Mobile advertising company JiWire has announced that they have acquired location-based mobile shopping company NearbyNow. The financial details were undisclosed.

The economy is not what it used to be. Within the last couple of years, we needed to bail out automotive companies and financial companies. A lot of people lost their jobs and there has been a loss of respect for corporate America. Some of the people that were laid off have now become self-employed freelancers. The purpose of this blog post is to provide resources to those who are now freelancers.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is in talks to buy the digital rights to Miramax’s movies. Disney is getting ready to sell the Miramax studio to Filmyard Holdings. If Google is successful in their bid, then they would get access to movies such as “No Country for Old Men” and “Pulp Fiction” to be placed on YouTube and Google TV. Google is making this deal in order to further compete with Netflix. Google had hired former Netflix exec Robert Kyncl this past September as VP of content partnerships to work on Hollywood deals like this. [AllThingsD]

Facebook was given a “Notice of Allowance” by the U.S. Patent Office for the word “Face.” They are a payment away from trademarking that word too. Facebook has to cough up some cash to the Patent Office within 3 months to gain ownership of the trademark.

Foursquare has announced a new badge that mocks the whole TSA situation. The new badge is called “Baggage Handler” and you can get one when you are at an airport. But you also have to add “TSA,” “grope,” or “Don’t touch my junk, bro!” in your shout. The badge unlock text says “Looks like you’ve had your baggage handled. Happy Holidays and have a safe flight!” [AboutFoursquare]

Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ:ORCL) has won a court case that is going to require SAP AG to pay them $1.3 billion for copyright infringement. This is the largest jury award of 2010. This is the largest ever award for copyright infringement as well. And out of all the jury awards given out, this is the 23rd largest.

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has hired CloudeMade and OpenStreetMap (OSM) founder Steve Coast as the “Principal Architect for Bing Mobile.” He will also work as the liaison of the “open map community.” About 320,000 people have participated in the OpenStreetMap project.

VoIP and video conferencing service Skype has hit a major milestone. The company hit 25 million concurrent users. Last year Skype users spent 113 billion Skype-to-Skype minutes. And during the first six months of that year, about 40% of Skype-to-Skype minutes were video minutes. [Skype Blog]