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6:35 AM ET, July 25, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Full Text Of AOL Email: XDrive, AOL Pictures, MyMobile And Bluestring To Shut Down  —  Below is the full text of the email AOL EVP Kevin Conroy sent out to staff on July 14, outlining the reorganization of his product groups and announcing the “sunsetting” of XDrive, AOL Pictures, MyMobile and Bluestring.
RELATED:
Rafat Ali / paidContent.org:
AOL Trimming Up For Sale; Sun Sets On XDrive, AOL Pictures, Mobile And Others
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:   AOL To Shutter A Slew Of Products, EVP Kevin Conroy's Future Uncertain
Andru Edwards / Gear Live:
Apple beta testing iPhone 2.1 firmware, adding more GPS features  —  We just got word that Apple has released a beta version of iPhone OS 2.1 to developers.  Along with the 2.1 firmware, a new version of the iPhone SDK has been seeded as well, but the new SDK can't be used for submitting applications to the App Store at the moment.
RELATED:
Arn / MacRumors:
Apple Seeds iPhone 2.1 Firmware with GPS Features  —  GearLive reports that Apple has seeded a beta version of iPhone 2.1 Firmware (Beta 1, Build 5F90) to developers.  —  According to the site, Apple has included new Core Location features that might suggest that turn-by-turn GPS could become a reality.
Discussion: The iPhone Blog and greg hughes
Denver Post:
Missing ‘spam king’ kills self, family  —  BENNETT — Just four days after escaping a federal minimum-security work camp, “Spam King” Eddie Davidson shot his wife and child and wounded a teen-age girl before turning the gun on himself.  —  Sheriff's deputies responded to a report of gunfire …
RELATED:
Ryan Naraine / Zero Day:
Escapee ‘Spam King’ dead in apparent murder-suicide
Discussion: WebProNews
David Pogue / New York Times:
Apple's MobileMess  —  Two weeks ago, Apple launched MobileMe, the successor to its.Mac service, which costs $100 a year.  Among other benefits, it can keep multiple Macs, PCs and iPhones in sync.  E-mail, calendars and address books are wirelessly kept up to date.  Very cool idea.
RELATED:
Amit Agarwal / Digital Inspiration:
Believe In Superstitions?  Avoid The Word “me” In Product Names  —  If you are superstitious and believe that names can bring (or deny) good luck, avoid giving your products a name that ends with “me”.  —  This is not a recommendation of any soothsayer but just a personal observation …
Brier Dudley / Brier Dudley's blog:
Microsoft CFO to Wall Street: What gives?  And forget about a Yahoo deal  —  If Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and CFO Chris Liddell weren't already bald, they would be from scratching their heads, trying to figure out why their stock is doing so poorly.  Especially given the company's recent performance …
Discussion: eWeek and Techland
RELATED:
Joe Wilcox / Microsoft Watch:
Ballmer Soars into the Server Cloud
Daisuke Wakabayashi / Reuters:
Microsoft CEO backs Web spending, “done” with Yahoo
Discussion: PC World
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
The Day After: Looking At How Well Knol Pages Rank On Google  —  We've been assured that just because content sits on Google's Knol site, it won't gain any ranking authority from being part of the Knol domain.  OK, so a day after Knol has launched, how's that holding up?
Daniel AJ Sokolov / heise Security UK:
Speculation over back door in Skype  —  According to reports, there may be a back door built into Skype, which allows connections to be bugged.  The company has declined to expressly deny the allegations.  At a meeting with representatives of ISPs and the Austrian regulator on lawful interception …
Discussion: Zero Day
Kim Hart / Washington Post:
High-Stakes Race to Unlock a Wider Web  —  Critics Say New Technology May Hinder TV Signals  —  The nation's top technology companies have spent millions of dollars and nearly two years building devices, poring over laptops and working in federal labs trying to come up with a new way of …
Robert Vamosi / CNET News.com:
Vulnerable to a DNS cache poisoning at home?  —  On Wednesday, an exploit code allowing someone to attack the domain name system (DNS) became available.  No one has yet used the code, but the advice is simple: Patch.  Now.  While most of the burden is on the Domain Name System servers …
RELATED:
Robert Vamosi / CNET News.com:
Kaminsky (finally) provides DNS flaw details
Discussion: Hack a Day, VentureBeat and eWeek
Richard MacManus / ReadWriteWeb:
Android Is For The Masses, iPhone For The Rich  —  Our network blog last100 has an interesting interview with Nicolas Gramlich, founder of anddev.org - an online community for Android developers.  As editor Steve O'Hear notes in his intro, there have been issues with Google's mobile OS of late …
Discussion: last100
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Blockbuster remembers it bought Movielink for a reason  —  While company after company enter the digital movie download realm including former outsiders like Apple and Microsoft, the company once synonymous with movie rentals has been noticeably absent: Blockbuster.
Discussion: paidContent.org
RELATED:
Andrew D. Smith / Dallas Morning News:
Blockbuster adds Movielink's video downloads to Web site
Discussion: Zatz Not Funny! and Gizmodo
Darren Waters / BBC:
Game On  —  Sony has very high hopes for LittleBigPlanet  —  Game developer Media Molecule have gone from promising start-up to one of the pillars of the PlayStation empire in two years - and all before ever releasing a game.  —  Its first blockbuster title, LittleBigPlanet …
Computerworld:
Forrester: Windows Vista rejected like ‘new Coke’ by enterprises  —  Even though it's been out for about 18 months now, the Windows Vista OS doesn't seem to be gaining a lot of traction at large firms, according to survey results released by Forrester Research.  —  SECURITY / more stories...
Dave McClure / Master of 500 Hats:
Second Age of Aquarius: Facebook Connect + Facebook Payments (= Social Sign-on + Viral E-Commerce)  —  so i went to Facebook F8 yesterday, and i had a good time.  —  yeah sure, the hype machine was in overdrive & some folks were a little underwhelmed (tho others more excited than usual).
Brian Stelter / New York Times:
Griping Online?  Comcast Hears You and Talks Back  —  PHILADELPHIA — Brandon Dilbeck, 20, a student at the University of Washington, was complaining recently on his blog, Brandon Notices, about Comcast's practice of posting ads in its on-screen programming guide.  —  He assumed he was writing for his own benefit.
Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land:
Microsoft Live Search Coming To Facebook  —  When Microsoft made its investment in Facebook I always had thought that Live Search would come to the site, together with search monetization.  Later it appeared that search wasn't part of the deal.  Facebook's competitors all have web search …
 
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 More Items: 
ipsos-na.com:
Digital Video Consumers Say Advertising Is A Reasonable Expectation …
Anthony James / Yanko Design:
A bit of the ole' in and out...  “Power Vampires” take the shape …
Discussion: Coolest Gadgets and Gizmodo
Jesus Diaz / Gizmodo:
iPhone 2.0 Jailbreak and Unlock Now for Windows
Nilay Patel / Engadget:
Toshiba working on a netbook / UMPC that's actually interesting
Joe McDonald / Associated Press:
China says has more people surfing the Web than US
Discussion: Mashable!
Matthew Lasar / Ars Technica:
Big Cable: FCC Internet policy should apply to colleges too
Eran / Open Web Foundation:
Announcing the Open Web Foundation
Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
Source: Facebook's internal valuation is $4 billion. But so what.
Discussion: The PE Data Center
 Earlier Items: 
Symbian OS:
Samsung announces new 8 megapixel mobile phone based on Symbian OS
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Microsoft to show off spherical Surface next week
Gmail Blog:
Making security easier
Garett Rogers / Googling Google:
Google creates a new market and wreaks havoc on another
Discussion: E-Commerce Times and Salon
Amit Agarwal / Digital Inspiration:
Windows Live Photo Gallery will Soon Recognize Faces in Pictures
Microsoft:
Microsoft to Acquire DATAllegro
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
The Final Days of DRM: Yahoo Music Store Closing, Will Eat Your Purchased Music
Brad Stone / Bits:
Hasbro Notches Triple-Word Score Against Scrabulous With ‘Lawsuit’