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7:50 AM ET, July 31, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
YouTube Blog:
YouTube and Omnisio Join Forces  —  As you probably guessed, we're big fans of anything that lets people interact with online video and gives the YouTube community the chance to express themselves in creative ways.  New features such as Video Annotations, which allow you to insert comments …
RELATED:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Google Acquires Omnisio To Spice Up YouTube  —  Google has acquired Atherton, CA based startup Omnisio, the companies are announcing this afternoon.  Omnisio, which is a Y Combinator company, first demo'd to us in early March 2008, and it launched later that month.
Jessica E. Vascellaro / Wall Street Journal:
Google to Extend Reach With Venture-Capital Arm  —  Ex-Entrepreneur Hired To Assist in Setup; Brand-Name Advantage  —  Google Inc. is working on plans to start a venture-capital arm, according to several people briefed on the discussions.  —  The group will be lead by David Drummond …
Discussion: paidContent.org
RELATED:
Steven Musil / CNET News.com:
Report: Google developing VC arm  —  Google is revisiting efforts to create a venture capital arm, according to a report on The Wall Street Journal's Web site Wednesday night.  —  Google senior VP David Drummond is expected to lead the effort, according to people who were briefed on the discussions.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Google To Launch Venture Fund  —  The WSJ is reporting that Google is set to launch a venture fund to give it the option of investing in startups instead of just flat out buying them.  The fund will be led by Google's SVP Corporate Development David Drummond and Bill Maris …
Amit Chowdhry / Pulse 2.0:
Scrabulous Relaunches Under A New Facebook App Name Called Wordscraper  —  Pulse 2.0 commenter, Adam Rinkleff pointed out that Scrabulous has relaunched into a new game called Wordscraper.  This news comes one day after the blogosphere reported that Scrabulous, an application created …
RELATED:
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
‘Scrabulous’ gets a nip-tuck, returns as ‘Wordscraper’  —  In the high school cafeteria of Facebook apps, Scrabulous is like that girl who gets in trouble for showing too much skin, only to throw on a hoodie and be let back into the principal's good graces.  Sort of.
Alex Pham / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Scrabble vs. Scrabulous: A lesson in copyright law
Discussion: ...on pampers … and The Register
Wil Shipley / Call Me Fishmeal:
“The Mojave Experiment:” Bad Science, Bad Marketing  —  I guess I should first admit I hate the show Punk'd.  I mean, here's a guy who is famous for lying about his age so he seems hipper, telling us that his show's purpose it to deflate the big egos on other stars, and show them what truly matters in life.
Chris Anderson / The Long Tail:
HOW BIG IS THE FREE ECONOMY?  —  Here's a question I get all the time: how big is the free economy?  That's harder to answer than you might think, for both definition and measurement reasons.  But here's a first past at doing it anyway.  —  (Note: I'm just using US figures below, unless marked otherwise)
Discussion: P2P Foundation and open
Russell Buckley / MobHappy:
Windows Mobile in the Dunk Tank  —  Most of the press coverage of Microsoft recently has obviously been focused on their on-off pursuit of the coy Yahoo!.  Followed by lots of analyses of what Redmond needs to do now to catch up in Search and Advertising.  —  Mr Ballmer has also spoken …
Discussion: SMS Text News
RELATED:
Todd Bishop / Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog:
Windows Mobile misses annual shipment target
Discussion: Beyond Binary and Microsoft
Live Search:
New home page helps you explore more on the Web  —  Today we're releasing an update to the Live Search home page that received positive feedback from customers in trials last month.  The new design features background images that will change frequently, augmented with what we call “hotspots.”
Justin Smith / Inside Facebook:
Facebook Launches News Feed Filters - First Look  —  It's been nearly two years since Facebook's News Feed launched.  Tonight, Facebook is turning on the first major change to the News Feed user experience: News Feed filters.  —  News Feed filters are tabs at the top of the News Feed that allow you to view stories of only one type.
Discussion: FaceReviews
Andrew Jacobs / New York Times:
China to Limit Web Access During Olympic Games  —  BEIJING — The International Olympic Committee failed to press China to allow fully unfettered access to the Internet for the thousands of journalists arriving here to cover the Olympics, despite promising repeatedly that the foreign news media could …
RELATED:
Reporters Without Borders:
IOC accepts organized online censorship
Discussion: Ars Technica and PolicyBeta
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
JavaFX SDK preview launches: Can Sun play the RIA game?  —  Sun Microsystems on Thursday will launch the JavaFX preview release as it aims to round up its bevy of Java developers to be a player in rich Internet applications.  —  The preview release gives designers, web scripters and developers …
Pete Kazanjy / Team Fusion:
Safer, Stronger, and More Seamless: VMware Fusion 2 Beta 2 Now Available  —  The VMware Fusion team is proud to announce VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 2.  —  This latest public beta, a free download, builds on VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 1, adding the Unity 2.0 suite of Mac-Windows integration features …
Bobbie Johnson / Guardian:
Watchdog clears Google's street cameras  —  Google's controversial Street View service - which will offer ground-level pictures of every UK street online -can finally be launched in Britain, after a privacy watchdog said it had no complaints about the service.
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Socialmedian Brings A New Take On News Filtering  —  There is no shortage of social news aggregators looking to help users cut through the noise on the web.  Digg is by far the most popular, with similar offerings from Reddit, Newsvine, and a host of others.
 
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 More Items: 
Jason Mick / DailyTech:
New Li-Ion Battery Production Method May Offer Valuable Savings
Discussion: FuturePundit and Engadget
Taku Imasaki / PlayStation.Blog:
A Grand Update for Gran Turismo 5 Prologue
Discussion: I4U News, Joystiq and PS3 Fanboy
Ross Rubin / Out of the Box:
Sylvania to enter expanding netbook market
Mark Krynsky / Lifestream Blog:
AOL Launches buddyupdates Lifestreaming Service and Nobody Noticed
IDG News Service:
Sony Begins Accepting Applications for PlayStation Home Beta
Discussion: Engadget and Gizmodo
The Smoking Gun:
Google: “Complete Privacy Does Not Exist”
Discussion: CNET News.com
John Noble Wilford / New York Times:
Discovering How Greeks Computed in 100 B.C.
Discussion: Slashdot
Caterina.net:
Joining Hunch  —  After hanging up my purple and yellow cleats …
Discussion: TechCrunch
 Earlier Items: 
Wall Street Journal:
Newspapers Think Locally for Online Ads
Ernest Svenson / Ernie The Attorney:
How to gather news quickly
Gabor / Gabor's Blog:
Five Open Questions in Email
Nick O'Neill / The Social Times:
The 10 Commandments of the Social Web
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
UK Guy Who Hacked Into US Military Computers Overplays His Hand …
Doc Searls Weblog:
Why newspapers shouldn't die
Rachel Garb / The Official Google Blog:
More transparency in customized search results
Kasper Jade / AppleInsider:
Apple warns resellers of Mac and iPod drought, says load up now
 

 
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”

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced she will leave the agency on January 20; she was the first woman to be confirmed to lead the agency

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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