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9:45 AM ET, July 26, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Kim Hart / Washington Post:
Satellite Radio Merger Approved  —  The government has approved the long-delayed merger of the nation's only satellite radio companies, combining Sirius and XM into a single entity with 18 million subscribers.  —  The decision last night came almost a year and a half after the companies first proposed joining.
RELATED:
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
It's Official: Sirius-XM Gets Thumbs Up From FCC (SIRI, XMSR)  —  The deal-that-never-wants-to-go- through is finally through: Late today, the FCC finally approved Sirius' (SIRI) $3.6 billion merger with rival satellite radio operator XM (XMSR).  —  An embarrassment for the FCC, which took way too long to give the deal the thumbs-up.
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Hammer drops at last: FCC opposes Comcast P2P throttling  —  Once FCC Chair Kevin Martin announced his support for sanctions against Comcast, penalties looked inevitable.  The two Democrats on the Commission, long supportive of network neutrality, seemed set to vote along with Martin …
Amy Schatz / Wall Street Journal:   FCC Approves XM-Sirius Merger
Amy Schatz / Wall Street Journal:
The FCC Nears a Finding On Violation by Comcast
Joe Nocera / New York Times:
Apple's Culture of Secrecy  —  “No one wants to die,” said Apple's chief executive, Steven P. Jobs.  “And yet death is the destination we all share.  No one has ever escaped it.”  —  It was a little over three years ago that Mr. Jobs spoke those existential words, in a commencement address at Stanford.
The Official Google Blog:
We knew the web was big...  We've known it for a long time: the web is big.  The first Google index in 1998 already had 26 million pages, and by 2000 the Google index reached the one billion mark.  Over the last eight years, we've seen a lot of big numbers about how much content is really out there.
RELATED:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Google's Misleading Blog Post: The Size Of The Web And The Size …
Discussion: Marksonland
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:   Google “Knows” About 1 Trillion Web Items
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Google finds the web has over 1 trillion unique URLs
Discussion: Startup Meme
InfoWorld:
San Francisco DA discloses city's network passwords  —  In its bid to protect the city from one computer security risk, the San Francisco District Attorney's Office may very well have created another.  —  The office of San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris has made public close …
RELATED:
Datamation:   San Francisco Hack: Where Was the Oversight?
Sam Ramji / Port 25:
history.forward()  —  I'm writing this from Portland, Oregon where one of the world's largest Open Source conferences is taking place: OSCON.  This year's event is focused on a theme of “ten years of open source,” referring to 1998 as the year that Eric S. Raymond, Danese Cooper, et al coined the term.
RELATED:
Ashley Phillips / ABCNEWS:
Rumor: ‘MacBook Touch’ in the Works  —  Conference Call Comment Reignites Longtime Rumors  —  When it comes to Apple, it doesn't take much to set tongues a-wagging.  A slim Steve Jobs at the Apple Developers Conference in San Francisco last month has led to endless speculation …
RELATED:
Ed Bott / Ed Bott's Microsoft Report:
21 months later, Vista is still more secure than XP  —  Last October, roughly one year after the release to manufacturing of Windows Vista, I did a comparison of how well Windows Vista was living up to its promise of being more secure than its predecessor, Windows XP (see “One year later, Vista really is more secure").
Discussion: DygiScape
Apple:
MobileMe Status  —  Steve Jobs has asked me to write a posting every other day or so to let everyone know what's happening with MobileMe, and I'm working directly with the MobileMe group to ensure that we keep you really up to date.  In the 14 days since we launched, it's been a rocky road …
Business Wire:
Gateway Moves to 100 Percent Indirect Sales Model  —  Gateway Continues to Offer its Complete Line of Award Winning Products to Consumers via Retailers and Channel Partners  —  IRVINE, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Gateway, a wholly owned subsidiary of Acer Inc., today announced a shift …
Discussion: Technologizer and TechBlog
RELATED:
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Gateway stops selling PCs direct
Discussion: Electronista and Engadget
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
The Pirate Bay Promotes “The Dark Knight” Leak  —  The Pirate Bay is messing with Hollywood again, as they've put up a new logo which links to pirated copies of the blockbuster movie “The Dark Knight”.  Although Warner did all it can to protect the film from leaking, a Cam version leaked onto BitTorrent sites soon after it premiered.
Discussion: Slyck, Startup Meme and Digg
David Chartier / Infinite Loop:
Apple says, “Want to hack iPhones for a living?”  —  Are you tired of seeing all your hard iPhone hacking work go unappreciated?  Do you long for a chance to work for Apple while still poking around for flaws in the iPhone OS?  Wait no longer, intrepid code ninja, for Apple may have just the job for you.
Kara Jesella / New York Times:
Blogging's Glass Ceiling  —  FOR two days last week, many of the men's bathrooms at the Westin St. Francis Hotel here were turned into women's bathrooms.  The stalls on the second floor were lined with note cards featuring nurturing messages like “You are perfect.”
Discussion: Gawker
Claire Cain Miller / Bits:
How to Save Local Newspapers: Cellphones  —  Verve' Wireless's mission is to save the local paper by making it mobile.  It provides publishers with the technology to create mobile Web sites, so readers can read the paper on their cell phones.  Verve or the newspaper then sell ads on those sites.
Discussion: Gadget Lab and paidContent.org
 
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 More Items: 
Erica Sadun / The Unofficial Apple Weblog:
iPhone 2.1 SDK Disappointments
Discussion: I4U News
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes / Hardware 2.0:
Foxconn snubs Linux users
David Barboza / New York Times:
China Surpasses U.S. in Number of Internet Users
Discussion: Global by Design
Taylor Singletary / The LinkedIn Blog:
Xobni and LexisNexis integrate with LinkedIn
Kevin Maney / Portfolio.com:
CEOs Afraid of Facebook? Not the Ones I Know
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Curtains for the Observer Roles on the Facebook Board?
Discussion: Valleywag
Austin Modine / The Register:
Europe approves HP purchase of EDS
Discussion: Docu-Drama
Ethan / OnoTech:
CNET on BrowseRank: An informative article with a nonsensical premise
Discussion: Startup Meme and everwas
 Earlier Items: 
Fareastgizmos.com:
Thanko Cooler USB keyboard with three built in fans
Claire Cain Miller / Bits:
V.C. Advice to Entrepreneurs: It's Not All About the iPhone
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Details For Tonight's 3rd Annual TechCrunch Meet-Up At August Capital
Discussion: Webware.com
Ryan Naraine / Zero Day:
Gaping holes in RealPlayer patched
Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:
Roll Your Own Digg: Coming in Six Months
Discussion: Maximum PC all and VentureBeat
Grant Gross / IDG News Service:
Software Group Weighs Piracy Lawsuit Against EBay
Saul Hansell / Bits:
Ballmer's Catch-22 Problem With Search Ads
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
WiMAX phobia? AT&T tries to block Clearwire/Xohm merger
 

 
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

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

John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Substack, very deliberately, tries to have it both ways by saying publications on their platform are independent while presenting them all as parts of Substack

 
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