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8:50 PM ET, June 30, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
thepiratebay.org:
TPB might change owner  —  Yes, it's true.  News reached the press today in Sweden - The Pirate Bay might get aquired by Global Gaming Factory X AB.  A lot of people are worried.  We're not and you shouldn't be either!  TPB is being sold for a great bit underneath it's value if the money would be the interesting part.
RELATED:
Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
The Pirate Bay Sold To Software Company, Goes Legal  —  Software company Global Gaming Factory X (GGF) says it is in the process of acquiring The Pirate Bay and file-sharing technology company Peerialism.  GGF claims to have the biggest network of internet cafés and gaming centers in the world.
Andy Greenberg / Forbes:   The Pirate Bay's Revolt
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Is The Pirate Bay Really Going Legit? Of Course Not.
Harry McCracken / Technologizer:
Firefox 3.5: The Technologizer Review  —  Was it really fewer than five years ago that Firefox 1.0 debuted?  Its arrival ended the dismal period in which only one browser-Microsoft's mediocre Internet Explorer-seemed to be viable.  With Firefox, Mozilla proved that millions of people were itching to adopt a better browser.
RELATED:
Stephen Shankland / CNET News:
With 3.5 launch, Firefox faces new challengers  —  A funny thing to happened to Firefox on the way to vanquishing Internet Explorer: the Mozilla browser's success opened the door for a host of its other competitors.  —  Even as Internet Explorer's market share has slipped …
Josh Catone / Mashable!:   Sneak Peek: What's On Tap for Firefox in 2010
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
YouTube Co-Founder Steve Chen Moves On, Stays with Google  —  YouTube co-founder Steve Chen, who oversaw the company's technical operations as it grew from an upstart to the world's biggest video site, no longer works at the site day-to-day.  —  This is old news, literally …
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Twitter Rolls Out UI Changes To Simplify Your Social Connections  —  Twitter has just quietly rolled out a set of changes to its user interface on the “Following” and “Followers” sections of its website.  These changes will clearly make it easier to manage who you follow as well as take actions …
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Here Comes the Video Shakeout: Joost Scales Down, CEO Mike Volpi Steps Out  —  Here's the beginning of the inevitable online video shakeout: Joost, the once-hyped video service that was supposed to rival Google's (GOOG) YouTube, is restructuring to focus on “white label” services, i.e., a back end for other video players.
RELATED:
Mike Volpi / Joost:
A Note About Today's Changes
Discussion: Bits, Press, TheNextWeb.com and ReadWriteWeb
Paul Boutin / VentureBeat:
Flickr adds direct-to-Twitter publishing  —  What took them so long?  Flickr now has a built-in feature that lets members tweet their photos.  “You can upload directly to Flickr and Twitter simultaneously, or tweet a photo already on Flickr, using a special short Flic.kr URL,” says the company's FAQ.
Harry McCracken / Technologizer:
Microsoft's Odd (and, in One Case, Utterly Revolting) Ads for Internet Explorer  —  Internet Explorer 8 is a decent browser, but there's a new ad for it (showing only online, according to Idsgn, which is where I read about it by way of Daring Fireball) that not only doesn't make me wanting to use IE …
Google Enterprise Blog:
Updates to Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook  —  When we announced Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook a few weeks ago, we committed to improving it over time to make the Outlook experience on Apps as similar to the experience on Exchange as possible.
Matt Rosoff / Digital Noise:
Road to Pandora now goes through Amazon  —  Pandora is a great music-discovery service, so it's only natural that independent bands would hope to get their music placed on it.  Unfortunately for them, Pandora just made that a little harder—and a little more expensive.
Discussion: hypebot
Michael Wines / New York Times:
Beijing Delays Rule on Software Censor  —  BEIJING — Facing strong resistance at home and abroad, China on Tuesday delayed enforcement of a new rule requiring manufacturers to pre-install Internet filtering software on all new computers.  —  The delay by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology …
RELATED:
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Cisco Launches Services, Shows Off Its Hit List  —  Cisco today outlined its plans for delivering IT services over the web (aka cloud services), and as part of a conference call, showed off a great slide that illustrates exactly how many companies this former networking gear maker wants to take on.
Discussion: The Register and internetnews.com
Lionel Menchaca / Direct2Dell:
GPS and Wi-Fi Positioning Coming to the Mini 10  —  With the recent buzz around the forthcoming TomTom navigation app for the iPhone and recent report that demand for GPS devices is expected to grow steadily over the next few years, there's no question that there's a lot of interest in the technology.
QuickPWN:
iPhone SDK 3.1 and iPhone OS 3.1 Beta Available to Developers  —  I just received the following e-mail from Apple: … iPhone SDK 3.1 beta and iPhone OS 3.1 beta is now available to developers.  If you're a developer head on over to the iPhone Developer center and get the latest iPhone 3.1 beta download!
Discussion: MacRumors and The iPhone Blog, Thanks:quickpwn
John Cook / Gawker:
Twitter-Addled CNN Refers to Tweets as a ‘Source’  —  Everyone's coverage of the uprising in Iran has been Twitter-centric, for obvious reasons.  But CNN, in an apparent attempt to look like they have real, non-Twitter newsgathering capabilities, has been regurgitating Twitter posts and attributing them to unnamed “sources.”
Geoffrey A. Fowler / Wall Street Journal:
Amazon Cuts Off Hawaii Affiliates  —  Amazon.com Inc. has informed its marketing affiliates in Hawaii that it is ending its business with them in order to avoid collecting sales tax in the state.  —  Following in the footsteps of North Carolina and Rhode Island, lawmakers in Hawaii …
Jim Dalrymple / CNET News:
Maine: A MacBook for each student in grades 7-12  —  Maine is extending an existing Apple notebook purchase program to high-school students.  —  Apple has been working with the state since 2002 to provide middle school students with notebook computers.  With the expansion …
Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
Meebo launches toolbar ads today, ramping up revenue  —  Meebo is taking another big step towards making its instant messaging service profitable.  It's officially launching a new product that runs interactive pop-out ads within its IM toolbar available on partner sites.
Discussion: TechCrunch and Adrants
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
The iPhone 3GS: Should You Get It?  —  Disclosure: I have not bought an iPhone 3GS — I'm still unsure if I will.  Apple gave me a review unit to play with for 60 days.  —  I've had the new iPhone 3GS for a little over a week now.  Using it day-to-day over the course of that time, I have a pretty good feel for it.
Discussion: The Apple Core
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Can Open Government Be Gamed?  —  If information is power, the first step to gaining power is to get the right data.  The Obama administration is a big proponent of opening up government data and making it digitally available.  Today at the Personal Democracy Forum in New York City …
Heather Dougherty / Hitwise Intelligence:
Michael Jackson Draws Record Traffic to TMZ  —  TMZ was the first to break the news about Michael Jackson's death last Thursday and scooped all of the major news outlets.  As a result, traffic to TMZ reached a 3 year high, with visits increasing 5x in volume from the previous day.
Choward / Digg the Blog:
Digg: Dupe Detection Updates Are Here  —  After much anticipation, we are finally releasing several major updates to our dupe detection technology and content submission process that should go a long way in eliminating duplicate submissions.  —  To better understand the nature of the problem …
Gagan Biyani / MobileCrunch:
Blackberry Tour to launch on Verizon Wireless on July 12th  —  If you've been biting your nails off anticipating the launch of the Blackberry Tour, you probably want to visit a psychiatrist ASAP.  But you can also be happy to know that Verizon Wireless just announced that they'll be releasing the Tour on July 12th.
Kip Kniskern / LiveSide:
Survey: a new name for Office Web Apps, coming soon?  —  When we last came across a Microsoft Site Survey, it correctly gave us the new name for Morro - “Microsoft Security Essentials”, and we're really beginning to like this new pipeline of information.  In a new survey, Microsoft asks …
 
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 More Items: 
Agence France Presse:
EU travellers to get cheaper mobile phone calls from Wednesday
Joseph Tartakoff / paidContent:
MojoPages Raises $5 Million In First Round, As Rival Local.com Goes Shopping
Discussion: Business Wire and Screenwerk
Emil Protalinski / Ars Technica:
Microsoft Surface SDK now available for Microsoft Partners
Discussion: Neowin.net
Charlie Demerjian / SemiAccurate:
Battery life claims become a class action
Discussion: Techdirt and VentureBeat
Patrick Gray / Risky Business:
Juniper Networks Gags “ATM Jackpot” Researcher
Discussion: ITworld.com and The Register
Olga Kharif / Business Week:
Motorola's New Smartphones: Sales, Not ‘Dazzle’
Discussion: mocoNews and FierceWireless
Joe Mandak / Associated Press:
SF man pleads guilty in Pa. to credit card scam
Andrew Allemann / Domain Name Wire:
Talk.com Domain Name Sells for $500,000
 Earlier Items: 
Arn / Touch Arcade:
Carmack: ‘Doom Classic’ …
Discussion: PC World and TUAW
Michael Nielsen:
Is scientific publishing about to be disrupted?
Discussion: open, Thanks:mrinaldesai
Kevin Poulsen / Threat Level:
Blind Hacker Sentenced to 11 Years in Prison
Discussion: eWeek and DailyTech
Matt Holliday / Inside Facebook:
oDesk using Facebook Connect to Match Freelancers with Jobs
Discussion: All Facebook and Mashable!
Preethi Dumpala / Silicon Alley Insider:
Most Dead Newspapers Not Doing Well Online
Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Palm Pre Sales Topped 300,000 In June, Analyst Says
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Caitlin Huston / The Hollywood Reporter:
Internal memo: Hearst Magazines president announces layoffs as part of a decision to “reallocate resources” to “continue our focus on digital innovation”

Lachlan Cartwright / The Ankler:
Sources: MSNBC renewed Rachel Maddow's contract early this fall, but with a pay cut; MSNBC bosses' plan to shake up daytime and weekend programming

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced she will leave the agency on January 20; she was the first woman to be confirmed to lead the agency

 
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