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9:05 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.
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
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:
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 …
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 …
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
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: eWeek and jessenoller.com, Thanks:atul
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: Bits and VentureBeat
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 …
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
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
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.
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
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.
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 …
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
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
Joseph Tartakoff / paidContent.org:
Microsoft Hires Yahoo Veteran As Live Search's Chief Scientist  —  Microsoft's new search team is starting to look a lot like Yahoo's old one.  In just the latest example, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has brought on Jan Pedersen, a Yahoo search veteran, to be chief scientist of Live Search, a spokeswoman confirmed Thursday.
Discussion: Search Engine Land and Jobwire, Thanks:mrinaldesai
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
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Skype for iPhone to Be Released as Early as Next Week  —  Exclusive Heads up: A few months ago, I asked Skype CEO Josh Silverman when was he going to launch the iPhone version of the P2P voice and IM service that has now been downloaded more than 405 million times.  He smiled and said, “Stay tuned.”
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
Spencer E. Ante / Business Week:
Facebook Is Hunting for More Money  —  The social-networking site wants as much as $100 million in debt financing, sources say.  Facebook's accelerating user growth carries huge tech costs  —  Facebook, the fast growing social-networking Web site, is one of the many companies looking …
Chloe Albanesius / PC Magazine:
YouTube Revamps with Twitter App, Education Hub  —  YouTube has done a little spring cleaning, and provided some details Thursday about the updates made to the site, including a Twitter app, an upload progress bar, and an education hub.  —  Can't be bothered with cut and paste?
Discussion: YouTube Blog and TechCrunch
 
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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
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
Dan Goodin / The Register:
Webmail bug puts 40m accounts in jeopardy
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:
Apple Kicking Butt Without Steve Jobs
Discussion: Apple Watch and BloggingStocks
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Carol Bartz's Yahoo Paying More Attention To Mobile
Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:
The Pirate Bay to roll out secure €5 per month VPN service
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Matthew Keys / The Desk:
DirecTV terminates its Dish acquisition after a group of Dish creditors rejected a modified bond exchange offer

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

Gene Maddaus / Variety:
WGA East members working for PBS member stations reach a deal, averting a strike; the union says the deal expands protections to animation writers

 
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