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3:15 PM ET, December 19, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Wall Street Journal:
Music Industry to Abandon Mass Suits  —  After years of suing thousands of people for allegedly stealing music via the Internet, the recording industry is set to drop its legal assault as it searches for more effective ways to combat online music piracy.  —  The decision represents …
RELATED:
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
RIAA Abandoning Mass Lawsuits In Favor Of Backroom 3 Strikes Policy  —  from the it's-a-step,-but-a-very-small- one dept  —  It really was just three days ago that we suggested that if the record labels actually wanted anyone to take them seriously concerning their desire to come …
Fred von Lohmann / Electronic Frontier Foundation:   RIAA v. The People Turns from Lawsuits to 3 Strikes
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
No more lawsuits: ISPs to work with RIAA, cut off P2P users
Discussion: TechSpot
Greg Sandoval / CNET News:   Sources: RIAA budget will shrink soon
english.etnews.co.kr:
Samsung Electronics will launch Google Phone in Q2  —  Samsung Electronics will release its first Google phone in the second quarter of the next year in North America.  —  The launch of Google phone by Samsung is regarded as a signal of its plan for increasing the shares in the smart phone market …
RELATED:
Times Online / Tech Central:
Is the internet going down?  Undersea sub-cables have just broken...  Breaking news: something's happening to the internet, right now.  We're just not quite sure what.  —  Interoute, the internet networks company, reports that three of the four internet sub-cables that run from Asia to North America have been damaged.
Discussion: Threat Level and The Toybox
RELATED:
Bloomberg:
Severed Cables in Mediterranean Disrupt Communication  —  A A A  —  Dec. 19 (Bloomberg) — Internet and telephone communications between the Middle East and Europe were disrupted after three submarine cables between Italy and Egypt in the Mediterranean Sea were damaged.
Steve Poland:
Evan - Twitter needs a better policy on Usernames  —  I have a bunch of Twitter usernames — I gobbled them up in March 2007.  I'd consider them some of the “quality” ones.  Almost like the domain game of 1995, I grabbed some of the best Twitter usernames, because I could see value in their use in the future.
Discussion: CenterNetworks and ThreatChaos
Spencer E. Ante / Business Week:
A Wrench in Silicon Valley's Wealth Machine  —  A year ago, cash rained on tech startups like Digg.  Now their valuations are slipping, and venture capital is drying up  —  A year ago there were reports that Digg had hired investment bank Allen & Co. to put the popular news aggregation Web site …
Arn / MacRumors:
Evidence that Next iMacs and Mac Minis to use NVIDIA Chipsets  —  Configuration files buried within some versions of Mac OS X show evidence that the next iMac and Mac Mini will indeed be based on the NVIDIA MCP79 chipset.  Apple recently switched their MacBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models to the NVIDIA chipsets in October.
Dave / MacBlogz:
One More Thing: Apple's New Multi-touch Mighty Mouse  —  Let's face it, the Mighty Mouse is flawed.  Luckily, Apple has filed for numerous patents directly hinting at a multi-touch Mighty Mouse, which could prove to bring us an unexpected treat sometime in the near future.
Discussion: SlashGear, CrunchGear and Gizmodo
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Meebo Passes IMs Between MySpace And Facebook  —  MySpace and Facebook may be frenemies forever, but now they have a new mutual friend that will pass notes between them.  Meebo, the Web-based IM service, now supports IM accounts from both social networks.  That means you can enter your Facebook …
Matt Asay / The Open Road:
We are all open source/proprietary now  —  Reading through a Jane's Strategic Advisory Services report entitled “Open Source Software in Defense Markets” (PDF), I was struck by this passage: … In other words, we are all hybrid vendors now.  —  Granted, Microsoft sponsored the research …
Discussion: Computerworld
RELATED:
LinuxWorld.com:   Open source success due to Microsoft, claims report
Between the Lines:
Palm CEO: It's not too late for us; Is it a dead company walking?  —  Is Palm a dead company walking or just one in a rough transition to a set of next generation products that will return the company to past glory?  —  Palm CEO Ed Colligan clearly believes Palm is that latter.
Discussion: Seeking Alpha
RELATED:
Dawn Kawamoto / CNET News:
EA boosts layoffs to 10 percent of workforce  —  Updated 8:02 a.m. PST with more information about EA's decision to increase the size of its layoffs and with Friday's share price performance.  —  Game publishing giant Electronic Arts announced Friday that it is expanding the scope …
Discussion: paidContent.org
RELATED:
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
ComScore: YouTube Now 25 Percent Of All Google Searches  —  Video search on YouTube accounts for a quarter of all Google search queries in the U.S., according to the latest search engine numbers from comScore.  Its monthly qSearch report, which was released on Thursday night, breaks out the number of searches conducted on YouTube.
Ed Bott / Ed Bott's Windows Expertise:
Windows 7 Beta download coming?  —  Neowin's Tom Warren is reporting that Microsoft's Windows 7 homepage has been updated with a download link for the beta release.  Here's what it looks like:  —  Currently, the link goes nowhere.  —  I'm still highly doubtful that the public …
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
Chilling Effects: Another Mixtape Provider Shut Down  —  A few months ago, the RIAA shut down Muxtape, a very popular and incredibly useful online service that let individuals create “mixtapes” for streaming to others.  As anyone with even a hint of business sense would recognize, this was a great promotional tool for musicians.
Discussion: Epicenter
Justin Berka / Infinite Loop:
Silent protest planned for Jobs-less keynote  —  There's a lot going on during your average Macworld keynote, with writers busily typing away, photographers covertly snapping pictures, and Apple fans doing of a bit of cheering.  The upcoming Macworld 2009 keynote may have a bit of a different feel …
Agence France Presse:
Japanese seek to scrap Google's Street View  —  TOKYO (AFP) - A group of Japanese journalists, professors and lawyers demanded Friday that the US Internet search giant Google scrap its “Street View” service in Japan, saying it violates people's privacy.  —  Google launched Street View …
Discussion: Ars Technica and WebProNews
Joshua Topolsky / Engadget:
Dell Studio XPS 13 leather-wrapped laptop revealed, Adamo info leaked!  —  Thanks to a totally amazing Engadget source, we've gotten our hands on photos of the absolutely sick Dell Studio XPS 13, and some new info about the company's forthcoming Adamo.  First off, the photos in the gallery …
Stephen Shankland / Webware.com:
Search results show Delicious remains a tech niche  —  There's no doubt the Internet enables a new level of social engagement—e-mail was, after all, its first killer app—but social bookmarking looks to me like it's been relegated to a techie niche.  —  I'm not the first to have this thought …
Discussion: delicious blog
 
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 More Items: 
Financial Times:
Lenovo would be wise to try for ‘third time lucky’
Linda Moss / Multichannel News:
Rainbow Pulls Plug On Voom HD Service
Discussion: NewTeeVee and atmaspheric
Sewell Chan / New York Times:
City Room: ‘Amazon Tax’ and ‘iTunes Tax’
Ian Ransom / Reuters:
Man wins case vs “human flesh search engine”
Discussion: Neowin.net
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Scribd Raises $9 Million. Still Working on Business?
Discussion: Jobwire, TechCrunch and paidContent.org
Noah Shachtman / Danger Room:
Online Jihadists Plan for ‘Invading Facebook’
Discussion: GMSV and All Facebook
Chris Albrecht / NewTeeVee:
PixelFish Picks Up Eyespot
Discussion: paidContent.org
 Earlier Items: 
CNN:
Polaroid files for Chapter 11
Discussion: CrunchGear and BloggingStocks
Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:
Scientific Journal to Authors: Publish in Wikipedia or Perish
Discussion: Ars Technica
Dennis Yang / Techdirt:
Did Burger King Really Just Issue A C&D Through Twitter?
Neil McAllister / Fatal Exception:
Native Client: Google's craziest idea yet
Discussion: TidBITS and Beyond Search