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12:50 PM ET, September 22, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Music On microSD: I Can't Believe The Labels Fell For This  —  Forget buying an album on a USB stick, SanDisk just convinced the big labels to release (DRM free, thankfully) music on a 1 GB 15mm x 11mm x 1mm microSD card.  And then they convinced Best Buy and Walmart to sell these things.
RELATED:
Om Malik / GigaOM:
SanDisk SlotMusic Cards Are Destined to Fail  —  SanDisk, a flash memory chip maker that has been fighting off competitor Samsung's bid to acquire the company, has launched SlotMusic MicroSD memory cards that will carry full-length music albums just like a music CD or a vinyl.
Ethan Smith / Wall Street Journal:
SanDisk, Record Companies Plan New Music Format  —  In the latest attempt to shore up sales of music on physical media, SanDisk Corp. and the four major music companies plan to announce Monday a new format called slotMusic.  —  SlotMusic is be introduced in mid-October at retail outlets …
Peter Kafka / Silicon Alley Insider:
SanDisk's “SlotMusic”: Maybe Not The Worst Idea We've Ever Heard
Discussion: TOYS and GADGETs
Joseph Weisenthal / paidContent.org:
Microsoft Authorizes A Big $40 Billion Buyback; Ups Dividend  —  Well, that's one thing they can do with all their cash... Rather than buy anyone else, the Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) board has authorized the company to spend $40 billion on buying its own shares through September 30, 2013.
Discussion: CNBC, Tech Ticker, AppScout and TG Daily
RELATED:
PR Newswire:
Microsoft Announces Share Repurchase Program and Increases Quarterly Dividend  —  $40 billion authorized for share repurchase; Dividend increased 18 percent  —  Microsoft Corp. today announced that its board of directors approved a new share repurchase program authorizing up to an additional $40 billion …
Dawn Kawamoto / CNET News:
Microsoft announces $40 billion stock buyback
Discussion: Techland
Sascha Segan / PC Magazine:
T-Mobile's Dream Is a Distraction  —  Google's Android OS is really about ruling the world of feature phones, not the world of smartphones.  —  You're about to be bombarded by a rush of coverage about T-Mobile's G1, aka the HTC Dream, the first Google Android smartphone.  Don't ignore it.
RELATED:
Vasanth Sridharan / Silicon Alley Insider:   iPhone Developer: I Just Made $250K From App Store In Two Months (AAPL)
Kim Zetter / Threat Level:
FBI Searches Apartment of Tennessee Student Suspected of Palin Hack  —  FBI agents executed a search warrant Sunday at the apartment of University of Tennessee student David Kernell in connection with the hack of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's private Yahoo account.
Dan Woods / Forbes:
Why Google Isn't Enough  —  Web 2.0 has annoyed legions of information technology professionals by providing an experience for consumers that, in many ways, is just plain better than what everyone gets at work.  At some point after the year 2000, consumer companies grabbed the ball …
Jack Schofield / Guardian:
Netbytes: Is the Wall Street Journal losing the plot?  —  As Wall Street rides the rollercoaster of global financial hysteria, people are turning in their millions to the website of The Wall Street Journal for reliable information.  But just when it's needed most, this venerable institution may be losing the plot
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Apple 2.0:
Analyst: Apple will sell 5 million iPhones in Q4  —  Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster, one of the most bullish — and closely watched — of the more than two dozen analysts who track Apple Inc., has raised his estimates for the company's fourth quarter, which ends next Tuesday, Sept. 30.
Tony Smith / The Register:
Palm OS II-based smartphones now due H2 2009  —  Palm's next-gen operating system will be finished by the end of the year, the company promised late last week.  —  The company said the Linux-based system software known as Palm OS II and ‘Nova’ is “on track” for completion by the end of calendar 2008.
Eric Bangeman / Ars Technica:
RIAA rejects damage award, forces trial, looks hypocritical  —  What price innocent infringement?  That's the question a San Antonio jury will have to address in mid-November, as the RIAA and 20-year-old Whitney Harper will battle in court over the amount of damages Harper will have to pay …
Ed Felten / Freedom to Tinker:
How Yahoo could have protected Palin's email  —  Last week I criticized Yahoo for their insecure password recovery mechanism that allowed an intruder to take control of Sarah Palin's email account.  Several readers asked me the obvious follow-up question: What should Yahoo have done instead?
Chris Williams / The Register:
Police drop BT-Phorm probe  —  ‘Move along please, nothing to see’  —  Exclusive City of London Police have decided not to formally investigate BT and Phorm for their allegedly illegal secret ISP-level adware trials, arguing that there was implied consent from customers and it would be a waste of public money.
Discussion: p2pnet
Jonathan Skillings / CNET News:
McAfee offers $465 million for Secure Computing  —  Security specialist McAfee on Monday announced that it has a deal in place to acquire Secure Computing.  —  The merger offer is pegged at $5.75 per common share in cash, which McAfee says represents a total equity value of about $413 million.
Kim Poh Liaw / SlashPhone:
Samsung Introduces M75500 Night Effect with Emporio Armani  —  Unveiled at a press event held in Milan, Italy on Sunday, Samsung and Armani introduces the M75500 candy bar with a nickname called Night Effect.  The Night Effect is the first mobile phone with Emporio Armani branding (it was Giorgio Armani last year) for Samsung.
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 More Items: 
Ilinca Nita / Unwired View:
The first 9 Megapixel autofocus camera module for handsets announced
Rich Miller / Data Center Knowledge:
New from Microsoft: Data Centers In Tents
Discussion: Slashdot
Don Reisinger / TechCrunch:
The Pirate Bay Is Getting Into Streaming?
Discussion: Slyck, TorrentFreak, Pulse 2.0 and Digg
Digital Photography Review:
Nikon AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G lens
Discussion: 1001 Noisy Cameras
BBC:
Spore copyright control relaxed
Discussion: Insanely Great Mac
Carolyn Duffy Marsan / Network World:
Feds tighten security on .gov
Discussion: Slashdot
Tony Smith / The Register:
Electric Mini spied in Munich
Discussion: Engadget
Joel Hruska / Ars Technica:
Fake celebrity websites infecting the unwary with malware
Discussion: MarketingVOX
 Earlier Items: 
Prince McLean / AppleInsider:
‘home’ activation no signal of unlocked US iPhone sales
David Chartier / Ars Technica:
Drop.io puts blogging, file sharing on a map—literally
Discussion: All Points Blog
Clint Boulton / eWeek:
Gogimon's Search Medium Channels Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Results
Discussion: Between the Lines
Adam Pash / Lifehacker:
Best of the Best: The Hive Five Winners
Discussion: Digg
Ben Dobbin / Associated Press:
Is the rich-hued Kodachrome era fading to black?
Hal Varian / The Official Google Blog:
The democratization of data  —  The Internet has had an enormous impact …
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch:
Tubi launches Scenes, a mobile feature that lets viewers watch 60-to-90-second trailer-style clips from its library to help with content discovery

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

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

 
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