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We went to see The Artist last night. I didn’t want to go; if God wanted silent movies he wouldn’t have invented sound, etc. And black and white to boot. Making a black and white 3D movie, maybe. But inexorably the Oscars loom, and the last thing I want is to endure the withering gaze of my long-suffering wife when it wins Best Picture without us having seen it.

This guest post was written by Richard Price, founder and CEO of Academia.edu — a site that serves as a platform for academics to share their research papers and to interact with each other.
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There's some more corporate reshuffling going on in the Windows Phone universe this week, now that Brandon Watson has confirmed his departure from Microsoft. Watson, who served as head of the WP Developer Experience, announced the news on his Twitter page Friday, and later told ZDNet that he's heading to Amazon , where he'll be Director of the Kindle Cross Platform team.

The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, John Taschek, and Steve Gillmor — trembled in the face of Facebook’s IPO and all-out war on the open Web, also known as Google. Me, I go back to Bill Gates during the DOJ deposition when he basically said we don’t need no steenkin’ breakup when Google will come along and be invented.

Two days ago, I received an invite to Pinterest. (I know, I’m late.) After signing up, I pretty much ignored the welcome message, just as I do with most services.

Most popular mobile sports apps are trying to feed you scores and news, or show you fantasy numbers. OnSports, by HitPost, is in a smaller class of apps that’s focused on users running the discussion themselves.

Each week, Androinica.com recaps new and updated Android apps that you may have missed or might enjoy.

In a major update to its privacy policy and the addition of "Search Plus Your World", Google has managed to attain the consensus from the tech-enthused world that it is way beyond the innocent baby days of "don’t be evil". Matt Honan of Gizmodo signalled the privacy shift as the end of Google’s "don’t be evil" promise, which the company built its business on, and Sarah Lacy of Pando Daily shared similar sentiments

(Credit:
Nuance)
Speak now, or forever hold your chance to win this week's Crave giveaway. The prize: Nuance's Dragon Dictate 2.5 for Mac. The speech recognition software boasts some enhancements over earlier versions, including full support for Microsoft Word 2011 and new Facebook- and Twitter-sharing capabilities.

Research In Motion plans to give away tablets to Android developers who quickly port their apps to run on the PlayBook device. RIM developer executive Alec Saunders mentioned the program in a Twitter message on Thursday, with the company offering up a few more details on its Web site .