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1:55 PM ET, December 19, 2006

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Opera:
The Opera browser for Wii launches just in time for the holidays  —  Opera Software today announces that a trial version of its Web browser for Nintendo's new game console, Wii, will be available on December 22, 2006.  The trial version of the Opera browser for Wii is available for download …
RELATED:
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: Gadgetell 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 …
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: Kotaku
RELATED:
Blake Snow / Joystiq:
TIME magazine deems PS3 a bust
Discussion: CrunchGear, Go Nintendo and digg
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 …
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 …
Brian Krebs / Security Fix:
Coming in January: "Month of Apple Bugs"  —  A pair of security researchers has picked January 2007 as the starting point for a month-long project in which each passing day will feature a previously undocumented security hole in Apple's OS X operating system or in Apple applications that run on top of it.
Discussion: Donna's SecurityFlash and Slashdot
Carlo / Techdirt:
FCC Chairman Only Able To Help Telcos Halfway This Week  —  from the and-the-ps3-was-sold-out-too dept  —  It looks like Kevin Martin won't be able to play Santa Claus for AT&T and BellSouth and deliver the companies approval for their merger before the end of the year.
Erick Schonfeld / The Next Net:
Second Life Adds Its Second Millionth Resident  —  Virtual world Second Life just surpassed two million registered users, exactly two months after it hit one million residents.  Yes, the churn rate is high and only 829,537 have logged on in the last two months, but that is still phenomenal growth.
Tropicaljantie / Watching, Testing, Digesting:
As predicted here is the first Skype worm on the loose...  My eagle eyes all over the world just reported this.  I was waiting for stuff like this to happen and this is only the beginning of a probably very serious problem.  I think the worst thing that could happen is that some worm …
Jason McMaster / GigaGamez:
Double Fusion Receives New Round of Venture Capital  —  Breaking News  —  Double Fusion, an in-game advertising company, has received an infusion of 26 million dollars from a group of venture capitalists, including Norwest Venture Partners, Time Warner, Hearst Corporation and others.
Discussion: alarm:clock and PaidContent
Greg Jarboe / Search Engine Watch Blog:
Top news searches differ from top web searches  —  When is a search term not a search term?  That's a question worth asking after looking at a year's worth of search results on Google, Yahoo and AOL.  —  Google has just released its 2006 Year-End Google Zeitgeist.
Discussion: Torrentfreak and Screenwerk
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
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
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
Google Blogoscoped:
Google Maps With Multiple Destinations  —  Google added a feature that lets you add multiple destinations to your driving directions.  For example, I'm searching Google Maps for [from stuttgart, germany, to cologne, germany].  Then there's a link titled "Add destination..." …
Discussion: Zoli's Blog and Search Engine Land
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.
Discussion: eHomeUpgrade and Hacking NetFlix
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.
Nick / Rough Type:
Sharecropping the long tail  —  A while back I wrote that Web 2., by putting the means of production into the hands of the masses but withholding from those same masses any ownership over the product of their work, provides an incredibly efficient mechanism to harvest the economic value …
Discussion: Compete Blog
 
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 More Items: 
Zune Insider:
Zune Compatible with Vista: Today
Rick Broida / Lifehacker:
Alpha Geek: How to digitize cassette tapes
Discussion: Gizmodo
Kevin J. Delaney / Wall Street Journal:
Copyright Tool Will Scan Web For Violations
Discussion: Slashdot and digg
Davis / Davis Freeberg's Digital Connection:
TiVo Quietly Settles Gift Certificate Class Action
Discussion: PVR Wire
Riva Richmond / Wall Street Journal:
Software to Spot 'Phishers' Irks Small Concerns
Discussion: Kevin Maney
Alice Z. Cuneo / AdAge:
Ford Denies Connection to Web-Concert Porno Promo
Discussion: PaidContent and AdJab
Samuel Cohen / The Apple Blog:
Top 10 Apps for Laptop-Toting Mac Users
Martyn Williams / InfoWorld:
YouTube ready to talk copyright with Japanese group
 Earlier Items: 
Bruce Houghton / hypebot:
Amazon To Enter Crowded Download Market With MP3 Only Store
Timboy:
Leaving Yahoo!
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
Brady Forrest / O'Reilly Radar:
Google Deprecates Their SOAP Search API
Ben Charny / MarketWatch:
Google's radio ad tests hit snag — analyst
Anne Broache / CNET News.com:
Australian court rules against MP3 link site