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12:40 PM ET, January 16, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Steve Hamm / Business Week:
First U.S. CTO May Be Indian  —  President-elect Obama has narrowed his choices for the top technology job to two people, both born in India  —  Two Indian-born technology executives are the leading candidates for the incoming Obama Administration's newly created position …
www.kogan.com.au:
Kogan Agora to be delayed  —  I'm disappointed to have to tell you that the Kogan Agora has to be delayed indefinitely.  —  This delay comes due to potential future interoperability issues.  —  The Agora did reach a very late stage of development.  Manufacturing had commenced and it was a matter of days from being shipped to you.
RELATED:
The Age:
Aussie Google phone launch aborted  —  Ruslan Kogan. Asher Moses  —  The Melbourne consumer electronics maker who promised to release the first Google phone in Australia by the end of this month has delayed the launch indefinitely, citing “potential future interoperability issues”.
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Another Twitter App Funded: TweetDeck Raises an Angel Round.  Next Up: A Business Plan  —  Yes, you can still get someone to invest in a Web start-up with zero revenue.  It helps if you can insert the word “Twitter” into your pitch, though.  —  TweetDeck, a one-man company that makes …
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Twitter May Have Found Its Business Model  —  Twitter...what is it good for?  It turns out this little service is good for a whole lot of things, despite the loud objections of people who've never really tried it.  Even among true believers, though, it's been hard to figure …
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
How Microsoft blew the keyword business; And how you still can't count Redmond out  —  Microsoft had its Google killer in 2000, but killed the project before it got rolling.  Why?  Worries about cannibalization.  —  The Wall Street Journal has an interesting tale of Microsoft's miscues on the search front.
RELATED:
Justin Berka / Infinite Loop:
Profits from iShoot iPhone game cause developer to quit job  —  Software developers have been releasing applications on the App Store for a while now, but there's still a good bit of tinkering and learning going on when it comes to things like application pricing.
Jim Goldman / Tech Check with Jim Goldman:
The Little App Store That Could...  About six weeks ago, after reading the fine print on an Apple Inc. [AAPL Loading...  () ] ad for its online applications download store, the App Store, I noticed some pretty stunning numbers: that Apple customers had downloaded 200 million apps since …
Discussion: MacRumors
Philipp Lenssen / Google Blogoscoped:
German Government Wants to Start ISP-Based Censoring  —  Germany will start to hand out blacklists to internet providers, several German news sources, like Spiegel, report.  This move is proclaimed to only filter child porn.  In about 6-8 weeks the dealings with the ISPs should be finalized …
Discussion: Mashable! and MediaShift
RELATED:
John Leyden / The Register:   Germany pushes IWF-style child abuse blocklist
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Worst Microsoft Video Promo Ever, Take 2.  Just Cover Up The Mac With Stickers.  —  Earlier this month, Microsoft Research released Songsmith, a song-making app that works only on Windows.  To promote the app it released what might very well be the worst promo video ever …
Mobile Today:
Sony refuses to allow Sony Ericsson the use of its PlayStation brand  —  Sony Ericsson was planning a PSP phone but has been refused the brand  —  Sony is understood to have refused to allow Sony Ericsson the use of its PlayStation brand, after the handset manufacturer presented a pitch to the board late last year.
DigiTimes:
HP to add more members to its Mini-note family  —  Hewlett-Packard (HP) plans to launch new members in its Mini-note family including the Mini-note 2150 with built-in a 3G module at the beginning of June this year, according to sources at notebook makers  —  Before the Mini-note 2150 …
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Circuit City To Close All Stores; More Than 35,000 Jobs Lost  —  So long, Circuit City (CC).  —  In a bankruptcy court filing, the electronics retailer disclosed that it has reached a deal with liquidators to sell the remaining merchandise in all 567 of its U.S. stores after failing to find …
Tuan Nguyen / Tom's Hardware Guide:
Confirmed: Apple Mac Mini Based on Nvidia Ion  —  A large portion of the Apple Mac community is waiting for Apple to refresh the Mac Mini line.  We learned today that the next generation of Mac Mini computers will be based on Nvidia's Ion platform.  —  An Nvidia partner confirmed to us …
BBC:
Legal downloads swamped by piracy  —  Ninety-five per cent of music downloaded online is illegal, a report by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has said.  —  The global music trade body said this is its biggest challenge as artists and record companies miss out on payments.
Discussion: CrunchGear
RELATED:
IFPI:
IFPI publishes Digital Music Report 2009
Discussion: MediaMemo
Economist:
One tough Yahoo!  —  Life has tested Carol Bartz far more than even running Yahoo! will  —  WHO is Carol Bartz?  This week Yahoo!, a huge but floundering internet company, appointed her as its new boss.  Ms Bartz is one of only a few women at the top in Silicon Valley …
Chris Williams / The Register:
UK.gov ‘to create anti-net piracy agency’  —  ‘Rights Agency’ and new regulations to hit P2P infringement  —  Following its failure to foster voluntary solution between ISPs and rights holders, the government will create a new agency and regulations to clamp down on copyright infringement via peer …
RELATED:
Financial Times:   Internet piracy regulations planned for UK
Daniel Lyons / Newsweek:
Rotten Reporting  —  The media's coverage of Apple bites.  Here's why.  —  For the past six months Steve Jobs has been looking terribly ill. But only this week did Apple finally acknowledge that Jobs isn't doing well, when the company announced that Jobs would take a leave for six months.
Discussion: internetnews.com and WebProNews
Chris Mellor / The Register:
Seagate customers swamped by Barracuda drive failures  —  Seagate firmware to blame  —  Seagate 1TB Barracuda drives are failing at an alarming rate, with users complaining of a plague of such failures spreading across the globe.  —  Barracuda 7200.11 drives made in Thailand (ref …
Discussion: Storage Soup
Declan McCullagh / CNET News:
Why Obama's cell phone calls will always go through  —  After Barack Obama is sworn in next week, he'll be able to enjoy one of the lesser-known benefits of the presidency: phone calls that always go through.  —  That means no more “all circuits are busy” messages.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Watch The Obama Inauguration From Your iPhone With Ustream  —  John Ham, the cofounder and CEO of live video streaming site Ustream, stopped by this afternoon to show me their newest stuff - a yet-to-be-released application that lets users watch live streams from the service on their iPhone.
Daily Mail:
Poor eyesight ‘makes HDTV a waste of money’ … It's a revolutionary technology that enhances television images so effectively viewers can pick up the tiniest detail in stunning clarity.  —  But many consumers are wasting hundreds of pounds on high-definition equipment because their eyes …
Michael Calore / Epicenter:
Want Proof OpenID Can Succeed?  Just Scroll Down  —  Whatever hurdles OpenID has to clear to become a widely-adopted de facto standard, its blueprint for success lies at the bottom of millions of blog posts.  —  OpenID and its companion technologies — along with similar systems like Facebook Connect …
Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Securing the Windows 7 beta  —  Windows 7's “Action Center” alerts users if they don't have antivirus software installed, pointing them to a Microsoft Web site with links to download various antivirus software products.  —  (Credit: CNET News)  —  Despite the fact that security programs …
 
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 More Items: 
Greg Sandoval / CNET News:
UMG expands Web video profile with Kyte alliance
Discussion: NewTeeVee
Stuart Elliott / New York Times:
‘Open Here’ to Peek at Esquire's Articles and Ad
Roger A. Grimes / Security Adviser:
Conficker malware ups the ante
Discussion: Telegraph and McAfee Avert Labs
Dianne See Morrison / mocoNews.net:
Earnings: Sony Ericsson Posts Q4 Loss Of €187 Million Euros …
Quentin Hardy / Forbes:
Betting On Telepresence  —  Polycom, HP and Cisco hope video …
Discussion: VoIP Watch
 Earlier Items: 
Communications and Technology Blog:
Communications Must Go HD
Market Wire:
Panasonic Introduces Two New FS-Series Cameras to Popular LUMIX …
Discussion: Gadgetell and SlashGear
Jeremy Wagstaff / loose wire blog:
Another Facebook Hole?
David Phelps / Minneapolis Star Tribune:
Star Tribune files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
Daniel A. Begun / HotHardware.com News:
GPUs Used to Successfully Crack Wi-Fi Passwords
Discussion: DailyTech, Slashdot and digg.com
Chris Oliver / MarketWatch:
Samsung to restructure into two operating divisions
Discussion: Wall Street Journal and Reuters
Chadwick Matlin / The Big Money:
Hey, What About Pixar?  —  Steve Jobs' other job can tell us …
 

 
From Mediagazer:

The New York Times Company:
The New York Times names Dick Stevenson as Washington bureau chief; Stevenson has been at the paper for nearly 40 years and Washington editor since 2021

Caitlin Huston / The Hollywood Reporter:
Internal memo: Hearst Magazines president announces layoffs as part of a decision to “reallocate resources” to “continue our focus on digital innovation”

Mark Sweney / The Guardian:
National World, one of the UK's biggest newspaper groups, gets a £56.2M buyout offer from shareholder Media Concierge, a 40% premium to its Nov. 21 stock price

 
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