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12:30 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:
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Microsoft enlists Seinfeld, Gates to battle “Get a Mac” ads  —  Those Apple “Get a Mac” ads have long been an annoyance to Microsoft and to Bill Gates in particular.  No surprise as Apple, emboldened by rising market share, continues to ratchet up the venom with quips like …
Margaret Kane / CNET News.com:
Microsoft taps Seinfeld for ad campaign
Discussion: AppleInsider
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.
Discussion: Imaging Insider and WinBeta
RELATED:
Josh Lowensohn / Webware.com:
Microsoft launches 3D wonder Photosynth for consumers  —  On Wednesday night, Photosynth, a technology demo from Microsoft Live Labs, is graduating from its “ooh, that's pretty” status to being a viable Web service for consumers.  —  The technology, which takes a grouping of photographs …
RELATED:
Thorsten / RightScale Blog:
Why Amazon's Elastic Block Store Matters
Discussion: InfoWorld
Stephanie Condon / CNET News.com:
Judge: Copyright owners must consider ‘fair use’  —  A federal judge on Wednesday gave more weight to the concept of “fair use” when he threw a lifeline to a Pennsylvania mother's lawsuit against Universal Music.  —  The judge refused to dismiss Stephanie Lenz's suit claiming that Universal abused …
RELATED:
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) …
Discussion: Geek Gestalt and WebProNews
David Havlek / Seeking Alpha:
Salesforce.com F2Q09 (Qtr End 7/31/08) Earnings Call Transcript  —  Executives  —  Marc Benioff - Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer  —  Graham V. Smith - Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President  —  Analysts  —  Steven Koenig - Keybanc Capital Markets  —  Presentation
RELATED:
Fred / A VC:
Ten Things I Want On My Mobile Phone  —  1) Shazam for places - I blogged about this when I was in Scotland earlier this month.  I met a company at TechStars yesterday that might be able to build it.  I hope they do.  —  2) Shazam for people - same idea. even more possibilities for this one.
Discussion: Mobile Industry News
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, WebProNews and Mashable!
RELATED:
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:   Yahoo Search Launches iPhone Safari Version
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.
Discussion: TeleRead and GottaBeMobile
Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:
Apple hit with class-action lawsuit over iPhone 3G flakiness  —  We all knew it was coming, it was just a matter of time.  A lawsuit has been filed against Apple over what the plaintiff is referring to as the “Defective iPhone 3G,” which she hopes will become a class-action complaint.
RELATED:
Bill Ray / The Register:
Apple faces lawsuit over wobbly 3G claims
Discussion: InformationWeek
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Yahoo-Intel TV Widgets Sound Neat, But Leave Us Wanting More  —  It's a safe bet that watching TV is eventually going to feel more like using the Web — at least for those who want it to.  But once people go through the hassle of hooking up their TVs to the Internet, will they settle for small …
RELATED:
Maggie Shiels / BBC:
Intel unites the internet with TV
Discussion: Webware.com and dailywireless.org
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.
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.
Discussion: Technology Live and Slashdot
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.
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
LinkedIn launches an iPhone app, it's simple but it means business  —  If the iPhone wants to be taken serious as a business device it's going to have to have applications other than More Cowbell (the app that lets you simulate playing a cowbell).  A definite must-have for business users is LinkedIn, the professional online network.
BBC:
New PlayStation and PSP unveiled  —  Sony has announced details of its latest PlayStation 3 gaming console and handheld PlayStation Portable.  —  A 160 GB PS3 was unveiled at the Leipzig games conference that will go on sale on 31 October in Europe and November in the US.
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 …
Discussion: TechCrunch and Mashable!
 
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 More Items: 
Chippy / UMPCPortal:
Viliv S7 Atom-Based UMPC
Jeremiah Owyang / Web Strategy:
What Facebook's New ‘Engagement Advertising’ Means to Brands
Discussion: The Social
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
Photobucket, Scrapblog form crafty partnership
Discussion: Mashable!
Chrisbrogan Com / chrisbrogan.com:
Social Media Events Are Fragmenting
Priya Ganapati / Gadget Lab:
iPhone of Home Phones Coming Next Year
Discussion: OhGizmo!, SlashGear and Engadget
Stefanie Olsen / CNET News.com:
Widget makers get a makeover
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
Facebook developers to factor in age, location
Dana Blankenhorn / Open Source:
The new Intel gets open source mojo with SpikeSource
Discussion: Business Wire and TechCrunchIT
 Earlier Items: 
Abbey Klaassen / AdAge:
Quantcast Nabs Yahoo Exec for Its Chief Revenue Officer
Discussion: paidContent.org and Valleywag
Robert Andrews / paidContent.org:
Microsoft Rejigs For Commercial Search, Multimap Leads The Way
Discussion: Search Engine Land
Dave Rubert / NaviGadget:
tomtom PRO 4000 and 8000  —  TomTom just introduced what they call …
Eileen Sullivan / Associated Press:
FEMA phones hacked; calls made to Mideast, Asia
Discussion: Zero Day, Gearlog and Slashdot
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Spotted: FriendFeed Beta — coming soon
Discussion: WinExtra and The Blog Herald
Richard MacManus / ReadWriteWeb:
10 Promising Web Platforms
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
If You're Looking To Learn Basic Economics, Here's A Free Textbook
Discussion: The Equity Kicker
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Verisign's Personal Identity Portal Is Half Way To Password Bliss
 

 
From Mediagazer:

New York Times:
Court docs detail a smear campaign against actor Blake Lively via media articles and social media posts after she accused director Justin Baldoni of misconduct

Jessica Toonkel / Wall Street Journal:
A deep dive into Paramount's sale to Skydance; sources: Skydance may integrate Pluto into Paramount+, and CBS head George Cheeks is expected to be head of TV

Kimberly Nordyke / The Hollywood Reporter:
News Corp and Telstra agree to sell Australian pay TV company Foxtel Group to sports streaming platform DAZN in a deal worth ~$2.1B

 
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