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1:05 PM ET, August 17, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Bryan Appleyard / Times of London:
Steve Jobs: The man who polished Apple  —  Chief executive of Apple Inc and owner of Jackling House changed the world and cheated death.  So why the paranoia?  —  For five years the owner of the Jackling House in Woodside, California, has been trying to knock it down.
RELATED:
Softpedia News:
Apple Tries to Block Newspaper Story on Steve Jobs  —  The life of Steve Jobs, and the life at Apple  —  Apple reportedly tried to block a lengthy, 4,000-word piece in yesterday's Sunday Times newspaper.  In the story (eventually published), Apple and its iconic CEO are described as imperfect entities.
Discussion: Gearlog
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Breaking: MySpace Close To Acquiring iLike For $20 Million  —  MySpace is close to acquiring popular social music service iLike, we've confirmed with multiple sources.  The deal, which should close this week, will be MySpace's first acquisition since new CEO Owen Van Natta took control of the company in April 2009.
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Dell Mini 3i smartphone gets official outing in China  —  At last, the much rumored Dell cellphone has made its first official appearance.  The 3.5-inch 360 x 640 pixel device with capacitive touchscreen was on display in China running the Android-based Open Mobile System (OMS).
RELATED:
Sascha Segan / PC Magazine:
Dell's China Phone Just a ‘Proof of Concept’  —  Dell yesterday on Sunday a “proof of concept” smart phone at an event sponsored by Chinese wireless carrier China Mobile, Dell spokesman Matt Parretta said.  —  “The only thing that we're confirming is that we're in product development with China Mobile …
msnbc.com:
Msnbc.com acquires local news Web site  —  Chicago-based EveryBlock will continue as independent brand  —  Msnbc.com has acquired EveryBlock, a Chicago-based Web site that offers news and information down to the neighborhood level in 15 cities, the two companies announced Monday.
Elizabeth Judge / Times of London:
Big noises join chorus behind Twitter TweetDeck  —  Two of the biggest names in the British technology sector have thrown their weight behind a start-up operation aimed at providing easier access to Twitter, the social networking and microblogging site.  —  Brent Hoberman, co-founder of Lastminute.com …
Mr. Besilly / iPhone Savior:
TomTom iPhone Navigation Makes U.S. App Store Debut for $100  —  TomTom has officially launched their turn-by-turn GPS navigation system for both U.S. and Canada in the App Store for $99.99.  On Sunday, international versions of TomTom's app popped up in the New Zealand App Store via iTunes …
RELATED:
Andrew Lim / Recombu:
TomTom for iPhone 3G and 3GS: Satisfied-nav  —  Do you look at your iPhone so much that you often get lost?  There's an app for that.  Today TomTom released its iPhone 3G and 3GS app that offers sat-nav goodness without the clunky looking sat-nav.  It costs £60, which isn't that expensive …
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Huffington Post and Facebook Go “Social News,” With Connect on Steroids  —  In an unusually robust collaboration using Facebook Connect, the Huffington Post is launching a feature on Monday called “HuffPost Social News,” which lets readers create a personalized social networking-like news page on the Huffington Post itself.
Kevin Purdy / Lifehacker:
Make Your Own URL Shortening Service  —  URL shortening services are ubiquitous on Twitter and other cramped online spaces.  They won't all last, as tr.im has demonstrated, and their shutdowns could annihilate your linking history.  If you own a domain, though, you can host your own service.
Discussion: Techgeist and AppScout, Thanks:mrinaldesai
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
Download a Copy of The Pirate Bay Before It's Gone  —  In common with music and movies, it's not that hard to copy a website.  It might take some serious server power to serve torrents to millions of people every day, but all the torrent files and site code don't take up that much space.
Ashlee Vance / Bits:
In the New Data Center, It's Roofs Off and Taxes Down  —  Data centers can be such touchy things.  —  Google and Microsoft continue to spar over both their data center designs and how much information they reveal about the inner workings of their vast computing centers.
Dana Blankenhorn / Open Source:
Mozilla pushes out .Net incompatible Firefox 3.5  —  Firefox users got a surprise when they booted up this morning, a software update box for Firefox 3.5, “the most advanced Firefox yet.”  —  A warning sticker at the bottom of the box notes that it will cause “some of your extensions …
Discussion: Internetnews Blog
Jason Hiner / Between the Lines:
Directory: 100 technology experts on Twitter  —  One the most important — and most difficult — things to do when you first start using Twitter is to develop a good list of people to follow.  You can check your friends' lists of followers, watch for interesting people that come up in @replies …
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
The Android Opportunity  —  In just the past few weeks Steven Frank, Alex Payne, and Andre Torrez all tried switching from the iPhone to Android.  All three are smart, open-minded, and eloquent regarding their reasons for trying Android.  All three are developers who care about the quality and design of software and hardware.
Paul Graham / Hacker News:
A New Experiment: The RFS  —  Every funding cycle we try to do something new.  For the upcoming winter 2010 cycle we're introducing the RFS (Request for Startups).  —  There are a lot of startup ideas we've been waiting for people to apply with, sometimes for years.
Discussion: Fast Company
RELATED:
David Carr / New York Times:
AOL Blossoms as Print Retreats  —  The office at Ninth Street and Broadway in Manhattan in the former Wanamaker's department store has all of the trademarks of a well-financed digital start-up.  Young people eat pizza and chat about applications while others are jammed into conference rooms discussing search optimization.
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider, Thanks:mrinaldesai
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Zendesk Raises $6 Million In B Round, Benchmark's Peter Fenton Joins Board  —  Benchmark Capital is investing in Danish startup Zendesk, and led a $6 million B round of funding.  Benchmark's rock star partner Peter Fenton is joining the board.  —  Zendesk just raised money in May in an A round …
Tameka Kee / paidContent:
myYearbook Turns A Profit By Getting Users To Pay  —  While pure-play media sites try to figure out how to offset ad sales declines by charging readers, it seems that social networks—surprisingly— are making faster progress at getting their users to pay up.
Discussion: Tech Beat and MediaPost
Yinka Adegoke -Analysis / Reuters:
Is Comcast poised to do another Disney?  —  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Comcast Corp has been hoarding cash to better manage its balance sheet but investors worry that it could be building a war chest for a splashy acquisition similar to its failed 2004 bid for Walt Disney Co.
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Gmail Nudges Past AOL Email In The U.S. To Take No. 3 Spot.  —  Good thing Gmail is out of beta.  It is now the third largest Web mail service in the U.S. In July, Gmail nudged past AOL Email with 37 million unique visitors compared to 36.4 million for AOL, according to comScore estimates.
 
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 More Items: 
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
CBS, Amazon Already Sniffing Around GDGT
Thanks:atul
Galen Ward / TechFlash:
New Google is the old Microsoft
Discussion: TechFlash, Thanks:galenward
Eric Pfanner / New York Times:
The Paper That Doesn't Want to Be Free
Softpedia News:
Two Facebook Phishing Attacks in One Day
Patrick Stafford / SmartCompany:
Twitter, Melbourne IT order uSocial to be shut down
 Earlier Items: 
Josh Lowensohn / CNET News:
Preview of Jolicloud: The social Netbook OS
canada.com:
Facebook must satisfy Canada's privacy commissioner by Monday
Discussion: Slashdot
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Yahoo Veterans Launch Rocket Fuel, A “Hybrid” Ad Network
Brooke Crothers / Crave: The gadget blog:
The rise of the $299 Wal-Mart laptop
Discussion: TECH.BLORGE.com and The Toybox
Siobhan Gorman / Wall Street Journal:
Hackers Stole IDs for Attacks
Discussion: PC World and Net Effect
Jeff Atwood / Coding Horror:
All Programming is Web Programming  —  Michael Braude decries …
Brad Stone / New York Times:
Sites Ask Users to Spend to Save
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
The Onion, backed by some Sandy Hook families and Everytown for Gun Safety, buys Infowars in a bankruptcy auction, and plans a January 2025 relaunch as a parody

Matthew Keys / The Desk:
Disney said Disney+ Q4 ARPU in the US and Canada, down 1% QoQ to $7.70, was affected partly by new wholesale arrangements with some distributors

Liam Scott / Voice of America:
Reporters Without Borders sues X in France for “complicity in disseminating false information”, after X failed to block a fake video with RSF's logo

 
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