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8:40 AM ET, July 21, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Eliot Van Buskirk / Epicenter:
Apple Preparing iPod Touch With Camera, Microphone: Source  —  Rumors have swirled about Apple readying a new version of the iPod Touch with a camera and microphone, which, combined with a Skype account, would pretty much obviate the need for a home phone line once and for all.
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Yahoo Finally Rolls Out New Homepage to the Masses-and, Drum Roll, It's Good (Plus Screenshots)  —  Although it's not news that Yahoo has been readying a new version of its homepage and has spent a lot of time doing so-in fact, it's gone all Handy Manny with a whole lot of test renovations …
RELATED:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
What's Up Next For Yahoo?  Better Search, Customizable Content (How Fluffy Do You Want Your News?)  —  Yahoo showed off a couple of new upcoming features during my briefing today on the new home page to launch tomorrow.  —  The first is a tool, called Customizable Content for now, to dial how “fun” or “serious” you like your news.
Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
iPhone prototype goes missing; Chinese worker investigated, commits suicide  —  Last Thursday, 25 year-old Sun Danyong committed suicide after a fourth-generation iPhone prototype he was responsible for went missing.  It's a story, from what tech-industry friends in China tell me …
Aaron / YouTube Biz Blog:
YouTube myth busting  —  One of our favorite shows at YouTube is MythBusters, the Discovery Channel's popular science program in which hosts Jamie and Adam bravely attempt to debunk urban legends.  For those of us who thought you could jump start a car with a defibrillator, we consider this show a public service.
RELATED:
Dan Rayburn / The Business Of Online Video:
YouTube's Biz Blog Goes On Offensive, Says Industry Comments Are “Myths”
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
Fred Vogelstein / Wired News:
Why Is Obama's Top Antitrust Cop Gunning for Google?  —  “I think you are going to see a repeat of Microsoft.”  —  Christine Varney's blunt assessment sent a buzz through the audience at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.  Varney, a partner at Hogan & Hartson and one of the country's …
Discussion: Smalltalk Tidbits … and digg.com
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Barnes & Noble partners with Plastic Logic; Opens up; Targets Kindle  —  Updated: Barnes & Noble has outlined its answer for Amazon's Kindle: A partnership with Plastic Logic, which will launch an eReader in early 2010, and plans to open its e-book sales to multiple platforms.
RELATED:
John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
Barnes & Noble to Amazon: Mine is Bigger Than Yours
Discussion: MobileContentToday and Tech Beat
Michael Learmonth / AdAge:
Conde Nast Says Goodbye to Men.Style.com, Hello to GQ.com, Details.com  —  Publisher Decides Magazine Brand Is Better Web Brand, Too  —  NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Conde Nast will shut down one of its web-only brands, Men.Style.com, when it gives two of its titles, GQ and Details, their own websites in October.
Discussion: TechCrunch, HipMojo.com and paidContent
RELATED:
Vogue:
Machine Dreams  —  Before I meet Marissa Mayer, the 34-year-old megamillionaire, Oscar de la Renta-obsessed, computer-programming Google executive who lives in a penthouse atop the Four Seasons, San Francisco, I of course Google her.
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider and Gawker
Andrey / Inside BlackBerry:
BlackBerry Desktop Software: Coming Soon to a Mac Near You!  —  Many of you commented on my “Updating Your BlackBerry Device Software” post back in April saying “...this is great!  But what about Mac?”  I could not respond to those comments at the time, but I'm happy to say there's some exciting news we can share with you.
Rebecca Buckman / Forbes:
Khosla Bucks VC Fundraising Drought  —  He's set to close $1 billion in new funds—though some new deals may pass through a “conflicts committee.”  —  BURLINGAME, Calif. — It's a tough time to raise a venture-capital fund.  But not if you're superstar investor Vinod Khosla …
Discussion: Beet.TV and PE Hub Blog
David Simon / CJR:
Build the Wall  —  Most readers won't pay for news, but if we move quickly, maybe enough of them will.  One man's bold blueprint.  —  To all of the bystanders reading this, pardon us.  The true audience for this essay narrows necessarily to a pair of notables who have it in their power …
Discussion: Search Engine Watch
RELATED:
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Charging for Access to News Sites
Discussion: Technovia
Patrick Thibodeau / Computerworld:
IBM tool allows virtual management from x86 servers to mainframes  —  Tools arrive in advance of Power7, which can support 1,000 virtual machines  —  Computerworld - If you go to IBM's Web site and search on the word heterogeneous, more than 22,000 results come back.
Discussion: The Register
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Adobe Unveils New Open Source Initiatives Targeted Towards Media Companies  —  Adobe has rolled out two new open source initiatives aimed specifically towards developers for media companies and publishers.  Adobe's Open Source Media Framework lets developers build more robust …
Discussion: eWeek, Contentinople, BetaNews and Beet.TV
Brad Reed / Network World:
Five technologies Iran is using to censor the Web  —  Government uses both blunt and surgical tools to stifle dissidents, hacker says  —  One month after a disputed presidential election sparked widespread unrest in Iran, the country's government has initiated a cyber-crackdown …
Andrew Bednarz / TheAppleBlog:
27 Bluetooth-enabled Multiplayer iPhone Games  —  The iPhone/iPod 3.0 OS allows third-party applications to utilize the device's Bluetooth capabilities for two-player games.  The first (and only) application I had that supported this in an update was Flight Control, and since then …
Discussion: digg.com
John Markoff / New York Times:
New Technology to Make Digital Data Self-Destruct  —  A group of computer scientists at the University of Washington has developed a way to make electronic messages “self destruct” after a certain period of time, like messages in sand lost to the surf.  The researchers said they think the new software …
BBC:
Pirate sites return in legal form  —  Peer-to-peer download sites Kazaa and The Pirate Bay are set to return with a new, legal subscription model.  —  Kazaa, shut down by a $150m (£91m) lawsuit in 2006, will be reincarnated as an unlimited download service with a fixed monthly subscription rate.
Discussion: GigaOM
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
People Are Using Google Reader “Likes,” But Some Hate It.  And It's Flawed.  —  As we expected, the new “like” functionality in Google Reader seems like it's seeing some good usage.  Certainly, given that “likes” are fully public, we're seeing much more social activity on feed items …
Discussion: Shooting at Bubbles
Adam Ostrow / Mashable!:
Sharing on Facebook Now More Popular than Sharing by Email  —  How do you know which social sites are most popular?  Aside from looking at the raw traffic numbers, a good indicator is data about which sites are seeing the most content shared on them.  —  Among the companies with access …
Discussion: Lifehacker
Sarah Lacy / TechCrunch:
Wonga: How the Net Should Kill the Finance Industry  —  What's awesome about the Internet is how it breaks up monopolistic markets where middlemen unfairly gobble up outsized fees, leaving us little choice but to keep paying them.  It happened with software, it happened with music, and it's happening now with media.
Tiernan Ray / Tech Trader Daily:
Palm: Report Sees Pre Defects Hitting Earnings  —  Despite being enamored with Palm's (PALM) Pre smartphone, analyst Kevin Dede with boutique investment banker and brokerage Jesup & Lamont this morning initiated coverage of Palm shares with a “Sell” rating.  Dede thinks the shares are worth $12.50.
Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
Facebook co-founder's Asana raises funding — from Facebook angels?  —  We're hearing that the business collaboration company co-founded by Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein (both formerly of Facebook) has raised funding from the same investors who backed the popular social networking site.
Brian Krebs / Security Fix:
The Growing Threat to Business Banking Online  —  Federal investigators are fielding a large number of complaints from organizations that are being fleeced by a potent combination of organized cyber crooks abroad, sophisticated malicious software and not-so-sophisticated accomplices here in the United States, Security Fix has learned.
Joe Sharkey / New York Times:
A Race to Provide Wi-Fi (but Not the Voice Part)  —  THOUGH it is not yet clear how extensive the market is for in-flight Wi-Fi service, the competition to provide it is heating up.  Row44, a California company whose in-flight Wi-Fi technology uses satellite connections …
Nick Thuesen / Open:
Announcing the NYT API Tool  —  A few weeks ago, I was playing with the Facebook API and using the Facebook API Test Console.  I thought to myself, “Wow, if we were smart, we'd have something like this for our APIs.”  Sadly, it took me another two or three minutes before I remembered I was a developer and could just build it myself!
 
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 More Items: 
Venture Capital Dispatch:
Draper Fisher Rounds Up $196M For Scaled-Down Fund
Jessica E. Vascellaro / Digits:
EU Calls Google Books Hearing, House Ponders One
Discussion: Associated Press and CNET News
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Venture Capital Dollars Stabilize in Second Quarter at Mid-1990s Levels
Kristen Nicole / The Social Times:
3121 is LinkedIn, Just for Congress Members
Discussion: paidContent and SOMEWHAT FRANK
Ed Felten / Freedom to Tinker:
Lessons from Amazon's 1984 Moment
Andy Greenberg / Forbes:
Obama's Unwilling Cyber Czars
 Earlier Items: 
Microsoft:
Microsoft Contributes Linux Drivers to Linux Community