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11:55 AM ET, December 19, 2006

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Time:
5 Things That Went From Buzz to Bust  —  The message of this page is, Beware all hype.  Here are five phenomena that captivated the media for a spell, then turned out to be less than huge.  Our bad  —  SNAKES ON A PLANE, AUDIENCE DISEMBARKS  —  When the words Snakes on a Plane hit the Internet …
Discussion: Joystiq and Kotaku
RELATED:
Blake Snow / Joystiq:
TIME magazine deems PS3 a bust
Discussion: CrunchGear, Go Nintendo and digg
Susan Stellin / New York Times:
Offline Involuntarily  —  Five years ago, the main challenge for data-hungry business travelers was finding a hotel that offered high-speed Internet access.  Then came a shift to wireless and even free connections.  —  But these days, the top priority for many is simply getting consistent …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Polar Rose: Europe's Entrant Into Facial Recognition  —  Malmö, Sweden based Polar Rose is having its coming out party today and pre-announcing a product release slated for early next year.  CEO Nikolaj Nyholm gave me demo of what's coming last weekend.
Greg Sandoval / CNET News.com:
Digg continues to battle phony stories  —  Digg continues to crack down on users who plant phony stories on behalf of marketers, recently deleting a user who posted a story about a company that offered to compensate him.  —  The news aggregate site, which allows users to play editor and decide …
Brady Forrest / O'Reilly Radar:
Google Deprecates Their SOAP Search API  —  In an odd move Google has quietly deprecated their Search SOAP API, will no longer be issuing keys, and have removed the SDK from their site.  They did not even issue a blog post about it.  They will continue (for how long?) to support existing users, but will not do any bug fixes.
RELATED:
Nelson's Weblog:
Goodbye, Google SOAP search API
Discussion: Google Blogoscoped
Richard Siklos / New York Times:
AOL Chief Has a View, a Long One  —  If AOL were being dressed up for a sale, as has been rumored on and off for several years, Randy Falco is an odd choice to be the new chief executive.  —  As Mr. Falco notes, he is hardly a short-term guy.  Before starting at Time Warner's AOL unit this month …
Discussion: PaidContent
EE Times:
Verizon joins Asian consortium to build $500-million U.S.-China network  —  Verizon Business said Monday that it has signed an agreement with a group of Asian telecommunications firms to build an advanced undersea optical cable system linking China with the U.S. mainland.
Discussion: GigaOM and dailywireless.org
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Peerflix Swaps One Problem For Another  —  After a year long beta period and another year of operation, Peerflix is ditching its barter model of swapping DVDs.  Until today, users swapped DVDs in the Peerflix marketplace, and the company took a $.99 transaction fee for the exchange.
Anne Broache / CNET News.com:
Australian court rules against MP3 link site  —  update Linking to copyright music posted elsewhere online without permission can be illegal, an Australian appeals court ruled Monday.  —  The issue before a three-judge panel at the Federal Court of Australia was whether Stephen Cooper …
RELATED:
Mike / Techdirt:
Allowing Linking To MP3s Still Illegal In Australia; Ruling …
Discussion: Weatherall's Law
Rcade / Workbench:
My Battle with MGM Over Wargames.Com  —  For the past three months I've been privately engaged in a time-consuming dispute with Nathan J. Hole, a lawyer representing MGM Studios who claims that Wargames.Com, a domain that I've owned since April 16, 1998, is the rightful property of the film company …
Discussion: Digital Life
Alice Z. Cuneo / AdAge:
Ford Denies Connection to Web-Concert Porno Promo  —  Launches Investigation of MSN Event It Is Sponsoring  —  SAN FRANCISCO (Adage.com) — An entertainment company promoting a Ford Motor Co.-backed concert has come up with a new way to tie its advertising into celebrity content …
Discussion: PaidContent and AdJab
Ben Charny / MarketWatch:
Google's radio ad tests hit snag — analyst  —  SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - Google Inc.'s nascent radio advertisement business, known as Google Audio, has run into an unexpected snag: it seems Google doesn't have access to enough radio airtime for would-be advertisers to thoroughly test out the initiative, an analyst said Monday.
Samsung:
SAMSUNG Launches the World's First 'Optical Joystick' Phone  —  Samsung's SCH-V960 features optical sensor button for user convenience  —  Samsung Electronics , a leading provider and innovator of mobile phones, launches the world's first mobile phone featuring a n optical joystick for a whole new mobile experience.
Discussion: Engadget and CrunchGear
Opera:
Opera Introduces Fraud Protection, Powered by GeoTrust and PhishTank: New release expands Opera's commitment to secure browsing  —  Opera Software today introduced real-time Fraud Protection in its award-winning Web browser.  Fraud Protection includes technology from GeoTrust …
Discussion: digg
Associated Press:
Matsushita to offer new lithium battery  —  TOKYO - Japanese electronics maker Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. said Monday it will begin mass production of a new lithium-ion battery that is safe from the overheating problems that prompted a massive recall of Sony Corp. batteries this year.
Bruce Houghton / hypebot:
Amazon To Enter Crowded Download Market With MP3 Only Store  —  Late last week Amazon began circulating contracts to labels aiming for a late 1st Q '07 music download store launch.  Rumors of an Amazon entry have been circulating all year, but died down as attention shifted first to the URGE launch and then to Microsoft's ZUNE.
Davis / Davis Freeberg's Digital Connection:
TiVo Quietly Settles Gift Certificate Class Action  —  I was thumbing through TiVo's recent quarterly report this morning and came across an interesting TiVo tidbit that management quietely neglected to mention on their last conference call.  Apparently, this November TiVo entered …
Discussion: PVR Wire
Matt Marshall / VentureBeat:
PixSense, offering auto-storage of mobile photos & video, raises $5.4M  —  PixSense, a service that lets you automatically save and store your mobile phone photos — without the pain of syncing with a PC — has just raised $5.4 million in a first round of funding.
Discussion: michael parekh on IT
RELATED:
Ilene Adler / beta.pixsense.com:
PixSense Secures $5.4 Million in Series A Funding for Mobile Photo …
Discussion: Mashable!
 
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 More Items: 
Riva Richmond / Wall Street Journal:
Software to Spot 'Phishers' Irks Small Concerns
Discussion: Kevin Maney
Erick Schonfeld / The Next Net:
Second Life Adds Its Second Millionth Resident
Google Blogoscoped:
Google Maps With Multiple Destinations
Discussion: Search Engine Land
Samuel Cohen / The Apple Blog:
Top 10 Apps for Laptop-Toting Mac Users
Martyn Williams / InfoWorld:
YouTube ready to talk copyright with Japanese group
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
First Big Partner for Zudeo: BBC
Discussion: Torrentfreak and Profy.Com
Phillip Torrone / MAKE Magazine:
ITP Winter show 2006 (tons of photos!)
Timboy:
Leaving Yahoo!
 Earlier Items: 
Anick Jesdanun / Associated Press:
Imbalance in Net speeds impedes sharing
Gizmodo:
Exploding PowerBook Surprisingly Not Sony's Fault
Discussion: digg
John Dempsey / Variety:
Comcast, Endemol pair in video search
Discussion: Mashable! and PaidContent
Staci D. Kramer / PaidContent:
SI Continues Interest In Social Networks; $25 Million On 40 percent …
Discussion: Mashable! and alarm:clock
New York Times:
EBay Is Expected to Close Its Auction Site in China
Discussion: PaidContent and VentureBeat
Jeremy Kirk / InfoWorld:
Malware: Quality drops but quantity rises
Discussion: Techdirt
Seeking Alpha:
Oracle F2Q07 (Qtr End 11/30/06) Earnings Call Transcript
Caroline McCarthy / CNET News.com:
NASA-Google partnership ready for liftoff
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:
James Harding says the Tortoise-Observer deal could create a profitable media group and there isn't a guaranteed future for the Observer with the Guardian

Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch:
Tubi launches Scenes, a mobile feature that lets viewers watch 60-to-90-second trailer-style clips from its library to help with content discovery

Alex Sherman / CNBC:
Analyzing Comcast's spinoff of cable networks, purposefully structured with low debt: the move might be a signal to the industry that it's time to consolidate

 
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