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9:25 AM ET, January 16, 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.
RELATED:
Forbes:
Jobs Fails To Wow At Macworld  —  SAN FRANCISCO -  —  You could hear the collective sigh from the crowd.  When Steve Jobs unveiled the newest member of the Macintosh fold, the skinny MacBook Air laptop, the Mac-faithful sighed with pleasure.  But it was just a momentary exhale.
Duncan Riley / TechCrunch:   Will Apple TV Take 2 Take Online Movie Rentals Mainstream?
John Markoff / Bits:
The Passion of Steve Jobs
Eliot Van Buskirk / Wired News:
Apple Reinvents Film Biz With iTunes Movie Rentals
Discussion: Cult of Mac
Saul Hansell / Bits:
Video Podcasts: The Sleeping Giant on AppleTV
Discussion: MacUser
Jonathan Schwartz / Jonathan Schwartz's Blog:
Helping Dolphins Fly  —  We announced big news today - our preliminary results for our fiscal second quarter, and as importantly, that we're acquiring MySQL AB.  —  If you're interested in the financial details for the quarter, tune in to our conference call (see details on sun.com) today …
Discussion: CNET News.com and 451 CAOS Theory
RELATED:
Zack Urlocker / InfoWorld:
Sun Shines on LAMP  —  This morning we announced that Sun Microsystems has signed a definitive agreement to acquire MySQL.  Having spent the last four plus years working on making MySQL into a strong independent company, this is a bit of a change of strategy, but from my perspective it's all for the good.
Discussion: Open Source
Tim O'Reilly / O'Reilly Radar:
Sun To Acquire MySQL  —  Sun Microsystems announced this morning that it has agreed to acquire open source database leader MySQL AB for $1 billion in cash and assumed stock options.  (Disclosure: I am on the board of directors of MySQL, and O'Reilly co-produces the MySQL User Conference with MySQL.
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Sun acquires MySQL; Adds to its software stack  —  Sun Microsystems is taking the plunge into the database market with the purchase of open source database developer MySQL for $1 billion.  —  With the move, announced Wednesday, Sun takes a big leap into the $15 billion database market …
Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
Why we're going to FastCompany.tv  —  Ahh, Andy Plesser broke my career news again (he was the guy who broke my news about leaving Microsoft too).  Louis Gray got the story first, though, I think, although I told dozens of people at the BlogHaus last week at CES.
RELATED:
Allen Stern / CenterNetworks:   Scoble's New Job Revealed - Video Guy At Fast Company
BBC:
Facebook asked to pull Scrabulous  —  Facebook has been asked to remove the Scrabulous game from its website by the makers of Scrabble.  —  The Facebook add-on has proved hugely popular on the social network site and regularly racks up more than 500,000 daily users.
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Surprise!  Oracle buys BEA Systems  —  The clumsy courtship between Oracle and BEA Systems is over.  Oracle said Wednesday that it will acquire BEA for $19.375 a share in cash.  —  The offer puts the value of BEA at roughly $8.5 billion.  —  It was a strange courtship to say the least.
Discussion: Computerworld
RELATED:
John Oates / The Register:
BEA finally says yes to Oracle - for $8.5bn  —  Watch online now - The findings of The Register's Virtualization Study  —  Oracle has signed a definitive agreement to buy BEA for $8.5bn.  —  Larry Ellison's Oracle will pay $19.375 for each BEA share - BEA shares were trading at $15.58 before the offer was made.
Discussion: eWeek
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Stevenote In 60 Seconds  —  Too lazy to watch the entire Stevenote video stream on CrunchGear, or read Duncan's real time notes from the event?  No worries.  Mahalo's Veronica Belmont distills all the important stuff down into just sixty seconds.  —  See all of our coverage from Macworld here and at CrunchGear.
RELATED:
Matt Hickey / CrunchGear:
Macworld 2008 Keynote: Watch it beginning to end, right here
Discussion: Guardian Unlimited and TechCrunch
Tony Ruscoe / Google Blogoscoped:
iGoogle Themes Directory Launched  —  In October last year, I asked whether we should expect to see an iGoogle Themes Directory Coming Soon.  Today, Peter Dawson noticed that the Themes Directory is now live!  —  The directory, which is available through the “Select theme” …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Application Developers: Don't Be Surprised If Facebook Changes The Rules When You Do Something That Hurts Users  —  We saw early on that Facebook was willing to change policies and their API in order to protect users against clearly black hat/spammy applications, or ones that break the terms of use with users.
Discussion: Alec Saunders .LOG
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.
RELATED:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Dreamhost Overbills Customers $7.5 Million; Uses Homer Simpson To Deliver Apology
Discussion: Demand Satisfaction!
Duncan Riley / TechCrunch:
Twitter Fails Macworld Keynote Test  —  Many Twitter fans have become very much used to following big events via Twitter, its immediate nature and 140 character limit provides key points of what exactly is going on.  —  Unfortunately for Twitter users, Twitter completely failed during Steve …
RELATED:
Mathew / mathewingram.com/work:
Hey, Steve — you broke the Internet
 
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 More Items: 
Official Google Webmaster Central Blog:
Sitemaps FAQs  —  Last month, Trevor spoke on the Sitemaps …
Thomas Mennecke / Slyck:
The Pirate Bay Interview
Discussion: TorrentFreak
Eric J. Sinrod / CNET News.com:
Is GPS liability next?
Discussion: All Points Blog
Antony Bruno / Billboard.Biz:
Wragg Exits EMI
Alice / w3.org:
SPARQL Query Language for RDF
Nate Westheimer / innonate:
Freebase's $42M! Can the top-down semantic web scale?
Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post:
In Child Porn Case, a Digital Dilemma
Dan Dickinson / The Primary Vivid Weblog:
HOWTO: iPhone Webclip Icons
 Earlier Items: 
Garett Rogers / Googling Google:
New iPhone update will confuse and upset many Gmail users
Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:
Nick Denton Runs a “Slave Shop,” Oxford Chum Jason Pontin Declares
Karl / DSLreports:
Uncle Sam Turns Blind Eye To Hidden Fees - Wasn't false advertising …
Discussion: Alec Saunders .LOG and MSNBC
Josh Catone / ReadWriteWeb:
Happy Birthday: Wikipedia Turns 7 Today
Discussion: Voices
GigaOM:
700 MHz Auction Update
Discussion: Ars Technica
Miguel Helft / Bits:
Another Media Exec Leaves Yahoo
Wall Street Journal:
Facebook Gets Big Investment
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Caitlin Huston / The Hollywood Reporter:
Internal memo: Hearst Magazines president announces layoffs as part of a decision to “reallocate resources” to “continue our focus on digital innovation”

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

Lachlan Cartwright / The Ankler:
Sources: MSNBC renewed Rachel Maddow's contract early this fall, but with a pay cut; MSNBC bosses' plan to shake up daytime and weekend programming

 
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