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9:40 PM ET, January 4, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Catherine Holahan / Business Week:
Sony BMG Plans to Drop DRM  —  The last major label will throw in the towel on digital rights management and prepare to fight Apple for valuable download revenues  —  In a move that would mark the end of a digital music era, Sony BMG Music Entertainment is finalizing plans to sell songs without …
RELATED:
Ken Fisher / Ars Technica:
Lone holdout in DRMed music recommends DRM circumvention
Discussion: MacUser, Podcasting News and Valleywag
RELATED:
PR Newswire:
Toshiba's Comment on Announcement from Warner Bros.  Entertainment of Its Exclusive Support for Blu-ray Disc Format  —  Toshiba is quite surprised by Warner Bros.' decision to abandon HD DVD in favor of Blu-ray, despite the fact that there are various contracts in place between our companies concerning the support of HD DVD.
David Carnoy / Crave: The gadget blog:
Warner goes Blu-ray exclusively, delivering crushing blow to HD DVD
Discussion: TechLifeBlogged
Gizmodo:
Confirmed: Warner Going 100% Blu-ray; Is This HD DVD's Deathblow?
Discussion: DVICE
Eric Bangeman / Ars Technica:   Warner tries to curtail format war by ending HD DVD support
Greg Linden / Geeking with Greg:
The coming 2008 dot-com crash  —  Early January is the time we see many predictions for 2008.  I have not played this game since 2006, but I want to chime in this year.  —  I am only going to make one prediction, but one with broad impact.  We will see a dot-com crash in 2008.
Ben Edelman:
Sears Exposes Customer Purchase History in Violation of Its Privacy Policy  —  Want to know what a given customer has purchased from Sears?  It's surprisingly easy to find out.  Here's the procedure:  —  1) Go to the Sears “Manage My Home” site, www.managemyhome.com .  Create an account and sign in.
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Will fans pay?  Reznor opens books on 'Net music experiment  —  Radiohead isn't talking numbers, but Trent Reznor is.  After producing Saul Williams' The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust and offering it to fans online, Reznor yesterday laid out the numbers from his experiment.
Joe Wilcox / Microsoft Watch:
Scoble's Scrape with Facebook Isn't Friendly … On Wednesday, Facebook suspended the former Microsoft evangelist blogger for a terms-of-service violation.  He had used a testing Plaxo tool to mine, or “scrape” information from about 5,000 of his contacts.  —  Scoble is back on Facebook now, but he shouldn't be.
Discussion: eWEEK.com and Chuqui 3.0
RELATED:
Troll Tracker / Patent Troll Tracker:
4 Interesting New Cases From Last 2 Weeks of December  —  Well, what do we have for you today?  How about the Rothschild family investing in a Eurotroll, and suing in Marshall, Texas?  How about an ex-Fish & Richardson associate buying patents for millions of dollars (while an associate) …
Discussion: WebProNews
RELATED:
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Digg And Others Sued For Infringing Infamous Computer Solitaire Patent
Megan McCarthy / Epicenter:
Kleiner Perkins Adds Facebook-Savvy General Partner  —  Sand Hill venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield Byers is taking social networking seriously.  At least, that's the implication of its most recent hire: KPCB has added former Accel associate Chi-Hua Chien to its stable of general partners …
RELATED:
Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
Kleiner steals Chi-Hua Chien, Web 2.0 guru, from Accel
Discussion: Mashable! and Paul Kedrosky's …
Official Google Docs Blog:
New features for 2008!  —  It's been two months since we launched Google Presentations and already we've got new toys!  We've been listening to your feedback and working hard to get you new features as quickly as possible (so keep the suggestions coming).  2008 is going to be a feature packed year …
Discussion: Googlified
RELATED:
Philipp Lenssen / Google Blogoscoped:
Embed Google Presentations
Pat Phelan / Roam4free:
Never mind what are Twitter costs, whats the cost of Twitter?  —  Over the past few days we have seen lots of posts on the cost of running Twitter from such luminaries as Jason Calacanis, Paul Walsh, Marc Canter, Dave Winer , Fred Wilson and Allen Stern  —  Myself and my business partner …
Ina Fried / Crave: The gadget blog:
Windows Home Server remains a tough sell  —  Microsoft has largely succeeded in getting a PC into the home, but its effort to put a server there will be an uphill battle.  —  Bill Gates announced the product to much fanfare at last year's Consumer Electronics Show.
RELATED:
Todd Bishop / Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog:
Pre-CES: A glimpse inside a real Microsoft home
Discussion: CNET News.com
Peter Kafka / Silicon Alley Insider:
NY Google Vet Hirsch Leaving For Startups  —  David Hirsch, an eight-year Google sales vet who helped open the company's New York office, is leaving the company at the end of January.  The 36-year-old is looking, he tells us, to invest in and advise Web startups, with a focus on “helping incubate and accelerate the early stage game.”
Fury.com:
Today is My Last Day at Google  —  After a life-changing four and a half years of working with the most talented group of people I have ever met, I've decided to take the plunge and do it all over again, working for a very small start-up.  Today is my last day at the Big G.
The Macalope:
Yes, Virginia, any idiot CAN file a lawsuit!  —  Congratulations, Stacie Somers of San Diego County!  You're the first jackass of 2008!  —  Well, OK, technically, since the suit was filed on December 31, you're the last jackass of 2007.  But as it's already prompted some very silly analysis …
Discussion: Macworld and The Apple Core
Tom Simonite / New Scientist:
Google tool could search out hospital superbugs  —  Transmission of hospital acquired infections like the “superbug” MRSA could be cut using the method that Google uses to rank search results, say UK researchers.  —  Crunching data from wards using Google's PageRank algorithm …
Discussion: InfoWorld, WebProNews and Slashdot
John Biggs / CrunchGear:
Sennheiser releases first untethered Kleer wireless earbuds  —  I pray that Kleer actually takes off but after seeing ideas like this try and fail to gain traction — Zigbee, anyone?  — I'm a little dubious.  Anyway, Sennheiser just launched the first Kleer compatible headphones which allow …
Discussion: Engadget and Gizmodo
 
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 More Items: 
Jeremy Wagstaff / loose wire blog:
Stumbling Into the Future  —  Listening to Mark Anderson's predictions …
Discussion: eWEEK.com and Todd Watson
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Nasdaq: Worst Percentage Drop Since March 2003; Biggest Point …
Discussion: GigaOM
NEWSFACTOR:
Suit Demands Apple License Microsoft DRM
Discussion: Techdirt
Electronista:
Digital Foci rolls OLED keychain albums
Discussion: Gizmodo and SlashGear
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
New Year's Tech Resolutions
Electronista:
Energizer unveils iPod battery extender, more
Mark / dive into mark:
2008 is the year of Linux on the desktop
Nilay Patel / Engadget:
iLuv announces a slew of new iPod accessories, including the i399
Discussion: Gizmodo
 Earlier Items: 
Elizabeth Woyke / Forbes:
Imagine A Web Site For Your Toaster
Discussion: larry borsato
Karl / DSLreports:
HDMI Over Coaxial - Another option for home networking
Mathew / mathewingram.com/work:
The RIAA: Possibly right, still weasels
Discussion: Techdirt and Engadget
Tim O'Reilly / O'Reilly Radar:
Human vs. Machine: The Great Challenge of Our Time
I, Cringely . The Pulpit | PBS:
Always Certain, Sometimes Correct
Discussion: The Mac Observer
Arik Hesseldahl / Business Week:
A Little ‘Intel’ on Apple's Next Move
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced she will leave the agency on January 20; she was the first woman to be confirmed to lead the agency

Evan Drellich / New York Times:
The MLB is planning national packages for streaming companies to bid on in 2028, when its national TV deals with ESPN, Fox, and Turner expire

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

 
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