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9:40 AM ET, March 27, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Noam Cohen / New York Times:
When Stars Twitter, a Ghost May Be Lurking  —  The rapper 50 Cent is among the legion of stars who have recently embraced Twitter to reach fans who crave near-continuous access to their lives and thoughts.  On March 1, he shared this insight with the more than 200,000 people who follow him …
Nick Wingfield / WSJ.com:
PC to Mac: I'm Cheaper  —  For months, Microsoft has jabbed at Apple with an, at times, baffling advertising campaign for Windows PCs.  Now Microsoft may finally land a solid blow against its rival.  —  Video: Laptop Hunters $1000 - Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
Jeff Bezos Works In Kentucky Distribution Center For A Week  —  Jeff Bezos is spending this week working in an Amazon distribution center in Lexington, Kentucky (AMZN).  He apparently wants to see what it's like to be a rank-and-file Amazon employee.  More CEOs should try that once in a while.
Prince McLean / AppleInsider:
Apple stores now selling iPhone 3G without a contract  —  Some Apple retail stores as of Thursday are selling unrestricted quantities of the iPhone 3G at the full, non-subsidized price of $599 for the 8GB version and $699 for the 16GB models.  —  The move follows AT&T's plans to sell …
Eric Lai / Computerworld:
Dreaming of a PC with 192GB of RAM?  Dell makes it reality  —  The catch: Despite a depressed memory market, it's going to cost you  —  Computerworld) Dell Inc. announced on Tuesday a new PC that, among its other impressive specs, can be upgraded to sport as much as 192GB of ultrafast DDR3 RAM.
Discussion: CrunchGear and Slashdot
Enomaly / ElasticVapor:
Introducing the Open Cloud Manifesto  —  Over the last few weeks I have been working closely with several of the largest technology companies and organizations helping to co-author the Open Cloud Manifesto.  Our goal is to draft a document that clearly states we (including dozens of supporting companies) …
RELATED:
Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:
Google searches for holy grail of Python performance  —  Google's Python engineers have launched a new project called Unladen Swallow that seeks to improve the performance of the Python programming language.  One of the project's goals is to replace the Python virtual machine with an LLVM-based JIT.
Discussion: jessenoller.com and eWeek, Thanks:atul
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Roundtable:
Google Releases Major Blog Search Blogroll Algorithm Update  —  The much awaited update to the Google Blog Search blogroll detector algorithm has finally been pushed through.  —  An updated Google Groups thread has Googler, Jeremy Hylton saying: … We did expect to see an update …
Thanks:atul
Amy / Slash7 with Amy Hoy:
Google is Evil, Worse than PayPal: Don't use Google Checkout for your business  —  Wanting to offer an alternative to PayPal, we set up a Google Checkout account for people to buy our ebook.  —  The last email we received about our Google Checkout account was “Helpful tips regarding your first Google Checkout orders” on February 9th.
Discussion: Beyond Search
Guardian:
Behind the music: Chris Anderson's ‘freeconomics’ don't add up  —  Chris Anderson's ‘freeconomics’ theory that pirating creates celebrity, which creates cash is fine for recording artists - but what about songwriters?  —  Of the many professed experts who claim to have found the solution …
Discussion: Slashdot, Thanks:mrinaldesai
Eric M. Zeman / Phone Scoop:
Samsung's First Wimax Device Spotted  —  Today Samsung shared details on the unannounced SWD-M100 Mondi mobile Wimax device for the Clear network.  According to Samsung, the Mondi has a touch screen and can access the Internet via Clear's mobile Wimax network.
RELATED:
Ross Miller / Engadget:
Samsung's WiMAX-equipped SWD-M100 MID outed as Mondi
Discussion: Electronista
PC World:
Panasonic Discloses DMC-GH1 Pricing, Launch in Japan  —  Panasonic launched its DMC-GH1 hybrid camera in Japan this week and with it came some news missing from the U.S. launch two weeks ago: the price and release date.  —  The camera is a follow-on to the company's DMC-G1 …
Discussion: SlashGear and Engadget
Rafe Needleman / CNET News:
Twitter still has no business model, and that's OK  —  Don't let the attention-grabbing headlines elsewhere fool you.  Twitter still has not announced a business model.  There are no Pro Twitter accounts.  There is no TwitterWords advertising program.  You still can't buy plush toy Fail Whales from Twitter.
Discussion: VentureBeat and Bits
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
End-of-Quarter Layoffs Hit Amazon, IBM, Google, and The New York Times  —  With the end of the first quarter of the 2009 almost here, even the strongest companies companies are making last-minute layoffs to shave costs.  Today, layoffs were announced across the tech sector, from IBM to Google to Amazon.
RELATED:
Brad Stone / Bits:   Amazon to Close Three Distribution Centers
Alexei Oreskovic / Reuters:
Nvidia countersues Intel in licensing battle  —  * Nvidia seeks termination of Intel's right to its patents  —  * Nvidia says Intel trying to undermine licensing rights (Adds details from lawsuit, Intel comments)  —  Graphics chipmaker Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) countersued Intel Corp (INTC.O) …
Discussion: Softpedia News and Slashdot
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
What Could Go Wrong With Google: The Slideshow  —  Why Could Google Die...  View more presentations from Ouriel Ohayon.  —  Want to know everything that could possibly go wrong with Google?  Well, you can read the risk section of its latest SEC filing, but that's a snore.
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
MyID.is Now In Public Beta, Aims To Become The Digital Certification Standard  —  Digital certification platform MyID.is is taking a crack at offering a way for people to claim their real identity online, in order to be able to prevent ID theft and to verify content they publish on their blogs …
Discussion: MyID.is a Digital …
Brian Stelter / New York Times:
8 Hours a Day Spent on Screens, Study Finds  —  IN a world with grocery store television screens, digitally delivered movie libraries and cellphone video clips, the average American is exposed to 61 minutes of TV ads and promotions a day.  —  Some people may think that amount seems excessive.
The Official Google Blog:
Changes to our sales and marketing organizations  —  Google has grown very quickly in a very short period of time.  When companies grow that quickly it's almost impossible to get everything right—and we certainly didn't.  In some areas we've created overlapping organizations …
Neil McAllister / Fatal Exception:
IBM: The new development powerhouse?  —  An IBM/Sun merger could crown Big Blue king of enterprise software development  —  The proposed merger between IBM and Sun Microsystems, as first reported last week by the Wall Street Journal, may well fizzle out before the buzz dies down — but let's hope not.
Discussion: Slashdot
adafruit industries blog:
Tweet-a-Watt kits now available...  Tweet-a-Watt kits are now available!  A few months ago, using “off-the-shelf hardware”, we modified a Kill-a-Watt(TM) power meter to “tweet” (publish wirelessly) the daily KWH consumed to the user's Twitter account (Cumulative Killowatt-hours).
Discussion: Scobleizer, CNET News and MAKE Magazine
Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:
Young people who embrace mobile tech can feel overconnected  —  Almost 40 percent of the American adult population has embraced mobile technologies into their lives to keep up on social networking, sharing photos, and working while on-the-go.  But not everyone in this group thinks …
Discussion: Engadget
Joe Leahy / Financial Times:
India's outsourcers fight to block trade barriers  —  Ameet Nivsarkar, the Indian technology industry lobbyist, has had a lot of time on flights between New Delhi and Washington lately.  —  Mr Nivsarkar, who handles international affairs for India's outsourcing industry group …
Robert McMillan / ITworld.com:
Researchers can ID anonymous Twitterers  —  I like it!  —  Web sites that strip personally identifiable information about their users and then share that data may be compromising their users' privacy, according to researchers at the University of Texas at Austin.
Discussion: Slashdot
Dave Kerpen / Buzz Marketing Daily:
Breaking News!  Facebook To Add SMS Text Feature to Increase Fan Page Virality!  —  We just discovered an incredible new option (presumably in beta) for select administrators and promoters of Facebook Public Profiles - you can text to become a fan of select businesses, organizations, politicians, or official entities on Facebook!
Dan Goodin / The Register:
Webmail bug puts 40m accounts in jeopardy  —  One attack pwns all  —  Free whitepaper - Trend Micro threat management solution  —  A web-borne vulnerability lurking in a popular email application seriously compromised the security of 40 million accounts until it was fixed early last month, independent researchers said.
 
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 More Items: 
Blake Reid / Freedom to Tinker:
DRM is Dead / Long Live DRM: A Call for Transparency in the Emerald City
Chloe Albanesius / PC Magazine:
YouTube Revamps with Twitter App, Education Hub
Discussion: TechCrunch and YouTube Blog
Janko Roettgers / NewTeeVee:
Limewire Embraces Online Video With Podcast Directory and BitTorrent Tracker
Discussion: Podcasting News
Danieleran / Roughly Drafted:
Ridiculous Rescuecom Statistics Create Apple Reliability Headlines
Discussion: MacDailyNews
Joseph Tartakoff / paidContent.org:
Microsoft Hires Yahoo Veteran As Live Search's Chief Scientist
Discussion: Search Engine Land and Jobwire, Thanks:mrinaldesai
Rafat Ali / paidContent.org:
IAC-Owned CollegeHumor Buys SportsPickle.com
Discussion: Pulse2
Chris Davies / SlashGear:
Archos Android MID planned for July?
Discussion: Engadget
 Earlier Items: 
Jeff / Jeffrey Veen:
Announcing Wikirank: Tracking what's popular on Wikipedia
Discussion: Epicenter and Mashable!, Thanks:atul
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Carol Bartz's Yahoo Paying More Attention To Mobile