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5:40 PM ET, December 8, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Alexandra Kenin / Google Mobile Blog:
New AdWords options for iPhone and G1  —  Today, the Google mobile ads team is announcing a new campaign-level option that allows those of you who are AdWords advertisers to show your desktop text and image ads on the iPhone, the T-Mobile G1, and other mobile devices with full (HTML) Internet browsers.
RELATED:
Arn / MacRumors:
$99 Wal-Mart iPhone Seems Unlikely  —  Last week, Boy Genius Report cited an unconfirmed source that Wal-Mart may begin selling a 4GB iPhone for only $99.  Based on available Wal-Mart training materials and advertising (pictured above) we've received, however, it seems that this rumor is unlikely.
RELATED:
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Apple 2.0:
Anatomy of a rumor: Wal-Mart's $99 iPhone
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Yahoo Moves Ahead With Layoffs on Wednesday: The Sad Details  —  While there are layoffs all over now, as evidenced by the dismal jobs reports last week, the long-planned Yahoo (YHOO) layoffs will definitely be taking place Wednesday.  —  The layoff number was announced by its (eventually outgoing) …
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Is Google Ready to Make (Unpleasant) History?  —  I vow to provide some upbeat news here sooner than later.  But until then, here's another downbeat data point, from Citibank's (C) Mark Mahaney: He predicts that search advertising, which has been the one dependable growth business during the econalypse …
Discussion: Smalltalk Tidbits …
Nilay Patel / Engadget:
TiVo Netflix hands-on  —  TiVo was nice enough to hit us with the Netflix-enabling Fall Service Update a little early, and the going's been pretty good — this is probably our favorite Netflix streaming implementation yet.  Although it's not as flashy of an experience as the Xbox 360's Netflix …
RELATED:
Charles Arthur / Guardian:
Wikipedia row escalates as internet watchdog considers censoring Amazon US over Scorpions image  —  The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) is reviewing its decision to list as “child pornography” the image on one version of the album “Virgin Killer” by the rock band The Scorpions hosted on Wikipedia …
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Microsoft: To Unveil Zune/Danger Device At CES Keynote?  —  The Consumer Electronics Show kicks off January 7 with a keynote from Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer, taking the spot which in past years had been filled by the now semi-retired Bill Gates.  The company always unveils a product …
Yahoo! Search Blog:
BOSS Reaches a Milestone  —  We launched Yahoo! Search BOSS this past July and we just reached a significant milestone - the BOSS API is currently serving more than 10 million queries per day. 10 million in and of itself isn't particularly significant, but we're sharing it because we believe growing …
MediaShift:
Dealing with Friend Inflation on Twitter, Digg  —  It happens several times a day now.  Ever since I opened my Twitter account approximately three months ago, the follow alerts have been gradually increasing in frequency to the point that they clutter up my email inbox if I don't clean them out often enough.
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Yahoo Plans to Launch a Mail App Platform  —  Yahoo, the beleaguered web giant, is planning to launch a new program that essentially turns its email offering into a platform on which to run applications, much in the same way Facebook does, according to some of my sources.
Slash Lane / AppleInsider:
Over 100 fixes coming in Mac OS X 10.5.6 Update  —  Apple's Mac OS X 10.5.6 Update is on course to deliver dozens of new bug fixes to users of the company's Leopard operating system, with recently leaked developer notes also offering a status update on software's server counterpart and Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.
Discussion: MacRumors and MacBlogz
Bobbie Johnson / Guardian:
America is losing its position at the centre of the internet, according to a new study by TeleGeography Research  —  America is losing its position at the centre of the internet, according to a new study.  —  The survey by communications analysts TeleGeography Research, based in Washington DC …
Mike Vorhaus / AdAge:
Would You Pay Money to See Your Favorite Site Ad-Free?  —  Mike Vorhaus on Digital Communications  —  Since the early days of the web, consumers have been complaining about banner ads, pop-ups, pop-unders and all sorts of advertising.  We constantly hear from consumers and from those who design websites …
Alex Pell / Times of London:
PlayStation fiends finally get a second life  —  Escape the relatives this Christmas by losing yourself in Sony's long-awaited virtual world  —  The annual battle of the consoles that takes place every Christmas will heat up this week when Sony launches its own version of Second Life for the PlayStation 3.
Paula Rooney / Open Source:
Sun announces GA of mySQL 5.1  —  Sun on Monday announced an upgrade of MySQL that offers enhanced partitioning and replication as well as an event scheduler and query analyzer.  —  MySQL 5.1, which Sun says has been downloaded more than 250,000 times over the past 10 days …
Discussion: eWeek and LinuxWorld.com
Electronista:
HP drops Mini 1000 to $360 with 1GB RAM bump  —  HP on Monday quietly dropped the price of its Mini 1000 netbook down to $360 from its original $400 price tag.  The update puts the system into closer competition with same-size models and is accompanied by a new offer that doubles the RAM to 1GB for free.
Arn / MacRumors:
Apple's ARM Plans in 2009?  NetBooks, Tablets, Other?  —  A couple of speculative reports have come out about what plans Apple might have for its ARM-based processors in the coming year.  Apple is rumored to be a major architectual licensee for ARM.  This would offer Apple an added level of control and ownership over its processors.
Jeremiah Owyang / Web Strategy:
Understanding HP Lab's Twitter Research  —  Left: The famed HP Labs think tank in Palo Alto.  —  A few months ago, I spent an entire day with the HP Labs group in Palo Alto, they're responsible for the R&D and innovation that goes into their thousands of technology products on the market.
John Mahoney / Gizmodo:
Broadcom Launches 802.11n Wi-Fi Chip For Cellphones  —  The new chip, which also integrates Bluetooth and FM radios, can grab 802.11n data at speeds of up to 50Mbps, and Broadcom claims it can do it all without totally devastating your battery.  —  While mobile browsers are far from fast enough …
AppleInsider:
Steve Jobs key to selecting tunes for Apple ads  —  Ever wonder how those catchy tunes find their way into Apple's iPod commercials?  You'll have to look no further than the ear of chief executive Steve Jobs.  —  In SongFacts an interview with the Asteroids Galaxy Tour …
Discussion: Apple 2.0, PC World and Edible Apple
Business Wire:
HP and Arizona State University Demo Flexible, Unbreakable Displays  —  PALO ALTO, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—HP (NYSE:HPQ) and the Flexible Display Center (FDC) at Arizona State University (ASU) today announced the first prototype of affordable, flexible electronic displays.
Noam Cohen / New York Times:
Link by Link: The Freedoms That Technologies Help Bring  —  AMONG international outrages, depriving citizens of personalized maps seems far down on the list.  —  Still, that was the condition put on the introduction of Apple's 3G iPhone in Egypt.  The government demanded that Apple disable …
Nick Bilton / O'Reilly Radar:
The Twitter Gold Mine & Beating Google to the Semantic Web  —  There's always been jabs at Twitter for not having a viable business model and the chatter has increased in the current economic climate.  In a recent interview Evan Williams, Twitter CEO, said “We had planned to focus on revenue …
PR Newswire:
TI updates fourth-quarter 2008 business outlook  —  Conference call on TI web site at 4:30 p.m. Central time today  —  www.ti.com/ir  —  In a scheduled update to its business outlook for the fourth quarter of 2008, Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NYSE: TXN - News) …
Steve / The Official Netflix Blog:
Changes in Customer Service  —  Steve Swasey, VP of Corporate Communications, here to let you know about some changes in Customer Service.  —  For those of you who watch movies instantly on your PC or Mac, you may have noticed our player is much easier to install and use now with Silverlight.
 
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 More Items: 
Glenn Fleishman / Infinite Loop:
Boingo releases iPhone app for its worldwide hotspot network
Matt McGee / Search Engine Land:
Paging Dr. Google: Will Google Replace Your Doctor?
Business Technology:
Cheap PCs Weigh on Microsoft
Discussion: Electronista
Scott M. Fulton, III / BetaNews:
Mozilla makes Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 available
Discussion: jkOnTheRun
Bruce Upbin / Forbes:
IBM's Infinite Research Problem
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Bonjour, FriendFeed, Que Tal?
Discussion: VentureBeat and RotorBlog.com
 Earlier Items: 
Evan Ramstad / Wall Street Journal:
Coming to Tiny Screens All Over
Discussion: mocoNews.net and WatchingTV Online
Brooke Crothers / CNET News:
EA, Take-Two lift Nvidia physics to next level
Discussion: Crave
John Timmer / Ars Technica:
Computer scientists find audio CAPTCHAs easy to crack
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb and The Toybox
PC World:
SugarCRM Adds Hooks to Cloud Data Services
Discussion: The Open Road and CloudAve
Michael Mace / Mobile Opportunity:
Mobile data: Be careful what you wish for
Sarah McBride / Wall Street Journal:
The Way We'll Watch  —  Coming soon: DVDs that let you chat …
Discussion: CrunchGear and TECH.BLORGE.com