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1:50 PM ET, November 14, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
John Markoff / New York Times:
Google Is Taking Questions (Spoken, via iPhone)  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Pushing ahead in the decades-long effort to get computers to understand human speech, Google researchers have added sophisticated voice recognition technology to the company's search software for the Apple iPhone.
Business Wire:
Sun Microsystems Aligns Business with Global Economic Climate and Amplifies Growth Opportunities Across Open Source Platforms  —  SANTA CLARA, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:JAVA - News) today announced a series of changes designed to align its cost model …
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Margaret Kane / CNET News:
Sun restructures, lays off up to 6,000  —  Sun Microsystems has announced a restructuring that will involve layoffs of 15 percent to 18 percent of its global workforce.  —  The company also announced a reorganization of its software operations and the departure of Rich Green, executive vice president of software.
Dan Lyons / Real Dan Lyons Web Site:   Sun to cut 6,000  —  See the press release here.  It's classic Sun doublespeak.
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Microsoft launches online store: Is there deeper meaning here?  —  Microsoft has launched something long overdue: An online store.  Yes Virginia, you can download Windows.  —  The launch is a bit quiet.  Trevin Chow, a senior program manager at Microsoft, announced the “first-party” store on his blog.
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Trevin Chow:
Introducing the Microsoft Store US  —  We previously launched Microso ft Store internationally in the UK, Germany and Korea.  I'm now happy to announce that we have officially launched Microsoft Store for the U.S!  —  With this launch, our customers in the U.S. are able to buy …
Dawn Kawamoto / CNET News:
Microsoft launches second retail site
Discussion: PC World, I4U News and The Mac Observer
Brandon LeBlanc / The Windows Blog:
Introducing the Microsoft Store
Royal Pingdom:
The world's most super-designed data center - fit for a James Bond villain  —  This underground data center has greenhouses, waterfalls, German submarine engines, simulated daylight and can withstand a hit from a hydrogen bomb.  It looks like the secret HQ of a James Bond villain.  —  And it is real.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Apple 2.0:
IBM must put up $3 million in Papermaster case  —  IBM only had to pay a $350 filing fee to sue Mark Papermaster, the 25-year IBM (IBM) veteran hired by Steve Jobs last month to run Apple's (AAPL) iPod and iPhone division.  —  It's going to cost them a lot more to pursue the case.
RELATED:
Paul McDougall / InformationWeek:
Revenge Of The Papermaster: Apple Exec Countersues IBM
Discussion: CNET News and Macsimum News
Martin Peers / Wall Street Journal:
Google's Consumers Are Checking Out  —  Google's business model is revealing its Achilles' heel.  —  The Internet giant's big perceived advantage over traditional media has long been its consumer-driven business model.  Whereas traditional media has more of a marketer-driven approach …
Discussion: Valleywag
BBC:
European debut for ‘$100 laptop’  —  Europeans will soon be able to buy their own XO laptop.  —  The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organisation is planning to sell the devices via online store Amazon's European outlets from 17 November.  —  The machines will be sold under the Give One …
Vivek Wadhwa / Business Week:
Engineering: Suddenly Sexy for College Grads  —  As the financial crisis deepens, science and math grads who once flocked to investment banking are now considering jobs in engineering  —  Early in his college career, Tyler Bosmeny assumed that after graduating, he would do what hundreds …
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
Eric Krangel / Silicon Alley Insider:
October Game Sales: Nintendo Wii Kicking PS3 Butt  —  Nintendo (NTDOY) is eating Microsoft (MSFT) and Sony's (SNE) lunch in the console wars, the NPD Group says.  —  Look at the sales figures for consoles in October:  — Wii: 803,000 consoles  — Xbox 360: 370,000  — PS3: 190,000
RELATED:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
GirlInYourShirt: $75 Buys Your Startup Marketing For A Day  —  I imagine more than a few startups will take Jenaé up on her offer to wear your startup shirt and talk about your company for a day.  It's $75, and she posts videos on her site, YouTube, Seesmic and Viddler, posts pictures on Flickr and tweets about it all as well.
Discussion: AppScout and The Drama 2.0 Show
Tom Krazit / CNET News:
Businesses warming up to the iPhone  —  Apple has captivated the general public with the iPhone, but has it convinced the business world to take the plunge?  —  Even after the March preview of the “business-friendly” iPhone 2.0 software for the iPhone released in July …
Discussion: wmpoweruser.com
Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
Is the VC Model Broken?  Far From it  —  Updated: Adeo Ressi, the serial entrepreneur behind the venture-capital rating site TheFunded, has been getting a lot of attention for a presentation he gave at Harvard Business School in which he argued that the VC industry is “broken.”
Ashlee Vance / New York Times:
Crisis Spreads to Tech Sector as Sun Plans to Cut Work Force  —  Joining a rapidly growing list of technology companies reeling from the financial turmoil, Sun Microsystems, which sells server computers, has started a broad restructuring that could see up to 6,000 employees lose their jobs.
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Universal Music Group: We're Still Selling Tunes, Amazingly  —  Universal Music Group, the world's biggest music company, insists the music business isn't dying.  Yesterday, it released numbers to help bolster its case.  —  UMG saw sales drop 6.2 percent in the last quarter, parent company Vivendi disclosed yesterday.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
The Very Curious Microsoft-Facebook User Data Relationship  —  Facebook's ties to Microsoft go back to 2006 when they first signed an advertising deal.  A year later they took a $240 million investment, and the advertising relationship was extended this year.
Discussion: MSN and The Social Times
Jose Antonio Vargas / Washington Post:
The YouTube Presidency  —  The White House has gone YouTube.  —  Today, President-elect Obama will record the weekly Democratic address not just on radio but also on video — a first.  The address, typically four minutes long, will be turned into a YouTube video and posted on Obama's transition site …
Business Technology:
How Old Is Your Work Computer?  —  It used to be that every three years, workers would get brand new computers from their businesses' tech departments.  But for many those days are over.  —  The reason: Delaying computer upgrades is one of the easiest ways for a tech department to cut its budget.
Discussion: Wall Street Journal
Kate Greene / Technology Review:
The Coming Wireless Revolution  —  Gadgets that operate over television frequencies promise to transform the wireless landscape.  —  If you believe some radio researchers and engineers, within the next couple of years, high-bandwidth, far-reaching wireless Internet signals will soon blanket the nation.
Discussion: The Pondering Primate
 
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 More Items: 
David Kravets / Threat Level:
Lawyer: Guns N' Roses Uploader to Walk
Discussion: The Register
Brian Crecente / Kotaku:
Is Take-Two Thinking of Subscription-Based GTA and BioShock?
Discussion: Negative Approach and Destructoid
Lester Haines / The Register:
Hubble snaps planet orbiting distant star
Discussion: Gearlog and NASA
Marguerite Reardon / CNET News:
Smartphones drive demand for Web browsing
Discussion: TechSpot
Alex Castle / Maximum PC all:
Why is Google Running Ads for Known Malware Sites?
Discussion: DailyTech, Slashdot and digg.com
Joel Hruska / Ars Technica:
AMD Fusion now pushed back to 2011
Discussion: Hardware 2.0
 Earlier Items: 
Kim Dixon / Reuters:
Lawmaker Plans Bill on Web Neutrality
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Entrepreneurs Ask VCs for Cash Back
Discussion: Business Week
David Kaplan / paidContent.org:
Invest Like It's 1998: Microsoft Stock Hits 10-Year Low …
Discussion: Associated Press
Paul Boutin / Valleywag:
Federated Media slashes rates to $5 CPM
Discussion: The Blog Herald
Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:
Google Finally Starts Firing Slackers?
Discussion: Beyond Search