disclosure of 2011. Hewlett-Packard won.
Read MoreAfter enduring 24 hours of criticism and threats of an inquiry from the Federal Communications Commission, Verizon Wireless said on Friday that it would drop plans to charge some customers $2 a month for paying their bills online or by phone. The company said the move was made in response to the uproar. “At Verizon, we take great care to listen to our customers,” CEO Dan Mead said in a statement. “Based on their input, we believe the best path forward is to encourage customers to take advantage of the best and most efficient options, eliminating the need to institute the fee at this time.” The announcement comes one day after Verizon said it would be adding the fee for customers who make a single bill payment by telephone, and for some who pay online via the Verizon Web site. Earlier today, the Federal Communications Commission had said it was concerned about the carrier’s planned fee. “On behalf of American consumers, we’re concerned about Verizon’s actions and are looking into the matter,” an FCC representative told AllThingsD.
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