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9:50 AM ET, April 28, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Business Week:
New Gear from Apple and Verizon Wireless?  —  The companies are in talks to develop two iPhone-like handhelds that could be unveiled as soon as this year  —  Verizon Wireless is warming to the idea of an Apple (AAPL) partnership.  Verizon Wireless is in talks with Apple to distribute …
RELATED:
Arn / MacRumors:
Two New Devices from Apple: Category Defining ‘Media Pad’ and ‘iPhone Lite’?
Brier Dudley / Seattle Times:
Microsoft debuts Vine in Seattle: Twitter+Facebook on steroids  —  It's been awhile since Microsoft introduced a game-changing social Web application, but Vine — a service that's debuting today with a beta test in Seattle — could be a contender.  —  Vine is a hyperlocal, personalized message and alert system.
RELATED:
Matt McGee / Search Engine Land:
Microsoft Goes Social (& Local) With Vine
Discussion: Beyond Search
Darren Waters / BBC:
Home Office ‘colluded with Phorm’  —  The Home Office has been accused of colluding with online ad firm Phorm on “informal guidance” to the public on whether the company's service is legal.  —  E-mails between the ministry and Phorm show the department asking if the firm would be “comforted” by its position.
RELATED:
Rupert Neate / Telegraph:
Phorm chief labels critics ‘serial agitators’  —  Phorm, the online advertising company, has launched an extraordinary personal attack on two of its leading critics - claiming that they are “serial agitators” and that they could be supported by its rivals.  —  Leading privacy activists …
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Zoho preps mobile suite  —  Zoho on Tuesday rolled out a unified mobile front for its suite of Web applications.  —  Zoho had offered some basic iPhone and Windows Mobile support previously, but now is unifying applications like Mail, Calendar, Writer, Sheet, Show & Creator into one interface.
RELATED:
Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
Zoho's productivity apps go mobile  —  Zoho, the company that provides a wide range of free web applications for productivity and business, is making an aggressive move into the mobile arena with the launch of Zoho Mobile, a mobile site where users can access six Zoho apps on the major smartphone platforms …
Discussion: TechCrunch and Zoho Blogs
Camille Ricketts / VentureBeat:
Coming soon: A new, smarter Google News?  —  Google may be working on a new, intelligent news distribution system, according to Sharon Waxman, a reporter for Hollywood newsblog TheWrap.  She approached chief executive Eric Schmidt at a soiree thrown by Arianna Huffington last week …
Thanks:atul
RELATED:
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Facebook, Firefox, Twitter Lead App, Web Usage  —  Facebook and Mozilla Firefox are the applications used most across different platforms, according to data collected by Wakoopa, a software-oriented social network.  The Amsterdam-based startup offers a small download client that's installed on the desktops of its 75,000 users.
Discussion: VentureBeat and TechCrunch
RELATED:
Robert / Wakoopa blog:   The State of Apps - Q1 2009
Jason Scott / ASCII:
Geocities: Lessons So Far  —  The Geocities-is-going-away thing broke wide a short while ago.  The “Jason is Saving Geocities” thing is breaking wider by the day, so I guess we need an update.  —  After my initial call-out, a nice selection of folks showed up to the Archive Team IRC channel …
RELATED:
Hugh / hughstimson.org:   Jason Scott Is In Your Geocities, Rescuing Your Sh*t
Plamere / Music Machinery:
moot wins, Time Inc. loses  —  This morning Time.com published the final result for their annual TIME 100 Poll.  Time reports that the new owner of the title 'Worlds's most influential person, is moot'.  What TIME doesn't say is that their poll was so totally manipulated that the results …
Nick O'Neill / All Facebook:
Facebook's Privacy Settings Present Intrinsic Limitations To The Platform  —  I've written countless times about Facebook's “privacy facade” and how it could develop potential problems in their global expansion.  Today, some developers and bloggers were disappointed that Facebook did not open …
RELATED:
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Despite New Openness, Facebook Remains Fundamentally Closed
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Mint Turns Personal Finance Into A Game.  It's Not As Bad As It Sounds  —  Mint, the popular personal finance site that won 2007's TechCrunch40, is launching a new feature called “Financial Fitness” which, strange as it may sound, adds an element of gaming to the service.
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Socialthing Starts Spreading Across 75 AOL Sites  —  A couple weeks ago, I spotted the reincarnation of Socialthing on AOL's country-music Website TheBoot and speculated that it would potentially be rolled out across AOL's other MediaGlow properties as well.
Discussion: GigaOM and Mashable!
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Quub: A Micromessaging Service That Asks “What Are You Doing?”  And Means It  —  At its core, Twitter is supposed to be a micro-presence service that invites users to answer the question, “What are you doing?”.  That's all well and good, but most people tend to ignore this question entirely …
Discussion: Mashable!
Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:
With no $10 laptop in sight, India buys 250,000 OLPCs  —  India has purchased 250,000 XO laptops.  This move will boost the One Laptop Per Child project and could help the deflating effort get back on its feet.  —  The government of India has signed an agreement with the One Laptop Per Child …
Dan Nosowitz / Gizmodo:
HP ProBook S-Series: Businesspeople Can Have Sassy Red Laptops Too  —  HP today revealed its new business laptops, the ProBook s-series.  The 14.1", 15.6", and 17.3" ProBooks are all about pragmatic performance, affordability, and inoffensive design.  They're the Toyota Camry of laptops.
Laurie Sullivan / MediaPost:
Ad Retargeting Can Outperform Paid Search  —  FetchBack is expected to release data Tuesday showing that its retargeting technology outperforms paid search in tangible returns on the dollars invested in each.  Comparison tests done by the ad retargeting company delivered between 74% …
Brad Stone / Bits:
Amazon Acquires Stanza, an E-Book Application for the iPhone  —  Update |  4:06 p.m. Added quotation from Lexcycle blog post about the deal.  —  Update |  4:04 p.m. Added comment from Amazon.com.  —  Seeking to strengthen its presence on the iPhone and iPod Touch, Amazon has acquired Lexcycle …
Jenna Wortham / Bits:
Apple iPhone Owners Don't Use It For Work  —  Do you treat your iPhone as a guilty pleasure?  You're not alone.  —  A new report from Compete surveying the behavior of smartphone users found that 73 percent of iPhone owners used their mobile devices primarily for personal reasons, such as entertainment.
Discussion: TechCrunch
Bruce Schneier / Wall Street Journal:
Do You Know Where Your Data Is?  —  Do you know what your data did last night?  Almost none of more than 27 million people who took the RealAge quiz realized that their personal health data was sold to drug companies, who in turned used that information for targeted e-mail marketing campaigns.
Discussion: Guardian, Thanks:mrinaldesai
Alan Travis / Guardian:
Government wants phone and internet providers to track users  —  Home secretary rules out state-run ‘super-database’ but firms would store details of calls, emails, texts and web browsing  —  The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, today ruled out building a single state “super-database” …
Randall C. Kennedy / Randall C. Kennedy's blog:
Windows 7's ‘XP mode’: Right idea, wrong technology  —  Why Microsoft's decision to implement a VM-based legacy compatibility solution is a dumb move  —  Well, it finally happened.  After years of patching and tweaking the Windows runtime to preserve backward compatibility …
Discussion: Hardware 2.0
eMarketer:
US Online Sales Up  —  In dark days, e-commerce shines.  —  Most US economic indicators were down in Q1 2009, but online sales were an exception.  —  According to a survey by Forrester Research and Shop.org, US online retail sales rose an average of 11% in the first three months of 2009.
Emma Hall / AdAge:
Online Ad Effectiveness Depends on Time of Day  —  Study: Consumers More Likely to Pay Attention to Marketers at Night  —  LONDON (AdAge.com) — While TV advertising has always been structured around times and dates, digital marketers are just waking up to the possibilities of how time targeting …
 
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 More Items: 
Forbes:
Virtually Flu-Free Meetings
Discussion: Network World
Erica Ogg / Crave: The gadget blog:
Adieu to the old-fashioned desktop computer?
Discussion: SlashGear and Electronista
Camille Ricketts / VentureBeat:
NEA breaks $2B for its latest venture capital fund
Discussion: paidContent.org
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Keep It Simple, Stupid
David Sarno / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Illinois attorney general demands shutdown of Craigslist's erotic services section
Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
HTC's XV6175 for Verizon outed in render form
Discussion: SlashGear
Douglas MacMillan / Tech Beat:
Facebook.com: Future Ghost Town?
 Earlier Items: 
Clive Thompson / Wired News:
Clive Thompson on Puzzles and the Hive Mind
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
MLB Nearing $1 Million In iPhone Revenue
Eliot Van Buskirk / Epicenter:
SeeqPod CEO: Acquisition Imminent
Discussion: Pulse2, Obsessable and Beet.TV
John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
What's Apple Building in There?