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1:15 AM ET, March 12, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
GrandCentral To (Finally) Launch As Google Voice.  It's Very, Very Good.  —  GrandCentral, a phone management service that first launched in 2006 and was acquired by Google for $50+ million in 2007, hasn't been in the news much lately.  Other than a few good natured jabs at their marketing gimmicks and coverage of outages, that is.
RELATED:
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Grandcentral Reborn as Google Voice Suite of VoIP Services  —  GrandCentral, a “one-number-for-life” service provider acquired by Google in July 2007 is being reborn as Google Voice, a comprehensive service that is essentially a Microsoft Office type suite of communications-related services.
Peter X. Deng / Facebook Blog:
Welcome to Your New Home Page  —  Last week, we shared our philosophy behind the new updates and changes on Facebook to give you a better understanding of why we make certain product decisions.  We explained how we've been mapping out the Social Graph, or the network of connections that exist in the world …
RELATED:
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Facebook's Real-Time Homepage Goes Live Today  —  Today Facebook is rolling out the update to user homepages that brings a new look, enhanced filter system, and most importantly, realtime updating.  Real-time updates are Facebook's response to Twitter, which has been able to thrive …
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Is Apple About To Shuffle The Headphone Industry Again?  —  Is Apple (AAPL) in the process of reinventing the way mainstream headphones are designed for the second time this decade?  —  Ten years ago, I was the only guy on the train wearing earbuds.  Thanks to Apple's iPod, now everyone is.
RELATED:
Edward C. Baig / USA Today:
Review: Apple's new, even-tinier Shuffle does iPod proud  —  With apologies to Dr. Seuss, “An iPod's an iPod no matter how small.”  —  The original $99 iPod Shuffle, released in January 2005, was smaller than a pack of gum and held about 120 songs.  Its successor 20 months later dwarfed …
Christine Monaghan / Apple:
Apple Announces Incredible New iPod shuffle  —  World's Smallest Music Player Now Talks to You  —  Apple® today introduced the all-new iPod® shuffle, the world's smallest music player at nearly half of the size of the previous model, and the first music player that talks to you.
Chris Dannen / Fast Company:   The Gross Inconvenience of the New iPod Shuffle
Jenna Bilotta / Google Reader:
Google Reader is your new watercooler  —  One of the things that we love best about Reader is the ability to easily share interesting items with your friends.  In fact, we like it so much that we've been adding bunches of new sharing features over the last year including choosing friends to share with …
Eric Krangel / Silicon Alley Insider:
Worlds.com CEO: We're ‘Absolutely’ Going To Sue Second Life And World Of Warcraft  —  Worlds.com CEO Thom Kidrin is putting the entire virtual worlds industry on notice: His company claims the idea of a scalable virtual world with thousands of users is its patented intellectual property …
John Timmer / Ars Technica:
Lithium breakthrough could charge batteries in 10 seconds  —  A new version of lithium battery technology can either provide a higher storage density than current batteries, or can charge and discharge as fast as a supercapacitor, emptying its entire charge in under 10 seconds.
RELATED:
Geoff Brumfiel / Nature:
Lithium batteries charge ahead
Discussion: Technologizer
Zach Spear / AppleInsider:
Apple releases iTunes 8.1, Front Row Update 2.1.7  —  As anticipated, Apple on Wednesday evening delivered iTunes 8.1 with performance enhancements, support for CD imports to iTunes Plus, and new Genius features.  Separately, the company also updated its Front Row media application.
Discussion: Macworld, MacRumors and iLounge
RELATED:
Stuart Miles / Pocket-lint.com:
G1 “cupcake” update coming April … T-Mobile has confirmed that it will be bringing the “cupcake” software update to the G1 mobile phone in April.  —  The news will mean users of the Android handset will get an onscreen keyboard as well as a host of other features to improve the performance of the handset launched last November.
Sam Oliver / AppleInsider:
Apple orders 10-inch touchscreens for mystery product  —  Adding fuel to rumors of a so-called “netbook” under development inside Apple, Reuters is now citing its own sources in saying the touchscreens ordered by the company measure 10 inches diagonally.  —  In a report published early Wednesday morning …
RELATED:
Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:
Valley Exec Twitters Through Home Break-In  —  (See also: Jon Stewart On Twitter: “I Have No Idea How It Works, Or Why It Is")  —  A strange man broke into Revision3 COO David Prager's home last night.  —  Did David call the police?  No, he updated Twitter and turned on a live video stream at Ustream.
Discussion: Guardian and TECH.BLORGE.com
Associated Press:
EBay's PayPal envisions doubling in size by 2011  —  SAN JOSE, Calif. - EBay Inc.'s name may conjure images of online auctions, but the company is hoping to turn attention to its second-largest business — PayPal — which it expects to blossom significantly in the next few years.
RELATED:
Brad Stone / Bits:
Chief Promises a ‘New EBay’ and Talks Up PayPal
Discussion: Tech Beat
Susan Wojcicki / The Official Google Blog:
Making ads more interesting  —  At Google, we believe that ads are a valuable source of information — one that can connect people to the advertisers offering products, services and ideas that interest them.  By making ads more relevant, and improving the connection between advertisers and our users …
RELATED:
Grant Gross / PC World:
Privacy Groups Rip Google's Targeted Advertising Plan
Discussion: Search Engine Journal
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
Zuckerberg gets poked off Forbes billionaire list  —  A while back we predicted that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was in danger of losing his title as the world's youngest billionaire due to the maddening ascent of teen diva Miley Cyrus.  But, Forbes magazine says, Mark Zuckerberg …
Discussion: Forbes and Digital Download, Thanks:sampad
Anita Barci / Checkout:
Google Checkout fees in 2009  —  When we launched Google Checkout in 2006, we set out to create a fast, secure online shopping experience for our users.  Now in our third year of helping merchants increase sales and attract user interest, we're announcing the decision to move …
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Can Media Take Tips from Twitter?  Techmeme's Experience as Case Study  —  Can media organizations leverage the social web to get story tips faster than they could through traditional methods?  A number of news aggregators believe so and are looking to Twitter for tips.
Allen Stern / CenterNetworks:
Truemors: The Rumor Is No Updates in a Month  —  Truemors is a place to share rumors that you hear.  We reviewed the service when it launched nearly two years.  Trumeors was started by very popular web personality Guy Kawasaki and was sold to NowPublic for an undisclosed sum.
Thanks:atul
Phil Glockner / ReadWriteWeb:
Media Cloud Leverages Calais to Track News Trends  —  Media Cloud, a new project from the Berkman Center at Harvard University, has an ambitious goal: It will do the heavy lifting of analyzing stories from thousands of traditional news sources, analyzing the semantics of the content through Calais …
Microsoft:
Microsoft Unveils Its Developer Strategy for the Next Generation of Windows® Phones  —  Familiar tools, large worldwide customer base and transparent policies allow mobile developers to innovate and generate new revenue opportunities with Windows Mobile 6.5 and Windows Marketplace for Mobile.
Karl Bode / DSLreports:
Comcast Now Third Largest Phone Company - Passes Qwest with explosive digital voice growth...  Sure, we've given Comcast some grief over the years, but one thing that can't be denied is the speed at which the company absolutely dominated of the VoIP (sorry, Digital Voice) market.
Microsoft:
Microsoft Releases Open Tools to Enhance Scientific Research Efforts Building on Science Commons Ontologies  —  Breakthrough collaboration helps researchers make easier connections on the Web.  —  The nuggets of information necessary for science to progress are often hard to find …
Nick O'Neill / All Facebook:
Facebook Announces Advanced Ad Targeting Features  —  Today Facebook sent out a message to advertisers notifying them that there are two new features to target users with: language and target location radius.  For example if you are searching for people in Washington, DC …
Discussion: Facebook, CNET News and Inside Facebook, Thanks:mrinaldesai
Leo Ting / Google Mobile Blog:
New Image Search Results for Android and iPhone  —  Today we launched a new Image Search results page for Android, iPhone, and iPod touch in the US, the UK, and Japan.  —  With the new Image Search results, you can easily scan up to 20 images on a single results page and get the details for images that interest you.
Discussion: SlashPhone and Lifehacker, Thanks:atul
 
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 More Items: 
Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
Torrent Droid: Scan Barcodes, Get Torrents
Discussion: Gizmodo and Android and Me
Wall Street Journal:
Nortel Is in Talks to Sell Key Units to Rivals
Charles Cooper / Coop's Corner:
Freedom on the global Internet still a pipe dream
Roy Mark / eWeek:
Verizon Wins $2.5 Billion Defense Contract
Venture Capital Dispatch:
The Bird's Worm vs. The Mouse's Cheese
Tara Weiss / Forbes:
Blogging Your Way Into A Job  —  Set yourself up as an authority on the work you do.
Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:
Vodafone Music goes DRM-free, throws in free upgrades
Discussion: paidContent and blogs.ft.com
Liz Gannes / NewTeeVee:
ffwd Hops on Twitter Bandwagon with Twitmatic
Discussion: CNET News
 Earlier Items: 
Daniel Tenner:
Starting up with a friend  —  It seems like a fool-proof plan …
Erica Ogg / CNET News:
Layoffs to hit another Dell plant
Discussion: eWeek
Jim Dwyer / New York Times:
The Officer Who Posted Too Much on MySpace
Discussion: Glass House