Catching Up: Today's Must-Read Tech Stories

It's been a very typical Friday in the tech news world, with a relatively slow trickle of news compared to other days. That doesn't mean there was nothing to report, though, as Samsung reported record sales numbers, Yahoo is apparently trying to fix its disfunctional board and Mayor Bloomberg of New York City is apparently trying to learn to code.

Here is our round-up of the most interesting tech news stories of the day.

Top Stories

The next iPhone and iPad will likely have a quad-core chip: An intrepid hacker found some references to a quad-core A6 chip in Apple's code for iOS 5.1. There are already some quad-core Android phones on the market, so Apple will likely follow suit soon. This is not a huge surprise, but expect to hear more about this in the next few days. (9to5Mac, Ars Technica)

Samsung reports record profits: Thanks to its growing smartphone business, Samsung is now the world's largest technology company by sales (something that made Apple apologist John Gruber a bit grumpy). Samsung made about $4.5 billion profit in Q4. (Register, Bloomberg, AFP)

Yahoo is looking to fix its broken board: With a new CEO on board, Yahoo is now looking to fix its dysfunctional board. Rumor has it that Yahoo has hired an executive search firm to replace "possible outgoing directors," according to the Wall Street Journal. Shareholders can start nominating rival directors starting in late February.(WSJ)

SOPA/PIPA

Al Gore joins the chorus of SOPA's opponents: "The content creators and owners have a point and a legitimate complaint… But, in our country, in our world today, there is hardly anything more important — whether you want to solve global warming, as I do, whether you want to reinvigorate democracy as many of us do, whatever problem you want to fix — there is hardly anything more important to getting the right things done than to save and protect the vibrancy and freedom of the internet. The internet is bringing life back to democracy." (Techdirt)

Apple

Apple will open stores-within-a-store outlets inside Target: Apple is about to launch Apple-branded areas within Target stores in the U.S. The company already runs a successful partnership with Best Buy and is apparently looking to expand this. Given how much most people hate Best Buy, it's probably a good idea for Apple to start working with some other companies now. (AppleInsider)

Hacking

Even New York City Mayor Bloomberg will learn to code in 2012: It seems learning to code is all the rage now. NYC Mayor Bloomberg is apparently joining the fray, too, and has joined Codecademy's Code Year program. London's Mayer Boris Johnson is apparently considering to join as well (TPM)

Reminders

So much for all that free music: If you are using Spotify's free service and you signed up when it launched in the U.S., remember that your six month trial period is almost over. Soon, you will be limited to 10 hours per day if you don't sign up for one of Spotify's paid plans. (Business Insider)

Catching Up (1/6) in Frederic Lardinois (fredericl)