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6:30 AM ET, December 16, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Brian X. Chen / Gadget Lab:
Rumor: New Mac Mini Coming to Macworld 2009  —  Apple will launch an upgrade to its low-end desktop, the Mac Mini, at January's Macworld Expo in San Francisco, according to an Apple corporate employee who contacted Wired.com.  —  The source, who wished to remain anonymous (to keep his job) …
RELATED:
Wall Street Journal:
Apple Loses Shine as Mac Sales Slow  —  PC Maker Eschews Discounts Even as Rivals Slash Prices and Consumers Pull Back; Worries for 2009  —  Even Apple Inc. is beginning to suffer in this year's dismal holiday season, and worries are mounting the recession will weigh on its business next year.
Aidan Malley / AppleInsider:
Mac mini makeover considered likely for Macworld
Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac and Neowin.net
Yahoo! Developer Network Blog:
Yahoo! Mail rolls out a smarter inbox  —  You may have seen today's news announcing the next generation of Yahoo! Mail — rolling out a “smarter inbox"experience to users.  One way to make an inbox smarter: make applications that can work within it, opening up Yahoo! Mail to content and services built outside the Yahoo! network.
RELATED:
Times of London:
Revealed: Amazon staff punished for being ill  —  Amazon, Britain's most popular website for Christmas shopping, is making its staff work seven days a week and threatening them with the sack if they take time off sick.  —  The company charges among the lowest prices for products ranging …
9 to 5 Mac:
10.5.6 here...snappieness™ ensues  —  10.5.6 is out, go grab it from Software update (377mb here!) or via the standalone installer.  —  Here are the details or check below.  It looks like there are many performance improvements in this one!  Yes, we are feeling the snappieness™, are you?
RELATED:
Apple:
About the Mac OS X 10.5.6 Update
Erica Sadun / Infinite Loop:
Breaking: 10.5.6 update disables direct iPhone Pwnage jailbreak  —  If you've checked out iPhone Alley today, you've probably heard about 10.5.6 breaking pwnage.  The update prevents your Mac from recognizing your iPhone or iPod in DFU mode.  DFU mode refers to the device firmware update mode …
Discussion: Gizmodo, InformationWeek and OhGizmo!
RELATED:
Edward Kirk / iPhone Alley:
Warning: Mac Update 10.5.6 Breaks DFU Mode For iPhone, iPod Touch
Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac and TUAW
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
SlideShare Sends PowerPoint To The Cloud With New Plugin  —  SlideShare, a startup that we've likened to a YouTube equivalent for PowerPoint presentations, has released a new plugin for Microsoft Office 2007 that allows users to edit and publish presentations directly to their SlideShare accounts.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Twitter Humiliates MySpace  —  Google Friend Connect launched with Twitter this morning, a big win for Google in the fight for control over user logins on third party sites.  Recent speculation was that Twitter would be partnering with Facebook to integrate Connect first.
RELATED:
Mussie Shore / The Official Google Blog:
@Twitter: Welcome to Google Friend Connect
Deborah Gage / San Francisco Chronicle:
Google off list of 20 most trusted companies  —  (12-14) 16:40 PST SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook, Apple, Yahoo, Verizon and FedEx for the first time have made an annual ranking of the top 20 most trusted companies in the United States.  —  Google, however, dropped off the list …
Owen Thomas / Valleywag:
Facebook's new value: $1.3 billion?  —  With more than 120 million users, Mark Zuckerberg's social network continues to grow, kudzu-like.  And yet it is worth far less today than the $15 billion it commanded a year ago.  Why is that?  —  One could talk about Facebook's fast-growing headcount …
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
John Cook / TechFlash:
BlueKai gets $10.5 million to help advertisers target shoppers  —  In these tough economic times, not many startups are raising funds, especially at higher valuations than previous venture capital rounds.  But Bellevue-based BlueKai, a 13-person startup led by online advertising executive Omar Tawakol …
Anil Dash / Movable Type:
The Web is in Motion via Movable Type Pro  —  Today, we're launching a new application for Movable Type Pro, called Motion.  If you're just looking for the headline to put on your blog, you can think of it this way:  — Microblogging like Pownce or Tumblr or Twitter plus
Josh Lowensohn / CNET News:
Vator.tv gets a centralized, Twitter-like news feed  —  Vator.tv, the “YouTube for start-ups” has a new feature going live on Tuesday morning that lets companies post short updates to their Vator.tv-hosted information pages.  Similar to Twitter, the messages are limited to just a few hundred characters …
Discussion: VentureBeat
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
SEC Gives Social Investing Site kaChing Green Light To Take On Mutual Funds  —  Every social investing site wants to turn the insights of its trading members into financial products that people can actually link to their brokerage accounts.  Finding the few brilliant stock pickers in the crowd …
Discussion: Webware.com and The Drama 2.0 Show
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
Anyone Buying Up Huge Blocks Of Yahoo?  (YHOO)  —  A reader sends the following query:  —  Any idea who might be buying large YHOO blocks at the close every day as well as 8.3 million shares today at 5:01 PM NY time?  Seems like whoever it is, they should have enough of a position to be having to file a 13D shortly?
Brian Cornell / Google Mobile Blog:
Your Maps in Your Hands for the Holidays  —  Just in time for the holidays I'm proud to present to you My Maps Editor by Google, now available for download in Android Market!  In just four months of my 20% time and with a little help from the 20% time of my coworkers this application has gone …
Discussion: IntoMobile, Unwired View and WebProNews
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Apple 2.0:
The myth of the 99-cent killer app  —  Stung by criticism from frustrated developers, Apple (AAPL) redesigned its increasingly crowded iPhone App Store last Friday to showcase the most popular paid applications in each category — Books, Business, Games, etc. (See here.)
Zach Epstein / Boy Genius Report:
VUDU introduces internet application platform and on-demand TV  —  VUDU swings for the fences and connects!  Big news from California-based set top box provider VUDU this morning, as the company announces a huge new addition to its arsenal — the VUDU RIA (Rich Internet Application) platform.
Discussion: NewTeeVee, Gearlog and Crave
Joanna Stern / LAPTOP Magazine:
Intel-Powered Convertible Classmate PC: The Touch Netbook to Emulate  —  CES 2009 is undoubtedly going to be the show for touch-enabled netbooks and leading the pack will be Intel's Convertible Classmate PC.  While MSI and ASUS have hinted at their respective touch-capable Winds and Eee PCs …
Discussion: UMPCPortal, Liliputing and Engadget
Associated Press:
Hasbro dropping suit against makers of Facebook game Scrabulous  —  NEW YORK — Hasbro is dropping its lawsuit against the makers of a popular online version of board game Scrabble.  —  According to documents filed in U.S. District Court in New York, Hasbro dropped the lawsuit Friday.
 
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 More Items: 
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
TheLaughButton: Like Hype Machine for Stand Up Comedy
Discussion: Jobwire
Greg Kumparak / MobileCrunch:
Palm gets in on the app store game, launches Palm Software Store
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Gaia Online Cuts 13% Of Staff Despite Claims Of Record Earnings
Discussion: New York Times and Gaia
Clive Thompson / Wired News:
Why We Need More Torture in Videogames
Discussion: GoNintendo
Dimitris Pagkalos / XSSed syndication:
New highly critical Facebook XSS vulnerabilities pose serious privacy risks
Discussion: All Facebook and Zero Day
 Earlier Items: 
Howard Kurtz / Washington Post:
Tina Reinvents the Web
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Portland Gets WiMAX Service
Discussion: Brier Dudley's blog
Cory Bohon / TUAW:
Walmart creates iPhone compatible site
Discussion: iPhone Buzz and Appletell
Saul Hansell / Bits:
Let Your Boss Find Your Facebook Friends
Discussion: TECH.BLORGE.com
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
The Extraordinary Happenings At BitTorrent
Ted Dziuba / The Register:
Native Client d**k-swinging met with fake Googasm
Scott Rosenberg / Scott Rosenberg's Wordyard:
Google Blog Search loses its bearings
 

 
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

John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Substack, very deliberately, tries to have it both ways by saying publications on their platform are independent while presenting them all as parts of Substack

 
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