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4:50 PM ET, August 21, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Wall Street Journal:
Microsoft Enlists Jerry Seinfeld In Its Ad Battle Against Apple  —  Microsoft Corp., weary of being cast as a stodgy oldster by Apple Inc.'s advertising, is turning for help to Jerry Seinfeld.  —  The software giant's new $300 million advertising campaign, devised by a newly hired ad agency, has been closely guarded.
RELATED:
Ryan Tate / Gawker:
Mac-Loving Seinfeld Endorsing Microsoft For $10 Million  —  In an effort to promote its poxy Windows Vista operating system, Microsoft is paying Jerry Seinfeld $10 million for an endorsement, the Wall Street Journal reported this morning.  Yes, because if there's one surefire …
Thorsten / RightScale Blog:
Why Amazon's Elastic Block Store Matters  —  On the technical side, Amazon's EBS service may look like “just” another great new feature of the Elastic Compute Cloud, but on the business side it enables a whole slew of new customers.  I won't pretend that I understand all the new uses …
Discussion: PC World and eWeek
RELATED:
Thorsten / RightScale Blog:   Amazon's Elastic Block Store explained
David Chartier / Infinite Loop:
Microsoft demands Xbox LIVE iPhone app to be set free  —  People seem to really like this App Store thing we keep hearing about, and apps are selling for the iPhone and iPod touch like hot cakes.  One too-descriptively-named app, 1337pwn XBOX Live Friends Application (iTunes link) …
Matt Buchanan / Gizmodo:
Video: BlackBerry Bold vs. iPhone Web Browser Showdown (It Gets Ugly)  —  We've seen the BlackBerry Bold and iPhone head-to-head before, as well as the Bold's greatly improved browsing powers over past BlackBerrys, but not side-by-side in a web browser race.  It actually gets pretty ugly, uglier than we thought it would.
RELATED:
PR Newswire:
Rogers and RIM Introduce the BlackBerry Bold Smartphone
Discussion: IntoMobile and Engadget
Rafe Needleman / Webware.com:
Zoho launches document sharing service  —  Today's addition to the rapidly-expanding suite of Zoho's productivity apps is Zoho Share, a straightforward utility for sharing word processing documents, spreadsheets, PDF files, and slide shows.  The online app reads in several popular document formats …
RELATED:
Raju Vegesna / Zoho Blogs:
Introducing Zoho Share: Sharepoint Meets YouTube
Timothy B. Lee / Ars Technica:
Fair use gets a fair shake: YouTube tot to get day in court  —  The saga of the copyright-infringing toddler continues as a California court refused to dismiss a lawsuit claiming that Universal Music had filed an improper takedown notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Miguel de Icaza:
SecondLife rolls out Mono-powered servers  —  Big news for the Mono team today.  —  Linden has started the roll out of their Mono-powered simulation servers.  —  Users can now opt into having their LSL scripts executed using the Mono VM (it remains an opt-in feature …
Discussion: The Register
RELATED:
Babbagelinden / Official Second Life Blog:
Mono Launch  —  I'm delighted to announce that Mono is ready …
Discussion: Massively
Grant Gross / PC World:
Comcast: No New Traffic Management Plan Yet  —  Comcast has made no final decisions on how to manage network congestion, despite news reports Wednesday that it will slow traffic for heavy users for up to 20 minutes during times of peak network use.  —  Comcast has been looking …
RELATED:
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Comcast to slow down heaviest 'Net users to DSL speeds
Discussion: TechSpot and BloggingStocks
Reuters:
Apple, MTS agree on iPhone sales in Russia  —  Apple Inc (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) has agreed with Mobile TeleSystems (MBT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) (MTS) on the sale of iPhones in Russia and retail sales will begin in October, a market source told Reuters on Thursday.
RELATED:
Anastasia Teterevleva / Reuters:
Apple, MTS agree on iPhone sales in Russia: source
Discussion: VentureBeat and LOOPRumors
Ryan Grove / wonko.com:
Yahoo! Search brings Search Assist, SearchMonkey, and more to the iPhone  —  In June, my boss came to me with a challenge: bring the full Yahoo! Search experience—including SearchMonkey, Search Assist, shortcuts, and other awesome Yahoo! Search features—to the iPhone with as few compromises as possible.
Discussion: Webware.com, webmonkey and WebProNews
RELATED:
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:
Yahoo Search Launches iPhone Safari Version
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb
Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Photosynthing the nation's capital  —  A synth of images of the Lincoln Memorial.  Click on the image for a larger view.  —  (Credit: Ina Fried/CNET News.com)  —  WASHINGTON, D.C.—On Monday, I got a demo of how Microsoft was opening up Photosynth to consumers.  On Wednesday, I put it to the test.
Jonathan D. Glater / New York Times:
Welcome, Freshmen.  Have an iPod.  —  Taking a step that professors may view as a bit counterproductive, some universities are doling out Apple iPhones and Internet-capable iPods to students.  —  The always-on Internet devices raise some novel possibilities, like tracking where students congregate.
Sam Oliver / AppleInsider:
Apple may report unprecedented 3 million Mac quarter  —  The investment banking division of the Royal Bank of Canada said Thursday that Apple's back-to-school promotion is showing signs that it will drive the company to a record-smashing quarter in which sales of Macs could exceed 3 million.
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
12seconds extends its 15 minutes of fame with an API  —  12seconds has a goal: It wants to be the go-to platform for video status updates.  In order to make a good platform, you need a good application programming interface (API).  Today, 12seconds is launching that API and announcing its first three partners.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
New C-SPAN Sites Get Way Unboring With YouTube, Twitter, Qik, Flash...  I'm willing to stand up and say it.  C-SPAN, which is dedicated to airing non-stop coverage of government proceedings and public affairs programming, is the one channel that we all skip past as fast as possible …
Discussion: Portfolio.com
BBC:
Web browser to get ‘privacy mode’  —  Microsoft is planning a “privacy mode” for the next release of its Internet Explorer (IE) web browser.  —  By clicking a button, users of IE8 will be able to limit how much information is recorded about where they go online and what they do.
Cyrus Farivar / Salon:
Has Palm gotten its groove back?  —  Yesterday, Palm (remember them?) released its latest iteration of its “smartphone” series: the Treo Pro.  —  The New York Times describes the new model this way: “Slimmer and more elegant than current models, the new Treo will not solve Palm's troubles …
Discussion: Bits, PalmAddicts and Gizmodo
Svetlana Gladkova / Profy:
Embargo Breakers: Who Exactly Do You Write For?  —  It seems that recently the problem with embargoes and breaking them has grown acute again.  I for one have seen at least 3 embargoes broken this week only and I can imagine there are others where I am simply unaware of the embargo time.
Discussion: The Inquisitr
Jeremiah Owyang / Web Strategy:
What Facebook's New ‘Engagement Advertising’ Means to Brands  —  Update: Only a few brands will trial these new ads, after testing, will then be broadly released later in the year.  —  A few days ago, I had a private briefing before the press with Tim Kendall, Director of Monetization at Facebook …
 
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 More Items: 
Business Technology:
Helping Thousands of Software Firms Bloom
Discussion: Valleywag
Sarah Lacy:
6% Can Be a Lot More Than You Think  —  Earlier this week …
Stefanie Olsen / CNET News.com:
Venture money finds India, China tech
Discussion: VentureBeat
Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
Rumor from the news doldrums of August: Mormon church trying …
Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Iowa chosen for next Microsoft data center
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
30% Of Internet Users Admit To Buying From Spam
Microsoft:
Microsoft Live Labs Introduces Photosynth, a Breakthrough Visual Medium
Joseph Weisenthal / paidContent.org:
Ad Net Turn Inc. Raises $15 Million Third Round
 Earlier Items: 
Ashlee Vance / The Register:
Reg server and chip hack molested by Gray Lady
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
EMI/Virgin Records Sues Platinum Selling Band For $30 Million …
Nathania Johnson / Search Engine Watch Blog:
CitySquares.com is Fastest Growing Search Site
Discussion: Lost Remote
BBC:
New PlayStation and PSP unveiled
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
LinkedIn launches an iPhone app, it's simple but it means business
Priya Ganapati / Gadget Lab:
iPhone of Home Phones Coming Next Year
Software Freedom Law Center:
A Practical Guide to GPL Compliance
Fred / A VC:
Ten Things I Want On My Mobile Phone
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Matthew Keys / The Desk:
DirecTV terminates its Dish acquisition after a group of Dish creditors rejected a modified bond exchange offer

Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
A growing number of podcasters, including Tim Ferriss, are moving away from interviews to monologues or co-hosts, as some well-known guests can be overexposed

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
A New York judge finds Sirius XM liable for a difficult subscription cancellation process; Sirius says it will appeal but abide by a new “click-to-cancel” rule

 
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