Viral Video: Julian Assange Is a Samantha (But a Charlotte to the Swedish Police)

How much are we loving these Julian Assange spoofs on “Saturday Night Live”? Here–a day late–is the WikiLeaks leader commenting on Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg recently beating him out for Time magazine’s Person of the Year.

D: Dive Into Mobile: The Full Interview Video of Spotify's Daniel Ek

And today, here’s Spotify’s Daniel Ek singing for his supper. Well, not in the U.S. as yet, where the Swedish CEO and co-founder of the innovative streaming music service has not been able to make good on his promise to strike deals with music labels.

Spotify's Daniel Ek Splashes Down at D: Dive Into Mobile

Next week, we’ll be putting on our first brand extension of the highly successful D: All Things Digital conference with D: Dive Into Mobile. And we’ve just added an exciting new speaker to the already top-drawer list: Daniel Ek, co-founder and CEO of Spotify. For those living under a rock, Ek leads one of the most exciting music services on the Web right now.

RIM Buys Android UI Gurus

Hoping to shake its reputation for aging or otherwise unappealing mobile interfaces, Research in Motion is bringing in some new design talent. The company has acquired The Astonishing Tribe (TAT), the Swedish design house behind the original Android interface.

iNority Report: Apple Buys Face-Recognition Co.?

Apple is reportedly close to acquiring Polar Rose, a Swedish company that specializes in face-recognition technology—if it hasn’t already. A pair of reports in the Norwegian and Swedish media claim Apple has bought up all shares in Polar Rose, presumably with an eye toward building its facial-recognition technology into mobile devices like the iPhone.

Pirate Bay Runs Aground, Again

The Pirate Bay, the world’s most notorious hub for illegal downloads, is down again, apparently due to a German court order. Decent odds it pops up fairly quickly. In the meantime, LimeWire is still up and running despite a devastating legal loss last week.

Yet Another (Very Attractive) E-Magazine Fantasy

No one has actually spotted one of the much anticipated tablet devices in the wild. But that doesn’t stop publishers from dreaming about what they can do with them once they appear. Here’s the latest, and perhaps most attractive, one–from Sweden’s Bonnier Group. It seems to be purely conceptual at this point, but it’s fun to look at.
Bonnier Tablet Mag

Pirate Bay’s Would-Be Buyer Sinks, Blames Media

A proposed deal to buy The Pirate Bay and turn it legit, which never made sense in the first place, now looks all but dead. The Swedish software/Internet cafe company that’s supposed to buy the file-sharing haven for $8 million now says investors that were supposed to finance the deal have disappeared. And it says this is the fault of the U.S. media, which supposedly spooked said investors. Sorry!
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Illegal Downloads, Meet Suspicious Stock Sales: The Pirate Bay Story Gets Even Murkier

The more I hear about the supposed plan for an Internet cafe company to buy the world’s best-known illegal file-sharing site, the more I think that the whole thing is a farce. So this one doesn’t even faze me: Swedish regulators are looking into insider trading charges at Global Gaming Factory X, which saw shares jump several days before it said it would buy The Pirate Bay.
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