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2:50 PM ET, July 28, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Apple Is Growing Rotten To The Core: Official Google Voice App Blocked From App Store  —  Earlier today we learned that Apple had begun to pull all Google Voice-enabled applications from the App Store, citing the fact that they “duplicate features that come with the iPhone”.
RELATED:
Om Malik / GigaOM:
The Fact & Fiction of Google Voice's iPhone Rejection
Discussion: Techdirt, PC World and tinyComb, Thanks:atul
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Apple Rejects Google Voice Apps From App Store
Discussion: Technologizer and PreCentral.net
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Monster Merger: IBM Buys SPSS For Approx. $1.2 Billion In Cash Deal  —  IBM is buying analytics software and solutions provider SPSS in an all cash transaction at a price of $50/share - a 42 percent premium to Monday's closing price of $35.09 on Nasdaq - resulting in a total cash consideration …
RELATED:
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Blip.tv Lands A Big Distribution Deal With YouTube And Others; Redesigns Dashboard  —  Mike Hudack, the founder of Blip.tv, just landed a major set of deals to expand the distribution of his Web video network.  The biggest deal is with YouTube, which for the first time will allow Blip.tv …
RELATED:
Lisa Donovan / Chicago Sun Times:
Tweet about apartment mold draws lawsuit  —  It was a not-so-sweet Tweet about a Chicago apartment.  —  So Horizon Group Management LLC filed a libel lawsuit Monday against former tenant Amanda Bonnen, claiming one of her alleged Twitter posts “maliciously and wrongfully” …
Peter Cohen / Macworld:
Barnes & Noble makes Wi-Fi free via AT&T  —  Barnes & Noble bookstores nationwide offer Wi-Fi access, and the majority of them are already hotspots through AT&T. Those stores now offer free access via Wi-Fi, with a focus on expanding customer awareness of the Barnes & Noble's burgeoning e-book library.
Stephen Shankland / CNET News:
Thanks for giving my pixels back, browser makers  —  I'd personally like to offer browser makers my gratitude for realizing that my screen isn't big enough.  —  I'm one of those people who wants every bit of display real estate I can get.  The more I can see of the document I'm writing …
Prince McLean / AppleInsider:
Report: Hon Hai to build Apple tablets as soon as September  —  A Chinese newspaper has reported that Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. will assemble tablet computers for Apple that may appear for sale as early as September.  —  The report, published by the Taipei, Taiwan Apple Daily paper …
RELATED:
Monica Chen / DigiTimes:
No new netbooks from Asustek, Acer in 2H09; Acer pushes back Android netbook  —  Asustek Computer and Acer will not offer any new netbooks in the second half of 2009, as Intel plans to push the launch of its entry-level products including the Pine Trail-M platform to the first quarter of 2010, according to industry sources.
Will Knight / Technology Review:
Microsoft Game Helps Make Search Better  —  A new game asks users to help refine search results.  —  Researchers at Microsoft's labs in Redmond, WA, have released an online game to help fine-tune search results.  —  Called Page Hunt, the game presents players with web pages and asks …
RELATED:
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:
Microsoft Hopes To Improve Bing With Page Hunt Game
Discussion: Softpedia News
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Judge rejects fair use defense as Tenenbaum P2P trial begins  —  There will be no fair use defense for Joel Tenenbaum at trial this week.  —  Everything about the Tenenbaum case has been highly unusual, and Judge Nancy Gernter's final pretrial order was no exception.
RELATED:
Jim Goldman / Tech Check with Jim Goldman:
Is the Economy Really THIS Bad?  —  This was a strange earnings season.  —  But it has been a remarkably strange economy.  —  But when you look at the big names in tech, including Intel, IBM, Apple, Google, Yahoo, eBay, Microsoft, and the big names on Wall Street, there was a bizarre disconnect …
Stephen Shankland / CNET News:
Design ideas show Firefox 4.0 with a Chrome look  —  Mozilla has released mockups that show how Firefox 4.0 conceivably might look, and two words spring to my mind: Google Chrome.  —  Last week, Mozilla showed some mockups for the nearer-term Firefox 3.7 that eliminated the browser's title bar …
Electronista:
Sprint to buy out Virgin Mobile USA  —  Sprint this morning said it would buy out Virgin Mobile's US division for an equity value of $483 million.  The deal cancels out Virgin's $248 million in outstanding debts and is intended to bolster Sprint's efforts in the arena of prepaid phones.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Brainstorm Tech:
China's iPhone deal: New details emerge  —  The headlines out of China overnight Tuesday were headsnappers.  —  First Shanghai Security News reported that Apple (AAPL) had reached a three-year deal with China Unicom to market the iPhone in the world's largest cellphone market (600 million-plus subscribers).
Sarah Lacy / TechCrunch:
What Everyone Made from the Zappos Sale  —  If Zappos was a forced sale, would someone please come force me a raise?  —  Zappos just filed its S4 with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which details the history of the merger talks with Amazon.  There's a lot of boring boilerplate here …
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
OS X 10.5.8 Development Wrapping Up?  —  MacRumors has received word that Apple seeded OS X Leopard 10.5.8 Build 9L30 to developers last night, including only a single documented change related to an issue with external monitors and waking from sleep mode.  There are reportedly no listed outstanding issues in the latest build.
Discussion: Softpedia News and I4U News
Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
US Movie Companies Go After The Pirate Bay - Again  —  Despite losing in court against the music and movie industries, The Pirate Bay continues to operate, a clearly unacceptable situation for the plaintiffs in the case.  The verdict is subject to appeal and that could make the whole thing drag on for years yet.
Discussion: p2pnet
Jamie Lendino / PC Magazine:
SiRF Unveils Next Generation GPS  —  SiRF, the San Jose-based embedded GPS company, has unveiled SiRFstar IV, a vast upgrade to the GPS architecture used in many portable and in-car GPS systems released over the past five years.  —  The new architecture aims to reduce battery drain, and it allows for much smaller receiver components.
Peter Enav / Associated Press:
Taiwan's Foxconn agrees on suicide compensation  —  The Taiwanese employer of a young Chinese man who killed himself after being interrogated over a missing iPhone prototype has agreed to pay compensation to his family, a company official said Tuesday.  —  Sun Danyong, 25 …
Casey Ho / Google Mobile Blog:
The Iterative Web App: Links Got Shorter and Smarter  —  On April 7th, we announced a new version of Gmail for mobile for iPhone and Android-powered devices.  Among the improvements was a complete redesign of the web application's underlying code which allows us to more rapidly develop …
Discussion: TechCrunch
 
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 More Items: 
Abbey Klaassen / AdAge:
The Web Is Flat: Why Time Spent Online Is Leveling Off
Discussion: ChasNote, Thanks:mrinaldesai
Emma Barnett / Telegraph:
Microsoft in partner talks with local newspapers
Globe and Mail:
Ontario urges PM to block foreign Nortel sale
Garrick Schmitt / AdAge:
Can a ‘URL Killer’ Save Our Text-Weary Thumbs?
Thanks:atul
Mark Milian / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
What is Twitter? Most people still don't know, study finds
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, Thanks:electricwaffles
Jonny / Distorted-Loop.com:
iTunes will sell four billion tracks this year
Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac and Macsimum News
Robert L. Mitchell / Computerworld:
Data centers go underground
 Earlier Items: 
Greg Sandoval / CNET News:
Oracle sues Qtrax, claims P2P site owes $1.8 million
Discussion: hypebot
Charlotte Dunlap / Forbes:
HP Looks For Security Blanket
Rafat Ali / paidContent:
The New AOL LLC Details: Search Bidding War By Next Year …
Discussion: The Register
Steve Lohr / New York Times:
Learning the Power of Teamwork in a Netflix Race for $1 Million
 

 
From Mediagazer:

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

Evan Drellich / New York Times:
The MLB is planning national packages for streaming companies to bid on in 2028, when its national TV deals with ESPN, Fox, and Turner expire

Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch:
Tubi launches Scenes, a mobile feature that lets viewers watch 60-to-90-second trailer-style clips from its library to help with content discovery

 
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