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9:00 PM ET, January 15, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Devin Coldewey / CrunchGear:
MacBook AirHead: why Apple's new laptop is basically useless  —  First, let me just say that the Air is an extremely impressive piece of technology.  The miniaturization, the optimization of space, the blatant disregard for current standards — it's everything a revolutionary machine should be.
Discussion: Venture Chronicles
RELATED:
Jason Chen / Gizmodo:
MacBook Air Hands-on  —  Here's our take on the MacBook Air.  It's super light, super fragile, and super small.  If you just tap the screen lightly, the whole thing closes because it's so light.  The keyboard looks a little weird because it's black on the aluminum, but the keyboard feels great.
Nilay Patel / Engadget:
MacBook Air doesn't have a user-replaceable battery  —  We sort of understood it with iPods, and we grudgingly accepted it with the iPhone, but the MacBook Air has a sealed, non-user-replaceable battery, and that means we're suddenly a lot less in love.  We're digging for details …
Arn / MacRumors:
First Look at the MacBook Air
Discussion: Gizmodo and Engadget
Ryan Block / Engadget:
MacBook Air: plenty more details
Discussion: Podcasting News and Valleywag
Mathew / mathewingram.com/work:
Hey, Steve — you broke the Internet  —  Thanks for all the great toys, Uncle Steve, but did you have to go and break the Internet?  I and about 7,000 other people were all signed up to get Twitter updates from MacRumors, but I never saw a single one — and in fact the entire Twitter.com network …
RELATED:
Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed:
Steve Jobs Proves the Interweb Can't Beat TV ... Yet  —  Live media events are great, when they work.  But watching live services like Twitter collapse around the Steve Jobs keynote this morning provides more great examples (if needed) why the Interweb isn't yet TV.
Nicholas Carlson / Valleywag:
Now we know what Twitter's good for: not much
Discussion: CenterNetworks
Duncan Riley / TechCrunch:
Twitter Fails Macworld Keynote Test
Discussion: Mashable! and Tech Ticker
Tom Neumayr / Apple:
Apple Premieres iTunes Movie Rentals With All Major Film Studios  —  New Apple TV Software Lets You Rent Movies Directly from Your Widescreen TV  —  Apple® today announced iTunes® Movie Rentals featuring movies from all the major movie studios including 20th Century Fox …
RELATED:
Matt Buchanan / Gizmodo:
Apple TV Take 2: $229, No Computer Required, Direct Rentals (Netflix Screwed)  —  Holy crap, Jobs admitted Apple TV failed at getting computer content to the square screen.  Apple TV Take 2 requires no computer, you can rent from iTunes directly from the box—movies and music—and it's only $229.
Michael Gartenberg / JupiterResearch:
iTunes Does Movie Rentals & Apple TV Update - First Take
Discussion: Guardian Unlimited
Saul Hansell / Bits:
Video Podcasts: The Sleeping Giant on AppleTV
Discussion: MacUser
Apple:
Apple Enhances Revolutionary iPhone with Software Update  —  Apple® today announced a free software update for its revolutionary iPhone™ that allows users to automatically find their location using the redesigned Maps application*; text message multiple people in one message …
RELATED:
Clint Ecker / Infinite Loop:
Macworld.ars: iPod touch users to pay $20 for iPhone applications
Brian Bergstein / Associated Press:   IBM to add software for Apple devices
Josh Jones / DreamHost Blog:
Um, Whoops.  —  Hello.. how's your morning going?  —  I hope it's been a little better than mine.  —  We had a teensy eensy weensy little billing error last night... my first clue something was up when I saw this morning's daily billing report (so far): $7,500,000.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Breaking: Samwer Brothers Invest In Facebook  —  Serial German entrepreneurs Alexander, Marc and Oliver Samwer have invested in Facebook, we've heard from a very reliable source - presumably as part of Facebook's recent $15 billion valuation round with Microsoft.  We are still trying to nail down the size of the investment.
RELATED:
Wall Street Journal:
Facebook Gets Big Investment
Discussion: Reuters and Portfolio.com
Ryan Block / Engadget:
Live from Macworld 2008: Steve Jobs keynote  —  Thanks for joining us for our live Macworld 2008 keynote coverage!  We're in, so click on, all our real-time updates are posted just after the break.  —  Note: this time we're updating from bottom to top, with the latest updates below.
Miguel Helft / Bits:
Another Media Exec Leaves Yahoo  —  As Yahoo narrows its focus on a few key priorities, it's not surprising to see those whose projects fall outside those areas leave the company.  And Yahoo's media group, whose once lofty mission to produce original, Hollywood-style content has been scaled …
Discussion: paidContent.org and Mashable!
Patrik / F-Secure Antivirus Research Weblog:
First Rogue Cleaning Tool for Mac  —  We've just found the first Mac rogue application and it's called MacSweeper.  —  It claims to clean your Mac from compromising files and it will always find something to fix/clean but the only way to do so is to buy the program.
Wilson Rothman / Gizmodo:
Apple Announces Time Capsule Server for Wireless Time Machine Backup  —  At Macworld 2008, Apple just announced Time Capsule, a full Airport Extreme base station with 802.11n wireless and four Ethernet ports, plus server grade hard drives to back up all of the Leopard Macs in the house.
Discussion: Engadget and Hardware 2.0
 
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 More Items: 
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Meebo Widget Strategy Paying Off
Discussion: VentureBeat
Light Reading:
AT&T Begins Massive Battery Replacement
Greg Sandoval / CNET News.com:
Move over Netflix, VOD services; here comes Apple
Monica Chen / DigiTimes:
Intel to launch 15 Montevina CPUs in May
Discussion: Gizmodo
Associated Press:
Samsung Group headquarters raided
Discussion: DailyTech and Engadget
Eric Pfanner / New York Times:
Shake-Up at EMI Clouds Future of Its Artists
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Breaking: Mozilla Hires Humanized Founders
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Intel: Fourth quarter falls short of estimates; outlook light
 Earlier Items: 
Mark Hendrickson / TechCrunch:
Listen to Pandora Internationally with Global Pandora
Nicole Maestri / Reuters:
Borders readies to take over Web site
Discussion: paidContent.org
GigaOM:
Google's Achilles Heel
Erica Ogg / CNET News.com:
Moxi maker cuts staff by half, loses CEO
Greg Howlett / Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim:
Kudos to Yahoo! Search Marketing
Josh / Redeye VC:
The earlier the better...  Most VC's typically “pass” …
Alex Serpo / CNET News.com:
A tenfold improvement in battery life?
Discussion: last100
Victoria Shannon / International Herald Tribune:
Amazon.com is challenging French competition law
 

 
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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