Today in Tech: Kindle Fire comes under attack

December 13, 2011: 2:00 AM ET

Fortune's curated selection of tech stories from the last 24 hours. Sign up to get the round-up delivered to you each and every day.

* AOL CEO Tim Armstrong is reorganizing the Internet company. Its dial-up services will be merged with Web services, which includes AOL Instant Messenger. The other three divisions will include advertising, local services, and the Huffington Post media group. (Bloomberg)

* Amazon's Kindle Fire has come under, well, fire, over some customer complaints. Among them: sluggish performance, lack of physical volume control buttons, and little-to-no parental controls. Over at TechCrunch, writer John Biggs argues there's actually little room to complain, largely because the Fire accomplishes what it set out to do. "It's hard to accept, but Amazon (AMZN) doesn't need the hardware geeks salivating over its specs. All it needs to do is serve up copies of The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest."  (The New York Times and TechCrunch)

* If AT&T's acquisition of T-Mobile falls through, there may be another party waiting in the wings to scoop it up. Dish Network CEO Joseph Clayton suggested his company could partner with T-Mobile and merge their wireless spectrums to create a serious threat to AT&T and Verizon. (Bloomberg)

* Intel (INTCchalked up expected fourth quarter revenues of $13.7 billion  -- 7% less than originally forecast-- to a global shortage of computer hard disk drives. (The New York Times)

* Andy Less, the head of the Windows Phone business, is being moved to another role within Microsoft (MSFT) that CEO Steve Ballmer called "a time-critical opportunity focused on driving maximum impact in 2012 with Windows Phone and Windows 8." VP Terry Myerson will absorb Less's current duties. (All Things D)

* How Zynga, which will go public Thursday with a valuation of $8.9 billion, became a social gaming juggernaut. (VentureBeat)

* Downloads for Apple's Mac App Store, which launched less than a year ago, topped 100 million. (Apple)

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About This Author
JP Mangalindan
JP Mangalindan
Writer, Fortune

With a background in consumer products and pop culture trends, JP Mangalindan has brought his ability to spot the next big things to his coverage of the tech industry for Fortune.com, writing on topics as diverse as the evolution of net neutrality and the influence of social media. A graduate of Fordham University, Mangalindan has written for GQ, Popular Science, Entertainment Weekly, and nymag.com. He lives in San Francisco.

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