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6:50 AM ET, February 24, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
David Pogue / New York Times:
The Kindle: Good Before, Better Now  —  In the high-tech industry, you live for the day when your product name becomes a verb.  “I Googled him.”  “She's been Photo- shopped.”  —  Amazon, however, is hoping that its product name, a verb, becomes a noun.  “Have you bought the new Kindle?”
Discussion: Electronic Pulp and USA Today, Thanks:vindugoel
RELATED:
Amazon.com:
Kindle 2 Ships Today
Discussion: Gearlog, InformationWeek and TechFlash
Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Microsoft backtracks on severance issue  —  This story was updated at 3:45 p.m. PST with an official statement from Microsoft.  —  Amid a wave of criticism, Microsoft is backtracking on a decision to require laid off workers to pay back money that the software maker said was in excess of its planned severance, CNET News has learned.
RELATED:
Jay Yarow / Silicon Alley Insider:
Google Shakes Up Its Philanthropic Division  —  It looks like Google is getting more disciplined, reorganizing Google.org, its philanthropic arm, to become a more tightly focused organization.  —  Through the company's official blog, Dr. Larry Brilliant announced that he'd be stepping down as director of Google.org.
RELATED:
Official google.org Blog:
The Next Chapter for Google.org  —  When Larry and Sergey laid out their vision for Google.org, they hoped that this “experiment in active philanthropy” would one day have an even greater impact on the world than Google itself.  They committed resources from Google's profits …
Kelly K. Spors / Wall Street Journal:
So, You Want to Be an Entrepreneur  —  First, answer these questions to see if you have what it takes  —  Thinking about starting a business?  Make sure you're cut out for it first.  —  In this bleak economy, lots of people are contemplating striking out on their own …
Sam Oliver / AppleInsider:
Snow Leopard screenshots show interface tweaks  —  A gallery of screenshots from the latest build of Apple's upcoming Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard operating system showcases a handful of minor design tweaks that have been reported around the web in recent weeks.
Discussion: Softpedia News and digg.com
RELATED:
Alex Brooks / World of Apple:
A Look at Build 10A261 of Snow Leopard [Images + Video]  —  The latest build (10a261) of Mac OS X “10.6″ Snow Leopard was released towards the start of February, much like many of the previous builds it contained very little user interface changes compared to Mac OS X “10.5″ Leopard.
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
With Chernin Out At News Corp, What Happens To FIM?  —  Peter Chernin, the long-time president and COO of News Corp, is leaving the company after protracted negotiations over his contract could not be resolved.  Chernin's salary was $28.8 million in the last fiscal year …
RELATED:
Reuters:
Yahoo to offer tools to match users, ads- WSJ  —  Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O) is set to unveil several tools on Tuesday to help marketers better target their online adverts, as the Internet company tries to win back business during a recession, the Wall Street Journal said, citing senior company officials.
Stuart Miles / Pocket-lint.co.uk:
Google Gmail service down … Email users opting to use Google's Gmail email service were thrown into a panic as the service went down on Tuesday.  —  “Gmail down, PANIC STATIONS, PANIC STATIONS.  Or I could go and make a cuppa, I suppose”, summed up the cries on Twitter as users looked at communicating with people in other ways.
Connie Loizos / PE Hub Blog:
Who's Advising Tom Friedman?  I Have a Guess  —  A lot of people have been expressing their surprise and disappointment in the recent writings of Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist who has, inarguably, become one of the nation's most influential journalists over the past decade.
RELATED:
Joe Weisenthal / Silicon Alley Insider:
Another Reason Friedman's Wrong: Most Startups Bomb
Thanks:jwyarow
Andrew Chen / Futuristic Play:
Which startup's collapse will end the Web 2.0 era?  —  The Silicon Valley machine is still going, for now  —  Here in Palo Alto, the Silicon Valley machine is still going strong - entrepreneurs are still starting companies, angels and VCs are still investing, and engineers are still coding.
Thanks:atul
Austin Modine / The Register:
Eircom to block Pirate Bay  —  ‘Automatic’ music label salute  —  Eircom, Ireland's biggest internet provider, has agreed to block access to any website the music industry says is responsible for illegal music-swapping.  —  In a letter sent to ISPs across the country last week …
RELATED:
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
Pirate Bay Prosecution Hires Hypocrite Pirate Author for PR
Discussion: digg.com
Founders at Work:
A Note About Sabeer Bhatia's Interview  —  I received evidence yesterday that some of the things Sabeer Bhatia said in his interview in Founders at Work were false.  The evidence indicates that (a) Tim Draper rather than Jack Smith had the idea of putting a Hotmail ad at the bottom of emails sent …
Discussion: TechCrunch, Thanks:venturehacks
Mathew / mathewingram.com/work:
Journalism, or irresponsible rumour-mongering?  —  TechCrunch, one of the Web's top tech blogs, sparked a firestorm of criticism with a recent story about Last.fm — the popular music-sharing network that CBS acquired last year — by reporting that the service had turned over a pile …
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Apple to Verizon: Can you hear me now?  Maybe.  —  Before it settled on AT&T as the carrier for the iPhone in the United States, Apple shopped the phone to Verizon Wireless and was shot down.  It's thought that Verizon didn't want to make the concessions (including ceding a lot of control) to Apple which AT&T ended up doing.
RELATED:
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes / Hardware 2.0:
Do you really think Apple's going to take business advice from a bunch of cheapskates?  —  I can't be the only one who'd tired of reading about the opinions of cheapskates who feel that Apple, for some bizarre reason, owes them a low-cost Mac OS powered computer.  Read my lips: It's not gonna happen!
Discussion: Tech Trader Daily
Douglas A. McIntyre / 247 Wall Street:
The Twenty Five Most Valuable Blogs  —  It is extremely difficult to put accurate financial values on blogs.  Almost all of them are private companies.  Some do raise VC money and those sums can be used as guidelines if and when they are disclosed.  Like many content businesses, the only worthwhile value is what an acquirer will pay.
Darren Murph / Engadget:
VUDU first on-demand service to sell HD and HDX movies  —  VUDU made some pretty big waves with its Blu-ray-rivaling HDX downloadable format, and now it's pushing the envelope once again by becoming the first on-demand service to actually sell (as in, for keeps... on your box, anyway) HD and HDX movies.
Discussion: Pulse2 and Crave
Saul Hansell / Bits:
Does Cloud Computing Mean More Risks to Privacy?  —  Last week, we had a wave of panic roll through Facebook users as many realized that the site had changed its terms of service in a way that implied it might soon broadcast their most embarrassing photographs to parents, teachers, and prospective employers.
Soulxtc / Zeropaid File Sharing P2P Technology News:
OneSwarm Turns P2P into F2F  —  New friend-to-friend (F2F) data sharing application allows users complete control over how data is shared, with the public, with friends, with some friends but not others, and so forth.  —  Some of the same researchers at the University of Washington …
Eliot Van Buskirk / Epicenter:
Major Label Acts Get Hip to Music Apps  —  Apple's app store is doing for music promotion what the company already did for music sales: making it portable, desirable and easy to access.  Forget about ringtones and Rhapsody; these apps let you subscribe to artists.
Stephanie Condon / CNET News:
White House names Internet team  —  The White House on Monday officially rolled out the names of its new-media team, which includes a former Google product manager.  —  Macon Phillips was officially named the director of new media, though he wrote his first White House blog post in that capacity the day President Obama took office.
Kevin Poulsen / Threat Level:
Hidden Cameras in DTV Converters?  YouTube Hoax Fans Conspiracy Fears  —  Ever wonder what the government is really up to paying for all those digital TV converter boxes?  Last week a Spokane, Washington man claimed he'd discovered the horrifying truth, and he produced a YouTube video to prove it.
Discussion: digg.com
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Intel Makes Non-Specific Shelf Filing To Raise Capital  —  Intel (INTC) this morning filed with the SEC for a potential future securities offering.  The shelf filing provides no specific information on any immediate plans to raise cash, and covers the potential sale of equity, debt …
Discussion: Voices, Thanks:atul
 
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 More Items: 
Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:
Researcher posts homemade patch for critical PDF bug
Discussion: VRT and Slashdot
Stephanie Condon / CNET News:
Obama picks Leibowitz as FTC chairman
Steve O'Hear / last100:
Chumby bets on Internet-connected TVs
Dieter Bohn / PreCentral.net:
Celebrities Handle the Pre (Update: with help from Palm)
Discussion: Engadget and WebOS Arena
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Could Wikipedia's Future Be as a Development Platform?
Discussion: The Noisy Channel
 Earlier Items: 
Timothy B. Lee / Ars Technica:
Publisher speculates about Amazon/Google e-book “duopoly”
Discussion: CrunchGear, VatorNews and DigitalKoans
Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
Widgetbox wants to make widgets more productive
Robin Abcarian / Los Angeles Times:
Hit ‘send,’ then hit the door
Discussion: Beyond Search and Slashdot, Thanks:atul
Nicholas Kolakowski / eWeek:
Lenovo ThinkPad Laptop Toughens Up Against Panasonic, Dell
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Apple 2.0:
Apple's growing cash hoard
The Boy Genius / Boy Genius Report:
AT&T pulls Quickfire handsets from shelves, floor