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9:50 PM ET, November 19, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Annie Chen / Gmail Blog:
Spice up your inbox with colors and themes  —  Gmail fans have been building unofficial extensions to spice up their inboxes for a while, but up til now themes haven't been an integral part of Gmail.  We wanted to go beyond simple color customization, so out of the 30 odd themes we're launching today …
RELATED:
Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Ballmer: ‘We are done’ with Yahoo acquisition idea  —  Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer threw his daily bucket of cold water on the notion that the software maker will return with a new bid for all of Yahoo.  —  “We are done with all acquisition discussions with Yahoo,” Ballmer said …
RELATED:
Rafat Ali / paidContent.org:
Ziff Davis To Close PCMag Print; Focus on Online; Still Looking For Options For Gaming Division  —  Ziff Davis, the tech/gaming media company that recently exited Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is now taking the brave but inevitable step of closing down the print version of PCMag to focus its energy …
RELATED:
Mitchell / Mitchell's Blog:
Sustainability in Uncertain Times  —  Today we are posting our audited financial statements and tax form for 2007.  As in past years, I'll use this event as an opportunity to review both our financial status and our overall effectiveness in moving the mission forward.  —  Financial
RELATED:
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Google Makes Up 88 Percent Of Mozilla's Revenues, Threatens Its Non-Profit Status
Discussion: CNET News
Signal vs. Noise:
Why the Drudge Report is one of the best designed sites on the web  —  A couple weeks ago on Twitter I said: “I still maintain the Drudge Report is one of the best designed sites on the web.  Has been for years.”  A few people agreed, but most didn't.  Some thought it was a joke.  I wasn't kidding.
Greg Sandoval / CNET News:
Sources: Apple, music labels talk DRM-free songs  —  A year after iTunes began offering music without copy protection software from EMI, Apple is in discussions with the other three top recording companies about acquiring DRM-free songs, according to two music industry sources.
Jim Goldman / Tech Check with Jim Goldman:
Xbox Vs. PlayStation With Netflix Caught In The Middle  —  It's a big day for Netflix with the service going live on Microsoft's Xbox 360 platform.  But there's one big thing lacking and you can thank the heated rivalry between Sony and Microsoft for it and I'm getting an earful from some of you.
RELATED:
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Yahoo Search Suffers Another Blow, as Key Engineer Departs for Microsoft  —  Yahoo-which has stuck to its guns by staying in the search business, even though many think it is a losing game and should be sold off to Microsoft-has lost a key engineer in that arena to, uh-oh, Microsoft.
RELATED:
Owen Thomas / Valleywag:
Is Yahoo done with search?
Discussion: Guardian and Epicenter
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
SnapTell: Instant Product Lookup From The iPhone.  You Want This.  —  If you have an iPhone, you'll probably want to check out SnapTell Explorer, a free application now available on the App Store.  The premise is simple: take a photo of the cover of any CD, DVD, book, or video game …
Discussion: jkOnTheRun and metarand
Zach Epstein / Boy Genius Report:
Confirmed: iPhone 3G coming to Wal-Mart on December 28th, select Sam's Club stores as well  —  Shortly after we posted about the iPhone coming to Wal-Mart this morning, it seemed like all of our ninjas came out of the woodwork to bombard us with info.  Rather than post an update, we want to lay out what is now confirmed info.
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
SimCity for the iPhone may ruin my life (in a good way)  —  No game captured my imagination when I was growing up like SimCity.  Certainly, a part of it was my God complex, but more it was the open-ended nature of a game with few rules that let you build a city.
Discussion: Touch Arcade
Scott Ferguson / eWeek:
After the Layoffs: Collecting 52,000 Laptop and Desktop Computers  —  Table of Contents:  —  The announcement this week that Citigroup will eliminate 52,000 jobs and with other large companies also looking at layoffs, IT departments are going to be forced to deal with hundreds and even thousands …
Arik Hesseldahl / Business Week:
Hewlett-Packard Out-Touches Apple  —  Apple watchers assumed Jobs & Co. would be the first to offer a multitouch laptop, but Hewlett-Packard has beaten them to the punch  —  From the first time Steve Jobs demonstrated “the pinch”—the two-finger gesture used to zoom in and out of photos …
Will Park / IntoMobile:
MMS coming to iPhone 3G!  —  Now, before you get all worked up in an MMS-frenzy, you should know that MMS is coming to iPhone 3G's on Telia's network.  MacWorld has confirmed that the Scandinavian wireless carrier has the distinction of offering the iPhone 3G exclusively in Apple rival Nokia's home-turf …
Discussion: CNET News and Mashable!
Jeremy Crane / Compete Blog:
Behold the Power of google.com  —  What would you give for one day of Google eyeballs?  What would it be worth to you to have one single ad running on Google's oh so sparse and much hailed homepage?  My guess, that for better or worse, many an online marketing department would be more than happy …
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
First Guns N' Roses Album In 17 Years Debuts Tonight On MySpace Music  —  Chinese Democracy, the first new Guns N' Roses album since 1991, debuts tonight at 9 PM PST exclusively on MySpace Music, where fans can listen to it for free.  —  Well, actually it debuted on BitTorrent a while ago, but we're not talking about that.
Discussion: CNET News
Justin Scott / Mozilla Add-ons Blog:
1 Billion Add-on Downloads  —  This morning, addons.mozilla.org reached a huge milestone: we served our 1 billionth add-on download since we started keeping track of downloads in 2005.  —  This number only includes downloads from addons.mozilla.org, but as many add-ons are hosted elsewhere …
Dan Rayburn / The Business Of Online Video:
MLB.com's Switch To Flash Video Leaves More Questions Than Answers  —  Adobe got a big customer win this week when they announced that MLB.com would move from the Silverlight platform back to Flash for all their live and on-demand video.  The two-year deal, which kicks off in 2009 …
Marcus Foster / Google Mobile Blog:
Google Sync for BlackBerry: Now with contacts  —  You asked for it, so here it is.  We're happy to announce that in the latest update to Google Sync for BlackBerry, we've added two-way contacts synchronization.  This new functionality will enable you to sync your handheld's built-in address book with your Gmail contacts.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Insidious New SEO Ad Product Will Be Hard For Google To Detect (Updated With Google Response)  —  New York-based advertising firm MediaWhiz, never one to worry about gray areas when it comes to advertising, has launched a new product today called InLinks.  —  It's fairly straightforward …
Serkan Toto / CrunchGear:
Konica Minolta develops a USB stick-sized projector  —  Not the real thing.  —  Konica Minolta (or its subsidiary Konica Minolta Opto, to be more exact) has developed what sounds like it's one of the smallest projectors around today.  Measuring just 20×40x7mm, the projector is reportedly …
Electronista:
Unpaid time while Vista boots results in lawsuits  —  Certain employers are docking their employees' pay while they wait for their Vista PCs to boot up, to the tune of 30 to 60 minutes per day, resulting in class-action lawsuits being brought against the employers, says a Tuesday blog report.
Wilson Rothman / Gizmodo:
Windows 7 Touch Control Makes Media Center Interface Awesome  —  Windows 7 Touch Control Makes Media Center More Awesome  —  Visiting Microsoft's Media Center posse in Redmond, I just caught a glimpse of the Windows 7 Media Center interface with integrated touch control (no third-party software) on an HP TouchSmart.
Nick O'Neill / All Facebook:
Patent Squatter Sues Facebook  —  Leader Technologies, an Ohio-based “intellectual capital company”, has filed a lawsuit against Facebook.  The company claims that Facebook has infringed on one of their patents which relates generally “to a method and system for the management and storage of electronic information.”
Discussion: VentureBeat
 
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 More Items: 
Dan Rayburn / The Business Of Online Video:
Akamai Cuts 10% Of Workforce, 110 Layoffs Across All Divisions Of The Company
Josh Lowensohn / Webware.com:
Searchme brings its Coverflow search to iPhone
Discussion: TechCrunch
Ryan Naraine / Zero Day:
Malware found in Lenovo software package
Meredith Corporation / Thomson IR:
Meredith Corporation Boosts Interactive Portfolio With Investment …
Discussion: paidContent.org
Chris Albrecht / NewTeeVee:
Sonic Solutions to Buy CinemaNow
Discussion: paidContent.org
Niek / Mininova blog:
Mininova and Hyper MP testing new technology
Discussion: Slyck and TorrentFreak
Zach Epstein / Boy Genius Report:
Nokia E71 coming to AT&T as E71x; live and in the flesh
Discussion: Unwired View, Engadget and Electronista
CBC News:
CRTC to rule on Bell's throttling on Thursday
Discussion: p2pnet and DSLreports
 Earlier Items: 
Wagner James Au / GigaOM:
Obama's FCC Transition Team Co-chair a WoW Player
GamesIndustry.biz:
LittleBigPlanet “would be a clear number one” any other time of year
Discussion: Kotaku, Destructoid and PS3 Fanboy
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch UK:
Updated: BNP member list mashed with Google maps creates a sea …
Discussion: TECH.BLORGE.com and twopointouch