Check out Mini-Techmeme for simple mobiles or Techmeme Mobile for modern smartphones.
2:30 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”.
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.
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 …
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
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.
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 …
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.
Discussion: Redmond Pie
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: CNET News, Mashable! and MediaShift
RELATED:
John Leyden / The Register:   Germany pushes IWF-style child abuse blocklist
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 …
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.
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 …
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
Discussion: TorrentFreak and p2pnet
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Microsoft moves Live Mesh under Windows chief Sinofsky  —  Microsoft still hasn't gone public with rumored layoffs that many are expecting to happen in the next week or so.  But it is doing what many expected: Rejiggering groups within various organizations as a way to tighten up the company.
Discussion: LiveSide and Microsoft Pri0
Owen Thomas / Gawker:
Microsoft CEO, Yahoo Chairman Meet in New York  —  So much for a new boss ending Yahoo's drama.  Why did the company's chairman meet Microsoft's Steve Ballmer at the Time Warner Center Thursday, two days after Yahoo named Carol Bartz its new CEO?  —  A tipster reports spotting the two:
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 …
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 …
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.
Dawn Kawamoto / CNET News:
AMD to trim 1,100 jobs, initiate temporary pay cuts  —  Updated at 10:12 a.m. PST, with more information about AMD's financial performance.  —  Advanced Micro Devices announced Friday it would slash its workforce by 9 percent and institute temporary salary cuts, from its executive chairman on down to hourly workers.
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.
Claire Cain Miller / Bits:
An Online Farmers Market  —  The local food movement has been all about buying seasonal food from nearby farmers.  Now, thanks to the Web, it is expanding to include far-away farmers too.  —  A new start-up, Foodzie, is an online farmers market where small, artisan food producers and growers can sell their products.
Roger A. Grimes / Security Adviser:
Conficker malware ups the ante  —  Roger A. Grimes explains why keeping up to date with patches can mean the difference between a functional system and a playground for hackers  —  I'm finding many Windows servers without the MS08-067 patch and no specific mitigations applied.
Discussion: Telegraph and McAfee Avert Labs
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Statshot: More Than 10 Million Wiis Sold in 2008  —  Despite my addiction to The Age of Empires (and the rest of the franchise), I'm not much of a gamer.  Nevertheless, last year a friend of mine let me borrow his Nintendo Wii and after a couple of hours spent playing some of its simpler games, I was hooked.
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 …
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of Techmeme at 2:30 PM ET, January 16, 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:
5 common accounting mistakes  —  This is a guest post by Yaali Bizappln Solutions.  A lot of businesses manage their customers and finances on separate platforms.  This disconnect often leads to missed invoices …
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: 
Kwang-Tae Kim / Associated Press:
SKorean court denies bail to jailed blogger
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Helio Ocean 2 Coming As Soon As Next Month (VM)
Discussion: Electronista
Gerald Magpily / Dealscape:
Martin to step down from FCC chair on inauguration day
Steve Johnson / Mercury News:
Spansion may sell itself or enter merger
Greg Sandoval / CNET News:
UMG expands Web video profile with Kyte alliance
Discussion: NewTeeVee
Dianne See Morrison / mocoNews.net:
Earnings: Sony Ericsson Posts Q4 Loss Of €187 Million Euros …
 Earlier Items: 
BBC:
Legal downloads swamped by piracy
Discussion: CrunchGear and IFPI
Quentin Hardy / Forbes:
Betting On Telepresence  —  Polycom, HP and Cisco hope video …
Discussion: VoIP Watch
Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Securing the Windows 7 beta
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
Tuan Nguyen / Tom's Hardware Guide:
Confirmed: Apple Mac Mini Based on Nvidia Ion
 

 
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”

Ayodeji Rotinwa / Columbia Journalism Review:
A look at the Agora Center for Research, a Ugandan newsroom sitting between activism and investigative reporting, posting its work on various social media sites

 
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