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Special Instagram-edition. (Photo: flickr.com/diegorusso

Booting Up: Now Rumors Have Facebook Thinking of Buying Waze

Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer earned $68.6 million last year. Think about that while you’re scraping together change to refill your metrocard. [Bloomberg]

Rumor has it that Facebook is looking into buying mobile map app Waze for up to $1B. Waze really gets around–last we heard it was dating Apple. [TechCrunch]

Microsoft might be mulling a $1 billion purchase of Nook Media LLC, its joint venture with Barnes and Noble. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, guys. [TechCrunch]

Time and Google have teamed up to produce Timelapse, a new package that shows how the Earth’s surface has changed over the last thirty years. (Spoiler: Not for the better, if you like nature.)  [Time]

Can’t patent software in New Zealand any more, sorry. [Forbes]

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bloomberg

Booting Up: Bloomberg, Tech Investors to March (Virtually) for Immigration Reform

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is teaming up with a group of high-profile investors, including Fred Wilson, Ron Conway and Paul Graham, to “push for smart immigration reform to attract and keep the best, the brightest and the hardest-working to fuel innovation and American jobs.” [March for Innovation]

It wasn’t so long ago that the Nook was the key to Barnes & Noble’s future. Now the bookseller is planning to back off of its efforts to sell its own e-reader, and is working on strengthening partnerships with tablet suppliers. [NYT]

It’s not that Julian Assange isn’t giving interviews—it’s just that he’s leading a busy life inside the Ecuadorian government’s London embassy, and it’s a question of fitting reporters in. [Ars Technica]

Kara Swisher leans into the backlash against Facebook COO’s Sheryl Sandberg’s new book. [AllThingsD]

In case you can’t wait for the competing biopics currently in production, here’s what it’s like to go on a double-date with John McAfee. [PandoDaily]

The Future of the Ebook

JEFF BEZOS KNOWS.

Amazon Knows How Many Times You Read that Sex Scene, You Pervert

It’s a common refrain (one that’ll be especially familiar to, let’s say, romance fans): Hey, isn’t it great that, once you get a Kindle/Nook/iPad, no one can see what you’re reading? Now we’re forever free from those awkward subway moments when we pull out our trashy novel and realize it’s a little too lurid for the L train on a Saturday night.

Well, a bit of bad news for the bookish and private. The Wall Street Journal would like you to know that whoever sold you that ebook–whether it’s Amazon, Apple, or whoever–actually is paying attention to what you read. For one thing, maybe be careful what you highlight? Read More