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12:00 PM ET, August 19, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Saul Hansell / New York Times:
A Smart Bet or a Big Mistake?  —  Four years ago, Verizon Communications embarked on an ambitious and expensive plan to run fiber optic cables, which can deliver ultra-fast Internet service and dozens of high-definition video channels along with old-fashioned telephone service, past 19 million homes, roughly half its territory.
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Saul Hansell / Bits:
A Bear Speaks: Why Verizon's Pricey FiOS Bet Won't Pay Off  —  As I discuss in an article published Tuesday, FiOS is a monumental bet by Verizon on the future.  It will cost $23 billion to run fiber past 18 million homes, roughly half of those served by Verizon.
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
Joseph Weisenthal / paidContent.org:   Jury's Still Out On Verizon's FiOS; A $6 Billion Hole In The Wall?
Apple:
MobileMe: Supplemental 60-day extension eligibility and details  —  Learn about the 60-day extension to MobileMe subscriptions that Apple is providing to eligible members free of charge.  —  Note: This article will be updated when all 60-day extensions have been made available.
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Josh Lowensohn / Webware.com:
RIAA issue prompts Muxtape hiatus
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Apple Is Flailing Badly At The Edges  —  My first computer, purchased by my parents after nearly a year of begging, was an Apple II+.  That was 1982.  I was a Windows user for the next 20 years, but went back to Mac when they switched to Intel chips a couple of years ago.
Discussion: Mark Evans and Griffin and Hoxie
Royal Pingdom:
New SSL policy in Firefox hurting tens of thousands of sites  —  With Firefox 3, Mozilla has changed the way Firefox handles SSL certificates.  This change could scare away visitors from tens of thousands of websites that have expired or self-signed SSL certificates.
Thomas Lee / Minneapolis Star Tribune:
YouTube co-founder looks for his next success  —  St. Paul Central grad Jawed Karim talks about launching start-ups, being an entrepreneur and Silicon Valley.  —  Many university students spend summer break painting houses, backpacking through Europe or spending some quality time with Madden 08.
Discussion: HipMojo.com and Valleywag
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Michael Learmonth / Silicon Alley Insider:   Missing YouTube Founder Flees Facebook Froth In Valley, Seeks …
Vincent Nguyen / SlashGear:
Palm Quietly Unveils the Treo Pro Smartphone  —  Early this morning, Palm released a couple of official press photos of the Treo Pro along with a short video.  The company didn't reveal a whole lot of information other than the following that the Treo Pro smartphone features a one-touch Wi-Fi button …
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Tony Smith / The Register:
Palm to unveil Treo Pro today?
Discussion: Electronista and PalmAddicts
Tom Krazit / CNET News.com:
Apple customer satisfaction scores gain at rivals' expense  —  Apple blew away its PC industry peers in this year's American Customer Satisfaction Index, perhaps because it was the only company that didn't release a Windows Vista PC.  —  The University of Michigan released its annual ACSI scores Tuesday …
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Jim Kerstetter / CNET News.com:
Google tops among search sites for customer satisfaction
Discussion: Search Engine Journal
Tapan Bhat / Yodel Anecdotal:
See it.  Love it.  Buzz it.  —  In February, we introduced Yahoo! Buzz as a new way for you to discover, vote for, and share the content and stories that matter most to you.  You also got a say in what stories might be read by millions, with the voting power to potentially get your favorite content on the Yahoo! Front Page.
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BBC:
Reports of iPod Nanos overheating  —  The Japanese government is investigating a possible battery defect in the iPod Nano music player.  —  There have been two reports of Nanos overheating in Tokyo, scorching nearby paper.  —  Economy, Trade and Industry ministry official Hiroyuki Yoshitsune …
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Serkan Toto / CrunchGear:
iPod Nano batteries suspected of overheating, setting tatami mats on fire
Discussion: The Register and Engadget
Yuri Kageyama / Associated Press:   Japan reports 2 iPods overheating, suspects defect
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
NewsCred Goes Public With Credibility-Based News Source  —  NewsCred, the news aggregator that ranks stories by the credibility of their source, has launched to the public.  Instead of relying on popularity as many social news sites do, NewsCred instead allows users to rate each story …
Rafat Ali / paidContent.org:
Our Newest Report: Online Advertising VC and M&A Deals In The Last Year  —  Following our analysis of Social Media Deals, we've pleased to announce our first Online Advertising Deals Report, charting activity in venture capital and mergers & acquisitions from Q107 to Q208.
John Herrman / Gizmodo:
An In-Depth Video Tour of Android 0.9, an (Almost) Great (Almost) OS  —  Earlier today Google released the Android 0.9 SDK r1 Beta, boasting of a pile of API updates and a visual refresh that moves it one solid step closer to actually, you know, showing up on a phone.
Chris Williams / The Register:
UK.gov to spend hundreds of millions on snooping silo  —  Exclusive The government is pressing ahead with plans to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on a massive central silo for all UK communications data, The Register has learned.  —  Home Office civil servants are working on plans …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
EngrishFunny Is Newest Site In Lolcats Empire  —  The company behind the popular ICanHasCheezburger site has launched a new website, EngrishFunny, which makes fun of grammatically incorrect variations of English (often found in Asia).  Users send in photos of poorly translated or written products, signs, instructions, etc. to the site.
Discussion: PDA, Laughing Squid and Tinfinger
 
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 More Items: 
Kelly Fiveash / The Register:
A third of Vista PCs downgraded to XP
Don Reisinger / Mashable!:
Lotame Grabs $13 Million in Funding for New Advertising Idea
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Even Moms Love Mobile Data Cards
Discussion: DSLreports
Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Microsoft relaxes virtual-machine rules
Discussion: TG Daily
Brian Caulfield / Forbes:
Nokia's Software Problem
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Is the enterprise ready for cloud computing?
Amy Schatz / Wall Street Journal:
Google Will Offer Services for Bloggers at the Conventions
Discussion: Epicenter, Portfolio.com and Gawker
 Earlier Items: 
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
Garmin gets in the social-networking groove
Discussion: Mashable! and WebProNews
Hugh / Electronic Frontier Foundation:
What If the Kindle Succeeds?  —  The news recently has been full …
Discussion: TeleRead
Steve Hamm / Business Week:
Workday: The Next Software Power?
Nick Galvin / Sydney Morning Herald:
Dopple your fun  —  Five internet gurus spell out what's happening …
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb and LachStock
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
The Curious Case of Facebook's Benjamin Ling and Sheryl Sandberg
Discussion: Valleywag
Michelle Thatcher / Crave:
Logitech unveils ergonomic Cordless Desktop Wave Pro
Discussion: Engadget, Gizmodo and Electronista
Brenda Stokes / iPhone Buzz:
iPhone 2.0.2 Beats 2.0.1 on 3G performance
Discussion: MacRumors and VentureBeat
Tim O'Reilly / O'Reilly Radar:
Is Linking to Yourself the Future of the Web?