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5:20 PM ET, January 2, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Chuq von Rospach / Guardian:
Enjoying the show, avoiding the flamethrower: life inside Apple  —  What's it like working inside Apple when the MacWorld announcements are made?  The man who set up many of its email systems and worked there 17 years explains the inside story of the preparation, the unveiling - and why it's sometimes best to avoid Steve Jobs
VentureBeat:
Android netbooks on their way, likely by 2010  —  The image above shows a netbook Asus EEEPC 1000H running on Google's mobile operating system Android.  Huh?  You thought Android was for mobile phones, right?  Well, as we've written before, Google is planning to use Android for any device — not just the mobile phones.
Peter Rip / EarlyStageVC:
The Coming Venture Capital Boom  —  No, I am not a Pollyanna.  I see the today's carnage as much as everyone else.  This year is going to be tough.  The destructive firestorm of leveraged, momentum investing has destroyed much of the forest.  But the forest will begin its renewal because Life Goes On …
Discussion: JasonKolb.com and altgate
RELATED:
Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
VentureSource: Worst venture liquidity in five years
Discussion: HipMojo.com, TechFlash and VatorNews
RELATED:
Kasper Jade / AppleInsider:
Apple's next-gen Mac mini to get dual display support  —  Bringing its least expensive system up to par with features in the rest of its lineup, Apple is due to revamp the Mac mini with multiple video outputs, AppleInsider has learned.  —  Those familiar with the company's plans …
Claire Cain Miller / Bits:
Facebook Is No Friend of Power.com  —  Power.com is a start-up based in Brazil that aims to be the portal through which people access all of their favorite social networking sites.  Facebook would prefer that its members access it directly, thank you very much.
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Google's iPhone app has a hidden menu  —  In November, Google launched voice search capabilities for its native iPhone application.  It took a fairly pointless app and made it cool, interesting and useful.  But alongside that update Google added a hidden menu, which it revealed today on the Google Mobile Blog.
Discussion: Google Watch
RELATED:
Matt Warman / Telegraph:
Orange considers BlackBerry Bold future  —  The BlackBerry Bold handset may be removed from Orange line-up.  —  Mobile phone operator Orange is believed to be considering the removal of the BlackBerry Bold smartphone from its range of handsets because of ongoing technical problems.
RELATED:
Richard Wray / Guardian:
Orange may pull BlackBerry Bold
Discussion: Tech Trader Daily and Voices
Heather Hopkins / Hitwise Intelligence:
Facebook Traffic Reaches Peak - Christmas Eve  —  On Christmas Day 2007 Facebook reached a peak in traffic that wasn't surpassed until July 2008.  Traffic reached a new high on Christmas Eve 2008 when Facebook saw its highest ever traffic level - reaching 2.18% of all US Internet visits compared with 1.42% average for November.
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
Apple Researching Gloves for Use with Multi-Touch Devices  —  The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office today released a patent application from Apple describing research into gloves that allow the wearer to operate electronic devices.  The patent application was filed on June 28th, 2007.
Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:
$6.2 Million: Wikipedia Reaches Fundraising Goal for 2008  —  The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization behind the immensely popular Wikipedia online encyclopedia, just announced that it has reached its fundraising goal for 2008, which will allow the foundation to cover …
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
Hyperlinking the Real World  —  European researchers working on the MOBVIS project have developed a new system that will allow camera phone users to hyperlink the real world.  After taking a picture of a streetscape in an urban area, the MOBVIS technology identifies objects like buildings …
Discussion: ICT Results Features
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
If You Are Really, Really Desperate For Cash, These Guys Will Give You $3k  —  Consulting firm Herman Blackbook is launching a new micro-fund today for application developers who want to build stuff on top of “Twitter, Boxee, AppNexus, Trulia, iPhone, and more” called the New Platforms Fund.
Discussion: Darren Herman, innonate and Mashable!
Tiernan Ray / Tech Trader Daily:
Apple: Jobs Isn't Sick, Says Argus Research  —  Pretty much nobody is picking up the phone at equity research firm Argus Research this morning, so take this as unverified: the firm's analyst on Apple (AAPL), Wendy Abramowitz, this morning lowered her price target on Apple to $145 from $155 …
Discussion: Macsimum News and Voices
Brendan Gregg:
Unusual disk latency  —  The following screenshot shows two spikes of unusually high disk I/O latency during a streaming write test:  —  This screenshot is from Analytics on the 7410.  The issue is not with the 7410, it's with disk drives in general.  The disk latency here is also not suffered …
Sean Portnoy / Home Theater:
Ace Computers to release $999 CableCard-equipped home theater PCs  —  One of the major impediments to the growth of the home theater PC (HTPC) market has been the lack of digital cable TV support.  Yes, Clear QAM tuners can handle unencrypted digital channels, but only now that cable companies …
Discussion: Obsessable, Electronista and Engadget
Michael Bettiol / Boy Genius Report:
Verizon Pearl for going for $19.99, get 'em while they're hot!  —  Well if this isn't a nice way to start of 2009, we don't know what is.  Sort of.  Verizon is offering the ever popular BlackBerry Pearl 8130 in both silver and pink at the ridiculously low price of $19.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate.
Jason Perlow / Tech Broiler:
Windows 7: Mojave My Ass  —  I've been playing with the Windows 7 Build 7000 (Beta 1) for several days now, and I've come to the conclusion that like Vista, it's not a major improvement over what most users are currently experiencing with Windows XP, and is at best only a slight improvement over Vista SP1.
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
Make “Add-ons” for Google Chrome Using Bookmarklets  —  Even though Google took their web browser Google Chrome out of beta last month, we can't help but feel like Chrome is still only half way to being a compete product at this point.  Without RSS support, the ability to use add-ons …
Discussion: Matt Cutts
Nathan Eddy / eWeek:
Microsoft Fixes Zune Leap Year Freak Out  —  Resource Library:  —  The worldwide freezing of Microsoft's 30GB Zune media player, caused by a software bug unprepared for the 2008 leap year, has been fixed, Microsoft says.  —  On New Year's Eve, reports began flooding across the Internet …
Discussion: Microsoft Watch and NEWSFACTOR
Will Park / IntoMobile:
What premium apps in the Android Market means for Android users  —  Everyone loves free mobile applications.  Just look at the iPhone App Store's volume of free-app downloads and you'll start to understand.  Interestingly, it's actually the premium applications that drive development of free apps.
 
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 More Items: 
The Daily Beast:
The Year (Ahead) in Media
BBC:
Guyana leader wants to know who put him on Facebook
Eric Ries / Mashable!:
HOW TO: Raise Money in a Down Economy
Discussion: Lessons Learned
Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:
From geek to online guru
David Meyer / ZDNet:
Microsoft was denied PAYG computing patent
Discussion: SlashGear and Electronista
Laurie Sullivan / MediaPost:
Worlds.com Patent Lawsuit Could Set Off Chain Reaction
Discussion: Pulse2
 Earlier Items: 
William M. Bulkeley / Wall Street Journal:
How Text Messages May Save Languages
Discussion: Local Mobile Search and Switched
Gabe Rivera / Techmeme News:
Do you remember 2008?  Techmeme (still) does, with a chronological top 50 list
Discussion: Beet.TV