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12:25 AM ET, December 23, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Owen Thomas / Gawker:
Bono and Steve Jobs No Longer BFFs  —  What did Steve Jobs do to his old buddy Bono?  The Irish rock star, once the Apple CEO's adoring buddy, is funding the most credible threat to the iPhone yet.  —  Bono is a founder of Elevation Partners, the Silicon Valley private-equity firm named after the U2 song.
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
RELATED:
Owen Thomas / Gawker:
Google Hands Out ‘Dogfood’ as Christmas Bonus  —  Groans are issuing from the Googleplex over this year's holiday bonus.  In the past, the search engine paid cash — as much as $20,000 or $30,000 per Googler, we hear.  This year?  A cell phone.  —  Oh, but not just any cell phone …
Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:
Music Labels In Talks To Create Hulu-For-Music (GOOG)  —  Warner Music Group — now banned from YouTube following failed licensing negotiations — isn't the only major record label tired of doing business with Google's video-sharing site.  —  A source familiar with the negotiations tells us …
RELATED:
Lisa Fernandez / Mercury News:
Fry's executive arrested in alleged $65M fraud to pay off gambling debts  —  A one-time computer salesman who rose through the ranks to help build Fry's Electronics into a robust national retailer is facing allegations that he defrauded the San Jose-based company out of $65 million …
Discussion: Techdirt
Chris Snyder / Epicenter:
App Developer Strikes E-Book Deals With Major Publishers  —  ScrollMotion, a New York mobile app developer, has concluded deals with a number of major publishing houses, and is in talks with several others, to produce newly released and best-selling e-books as applications for the iPhone and iPod touch.
Paul McDougall / InformationWeek:
Apple Failed To Copyright Mac OS X, Psystar Claims  —  The charge is the latest in a series of allegations in the ongoing legal spat between the clone maker and Apple.  —  Mac clone manufacturer Psystar said that Apple's copyright suit against it should be dismissed because Apple has never filed …
Discussion: AppleInsider and Macsimum News
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Scrapplet: Powerful Social Web Canvases That Are As Easy As Drag-And-Drop  —  There are a few sites out there that let you aggregate your entire online presence into a single place, but for the most part they offer little control over the way your information is actually presented.
Discussion: Webware.com and louisgray.com
Paul Carton / ChangeWave HotWire Blog:
BlackBerry vs. iPhone - The Smart Phone Battle Rages On  —  Research In Motion (RIMM) and Apple (AAPL) continue their smart phone battle for the hearts and minds of consumers, according to the latest ChangeWave survey.  The survey shows Apple enjoying another good quarter in the aftermath of its 3G iPhone release.
Discussion: Apple 2.0, MacDailyNews and iLounge
Geoff Boucher / Los Angeles Times:
VHS era is winding down  —  Ryan Kugler, left, president of Distribution Video Audio in Burbank, and his brother Brad, the CEO, have shipped their last truckload of VHS tapes.  “Anything left in warehouse, we'll just give away or throw away,” Ryan Kugler said.
Michael S. Malone / Wall Street Journal:
Washington Is Killing Silicon Valley  —  Entrepreneurship was taken for granted.  Now we're seeing a lot less of it.  —  Even as economic losses and unemployment levels mount, America's most effective engine for wealth and job creation is being dangerously — perhaps fatally — compromised.
Discussion: Texas Startup Blog
Alexander Haislip / Reuters:
Will Ferrell site, Funny Or Die, raises $3 million  —  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Internet comedy site Funny Or Die, supported by actor Will Ferrell and seeded by Sequoia Capital, has raised $3 million in cash from a single, undisclosed investor.  —  The financing also includes …
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Report Says Twitter Would Take 36 Years to Catch Facebook - If Facebook Stopped Growing Today  —  Marketing firm HubSpot will publish a report tomorrow on the state of Twitter at the end of 2008, based on user data the company harvested from its controversial app TwitterGrader.
BBC:
Windows XP allowed to live again  —  Microsoft has given yet another reprieve to its seasoned Windows XP operating system.  —  The cut off date for PC makers to obtain licenses for the software was 31 January 2009.  —  But now Microsoft has put in place a scheme that will allow …
Microsoft:
Microsoft Security Advisory (961040)  —  Vulnerability in SQL Server Could Allow Remote Code Execution  —  Microsoft is investigating new public reports of a vulnerability that could allow remote code execution on systems with supported editions of Microsoft SQL Server 2000 …
Discussion: CNET News, Computerworld and Zero Day
John Timmer / Ars Technica:
Australian 'Net filter testing set, will include P2P  —  Australia's Minister of Broadband, Communications, and the Digital Economy (BCDE), Stephen Conroy, appears to have recognized that his country's plan to install mandatory content filters at the ISP level is causing a public backlash.
Ting-I Tsai / Wall Street Journal:
Taiwan Tech Firm Forecasts More Gloom  —  TAIPEI — The head of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., the world's biggest contract manufacturer of electronics by revenue, warned that the global technology industry's slump could be more severe than many people think.
Discussion: Tech Trader Daily and CNN
RELATED:
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Even Bigger Nightmare On Tech Street
Discussion: O'Reilly Radar
Newsweek:
The Web Masters  —  Five who are changing the face of the Internet.  —  Think of 2008 as the year the Internet got greedy.  As the recession goes digital, it's no longer enough to have an easy-to-use social-networking site, or blog software that corners the market on 13-year-olds.
Discussion: /Message
Zachary A. Goldfarb / Washington Post:
Washingtonpost.com Executive Editor to Step Down  —  Jim Brady is stepping down as executive editor of washingtonpost.com after four years, the latest in a series of management changes at the top of a media company trying to revamp its operations to meet the needs of the digital age.
Discussion: paidContent.org
Gerard Fitzgibbon / Limerick Today:
Dell job losses: “A massive blow to the region”  —  MINISTER Willie O'Dea today described Dell's decision to cut up to two-thirds of its Limerick workforce a “massive blow for the region”, and said it is now the Government's job to “minimise the fallout as best we can.”
Discussion: Digits
Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:
Mozilla CEO: Ties with Google ‘complicated’ since Chrome  —  John Lilly also says Microsoft's disinterest in faster browsing a cause for concern  —  Computerworld) Mozilla Corp. has a “reasonable” relationship with long-time partner Google Inc., but it's gotten complicated since Google launched …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly To Run For California Attorney General  —  Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly will be announcing his candidacy for the office of Attorney General of California, we've heard from multiple sources.  He'll be running in the 2010 election as a Democrat …
Discussion: The 463, All Facebook and Switched
Between the Lines:
Google, Microsoft, Yahoo as Ford, GM and Chrysler  —  Could Google, Microsoft and Yahoo be the equivalent of Ford, GM and Chrysler more than 60 years ago?  —  That thought provoking question was raised by Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay, who cooks up weekend missives designed to make you go hmmm.
Discussion: SmoothSpan Blog
The Boy Genius / Boy Genius Report:
T-Mobile Dash 2 in black floating around?  —  Thanks to one of our ninjas, we've just got a hold of a brand-new-looking T-Mobile Dash photo.  Except, it's in black, and sports subtle design changes like a different color combination on the keyboard, and.... stuff.
Discussion: wmpoweruser.com and Engadget
Rob Jackson / Android Phone Fans:
Garmin Android Phone Coming in 2009!  —  Everyone knows Garmin, the company leading the GPS navigation industry.  Most Android fans also know that the GPS applications available on the Android Market are currently limited to ONE application - AndNav2 - which is in Alpha stages and isn't yet available for the United States.
RELATED:
Tiernan Ray / Tech Trader Daily:
Garmin Sees Weak December; Seems to Confirm Working on Google Phone Project
 
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 More Items: 
Clint Boulton / eWeek:
Google, Salesforce.com Vs. Microsoft Headlines Cloud Computing Battle For 2009
Joel Hruska / Ars Technica:
US to ICANN: plan to sell new gTLDs is a real stinker
Tiernan Ray / Tech Trader Daily:
Red Hat Shares Rise as Q3 Profit Beats
Kevin C. Tofel / jkOnTheRun:
First Look: AT&T USBConnect Quicksilver 3G Adapter
Discussion: atmaspheric
Rob Jackson / Android Phone Fans:
Android On-Screen Keyboard (VIDEO)
 Earlier Items: 
Matt Asay / The Open Road:
In Google we trust?
Discussion: Lifehacker
Ted Dziuba / The Register:
Google disguises capitalism as civil rights
Steven Sande / TUAW:
Woz gets a new job
Discussion: Jobwire
Arn / MacRumors:
More Hints of an ‘iPhone Nano’ from Case Manufacturers
 

 
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

Charlie Savage / New York Times:
Trump says Republicans must kill the PRESS Act, which would protect journalists' records and sources from the US government; the bill is stalled in the Senate

 
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