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8:45 AM ET, January 30, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
With an official description, Google Drive is more real than ever  —  Almost everyday now brings a new hint into what Google is planning for its “GDrive” online storage service.  Today, a piece of code found in the Google Pack software bundle includes both a product category and description for GDrive.
Discussion: Mark Evans and Digital Inspiration
RELATED:
Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
First Official Description of GDrive  —  Brian Ussery noticed an interesting reference to GDrive in a file used by Google Pack.  The file includes “localized information which is sent to translators”.  —  The product category for GDrive is “online file backup and storage” and there are two lines that describe the application:
Discussion: Pocket-lint.co.uk, Thanks:atul
Brian Ussery / beu blog:
GDrive  —  “Online file backup and storage... GDrive provides reliable storage for all of your files, including photos, music and documents... GDrive allows you to access your files from anywhere, anytime, and from any device - be it from your desktop, web browser or cellular phone”.
Discussion: TheNextWeb.com
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Is Dell's Phone Called The MePhone?  (DELL)  —  We've received a few tips from someone who claims to be close to Dell (DELL) about the company's entry into the smartphone market.  We don't know if they're true, but they're not unreasonable, so we decided to share them for discussion.
RELATED:
Wilson Rothman / Gizmodo:
Dell Builds Prototype Android and Windows Mobile Phones, May Finally Sell Them  —  Stop me if you've heard this one: Dell might go into the smartphone business.  OOOLLLDDD?  But today the WSJ reports Dell's closer than ever, with prototypes built in two different styles and two competing platforms.
Discussion: Electronic Pulp
Wall Street Journal:
Dell Readies Smartphone Offering
MediaShift:
Warning: Dependence on Facebook, Twitter Could Be Hazardous to Your Business  —  You've probably heard how much the micro-blogging service Twitter can help your business, or that being on social networking site Facebook can boost your company's profile.  But what you might not have considered …
Discussion: Beyond Search
TechCrunch:
The Economy According To Mint  —  Aaron Patzer is the CEO and founder of Mint.com, a personal finance site that helps 900,000 consumers keep track of their spending.  Mint's data is a snapshot of the consumer economy.  In the guest post below, Aaron parses the data to tell us what the economy looks like from consumer's eyes.
Stephen Shankland / Webware.com:
Google fakes out Hotmail for Chrome support  —  Google has added a patch to its latest beta and stable versions of Chrome to make the browser work better with Microsoft's Hotmail site.  —  With the patch, Chrome tells Microsoft's site it's actually Apple's Safari browser …
RELATED:
Long Zheng / istartedsomething:
Sacrificing security for usability: UAC security flaw in Windows 7 beta (with proof of concept code)  —  This is dedicated to every ignorant “tech journalist” who cried wolf about UAC in Windows Vista.  A change to User Account Control (UAC) in Windows 7 (beta) to make it “less annoying” …
Kevin Poulsen / Threat Level:
Fannie Mae Logic Bomb Would Have Caused Weeklong Shutdown  —  A logic bomb allegedly planted by a former engineer at mortgage finance company Fannie Mae last fall would have decimated all 4,000 servers at the company, causing millions of dollars in damage and shutting down Fannie Mae for a least a week, prosecutors say.
RELATED:
Jeremy Wagstaff / loose wire blog:
The Hazards of Recommending
Discussion: GMSV and Slashdot
Scobleizer:
Zuckerberg: Facebook's “intense” year  —  Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO, in a tie?  Oh my.  —  If you know Mark you know he's a pretty casual dresser.  Usually seen in T-shirt, jeans, and sandals.  —  But not here at the World Economic Forum where we walked around downtown Davos …
David Schlesinger / Full Disclosure:
Twittering away standards or tweeting the future of journalism?  —  I've been tweeting from the World Economic Forum, using the microblogging platform Twitter to discuss the mundane (describing crepuscular darkness of the Swiss Alps at 5 a.m.) or the interesting (live tweeting from presentations).
Yariv Adan / Google Data APIs Blog:
Bringing OpenID and OAuth Together  —  We are happy to announce an important enhancement to our recently launched OpenID endpoint.  Google now supports the “Hybrid Protocol”, combining OpenID federated login together with OAuth access authorization.  Websites can now ask Google to sign …
RELATED:
John / Plaxo's Personal Card:
Introducing Two-Click Signup, an initiative to improve the user …
Discussion: FactoryCity
Dave Morin / Facebook Developers:
Facebook Connect and Apple's iPhoto '09  —  At Facebook, we think that photos are one of the most powerful ways to connect and share with friends.  Since 2005, Facebook Photos has given users a chance to share rich experiences with their friends who are on and off Facebook.
Associated Press:
Swiss police spy marijuana field with Google Earth  —  ZURICH, Switzerland - Swiss police said Thursday they stumbled across a large marijuana plantation while using Google Earth, the search engine company's satellite mapping software.  —  Police said the find was part of a bigger investigation …
Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:
11 Business Plans For Twitter  —  Start the slideshow  —  Deadline for entry into our Create Twitter's Revenue Model contest is up and we thought we'd share some of the best entries.  We haven't decided on a winner yet, so check them out and let us know what you think.
Neil McAllister / Fatal Exception:
The case against Web apps  —  Five reasons why Web-based development might not be the best choice for your enterprise.  —  For most of us, especially given these tough economic times, for the Web to have become the platform of choice for enterprise application development seems like a no-brainer.
Discussion: Slashdot
Eric Krangel / Silicon Alley Insider:
Rumor: Sony PS4 Plans Leaked, And It Targets Casual Gamers (SNE)  —  Take this one with a massive dose of skepticism, folks: A site we're not familiar with called gamingfront.net claims to have a leaked report from inside Sony (SNE) explaining the technical specs and thinking behind the so-called PS4, successor console to the PS3.
Thanks:anjrued
Jart Armin / Internet Evolution:
Dutch Treat: Pay for Some Content, Pirate the Rest  —  There may be an upside to illegal file sharing: The Institute for Information Law in the Netherlands reports that the average downloader buys more DVDs, music, and games than people who never download.  Illegal downloaders represent 45 percent …
Discussion: Beyond Search, open and Slashdot
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
The Handset Market Is Getting Darwinian  —  The economic downturn knocked the wind out of the handset market in the third and fourth quarters of 2008, resulting in shipments of 1.2 billion handsets for the year and overall growth of just 5.4 percent, according to data released today from ABI Research.
Discussion: ABI Research, Computerworld and eWeek
Matt Rosoff / Digital Noise:
Microsoft: More Zunes coming in 2009  —  Remember that teenage trick of sticking your fingers in your ears and saying, “I can't hear you”?  That's how I felt on Thursday morning when I talked to Adam Sohn, the marketing director for Zune.  —  I don't mean that Microsoft is oblivious to reality …
Discussion: blogs.ft.com and Anything But iPod
internetnews.com:
Super Bowl 09: Social Media Hits the Gridiron  —  Twitter, YouTube, Facebook — round up the usual suspects!  Super Sunday is going to be a Web 2.0 extravaganza.  —  There's an old saw about the Super Bowl that the game itself is really just an excuse to watch the ads.
Discussion: ClickZ
Colin Barras / New Scientist:
Cheap, super-efficient LED lights on the horizon  —  Incandescent tungsten-filament light bulbs face a global switch-off as governments push for energy efficient fluorescent lamps to become the standard.  But the light could soon go out on those lamps too, now that UK materials scientists …
Discussion: Slashdot and digg.com
Frank Caron / Ars Technica:
Pandora open-source handheld console inching closer to debut (updated)  —  The long-awaited Pandora open-source handheld has inched one step closer to completion, as the OpenPandora team has put on display the nearly finalized case design.  We review what we know about Pandora to date, and what the project is hoping to accomplish.
mobiledivide.com:
palm pre @ CES '09 (Part 2)  —  Part 2 of mobiledivide's palm prÄ" interview series from CES '09 is with Peter Skillman.  Peter is the VP of Design at Palm, Inc. and naturally our conversation revolved around the design choices he and his team at Palm made with the palm prÄ".
 
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 More Items: 
Kieron Gillen / Rock, Paper, Shotgun:
PC Game Sales: 47% Of PC Purchases Are Digital
Discussion: bit-tech.net, Kotaku and videogaming247
Beatrice Oltean / MSDN Blogs:
Live Search autosuggestions come to Firefox
David Pogue / Pogue's Posts:
The Twitter Experiment  —  A couple weeks ago, I wrote …
Discussion: Twitterrati
 Earlier Items: 
Robert X. Cringely / Notes from the Field:
The Julie Amero case: Injustice for all
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Adding YouTube Annotations Just Got Easy.  I've Got A Bad Feeling About This...
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb
Joe Hall / Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim:
Twitter is a Cash Cow in the Making
Thanks:wesmax27
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
$2.99 Printed PhotoBooks Now Available On Facebook: HotPrints
Discussion: RotorBlog.com
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
The State of Blog Search, 2009
David Peterson / SitePoint:
President Obama uses RDFa
Discussion: Ewan Spence's All New Musings, Thanks:catone