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11:20 AM ET, July 29, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Vindu Goel / Bits:
Facebook Shuts Down Scrabulous  —  Facebook has shut down Scrabulous, the Scrabble-like game on its site.  —  If you try to pull up the popular game, you get the following message: “Scrabulous is disabled for U.S. and Canadian users until further notice.  If you would like to stay informed …
RELATED:
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
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
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:
Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Microsoft's computer in the round
Discussion: Ogle Earth and All about Microsoft
Matt Buchanan / Gizmodo:
Microsoft Multi-touch Sphere Plays 360-Degree Video, Trippiest Pong Game Ever
Discussion: OhGizmo! and Electronista
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
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: GigaOM and mocoNews.net
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.
Kasper Jade / AppleInsider:
Apple's next-gen Macs to have something special under the hood  —  A new generation of personal computers on the way from Apple Inc. may sport some of the most significant architectural changes since the Mac maker made the jump from PowerPC processors to those manufactured by Intel Corp., AppleInsider has learned.
RELATED:
Arik Hesseldahl / Business Week:
Is Apple Revamping Its Laptop Line?
Discussion: Digg
Richard MacManus / ReadWriteWeb:
Wow, How Did Cuil Get So Much Publicity on Day 1?!  —  An alternative search engine launched last night.  It's called Cuil and, if you're a reader of tech blogs and/or the New York Times, you've no doubt been hammered with the news all day.  We checked Cuil out and had a mixed user experience …
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 …
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
Electronista:
Dell takes on Mac mini with Studio Hybrid  —  Dell tonight leapt into the mini desktop business with the Studio Hybrid.  The system is described as the company's “first step” in eco-friendly PCs and uses notebook components to dramatically reduce both its size and power draw …
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch UK:
BBC launches Music site and the first wave of more data  —  The BBC has launched a BBC Music beta site which enables users to explore artists played on BBC Radio music programmes.  The site is powered by MusicBrainz, an open content music database.  The site still has a few glitches …
Discussion: paidContent
Dave Winer / Scripting News:
Knol is Google's Wikia  —  Wikia is Jimmy Wales' dream of doing to Google what Wikipedia did to Britannica.  Unfortunately for Wales and his investors, Google had a 10-year lead, and a huge ecosystem had been built up around it.  Google is a thriving coral reef, and one doesn't just show …
RELATED:
Andrew Lih:
Google Knol/Wikipedia Comparison Faulty
John Ribeiro / IDG News Service:
India Developing US$10 Laptop  —  India is developing a laptop to be sold at US$10, that will target higher education applications, a minister of the federal government said Tuesday in Delhi.  —  Research on the new low-cost laptop is being carried out at the Indian Institute of Science …
Discussion: Engadget
 
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 More Items: 
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
Beltzner / Mozilla Developer News:
Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1 now available for download
Stefanie Olsen / CNET News.com:
IBM mobile software helps ‘senior moments’
Jemima Kiss / Guardian:
Networking site Bebo beams message to Earth-like planet
Discussion: The Register
Andy Space / 9 to 5 Mac:
iPhone gains MMS, sorta
Discussion: Boy Genius Report
PR Newswire:
EarthLink Announces Second Quarter Results
Joseph Weisenthal / paidContent.org:
Sirius And XM Now Sirius XM Radio Inc.; New Share Offering Priced
 Earlier Items: 
Gartner:
Gartner Says the $100 Laptop Is at Least Three Years Away
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
Peggy Anne Salz / msearchgroove:
Is Flat-Rate Data Really The Catalyst For The Mobile Web & Mobile Advertising?
Tilly McLain / The MyBlogLog Blog:
MyBlogLog, a long overdue site redesign!
Eric Maurice / The Oracle Global Product Security Blog:
Security Alert for CVE-2008-3257 Released
Discussion: The Register and Zero Day
Capen Karr / Apple iPhone Apps:
MagicPad: iPhone Copy / Paste & More (Video)
William / remove the labels:
photos from inside the iphone factory
 

 
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

Max Goldbart / Deadline:
The English Premier League ends its content partnership with IMG and plans to bring content production and distribution in-house in 2026

 
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