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2:15 PM ET, October 14, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Joshua Topolsky / Engadget:
Live from Apple's “spotlight turns to notebooks” event  —  9:08AM PT - We've got a little less than an hour to go, so we'll just kind of be loitering outside Apple Town Hall, waiting to spot Steve and the unicorn that is his new MacBook Pro.  —  We're at Apple HQ!
RELATED:
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Contains Spoilers  —  Engadget just posted the first real picture and accurate description I've seen in public of the new 15-inch MacBook Pro, set to be announced later today.  It's the real deal.  Major visible changes from the previous MacBook Pros:  — A new iMac-style black border around the display.
Paul Miller / Engadget:
Apple's all-new MacBook Pro packs new NVIDIA GPUs, glass trackpad  —  Oh, don't act so surprised.  A refresh of Apple's long-in-the-tooth MacBook Pro line was pretty much the only sure thing slated for today's event, and Apple certainly delivered.  As for looks, you probably know the score by now …
Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac, Macworld and Gizmodo
Nilay Patel / Engadget:
Mr. Blurrycam reveals the updated MacBook Pro, $899 laptop model shows up in Apple inventory systems (Updated)  —  Well, maybe — we're not calling it official until Steve pulls the cloth off himself tomorrow morning .  Still, there's no denying the similarities between this image …
John Mahoney / Gizmodo:
Next-Generation MacBook Ditches the Plastic, Becomes MacBook Pro Mini
Discussion: Jarrett House North and Engadget
Darren Murph / Engadget:
Apple finally refreshes Cinema Display: 24-inch, LED backlit, $899
Discussion: Gizmodo and Macworld
Adam Frucci / Gizmodo:
New MacBooks Get Glass Trackpad with New Multitouch Gestures, No Buttons
Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac
Clint Ecker / Ars Technica:   Live Ars Technica coverage of Apple's 2008 notebook event
John R. Wilke / Wall Street Journal:
Google, Yahoo Seek to Avoid Antitrust Suit Over Ad Deal  —  Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. are in talks with the Justice Department in an effort to head off an antitrust challenge to their proposed advertising agreement.  —  The settlement negotiations are at an early stage and it isn't clear whether …
RELATED:
Yun-Hee Kim / Wall Street Journal:
Samsung Plans to Tackle U.S. PC Market  —  HONG KONG — Samsung Electronics Co. is making a foray into the U.S. notebook PC market, taking on established players such as Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Apple Inc.  —  The South Korean company, more well-known in overseas markets …
Discussion: Ars Technica
RELATED:
Peter Kafka / Silicon Alley Insider:
More Competition For Steve Jobs: Samsung Entering US PC Market
Discussion: Yahoo! Tech, Gearlog and Electronista
Yahoo! Search Blog:
Yahoo! Search Hits the Airwaves  —  A little over four years ago, we launched our own search engine and became a principal in the search business.  Our focus since then has been the same - building the best search experience to give users a fast, easy and intuitive way to get straight to their answers.
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Mint Leaves Beta, Brings A Bunch Of New Features With It  —  Mint, the personal finance startup that won last year's TechCrunch 40, has launched a host of new features including investment tracking, 401k managment, and more flexible budget sheets.  CEO Aaron Patzer says that the new features finally …
Matt Marshall / VentureBeat:
JS-Kit, the widget company for dummies, gets boost  —  JS-Kit, the Silicon Valley company that makes it easy for bloggers to add comments, polls, product reviews or ratings system to their website, has gotten a boost when it most needs it.  —  It has raised $3.6 million in a second round …
Matt Cutts / Gadgets, Google, and SEO:
Free links to your site  —  I can't believe a new feature from Google isn't getting more notice, because it converts already-existing links to your site into much higher quality links, for free.  The Google webmaster blog just announced that you can find the pages that link to 404 pages on your site.
Ben Jones / TorrentFreak:
Bush Signs Draconian Anti-Piracy Law  —  Over in California, champagne corks are popping.  In the offices of the MPAA and RIAA, lawyers turned lobbyists are dancing jigs.  In houses all around the US however, people are left dumbfounded by the passage of a bill based on appeasement to big money …
Vishesh Kumar / Wall Street Journal:
Economic Woes Hit HDTV Sales  —  Satellite, Cable Providers Could Suffer as Consumers Scale Back on Pricey Purchases  —  Reeling from a stock-market crash and a looming recession, consumers may finally be putting the brakes on the purchase of pricey luxury items like high-definition televisions.
Discussion: NewTeeVee
Wagner James Au / GigaOM:
Confirmed: Obama Is Campaigning on Xbox 360!  —  Last week we noted unconfirmed sightings of an “Obama for President” billboard in the Xbox 360 racing game Burnout Paradise.  Today we're able to report that it is, in fact, an official advertisement placed by the senator's campaign team.
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
BillShrink Grows By $8 Million With Plans To Expand To New Markets  —  BillShrink, a startup that aims to help users save money across a variety of vertical markets, has closed an $8 million Series B funding round led by Trinity Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners.
Discussion: Webware.com, VentureBeat and Rev2.org
Steve O'Hear / The Social Web:
Top Digger helps launch Tip'd, a Digg clone for financial news  —  Tip'd, which launched today, describes itself as “a place for investors... to meet, share, discuss, comment, and vote on what's happening on both Wall Street and Main Street.”  Essentially, it's another Digg clone targeting a particular vertical.
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Angel Investor Ron Conway Speaks (About His Wise-Up-Silicon-Valley Missive)  —  Of course, the stock market had to come roaring back and it had to be extra sunny on the very day I was scheduled to have lunch with well-known Silicon Valley investor Ron Conway to talk about the worrisome state of the digital sector.
Discussion: The Drama 2.0 Show
beu blog:
2009 Google Flash SEO  —  In case you missed their recent announcement about Flash, Google and Adobe have teamed up on a new algorithm to index text content in Flash.  As a result of the new algorithm for Flash, Googlebot now indexes “textual content in SWF files of all kinds” and extracts URLs embeded in Flash.
Discussion: Search Engine Land and Valleywag
Andy Space / 9 to 5 Mac:
Microsoft declares war on the ‘Apple tax’  —  Microsoft is on the warpath once again, with some Redmond executive slamming Apple for putting a tax on Macs and suggesting (in a kind of roundabout way) that Macs aren't really more secure than Windows.  (Yeah, right)...
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
AOL - Yahoo Merger NOT A Done Deal, Says Time Warner Source*  —  A source close to AOL told us earlier that Yahoo's acquisition of AOL was a done deal.  However, another senior source at Time Warner emphatically denied this.  We apologize for the head-fake.
Discussion: HipMojo.com and Epicenter
MarketWatch:
Wizzard Media & WatchMojo Team to Expand Distribution of Extensive Video Catalog  —  Wizzard Media (AMEX:WZE), the world's largest podcasting network, and WatchMojo, one of the largest producers, publishers, and syndicators of video on the web, announced today that they will bring WatchMojo.com's catalog …
Discussion: NewTeeVee and HipMojo.com
John Leyden / The Register:
Storm botnet blows itself out  —  But will the zombie network rise again?  —  Security watchers Marshal claim the infamous Storm botnet is no more, after waning spam emails finally dried up altogether last month.  —  Other security researchers have noted a similar decline …
Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
AT&T goes wild with texting, announces four QWERTY phones  —  If you're into that whole SMS craze and you're on AT&T, you're in luck — four times over.  The carrier's gone ahead and announced not one, not two, but four QWERTY-equipped dumphones today, including a dual slider and a Pantech being billed as …
Discussion: textually.org and Electronista
Microsoft:
Microsoft Unveils Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2  —  Update builds on momentum behind software-powered unified communications and voice.  —  Today, Microsoft Corp. debuted Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2 (R2), an update to the award-winning Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007.
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
Larry Lessig On How To Save Remix Culture  —  from the good-luck-with-that dept  —  Larry Lessig has a fantastic op-ed essay in the Wall Street Journal that tries to defend “remix culture” from draconian copyright laws that have made it illegal to build new creative works on the works of others.
 
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 More Items: 
Kevin Poulsen / Threat Level:
Cybercrime Supersite ‘DarkMarket’ Was FBI Sting, Documents Confirm
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
McCain Campaign Sends Letter To YouTube Defending Fair Use
Long Zheng / istartedsomething:
Microsoft survey teases “Oahu”: affordable consumer-version …
Discussion: All about Microsoft
Clint Boulton / eWeek:
Brightcove 3 SAAS Video Platform Wins Endorsement from Sun Microsystems
Discussion: Contentinople and CloudAve
internetnews.com:
Microsoft Sues DHL over Spilled Xboxes
Discussion: Techdirt
John Leyden / The Register:
MS roll out exploit prediction with Patch Tuesday
 Earlier Items: 
BlackBerry Storm Mobile Phone Reviews:
Video Of The BlackBerry Storm 9500 Mobile Phone In Action
Cyrus Farivar / Salon:
Company gives computers to its employees — for keeps
Discussion: Zoli's Blog
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Wi-Fi Gets a Boost With Quantenna Chips
Discussion: DSLreports
Dan Farber / Outside the Lines:
Start-up developing new Web interaction paradigm
 

 
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

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

 
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