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5:50 PM ET, March 8, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Nova Spivack / Twine:
Wolfram Alpha is Coming — and It Could be as Important as Google  —  Stephen Wolfram is building something new — and it is really impressive and significant.  In fact it may be as important for the Web (and the world) as Google, but for a different purpose.
RELATED:
Matt Marshall / VentureBeat:
Wolfram Alpha — it's like plugging into an electronic brain  —  Scientist Stephen Wolfram has built a new engine, called Wolfram Alpha, that apparently can compute answers to factual questions more powerfully than Google.  —  Wolfram has just posted about the effort, which has taken years …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Big Music Will Surrender, But Not Until At Least 2011  —  I had a surprisingly candid lunch conversation last week with a big music label executive, and a good part of our talk focused on the future of music.  I asked the usual question: Why are you guys so damned clueless?
Dave Zatz / Zatz Not Funny!:
Amazon VOD in HD on TiVo - Coming Soon?  —  After reading my post wondering where Amazon VOD in HD is, multiple sources have confirmed for me that TiVo's implementation is currently in testing.  While I still don't have concrete timing details, and suspect we're waiting on Amazon.com at this point …
TheFunded.com:
The VC Apocalypse: Careful with Your Time  —  PUBLIC:  —  Fellow entrepreneurs, most VCs are unable to complete capital calls and, therefore, are unable to make new investments.  This includes everyone from name brand funds to small funds, and it does not matter if they recently closed a new fund or not.
Aidan Malley / AppleInsider:
Would-be iPhone developers “pulling their hair out by the roots”  —  Apple's ability to process iPhone developer contracts is quickly turning into a minor crisis as what was once a smooth process is rapidly turning into a months-long backlog that threatens to keep new developers out of the App Store.
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Pay-For-Play Comes To Online Radio.  Is That a Bad Thing?  —  When it comes to promoting new music, pay-for-play schemes are generally frowned upon.  The practice, which involves music labels or artists paying radio stations to play their songs in heavy rotation, dates back to the beginnings of terrestrial radio.
Robert X. Cringely / I, Cringely:
The Neokast Mystery  —  What happened to Neokast?  It's a mystery to me.  But I suspect the answer will surprise us all soon enough.  —  Neokast, as readers of my old PBS column will recall, was a peer-to-peer live video streaming application developed by graduate students from Northwestern University near Chicago.
Bloomberg:
Yahoo Wins Court Approval of Severance Plan That May Aid Buyout Offers  —  Yahoo Inc., owner of the second most-popular U.S. Internet search engine, won a judge's approval of a settlement mandating changes to the company's severance plan that investors contend will make it easier for Microsoft Corp. or other potential suitors to buy it.
Matt Rosoff / Digital Noise:
More free on-demand audio with Muziic  —  I love covering music software because the pace of evolution is so fast.  I guess everybody's looking for the next billion-dollar business (after iTunes) to help replace declining CD sales.  —  Last week, I blogged about Spotify …
Discussion: CNET News and TECH.BLORGE.com
Mark Guim / The Nokia Blog:
Your Music Player is Ringing - Nokia Web Event March 11th  —  It looks like there's going to be a Nokia Event on March 11th that we can all watch on the web.  Not a a lot details are shared, other than a header saying, “Your Music Player is Ringing.”  Could it be a new phone?  A new service?
Discussion: Engadget and Boy Genius Report
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
Company Threatens EFF With Defamation In Response To EFF Trying To Bust Its Patent  —  Back in January, we noted that the EFF had scored another hit in its ongoing patent-busting project, getting the USPTO to re-examine a patent held by Seer Systems.  It appears that Seer Systems …
 
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 More Items: 
Randall Stross / New York Times:
When Everyone's a Friend, Is Anything Private?
Thanks:atul
DCEmu.Com:
The State of the Homebrew Scene 2009
Discussion: Slashdot
Nick / Rough Type:
Google's chief executive worrywart
Discussion: CNET News and TechCrunch
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Who Needs Big Music on YouTube? The Best Video of 2009 is Homegrown
John Naughton / Guardian:
How Kindle brought technology to book
Ken Gagne / Computerworld Blogs:
AT&T predicted the future. Can Microsoft?
Discussion: GottaBeMobile.com and 9 to 5 Mac
 Earlier Items: 
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols / Computerworld Blogs:
Google CEO hints Google/Linux netbooks may be coming
Discussion: OSNews
Kasper Jade / AppleInsider:
A peek at Apple's new QuickTime X interface
Discussion: MacRumors
James Urquhart / CNET News:
Has ‘cloud computing’ lost its VC luster?
Discussion: GigaOM
Evan Williams / New York Times:
For Twitter C.E.O., Well-Orchestrated Accidents
Discussion: Gawker and Silicon Alley Insider