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12:25 PM ET, July 29, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Vindu Goel / Bits:
Scrabulous Shut Down on Facebook  —  Facebook says the decision to block Scrabulous for U.S. and Canadian users was made by the Scrabulous developers, not Facebook.  —  Scrabulous has been shut down on Facebook.  —  If you try to pull up the popular Scrabble-like game, you get the following message …
RELATED:
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Endgame: Scrabulous Gets Wiped Off Facebook  —  Long outplayed by two Indian brothers, Hasbro finally delivers a massive counter blow to Scrabulous, one of the most loved games on Facebook.  Scrabulous fans in North America will see the following message when they try to play the game:
Discussion: Know It All
Don Reisinger / Mashable!:
Facebook Kills Scrabulous, Makes Hasbro Look Stupid  —  According to the NY Times, Facebook has officially killed Scrabulous, the world's most popular Scrabble look-a-like and one of the most popular applications on the entire service.  —  When you click on the Scrabulous link …
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
‘Scrabulous’ disappears from Facebook after Hasbro suit  —  Facebook users in the U.S. and Canada can no longer access Scrabulous, the faux-Scrabble game that quickly became one of the most popular applications on its developer platform.  —  This was done independently on behalf of the Scrabulous creators …
Discussion: All Facebook and Raph's Website
Om Malik / GigaOM:
British Telecom Buys Ribbit  —  British Telecom has acquired Silicon Valley-based Ribbit for roughly $105 million, according to various news outlets.  Rumors of the deal first emerged on Venturebeat, though company officials vociferously denied any deal.  Our sources say that the delays were mostly due to internal issues at Ribbit.
RELATED:
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
BT Acquires Ribbit For $105 Million  —  BT announced that it has acquired Silicon Valley based Ribbit for $105 million in cash.  On July 9 we reported that Ribbit executives were telling friends the deal was done while simultaneously denying it to the press.  One thing we got wrong was the price, though.
Discussion: mocoNews.net
BTplc.com:
BT acquires Ribbit
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb
Om Malik / GigaOM:
BT Buys Ribbit for $105 Million
Discussion: OStatic blogs
ZDNet:
BT guns for Android and Skype with Ribbit buy
Chris Flores / Windows Vista Team Blog:
Windows ‘Mojave’ Video Posts  —  Last week we showed a video of the Mojave Experiment to a small group of folks here on campus.  Today we are excited to share the results with the public.  —  For those new to the Mojave Experiment, it's a focus group effort we initiated a few weeks ago.
RELATED:
Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Microsoft goes live with Mojave videos  —  One of the Mojave participants talks about her Vista experience on the Mojave Experiment Web site, which went live on Tuesday.  —  (Credit: CNET News)  —  So I told you about Microsoft's Mojave Experiment last week.
Discussion: Engadget, DailyTech and Bink.nu
Michele Gershberg / Reuters:
Investor Pickens drops Yahoo shares: report  —  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Billionaire oil investor T. Boone Pickens has sold his entire stake of Yahoo Inc (NasdaqGS:YHOO - News) shares in frustration over its failure to reach a deal with Microsoft Corp (NasdaqGS:MSFT - News), the San Francisco Chronicle reported on Tuesday.
RELATED:
Dawn Kawamoto / CNET News.com:   T. Boone Pickens dumps Yahoo stake
San Francisco Chronicle:
Pickens rips Yahoo management, says he dumped shares at a loss
Discussion: paidContent.org
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Wanted: New Alcatel-Lucent leaders to fix merger debacle  —  Alcatel-Lucent said chairman Serge Tchuruk and CEO Patricia Russo-the architects of the 2006 merger that formed the company-are out.  —  The Alcatel-Lucent merger hasn't gone so hot and both Tchuruk and Russo get the blame.
RELATED:
David Jolly / New York Times:
Alcatel-Lucent Chiefs to Step Down
alcatel-lucent.com:
Second quarter 2008 revenue in line with guidance - Full year 2008 outlook confirmed
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
HP, Yahoo and Intel Create Compute Cloud  —  At long last Hewlett-Packard is stepping up with an answer to cloud computing by creating a partnership with two other big technology vendors and three universities to create a cloud computing testbed.  Through its R&D unit, HP Labs …
RELATED:
Business Wire:
HP, Intel and Yahoo! Create Global Cloud Computing Research Test Bed  —  Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology Lead the Way as Global Centers of Excellence  —  PALO ALTO, Calif. & SANTA CLARA …
Todd Bishop / Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog:
Video: Microsoft's Sphere display in action  —  In the video above, Hrvoje Benko of Microsoft Research demonstrates Sphere.  Here's an advance look at the story I wrote for Tuesday's newspaper. — tb  —  Flat-panel displays might be all the rage, but at least in some situations …
RELATED:
Matt Buchanan / Gizmodo:
Microsoft Multi-touch Sphere Plays 360-Degree Video, Trippiest Pong Game Ever
Discussion: OhGizmo! and Electronista
Joseph Weisenthal / paidContent.org:
Sirius And XM Now Sirius XM Radio Inc.; New Share Offering Priced  —  Now comes the really hard part... XM (NSDQ: XMSR) and Sirius (NSDQ: SIRI) have just announced the completion of the merger.  The new company, SIRIUS XM Radio Inc. will now trade under Sirius' old ticker ("SIRI") starting today.
Discussion: Techland, jkOnTheRun and Electronista
RELATED:
Arik Hesseldahl / Business Week:
Is Apple Revamping Its Laptop Line?  —  It's time to take a new look at MacBooks.  A step-up to multitouch screens starting at a nifty price would thrill consumers  —  Enough already about the health of Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs.  It's time to turn our attention to something more interesting …
Discussion: Digg
RELATED:
Kasper Jade / AppleInsider:
Apple's next-gen Macs to have something special under the hood
Dancho Danchev / Zero Day:
DNS cache poisoning attacks exploited in the wild  —  Numerous independent sources are starting to see evidence of DNS cache poisoning attempts on their local networks, in what appears to be an attempt to take advantage of the “recent” DNS cache poisoning vulnerability : … Surprised?
Discussion: webmonkey and Slashdot
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
Yahoo Offers Refunds Or DRM-Free Music In Exchange For Shutting Down DRM Servers  —  We were a bit surprised last week when Yahoo decided to shut down its DRM servers, rendering all sorts of “purchased” music close to worthless.  After all, when Microsoft had done the same thing …
 
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 More Items: 
Brian Ashcraft / Kotaku:
Nintendo And 54 Companies Battle Evil R4 In Court
Tom Lee / Techdirt:
The Airlines' Ongoing Struggle With Price Aggregation Sites
Justin Berka / Infinite Loop:
Upcoming iPhone application MagicPad includes copy/paste
Jim Goldman / Tech Check with Jim Goldman:
Palm Almost Ready for High Fives?
Discussion: PalmAddicts
Chris Morrison / VentureBeat:
Tendril Networks brings energy efficiency to the consumer market with new devices
Discussion: CNET News.com
PC Magazine:
The Best (and Worst) Tech Support in America: VoIP
Discussion: DSLreports and FierceVoIP
Yuri Kageyama / Associated Press:
Sony profit plunges 50 pct from year ago
Discussion: Engadget
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
Pirate Bay Facing Server Troubles and Downtime
Discussion: Digg
 Earlier Items: 
Beltzner / Mozilla Developer News:
Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1 now available for download
Andy Space / 9 to 5 Mac:
iPhone gains MMS, sorta
Discussion: Boy Genius Report
John Ribeiro / IDG News Service:
India Developing US$10 Laptop
Discussion: Engadget and GottaBeMobile
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
Once Again (With Feeling): RIAA Told To Pay Tanya Andersen's Legal Fees
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Leaked Eee PC roadmap shows 23 models, redefines brand dilution
Eric Maurice / The Oracle Global Product Security Blog:
Security Alert for CVE-2008-3257 Released
Discussion: The Register and Zero Day
Electronista:
Dell takes on Mac mini with Studio Hybrid
 

 
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”

Mark Sweney / The Guardian:
National World, one of the UK's biggest newspaper groups, gets a £56.2M buyout offer from shareholder Media Concierge, a 40% premium to its Nov. 21 stock price

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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