Check out Mini-Techmeme for simple mobiles or Techmeme Mobile for modern smartphones.
7:40 PM ET, January 6, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Tom Neumayr / Apple:
Changes Coming to the iTunes Store  —  Apple® today announced several changes to the iTunes® Store (www.itunes.com).  Beginning today, all four major music labels—Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, Warner Music Group and EMI, along with thousands of independent labels …
RELATED:
Wall Street Journal:
ITunes to Change Pricing Strategy  —  Apple Inc. unveiled significant pricing and copyright changes to its iTunes Store, moves by the dominant online music seller that could spur similar action across the industry.  —  The changes, announced at the Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco on Tuesday …
Discussion: Tech Trader Daily and Coolfer
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Confirmed: iTunes Going DRM-Free.  Unclear: Does Anyone Care?  —  In 2007, Apple CEO Steve Jobs predicted that half the music offered at his iTunes store would be sold without digital rights management-the lock-and-key system that the music labels wrap their songs-by the end of that year.
AppleInsider:
Apple unveils 17-inch MacBook Pro with 8-hour battery  —  Presenting at the Macworld Expo on Tuesday, Apple unveiled the new 17-inch MacBook Pro featuring a durable and precision aluminum unibody enclosure, and a revolutionary new built-in battery that delivers up to eight hours of use …
RELATED:
Joshua Topolsky / Engadget:
MacBook Pro 17-inch first hands-on (update: video added)  —  Yep — it looks just like its little brothers!  Feels like 'em too, except the obvious bit of heft added by that 17-inch display.  Of course, they don't have that sweet, gigantic battery inside, or that matte display option (until we torch Curpertino, of course... in love).
Discussion: TUAW, Gizmodo and techeblog.com
Bill Evans / Apple:
Apple Introduces 17-inch MacBook Pro With Revolutionary New Built-in Battery That Delivers Eight Hours of Use & 1,000 Recharges  —  Apple® today unveiled the new 17-inch MacBook® Pro featuring a durable and beautiful precision aluminum unibody enclosure, and a revolutionary new built …
Jack Shafer / Slate:
How Newspapers Tried to Invent the Web  —  But failed.  —  A moment of sympathy, please, for newspapers, whose readers and advertisers have been fleeing at a frightening rate.  —  It would be easy to accuse editors and publishers of being clueless about the coming Internet disruption …
Discussion: Scripting News
RELATED:
Michael Hirschorn / The Atlantic Online:
End Times  —  VIRTUALLY ALL THE predictions about the death of old media have assumed a comfortingly long time frame for the end of print—the moment when, amid a panoply of flashing lights, press conferences, and elegiac reminiscences, the newspaper presses stop rolling and news goes entirely digital.
Discussion: New York Post
Nicholas Deleon / CrunchGear:
Say hello to iWork 09: Like iWork 08, but plus one  —  Whoever predicted that Apple would introduce iWork '09 today gets a gold star.  Keynote, Pages and Numbers all received what I would consider minor updates; no need to run around all willy nilly for these, methinks.
RELATED:
Reuters:
Apple disappoints-no Jobs, big news at Macworld  —  (Refiles to delete extraneous words in paragraphs one and three) (Adds analyst comment, product details)  —  Apple Inc (AAPL.O) said on Tuesday it was dropping copy protection from songs sold on the Internet and debuted its slimmest 17-inch laptop yet …
RELATED:
Joshua Topolsky / Engadget:
Live from the Macworld 2009 keynote
VMware:
VMware Appoints Tod Nielsen as Chief Operating Officer  —  Veteran from Leading Software Companies Including Borland, BEA, Oracle and Microsoft Brings Proven Executive Leadership to VMware  —  VMware Inc., (VMW: NYSE) the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter …
RELATED:
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Borland CEO Nielsen Joins VMware; Cutting Staff 15%
Owen Thomas / Gawker:
The Russian Bear Slashes a Social Network  —  The bubble in social networking has burst, decisively.  LiveJournal, the San Francisco-based arm of Sup, a Russian Internet startup, has cut 12 of 28 U.S. employees — and offered them no severance, we're told.  —  The quirky site …
Harry McCracken / Technologizer:
Stevenote?  Here's Your Stevenote.  Or, More Specifically, Your Woznote.  —  Call Steve Wozniak the anti-Steve Jobs.  He's far nerdier than Jobs ever was; he's not a polished presenter; he has a zillion passions beyond Apple (Segway Polo, anyone?); and nobody's ever going to spend any time worrying that he's looking gaunt.
Discussion: Macsimum News
RELATED:
Roman Loyola / Macworld:
First Look: Axiotron Modbook Pro
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Report: PC makers to provide free Vista-to Win-7 upgrades starting July 1  —  In yet another indicator as to the progress of Windows 7, the Tech ARP site reported that Microsoft plans to allow PC makers to offer customers who buy Windows Vista machines as of July 1 free upgrades to Windows 7 once it ships.
AMD:
AMD Delivers Groundbreaking Platform for Ultrathin Notebooks  —The AMD Platform for Ultrathin Notebooks Delivers Balanced PC Performance with True HD Entertainment1 in a Surprisingly Affordable, Amazingly Thin Notebook—  AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced the availability of the AMD platform …
RELATED:
Karen Jacobs / Reuters:
Best Buy offers used iPhones at lower price  —  ATLANTA (Reuters) - Retailer Best Buy Co, seeking new ways to appeal to cost-conscious shoppers, said on Tuesday it is selling refurbished versions of Apple Inc's iPhone 3G at its stores that are priced about $50 less than new iPhones.
Micha Pekrul / McAfee Avert Labs:
Rogue LinkedIn Profiles Lead To Malware  —  LinkedIn is a popular social networking site where you can manage business contacts online.  Since you can set up a profile with links to your own website, it seems to attract criminals' attention as well.  A Google search reveals …
Discussion: eWeek Security Watch
RELATED:
Macky Cruz / TrendLabs:
Bogus LinkedIn Profiles Harbor Malicious Content
Discussion: Sophos, CNET News and The Register
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Sony's VAIO P ultraportable revealed  —  Chicklet keyboard, check.  Tiny pointing nub, check.  Looks like this is Sony's Vaio P series ultraportable on display at CES.  By on display we mean, on display as these shots were taken off the display monitors here at CES.
Wilson Rothman / Gizmodo:
Apple Revamps iLife for '09 with iPhoto Facial Recognition and More  —  Today at Macworld 2009, Apple showed off a new iPhoto with true facial recognition, a better iMovie and other iLife updates—$79 solo, $99 for family, requires Leopard, available late January.  —  It's a good solid upgrade full of very nice features.
Jose Martinez / NY Daily News:
Model Liskula Cohen sues Google over blogger's ‘skank’ comment  —  A Vogue cover girl is suing Google in an attempt to unmask the blogger who trashed her as a “skank” and an “old hag.”  —  Liskula Cohen, a blond beauty who has modeled for Giorgio Armani and Versace, made headlines last year …
Discussion: The Social
Brooke Crothers / CNET News:
SanDisk, Samsung tout new Netbook, server SSDs  —  Both SanDisk and Samsung announced solid-state drives on Tuesday—though that's where the similarity ends.  SanDisk's SSDs are aimed at Netbooks, while Samsung's new SSDs are for the high-performance server market.
Discussion: eWeek
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
AOL Boss Kevin Conroy Bolts For Univision (TWX)  —  Here's CEO Randy Falco's memo.  A big loss or don't-let-door-hit-you-in-ass?  AOLers, please weigh in below.  —  Dear AOL colleague,  —  I'm writing to tell you that Kevin Conroy has accepted a position as President of Interactive Media at Univision.
Discussion: paidContent.org, Digits and Jobwire
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Forbes Layoffs Finally Arrive: 19 Fired From Magazine, Web  —  Like their colleagues at Time Warner's Time Inc. (TWX), the editorial staff at Forbes has known that layoffs were coming to the company's magazine and Web site for quite some time.  But at least they're getting it over with in one fell swoop …
Discussion: paidContent.org and Gawker
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of Techmeme at 7:40 PM ET, January 6, 2009.

View the current page or another snapshot:


 
 Techmeme Sponsor Posts: 
Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Zoho:
CIO challenge 5: Can we find an effective solution that also minimizes operational costs?  —  Welcome to the next and final installment of our CIO series!  After what feels like a thousand cups of coffee …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
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: 
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Pandora Radio version 2.0 launching for iPhone today
Mark Ward / BBC:
The dark side of the flash drive
Om Malik / GigaOM:
WebEx on Your iPhone, Finally
Discussion: eWeek
David Kaplan / paidContent.org:
Gannett Lifts The Curtain On Local/National Hybrid Site ContentOne
Discussion: Local Onliner, Gannett Blog and sfnblog
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Judge: transcoding doesn't block Veoh “safe harbor” defense
Philipp Lenssen / Google Blogoscoped:
On Google Disallowing Crawling of Their LIFE Hosting
Gavin Clarke / The Register:
Curl taps Adobe RIA infrastructure
Discussion: InfoWorld
Brian Krebs / Washington Post:
Data Breaches Up Almost 50 Percent, Affecting Records of 35.7 Million People
 Earlier Items: 
Dana Blankenhorn / Open Source:
Android in a cloud  —  Since the start of the year we've talked …
Discussion: IntoMobile
Newsosaur / Reflections of a Newsosaur:
Five fatal flaws in local Internet ad sales
Joseph Tartakoff / The Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft's MacBU touts the ‘software + services’ mantra
Discussion: Macworld
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Clearwire Launches WiMAX in Portland
Discussion: Unstrung and eWeek
Caroline McCarthy / CNET News:
Hackers hit MacRumors keynote coverage
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Clearspring Lays Off 20%, President And COO Jay Rappaport Leaving
Discussion: Webware.com
Philipp Lenssen / Google Blogoscoped:
Checkout Icon Makes Ads 10% More Clickable, Google Says
Discussion: Search Engine Land
Anne Thomas Manes / Application Platform …:
SOA is Dead; Long Live Services
 

 
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

Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch:
Tubi launches Scenes, a mobile feature that lets viewers watch 60-to-90-second trailer-style clips from its library to help with content discovery

 
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