Check out Mini-Techmeme for simple mobiles or Techmeme Mobile for modern smartphones.
7:25 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: Neowin.net
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:
Erica Sadun / Infinite Loop:
Breaking: 10.5.6 update disables direct iPhone Pwnage jailbreak
Edward Kirk / iPhone Alley:
Warning: Mac Update 10.5.6 Breaks DFU Mode For iPhone, iPod Touch
Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac and TUAW
Apple:
About the Mac OS X 10.5.6 Update
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:
Yahoo! Mail Blog:
Take a tour of Yahoo! Mail's new smarter inbox  —  As you may have heard, we've been working on a new smarter inbox to help make your life easier.  We're happy to announce that today, some of you will begin to experience the smarter inbox, and we wanted to give everyone a chance to see what it looks like and what it can do.
Stephen Shankland / Webware.com:
Yahoo puts meat on Open Strategy bones
Mark Hendrickson / TechCrunch:
Yahoo Announces Next Steps in Open Strategy
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 …
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.
Josh Lowensohn / Webware.com:
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 and VatorNews
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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 …
BBC:
Serious security flaw found in IE  —  Users of the world's most common web browser have been advised to switch to a rival until a serious security flaw has been fixed.  —  The flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer could allow criminals to take control of people's computers and steal their passwords, internet experts say.
Discussion: Asa Dotzler
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 …
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
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?
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of Techmeme at 7:25 AM ET, December 16, 2008.

View the current page or another snapshot:


Page version:
 
 Techmeme Sponsor Posts: 
Google:
Gemini 2.5 Pro: Our most intelligent AI model  —  Gemini 2.5 Pro (experimental) is now available, with thinking capabilities, enhanced performance, and improved accuracy.  Try it at no cost in the Gemini app.
UiPath:
UiPath Unveils 10 Innovations that Will Shape the Agentic Future  —  Orchestration engine, API workflows and agentic testing among key features of new UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation, launched at UiPath DevCon 2025
Zoho:
How EQ plays a defining role in workplace communication  —  What if everyone you worked with had a psychic ability to understand how you're feeling and respond accordingly?  Wouldn't that be great?
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
Sponsor Techmeme
 
 See Also: 
Techmeme: site main
Techmeme River: reverse chronological Techmeme
Techmeme Mobile: for phones
Techmeme Leaderboard: Techmeme's top sources
 
 Subscribe: 
Techmeme RSS feed
Techmeme on X
Techmeme on Mastodon
 
 
 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
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
2008 Crunchies Tickets Now On Sale
 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
Associated Press:
Blogger pleads guilty to G N' R leak
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
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Jeanna Smialek / New York Times:
The EU General Court rules the EU should not have denied an NYT journalist's request for text messages between Ursula von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla

A.G. Sulzberger / New York Times:
A.G. Sulzberger says the role of a free press is under attack, and that the anti-press playbook used in eroding democracies is now being deployed in the US

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
The BBC plans to expand its Local Democracy Reporting Service beyond local authorities and “dramatically” increase BBC's presence on YouTube and TikTok

 
Sister Sites:

Mediagazer
 Top news and commentary for media professionals from all around the web
memeorandum
 What US political commentators are discussing online right now
WeSmirch
 The top celebrity news from all around the web on a single page