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5:30 PM ET, August 6, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Joe Wilcox / Apple Watch:
Should You Pay Twice as Much for a Mac?  —  [Editor's Note: This is companion to another post at Microsoft Watch telling a different story from the same NPD data.]  —  On Saturday, I got to wondering about Mac versus Windows PC pricing after seeing two HP notebooks on sale at the local Target.
RELATED:
Dwight / TechBlog:   The price difference between Macs and PCs widens
Joe Wilcox / Microsoft Watch:
Vista PCs: These Prices Are Insane!
Discussion: The Tech Report and DailyTech
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Mozilla mocks up possible Firefox successors in idea factory  —  Mozilla Labs this week took steps to open up its idea factory to wider outside input, asking for community help to develop the next big ideas that might power future browsers.  Like any good research lab, the goal …
Discussion: OSDir.com and Electronista
RELATED:
Nathania Johnson / Search Engine Watch Blog:
Perhaps Paris Hilton Should Run Yahoo  —  If you keep up with politics, then you know that a recent McCain ad portrayed as Obama as simply a celebrity, and included pictures of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.  —  Paris Hilton has responded to the ad with a hilarious video on FunnyOrDie.com …
Discussion: Search Engine Land and Mashable!
RELATED:
Stephen Shankland / CNET News.com:   It's a done deal: Icahn on Yahoo board
Arn / MacRumors:
New Apple Cinema Displays Finally at MWSF 2009?  —  Readers interested in new Apple Cinema Displays may have to wait just a bit longer.  —  Apple has not significantly updated their Cinema Displays in years.  Apple currently offers 20", 23" and 30" monitors at $599, $899, and $1799, respectively.
eWeek:
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Ready for RTM  —  Microsoft is releasing SQL Server 2008 to manufacturing after several delays.  Microsoft's SQL Server 2008 will help Microsoft compete with Oracle and its 11g database, and IBM and its DB2 9.5 database.  SQL Server 2008 will be generally available within two weeks.
RELATED:
InfoWorld:
Microsoft releases SQL Server 2008
Discussion: PC World
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Worthless, $1000 “I Am Rich” iPhone App Disappears (AAPL)  —  The $1000, zero-utility “I Am Rich” app for Apple's (AAPL) iPhone and iPod touch has been removed from the iTunes App Store.  —  It no longer appears in searches, and a tipster tells us that it's no longer visible …
RELATED:
Dan Lewis / Wikia Search Blog:
Introducing Wikia Evolution  —  One of our core values at Wikia Search is Community.  We want everyone to be able to participate in the Wikia Search project.  That's why we are proud to introduce Wikia Evolution, our new Firefox toolbar.  You can download it here, or via Mozilla's Firefox Add-On Library.
Discussion: CenterNetworks, Pulse 2.0 and Mashable!
Owen Thomas / Valleywag:
BitTorrent Inc. laying off 12 of 55 employees  —  BitTorrent Inc., the file-sharing startup whose underlying technology is responsible for much of the piracy that plagues Hollywood, is laying off its sales and marketing department.  The immediate cause of the layoffs: A failure to sell …
Discussion: Broadband Politics
RELATED:
Peter Kafka / Silicon Alley Insider:   Report: BitTorrent Firing 20% Of Workforce
Jason Gertzen / Sprint Connection:
Sprint loses 901,000 customers, but reports other improvements  —  Sprint Nextel said Wednesday that it lost 901,000 subscribers in the second-quarter, but reported that other improvements are starting to take hold with its business.  —  “We are seeing signs of progress from our efforts …
RELATED:
Marguerite Reardon / CNET News.com:
Sprint Nextel's struggle continues
Aidan Malley / AppleInsider:
Apple, Palm among the targets in GSM smartphone lawsuit  —  A small patent licensing firm hopes to skim profits from Apple and other top smartphone makers by suing them for allegedly violating no less than ten patents relating to GSM phone technology and voice encoding.
Trevor Claiborne / Inside AdWords:
Announcing Google Insights for Search  —  In June, we updated Google Trends with numbers and the ability to download results to a spreadsheet.  We received a lot of great feedback from agencies and advertisers on how they're using the new version; from identifying new growth markets to optimizing their Google AdWords campaigns.
Spencer E. Ante / Business Week:
Facebook Stock for Sale  —  Top execs at the social network are selling shares—at prices far lower than the site's once-vaunted $15 billion valuation  —  Insiders at Facebook are selling stock in the social networking company, and the prices they're getting for their shares suggest …
Harichandan Arakali / Bloomberg:
Bharti Airtel to Bring IPhone 3G to India This Month  —  Aug. 6 (Bloomberg) — Bharti Airtel Ltd., India's largest mobile-phone operator, will introduce the iPhone 3G in the country on Aug. 22, part of a 70-nation rollout of the faster, cheaper upgrade to Apple Inc.'s mobile handset.
Discussion: iLounge, Macsimum News and Pulse 2.0
Eric Krangel / Silicon Alley Insider:
How To Watch The Beijing Olympics LIVE On The Web — Even If NBC Doesn't Want You To  —  NBC will bring 2200 hours of Beijing Olympics streaming video to the web, starting today.  But Americans will miss some of the best parts.  Why?  Because NBC, which has exclusive rights to the games …
Discussion: Little Red Blog
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch UK:
mloovi - Feedburner for the rest of the planet?  —  Mloovi is a new tool which will translate RSS newsfeeds into 24 languages.  It does this via Google Translate but the process is utterly seamless.  You just put an RSS feed's URL into the box and that's it.
Discussion: TechCrunch and ReadWriteWeb
Arik Hesseldahl / Byte of the Apple:
iTunes Still Number 1 Music Vendor; Amazon?  Gaining Some Ground  —  The latest NPD figures on music sales are out for the first half of 2008, and as you might expect, Apple's iTunes is still in the top spot, but what's interesting is who's in fourth place: Amazon.  Here's the top five:  —  1) iTunes
Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land:
Pew: Daily Search Usage Approaching Email Levels  —  According to a new report from The Pew Internet & American Life Project, daily use of search engines is growing and starting to approach email usage levels.  New research conducted by telephone 2,251 US adults, age 18 and older …
Discussion: TechCrunch and Pew Internet
Saul Hansell / Bits:
Google Goes Gaudy With YouTube Ads  —  Take a look at the image here and you see proof of what we all knew: Google is not going to put its highfalutin ideals above the practical realities of its business.  —  This is a screen grab of a YouTube player embedded in a blog.
Discussion: Lost Remote
Eric Enge / Search Engine Watch Blog:
Microsoft Webmaster Tools Update  —  Microsoft has just released an update to their Webmaster Tools.  It's a significant update, with lots of new functionality in it.  My guess is that a large number of SEOs will adopt this new tool as a part of their tool set.  Let's take a look at the opening screen:
Discussion: Search Engine Land
Grant Gross / PC World:
DOJ Files Complaint Against Online Ad Firm  —  The U.S. Department of Justice is seeking to seize two houses and US$53 million from the owner of an Internet-based business allegedly engaged in a “massive” Ponzi scheme, the agency said.  —  The DOJ on Tuesday filed a civil forfeiture complaint …
Discussion: WebProNews, eWeek and Computerworld
 
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 More Items: 
Kevin Rose / Digg the Blog:
New Firefox 3 Digg Extension Released
Discussion: Webware.com and Asa Dotzler
Macworld:
Fifteen countries due to get iPhone 3G in August
Kevin Heisler / Search Engine Watch Blog:
New News Search Engine: Newsflashr
Johnny De'Silva / CoolSmartPhone.com:
HTC Touch Pro on Vodafone.co.uk - Coming this month!
John Timmer / Ars Technica:
EFF launches Coders' Rights site at Black Hat conference
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
HP Keeps Pushing Touch
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Apple: Piper Sees Sept. Event With New Macs, New iPods
Discussion: AppleInsider
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
An Evolving Cultural Curiosity: We Need A Fake Follow
 Earlier Items: 
PR Newswire:
Hughes Announces Fastest Consumer Satellite Internet Access Plan Ever Offered
Reuters:
UBS says Microsoft aims for $20 billion buyback: report
Discussion: WinBeta
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
ARM Says Browser Drives the Mobile Web
Discussion: last100 and Valleywag
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Social Travel Site TripSay Opens Up To The Public
Discussion: Profy, Mashable! and 901am
Vasanth Sridharan / Silicon Alley Insider:
Google Sells DoubleClick's SEM Business To Ad Conglom Publicis (GOOG)
Caroline McCarthy / CNET News.com:
Bewkes confirms AOL split
Jibi / BlackBerryNews.com:
EXCLUSIVE: BlackBerry 8220 - Pictures of Red Kickstart
Justin Smith / Inside Facebook:
Which Facebook Applications Really Are the Most Engaging?  A Look at MAU & MAU%.
 

 
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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