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7:05 PM ET, December 19, 2006

Techmeme

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RELATED:
Opera:
Opera Introduces Fraud Protection, Powered by GeoTrust and PhishTank …
Discussion: Gadgetell and digg
Nick / Rough Type:
Dweebs, horndogs and geezers  —  Now this is mind-boggling.  Check out how radically different the top ten search terms of 2006 were for Google, Yahoo and AOL.  —  Here's Google:  —  1. Bebo  —  2. Myspace  —  3. World Cup  —  4. Metacafe  —  5. Radioblog  —  6. Wikipedia  —  7. Video
RELATED:
Greg Jarboe / Search Engine Watch Blog:
Top news searches differ from top web searches
Discussion: Mashable! and Screenwerk
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 …
Zune Insider:
Zune Compatible with Vista: Today  —  Today (Tuesday the 19th of December) we're issuing a 22 MB update to make Zune compatible with Windows Vista.  The update also improves the Zune software installation process, addressing the issues that some of the known issues users reported.
RELATED:
Ryan Block / Engadget:
Installing Zune firmware v1.2... also sucked
Peter Daboll / Yodel Anecdotal:
Time for a new hit  —  When banner ads started cropping up on the Internet in the mid-'90s, the term "hit" was all the rage.  A "hit" (as in, a hit to a server) was the reigning measurement of a site's popularity.  Hits attempted to show how many times a page was viewed by a user.
Gizmodo:
SlingPlayer Beta for Mac Updated, Development Plods Along Like a Plowhorse  —  The SlingPlayer software beta for the Mac continues making progress at a snail's pace, and today there's an updated client available which fixes a few bugs and supports Mac OS X version 10.3.9.
Discussion: PVR Wire and Zatz Not Funny!
Gizmodo:
SlingPlayer Mobile Now Works With the Dash and BlackJack  —  With the latest update to the SlingMobile software, users of the HTC (T-Mobile) Dash and the Samsung (Cingular) BlackJack can now sling their media to and fro while on-the-go.  The Dash has been out for around two months …
Discussion: Zatz Not Funny! and Digital World
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.
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 …
Roy Mark / internetnews.com:
FCC's McDowell Stands By Recusal on Merger Vote  —  UPDATED: Federal Communications Commission (FCC) member Robert McDowell is standing by his recusal from the agency's AT&T-BellSouth merger vote, declining an invitation to break the 2-2 deadlock over the $80 billion deal hung up on network neutrality conditions.
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 …
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 and TeleRead
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.
Andy Abramson / VoIP Watch:
Working Anywhere: Video And Planning  —  Peter makes some good points about pre-planning not being necessary to have meaningful video communications.  —  To me, the point is, there isn't much difference in having a video call versus a chat or a phone call.  That is if you are following the Boy Scout's moto, of always be prepared.
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.
Karl / Techdirt:
RIAA Drops Case It Can't Make Against Mom After Bleeding Her Dry — Focuses On Suing Kids  —  from the drive-your-customers-to-bankruptcy dept  —  Few of the RIAA's estimated 20,000 lawsuits against file traders have seen the inside of a courtroom, as the majority of users, fearing legal fees or a loss, settle out of court.
Kim / Weatherall's Law:
Reactions to the Cooper decision  —  Various reactions to the 'linking is authorisation' Cooper decision handed down yesterday by the Full Federal Court:  — I commented yesterday (summary? 'troubling'.  'Have we, or have we not just had a very extended debate about copyright law in Australia?
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.
Richard MacManus / Read/WriteWeb:
Ask X - New UI for Ask.com Secretly Launched  —  Tonight I stumbled upon what appears to be a brand new User Interface for Ask.com.  I was doing some searches on Ask.com for a local kiwi band, when I noticed a link in the top right asking me to try out something called Ask X. Screenshot below:
 
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 More Items: 
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
NetSuite's Going Public, Looking for $1 Billion Valuation
Discussion: Valleywag
Michael Liedtke / Associated Press:
Peerflix picks up potentially potent patent as part of makeover
Discussion: Techdirt and eHomeUpgrade
Lifehacker:
Edit images online
Jason Calacanis / The Jason Calacanis Weblog:
LinkedIn Hits a Tipping Point: Annoying distraction turns essential business tool
Discussion: GigaOM
Matt Marshall / VentureBeat:
YouTube myth debunked, Google phone, Endoxon, iPhone, Perkins' memoir & more
Discussion: Valleywag
Katie Fehrenbacher / GigaOM:
Clearwire Files for an IPO, Again
Discussion: Reuters and Techdirt
Randfish / SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog:
Everything in the Digg, Reddit & Netscape Algorithms
Jason McMaster / GigaGamez:
Double Fusion Receives New Round of Venture Capital
Discussion: alarm:clock and PaidContent
 Earlier Items: 
Carlo / Techdirt:
FCC Chairman Only Able To Help Telcos Halfway This Week
Discussion: Reuters and Associated Press
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Peerflix Swaps One Problem For Another
Davis / Davis Freeberg's Digital Connection:
TiVo Quietly Settles Gift Certificate Class Action
Discussion: PVR Wire
Time:
5 Things That Went From Buzz to Bust
Discussion: Joystiq, CrunchGear, Kotaku and digg
Associated Press:
Matsushita to offer new lithium battery
Google Blogoscoped:
Google Maps With Multiple Destinations
Greg Sandoval / CNET News.com:
Digg continues to battle phony stories
Rcade / Workbench:
My Battle with MGM Over Wargames.Com
Discussion: CNNMoney.com and Slashdot
 

 
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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