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11:35 PM ET, April 13, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
StumbleUpon Stumbles Out of eBay's Arms to Be Reborn as a Start-Up (Plus the Entire Press Release)  —  The content discovery service, StumbleUpon, has gotten itself back to start-up status, after being bought by eBay two years ago.  —  It announced today that it was returning to being an …
RELATED:
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
StumbleUpon Breaks Free from eBay - Founders Buy it Back  —  Want a geeky way to chill out after a long work day of focus, focus, focus?  There are few better ways online to keep the synapses lubricated than through the semi-serendipity of social sharing service StumbleUpon.
gmc / Official StumbleUpon Blog:
StumbleUpon is a start-up again!  —  After nearly two years as a subsidiary of eBay, today StumbleUpon returns to being an independent company.  StumbleUpon is now backed by myself and co-founder Geoff Smith, along with several great investors who've backed companies such as Google and Facebook.
Zach Epstein / Boy Genius Report:
Palm Pre gets caught taking a walk in the park  —  If you're looking for rhyme or reason, unfortunately we can't offer either for the time being.  All we know is this: It looks like Sprint and Palm may be loosening the reins a bit when it comes to allowing the Palm Pre out into the wild.
RELATED:
Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
Palm Pre launching no earlier than May 16 according to leaked doc?  —  We've been made privy to some Sprint planning documentation that implies that the carrier is looking to get all its Pre ducks in a row by May 16, which would suggest that there's no way in hell it's launching any earlier than that.
Xavier Ducrohet / Android Developers Blog:
Getting ready for Android 1.5  —  I'm excited to announce that starting today, developers can get an early look at the SDK for the next version of the Android platform.  This new version (which will be 1.5) is based on the cupcake branch from the Android Open Source Project.
RELATED:
developer.android.com:
Download the Android 1.5 Early Look SDK
Discussion: Android Phone Fans
Eric Engleman / TechFlash:
Amazon: “ham-fisted” error caused glitch with gay books  —  Amazon has been taking a beating online for the removal of sales ranking on a number of gay- and lesbian-themed books.  The company initially called it a glitch that was being fixed.  Now Amazon is calling it a “ham-fisted” error that goes far beyond gay titles.
RELATED:
Owen Thomas / Gawker:
Why It Makes Sense That a Hacker's Behind Amazon's Big Gay Outrage
Chris Albrecht / NewTeeVee:
Hulu: More Vids to Fewer Uniques in March  —  Monthly viewer stats used to be pretty boring to write.  To paraphrase Jan Brady, it was always “YouTube, YouTube, YouTube!”  Then along came Hulu and things got more interesting as the premium content site started to take off.
Discussion: Contentinople and Beet.TV
Communications / OpenSecrets.org:
OpenSecrets.org Goes OpenData  —  Award-winning website from the Center for Responsive Politics now provides 20 years of downloadable money-in-politics data—for free  —  WASHINGTON — Politicians, prepare yourselves.  Lobbyists, look out.  Today the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics …
Discussion: CNET News
Dawn Kawamoto / CNET News:
Analyst: Apple placed chip order for 32GB iPhones  —  Apple has reportedly ordered 100 million units of 8-gigabit and 16-gigabit NAND flash chips, with the bulk of its order coming from its main iPhone chip supplier, Samsung, according to a research report released Monday by a Lazard Capital Markets analyst.
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Pocket Meeting: A $5 WebEx Killer?  —  Sharing your screen with someone while chatting on the phone is one of those things that's much harder than it ought to be.  We've tried a lot of different tools and none of them makes us very happy.  The newest entrant into this field is Pocket Meeting and it's got some promise.
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
How Bad Was Google's Quarter?  —  . (His prior estimate was for 5 percent growth).  Khan also revised his pro forma EPS estimates down 5.5 percent from $5.04 to $4.76.  —  What's got him spooked?  Through February, comScore is showing declines in U.S. search activity (measured in query volume) …
Discussion: tinyComb, Thanks:gsharma
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Jim Breyer Joins Dell Board Of Directors, Fast Becoming Most Powerful Man In Silicon Valley  —  Jim Breyer, a partner at Accel Partners, joined the board of directors of Dell today.  That's interesting in itself, but the man also sits on the board of Facebook, Walmart and Marvel, as well as a number of younger startups.
Peter Lattman / Deal Journal:
KKR, Warburg, Providence and Elevation Surface in Skype Bid  —  A quartet of private-equity firms have joined forces for a leveraged buyout of a global telecommunications firm with hundreds of millions of users.  —  And no, this isn't a blog post from 2006.
Discussion: GigaOM and Silicon Alley Insider, Thanks:atul
Paul McDougall / InformationWeek:
Windows 7: 83% Of Businesses Won't Deploy Next Year  —  New data shows that the vast majority of corporate IT departments won't touch Microsoft's next OS until at least 2011.  —  Microsoft may need to keep its Windows XP operating system around a little longer—at least for its deep-pocketed corporate customers.
Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
Miramax Rewards Would-Be BitTorrent Pirate With Free Ticket  —  Most people sharing files on the Internet are aware that at any time they could be being monitored by any number of anti-piracy companies, investigators or lobby groups.  There can be little doubt that file-sharing forums …
Discussion: Crave
Priya Ganapati / Gadget Lab:
Kindle 2's Fuzzy Fonts Have Users Seeing Red  —  Amazon's Kindle 2 is slimmer, faster and has longer battery life than its predecessor.  But the newly launched e-book reader falls short when it comes to how well it displays text, say some users.  —  “When you read a lot of text on the screen …
Discussion: Engadget and Mass High Tech
Nick O'Neill / All Facebook:
Top Facebook Applications See 25 Percent Drop In Traffic Since Redesign  —  If you thought the last redesign spelled the death of the Facebook platform, you ain't seen nothing yet!  Last July Facebook released their new design and within a matter of months, widget applications had become a thing of the past.
Louis Gray:
Twazzup Takes On Twitter Search to Make Sense of Real-Time Web  —  Twitter's acquisition of Summize in 2008 gained the red-hot status update service arguably the most impactful new entrant into the Web 2.0 space last year, as the company looked to harness the millions of daily tweets flowing through its system and make sense of it all.
Discussion: Newsome.Org, ReadWriteWeb and CNET News, Thanks:jesse
Susan Decker / Bloomberg:
Alcatel Patent in $358 Million Suit Rejected by U.S.  —  An Alcatel-Lucent SA patent that resulted in a $358 million jury verdict against Microsoft Corp. was rejected by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office after the agency took a second look at the invention.
Discussion: paidContent.org and TechFlash
Mark Walsh / MediaPost:
What iPhone Apps Are Used Most?  Hint: Not Games  —  When it comes to the type of applications iPhone owners use most, ones for checking the weather trump games, music, news and everything else.  —  According to an upcoming report on smartphone usage by online market research firm Compete …
Marin Perez / InformationWeek:
BlackBerry Storm Gets Firmware Update  —  The 4.7.0.113 update will be pushed over the air by Verizon and will fix numerous bugs and add new functionality to the touch-screen Storm.  —  Verizon Wireless is preparing to roll out an over-the-air software update for the touch-screen BlackBerry Storm …
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Let's Go Crazy: New Prince iPod Costs $150 Per Song  —  The newest special-edition iPod to hit the market comes from Prince.  It is purple, it is produced in a limited batch of 950, and it will cost you $2,100.  —  But at least it contains every Prince song ever recorded, right?  Nope.
Ina Fried / CNET News:
Microsoft's search must begin in Redmond  —  Microsoft's challenge to grow its share of the search business isn't just a global issue.  It's also a challenge within its own walls.  —  Despite investing five years and hundreds of millions of dollars on its search product …
Discussion: LiveSide and paidContent.org
Sam Oliver / AppleInsider:
Apple to sell $899 20-inch aluminum iMac to schools  —  Apple this week quietly announced plans to begin selling an aluminum 20-inch iMac configuration to qualified educational institutions for just $899, effectively closing the book on the white 17-inch legacy model that had previously assumed a similar role.
Discussion: PC World
Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land:
Report: Yahoo Gains Marketers, Ad Share  —  SEM tool provider AdGooroo today released a report that explores ad coverage per keyword among the big three engines in Q1 2009; it's a hypothetical proxy for search revenues.  The report concludes, among other things, that Yahoo has gained advertiser share …
Discussion: adgooroo.com and SearchQuant
Brian Caulfield / Forbes:
Intel's Stress Test  —  The microprocessor goliath is feeling some pain, but Intel has far worse things planned for rivals.  —  BURLINGAME, CALIF. — If you're in the microprocessor business right now, you have two problems: the rotten economy and Intel.  That means if you're Intel …
Steven Levy / Wired News:
Steven Levy on the Promise and Perils of Divorcing Your Cable Company  —  Now, I don't want to wind up in hell.  But if that fate befalls me, I anticipate finding my cable provider roasting alongside me.  In fact, cable television service in general has a reek of Hades about it.
Discussion: Ars Technica
 
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 More Items: 
Wall Street Journal:
Making Old Media New Again
Discussion: the tweney review, Thanks:mrinaldesai
Josh Lowensohn / CNET News:
Search Cube scours Google in 3D
Mike Linksvayer / Creative Commons:
Wikipedia community vote on migration to CC BY-SA begins now
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb
Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:
Microsoft rep faces tough questions at Linux Summit
Discussion: OSNews
Mikko / F-Secure Antivirus Research Weblog:
Ongoing problems at Twitter
Discussion: ITworld.com and eWeek
Galen Moore / Mass High Tech:
Online video firm ScanScout lands $8M funding
Discussion: NewTeeVee and VentureBeat
Katherine Bourzac / Technology Review:
Gmail Sidesteps the App Store
Discussion: GigaOM
 Earlier Items: 
Kim Tong-hyung / The Korea Times:
Internet Users Flock to Foreign Sites to Avoid Censorship
Discussion: PC World and BetaNews
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Buyer Beware: Twitter Search Is Powerful-And Limited
Thanks:atul