Sprouter, a professional social network, is closing on August 2nd due to financial issues. ReadWriteWeb reports that the Sprouter Weekly newsletter may continue publication. The Sprouter team blog’s goodbye post notes, “we’ve been privileged to participate in so many local startup scenes. […] we’ve been humbled to meet so many incredible entrepreneurs and be a part of so much early stage innovation.”

A new light in the patent battle between HTC and Apple: HTC has announced that it is willing to negotiate with Apple. Each company has won a few ITC patent rulings, but Bloomberg reports that an end may be in sight as HTC’s CFO Winston Yung said the company is “open to having discussions” and “open to all sorts of solutions, as long as the solution and the terms are fair and reasonable.” His statement sounds like a fairly obvious offer, but the admission could lead to white flags from both sides.

AOL announced yesterday that the company’s ad chief Jeff Levick is stepping down, with Ned Brody stepping up as Chief Revenue Officer and President of AOL Advertising. Jeff Levick only held the position for two years, and the changes in the organization follow declining advertising revenues. Lauren Hurvitz (head of PR) and Kathy Andreasen (head of HR) are also leaving the company, while five new general managers have been announced: Chris Grosso for AOL.com, Brian Kaminsky for Huffington Post, Kerry Trainor for Entertainment, Jay Kirsch for Marketplace and Heather Harde for Tech. [TechCrunch]

Jumio’s Netswipe technology is about to revolutionize online credit card payments. The tech scans credit cards with webcams and uses the encrypted video to assess whether the card is real (plastic, raised letters, et cetera) and to record the card number and info. Users then enter the security code via keyboard and the transaction is complete! GigaOM reports that creator Daniel Mattes found a 36% reduction in fraud costs and 2.3 minutes saved per transaction when the Netswipe tech was tested in a six-week trial.

Twitter’s trending topics looked a bit different this morning: tv shows from Nickelodeon’s 90s lineup covered the entire list, and #90sareallthat is still trending at #3 worldwide. Last night the children’s network started airing its 90s hits again, to the delight of the generation that can’t help but tweet about it. Children of the 90s are very devoted to this television and what it represents, and advertisers should take note of how influential this re-aired programming could be. Business Insider‘s Corey Nachmann notes, “These shows mean a LOT to the twentysomethings that are now getting used to the morning commute, and it’s not necessarily because they were any good. […] There’s no better way to unwind after a long, hard day than watching two hours of our childhood to remind us how we got there.”

Inrix is a real-time car traffic data service that has raised $37 million in Series D funding. This round of funding was led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’ Green Growth Fund and August Capital. Now Inrix has $70 million in total funding at a valuation that is slightly under $500 million.

Jammie Thomas-Rasset is known as the first U.S. resident to have file sharing lawsuits go to trial and verdict. Although she lied in her testimony and refused to accept responsibility for her actions, federal judge Michael Davis decided that the $1.5 million award fined against her was unconstitutional. The new amount is cut down to $54,000, or $2,250 per song that she was caught sharing on KaZaA.

Canvas is a mobile application development start-up company that has raised $1.2 million in Series B funding from Motorola Solutions Venture Capital. Canvas makes it easier for businesses to create and launch mobile business applications. These applications are specialized across different sectors such as healthcare, retail, government, logistics, etc.