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4:25 AM ET, July 2, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Live Search:
Powerset joins Live Search  —  We're excited to announce that we've reached an agreement to acquire Powerset, a San Francisco-based search and natural language company.  —  Powerset will join our core Search Relevance team, remaining intact in San Francisco.
RELATED:
Mark Johnson / Powerset:
Microsoft to Acquire Powerset 2  —  We're excited to announce officially that Microsoft has signed an agreement to acquire Powerset.  —  Powerset has always been a small company with big dreams, with the ultimate goal of changing the way humans interact with computers through language.
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Microsoft's search plan: It's about semantics and possibly for naught  —  Microsoft's search plan apparently revolves around semantics.  The software giant picked up Powerset, a natural language search provider for an undisclosed sum.  —  Will it be enough to close its yawning Google (and even Yahoo) search gap?
Discussion: Enterprise Alley and Beyond Search
techzoom.net:
Understanding the Web browser threat: Examination of vulnerable online Web browser populations and the “insecurity iceberg”  —  Stefan Frei 1, Thomas Dübendorfer 2, Gunter Ollmann 3, Martin May 1  — Computer Engineering and Networks Laboratory (CSG), ETH Zurich  — IBM Internet Security Systems, IBM ISS
RELATED:
Joel Hruska / Ars Technica:
40% of surfers don't bother with browser security updates  —  A recent study collaborative study between Google, the Swiss Federal Insitute of Technology, and IBM offers new insight into how many people surfing the web are doing so safely.  According to the report, a clear majority of users …
PC World:
AT&T to Sell New iPhones Minus Contracts  —  Apple's iPhone 3G goes on sale July 11, 8 a.m. local time.  —  Gregg Keizer, Computerworld.com  —  AT&T Inc. today said it will sell Apple's iPhone 3G to customers without requiring a two-year contract sometime “in the future” …
RELATED:
Ellen Messmer / Network World:
Diary of a deliberately spammed housewife  —  What happened when ‘Penelope Retch’ answered her spam e-mail  —  For Tracy Mooney, a married mother of three in Naperville, Ill., the decision to abandon cyber-sense and invite e-mail spam into her life for a month by participating in a McAfee experiment was a bit of a lark.
Discussion: Zero Day and Slashdot
RELATED:
BBC:
Spam experiment overloads inboxes
Discussion: Ars Technica
Charles Jade / Infinite Loop:
Mac OS X approaches 8 percent market share in June  —  If it's the first of the month, it's time for me to be accused of being an indentured servant of web metrics firm Net Applications.  Nonetheless, data from thousands of web sites and millions of visitors make it at least possible to follow trends and …
Electronista:
Blockbuster backs out of Circuit City offer  —  Video retailer Blockbuster tonight said it has withdrawn its offer to buy Circuit City.  The company provides few details as to the reason for its sudden exit but says that a combination of “market conditions” and the process of due diligence …
RELATED:
Kelsey Blodget / Beet.TV:
Google Readying Analysis of World's “One Trillion” Images  —  As it seeks to monetize the exploding universe of uploaded images to the Web, which Google says is nearing one trillion, it is developing image processing to more effectively search and organize images.
Discussion: VentureBeat
Gavin Clarke / The Register:
BEA gets last laugh on Oracle app server  —  In Oracle's world nothing changes, everything stays the same and no products ever die.  Except those things that get “converged” or downgraded.  —  Among them, Oracle's Application Server that, in the wake of Oracle's $8.5bn acquisition …
Discussion: eWeek and Irregular Enterprise
RELATED:
InfoWorld:
Oracle reveals BEA roadmap
Brady Forrest / O'Reilly Radar:
Amazon's Page Recommender: Foreshadowing A New Web Service?  —  Amazon is turning its personalization engine towards webpages.  You can test it on your site via the new Page Recommender Widget (sorry if the link doesn't work you, it's only open to affiliates).  The widget only considers pages on your website.
Discussion: Industry Standard
Peter Whoriskey / Washington Post:
Google Ad Deal Is Under Scrutiny  —  Yahoo Agreement Subject of Antitrust Probe, Sources Say  —  The Justice Department has opened a formal antitrust investigation into a deal struck last month that would allow Internet titan Google to provide some search advertising for Yahoo, according to sources familiar with the inquiry.
Discussion: LiveSide and Silicon Alley Insider
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Engadget's Ryan Block and Peter Rojas To Team On New Startup  —  Engadget's editor-in-chief Ryan Block will be leaving parent company AOL shortly, sources say, to launch a new startup.  Partnering with him on the new company will be Peter Rojas, Engadget's former editor-in-chief (pictured left below, next to Block).
Brian Caulfield / Forbes:
Apple Spurns Intel, For Now  —  SAN FRANCISCO -  —  One of Intel's top technologists revealed Monday that the chip giant will not win a spot on Apple's iconic iPhone anytime soon, even as he outlined Intel's plans to keep growing as it turns 40 on July 18.
Discussion: Macsimum News and Electronista
 
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 More Items: 
Loretta Chao / China Journal:
Facebook Gets Poked in China
Elinor Mills / CNET News.com:
PINs stolen from Citibank ATMs
Discussion: Associated Press
Seth Sutel / Associated Press:
Monster founder sets sights on online obituaries
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Gaia Online tees up its massively multiplayer online game
Ben Furfie / PC Retail:
Asus confirms Eee PC 904 HD
Kelly Jackson Higgins / darkREADING:
Cracking Physical Identity Theft
Discussion: Zero Day
Ionut Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
Google Docs Stats
Elsa Wenzel / Webware.com:
Adobe unveils Reader 9 with Flash
Discussion: AppScout
 Earlier Items: 
Greg Sandoval / CNET News.com:
Facebook close to putting ConnectU behind it
Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
Adobe Flash gets a break in war against Silverlight
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
AOL For Sale (TWX)*
Discussion: Voices
Brian Krebs / Security Fix:
Amazon: Hey Spammers, Get Off My Cloud!
Discussion: UMBC ebiquity and CircleID
Justin Berka / Infinite Loop:
MS's Remote Desktop Connection 2 for Mac finally out of beta
Smashing Magazine:
Should Links Open In New Windows?
Discussion: WinExtra
Michael Learmonth / Silicon Alley Insider:
Hulu: A Consumer Success But Still A Small Business
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Gnip: Grand Central Station for the Social Web
 

 
From Mediagazer:

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

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

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

 
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