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2:00 PM ET, March 18, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
IBM's potential purchase of Sun: Here's why it makes sense  —  IBM is reportedly in talks to buy Sun Microsystems for $6.5 billion and the deal is long overdue.  The companies mesh on the open source software front, Sun is struggling and IBM can consolidate some server market share.  —  First, the headlines.
RELATED:
Steve Lohr / New York Times:
I.B.M. Said to Be in Talks to Buy Sun for $7 Billion  —  I.B.M. is in talks to buy Sun Microsystems in a proposed deal valued at nearly $7 billion, a person with knowledge of the negotiations said on Wednesday.  —  The merger, if completed, would mark a big consolidation step in the market …
Robert Valpuesta / Bloomberg:
IBM Is in Negotiations to Buy Sun Microsystems for $6.5 Billion, WSJ Says  —  International Business Machines Corp. is in talks to buy Sun Microsystems Inc., the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.  —  IBM may pay at least $6.5 billion …
Ben Worthen / Digits:
IBM's Flirtation with Sun: The Next Volley in the Data-Center War  —  IBM is in talks to buy Sun Microsystems, marking the beginning of what is likely to be a new wave of acquisitions in the tech industry over the next 18 months.  —  Getty Images  —  IBM CEO Samuel Palmisano
frontech.fujitsu.com:
Fujitsu Begins On-Line Consumer Sales of World's First Color E-Paper Mobile Terminal FLEPia  — Displays up to 260,000 colors; features Bluetooth and high-speed wireless LAN; thin and lightweight -  —  Fujitsu Frontech Limited and Fujitsu Laboratories Limited today announced the start …
RELATED:
Paul Miller / Engadget:
Fujitsu melts faces and wallets with FLEPia, the first color e-book …
DealBook:
All That Twitters May Not Be Gold, Analysts Say  —  Twitter seems to have gone from obscure to mainstream in about the same time it takes to send a “tweet” over the network.  —  Despite the fact that the three-year-old microblogging service doesn't generate revenue — nevermind profits …
pavlov.net:
Fennec 1.0 Beta 1  —  I'm super happy to announce the first beta release of Fennec for the Maemo platform.  —  Fennec 1.0 Beta 1 includes lots of great improvements, especially around performance.  Starting with this beta, I'm able to use Fennec as the primary browser on my N810.
RELATED:
Scott M. Fulton, III / BetaNews:   Mozilla's mobile browser experiment finally enters beta
Emil Protalinski / Ars Technica:
MIX09: Silverlight 3 beta bits start to arrive early (Updated x2)  —  Early Silverlight 3 downloads have hit the Microsoft Download Center early, though there is definitely more to come.  —  The Scott Guthrie and Bill Buxton keynote at MIX09 in Las Vegas is less than four hours away.
Discussion: Beyond Binary
RELATED:
Katie Marsal / AppleInsider:
Apple's iPhone 3.0 expands the ‘yawning’ competitive gap  —  While the vast majority of smartphone makers are betting that beefed-up handset hardware alone will attract new feature phone users, Apple demonstrated Tuesday that software stands to be the biggest differentiating factor as the market matures …
Discussion: I4U News and Macsimum News
RELATED:
Kit Eaton / Fast Company:
Palm Pre vs iPhone 3.0: A Feature-by-Feature Comparison
Edm / Expression Web team blog:
MICROSOFT EXPRESSION WEB SUPERPREVIEW  —  How many times have you had to debug your web pages on virtual or multiple machines running different versions of Internet Explorer?  Or had to wait for a slow web service to return renderings of your pages?  —  You don't have to do that anymore.
Discussion: MIX Online and Ars Technica
RELATED:
Long Zheng / istartedsomething:
Expression Web SuperPreview makes cross-browser testing like moist delicious cake
Discussion: SitePoint and Ajaxian
Stuart Miles / Pocket-lint.com:
Psystar launches new Mac clone PC … Psystar might be in a heated court battle with Apple over the use of the Apple Mac OS X operating system, but that hasn't stopped the Mac clone company releasing a new Open Computer model on Tuesday.  —  According to the company the new model, the Open …
Matt Asay / The Open Road:
Linux a recession winner, IDC finds  —  Linux long ago became the “furniture” of open source: essential infrastructure to most of the Fortune 500 and somewhat mundane in its predictable, ever-increasing adoption.  —  Despite its impressive rise, however, Linux still has a long, long way to go.
Discussion: Datamation and Softpedia News
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
NBC CEO Jeff Zucker: Jon Stewart Was “Incredibly Unfair” to CNBC  —  Hard to imagine that NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker spends a lot of time thinking about “The Daily Show” critique of CNBC.  But when he sat down for a Q&A this morning with BusinessWeek's Ellen Pollock, that was topic A.
Hutch Carpenter / I'm Not Actually a Geek:
How to Tweet Your Way Out of a Job  —  I saw this exchange on Twitter, which is a painful lesson in how NOT to use Twitter in this tough economy.  —  A lucky job applicant tweeted the following: … This tweet caught the attention of Tim Levad, a channel partner advocate for Cisco.
Zach Epstein / Boy Genius Report:
Pandora for BlackBerry finally launches  —  BlackBerry users rejoice, Pandora has finally released v1 of it's custom internet radio streaming application this morning and long story short, it's everything we've been waiting for.  It's... About... Time!  We tested the app out on a Bold via …
Rik Myslewski / The Register:
iPhone chip designer trumpets multi-core GPUs  —  Use your Imagination  —  Multicore Expo Immersive gaming, photo-realistic graphics, and HD video will soon take a giant step off your desktop and into the palm of your hand with the arrival of a new line of multi-core GPUs aimed squarely at the mobile, handheld, and automotive markets.
Mark Goldstein / Photography Blog:
Fujifilm FinePix F200EXR Review  —  The Fujifilm Finepix F200EXR is potentially one of the most revolutionary cameras of 2009.  It features Fujifilm's innocuous sounding EXR technology, which rather cleverly turns the Fuji F200 into three cameras in one.  The first EXR mode shoots …
Discussion: Engadget and Imaging Insider
Kasper Jade / AppleInsider:
iPhone OS 3.0 first impressions and photos [Updated]  —  Developers late Tuesday evening are downloading a widely distributed beta of Apple's new iPhone 3.0 software, installing it on their handsets, and weighing in with some first impressions and screen shots, all of which follow.  [Updated with video.]
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Sunlight Foundation Receives $4m For Obama Era Data Visualization  —  The Sunlight Foundation, one of the coolest geek organizations on the Internet, announced today that it has added $4 million to its budget compliments of the Omidyar Foundation, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar's group.
Avram Piltch / LAPTOP Mag:
More Office Depot Employees Report Lying to Customers, Changing Price Tags  —  Since we published our article about Office Depot associates lying to customers last week, the company has issued an internal memo “reminding” employees not to lie to customers about notebook stock.
Soshable:
46% of the Digg Front Page is Controlled by 50 Websites  —  Recent changes and restrictions made by Digg.com to encourage diversity in the range of users whose submissions reach the front page have had 2 profound results.  Newer and less active users have seen their stories reach the front page …
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
 
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 More Items: 
Christoph Niemann / Abstract City:
My Life With Cables
Shane McGlaun / DailyTech:
Laser Amplified Fiber Broadband May Close Digital Divide
Discussion: DSLreports and dailywireless.org
Todd Spangler / Multichannel News:
Comcast Exec: Internet TV Plans Preserve Cable Model
Discussion: NewTeeVee and Telecompetitor
Keir Clarke / Google Maps Mania:
New Way to Monetise Google Maps
Robert McMillan / PC World:
Consumer Groups Launch Badware-busting Community
Discussion: Gadgetell
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Google Sells Advertising to Advertisers
 Earlier Items: 
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Nintendo: Game Over? Time To Sell, Deutsche Bank Says
Sarah Rodman / Boston Globe:
Digital retailers cut prices to lure CD buyers
Discussion: AppScout
Mark Hachman / PC Magazine:
Panda Updates Panda MOP with Management
David Jolly / New York Times:
Wall Street Opens Lower, Awaiting Fed Move
Timothy Lee / Techdirt:
TomTom Caught Between Microsoft Rock And GPL Hard Place
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
Daisuke Wakabayashi / Wall Street Journal:
Toshiba Names New President
Discussion: Gearlog
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
A New York judge finds Sirius XM liable for a difficult subscription cancellation process; Sirius says it will appeal but abide by a new “click-to-cancel” rule

Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
A growing number of podcasters, including Tim Ferriss, are moving away from interviews to monologues or co-hosts, as some well-known guests can be overexposed

Brian Steinberg / Variety:
Sources: NBCUniversal Vice Chairman Bonnie Hammer plans to leave the company at the end of the year; she has been with the company since 2004

 
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