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12:50 PM ET, August 19, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Daniel Shen / DigiTimes:
Microsoft to adopt dual-platform strategy to compete with Android and iPhone, say handset makers  —  Microsoft plans to adopt a dual platform strategy to promote its Windows Mobile OS (operating system) so as to take aims at both Android- and iPhone-based platforms, according to sources at Taiwan handset makers.
RELATED:
Andy Kessler / Wall Street Journal:
Why AT&T Killed Google Voice  —  Telecom operators are yesterday's business.  It's time for a national data policy that encourages innovation.  —  Printer  —  Friendly  —  Earlier this month, Apple rejected an application for the iPhone called Google Voice.
Nate Lanxon / CNET News:
Shocker: Windows 7 to sell in UK for half the US price!  —  We've been doing some investigating, friends — making phone calls, demanding answers.  And it was worth it.  We can confirm something very few people get to confirm: British shoppers aren't going to be totally shafted over software pricing for once.
Greg Sandoval / CNET News:
Does iLike price show cost of Facebook dependence?  —  Music service iLike is dependent on Facebook for 80 percent of its traffic and revenue and that fact has suppressed iLike's value, say sources close to iLike.  —  MySpace has offered about $20 million to acquire iLike …
Discussion: TechFlash and HipMojo.com
RELATED:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
iLike Also Had Offers From Facebook and Amazon
Discussion: Marc's Voice
David Pakman / Silicon Alley Insider:
Why iLike Sold For Peanuts
Discussion: Gawker and hypebot
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Facebook 3.0 May Be The Most Useful App On The iPhone Yet  —  When Facebook launched the 2.0 version of its iPhone app in September of last year, it was a huge upgrade from its original app that launched with the App Store last July.  And now it's on the verge of launching the 3.0 version of the app …
Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
Sony sneaks PS3 Slim through FCC under pseudonym, 250GB model discovered  —  Shenanigans were afoot in Sony's efforts to throw bloggers (such as yours truly) off the scent of the just-announced PS3 Slim in the FCC, and we've got to give them credit — filing the thing as a “Computer Entertainment System” …
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
What Are These Bars On My iPhone?  Wait, You Mean AT&T Is Working?!  —  Over the weekend I noticed something odd going on with my iPhone: It was working!  That is to say I actually had signal in the SoMa district of San Francisco, which is something that I had basically given up on long ago.
Discussion: Communications …
Suzanne Choney / msnbc.com:
Survey: Average gamer is 35, fat and depressed  —  CDC study finds playing leads to ‘lower extraversion’ in adult gamers  —  A new study says the average age of video-game players in the United States is 35, and oh, by the way: They're overweight and tend to be depressed.
Discussion: Geekend, HipMojo.com and Maximum PC all
Gavin Newsom / TechCrunch:
San Francisco Opens The City's Data  —  This guest post was written by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who was elected to the position in 2003 and reelected in 2007.  Newsom is also running for governor of California in the upcoming 2010 election.  In this guest post …
Discussion: Tech Daily Dose
Jenn K. Lee / Pocketables:
Archos confirms Sept 15th Android event, readies AppsLib app store  —  Even though we've known since June that Archos would be announcing its long-rumored Android internet tablet next month, it's still great to see this robot-adorned invitation confirming that September 15th is the day for the big reveal.
Ben Parr / Mashable!:
ReTweet.com to Launch at Noon, Declares War on Tweetmeme  —  Retweeting is a big business.  Just ask Tweetmeme, the popular service that tracks the most shared stories on Twitter and provides the popular retweet buttons you see on many websites including Mashable.
Discussion: Techgeist and Softpedia News, Thanks:nathanielmc
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Yahoo BOSS Might Be Bigger Than Bing  —  One of the least appreciated, but smartest, moves Yahoo has made in the past year is to launch Yahoo BOSS, its open search APIs which lets developers create their own custom search engine using Yahoo's algorithms.  We use it to power search across the TechCrunch network.
Om Malik / GigaOM:
How Smartphones Are Making Wi-Fi Hot Again  —  As many of you know, I recently moved to a new neighborhood in San Francisco.  The move came with its own share of ups and downs, but waiting for broadband was the most challenging for me.  It took almost five days to get the connection hooked up …
Paul McDougall / InformationWeek:
Microsoft Hit With Two More Patent Suits  —  It's open season on Redmond in Eastern Texas jurisdiction as more actions emerge in wake of i4i victory.  —  A Texas judge's order that Microsoft pay more than $240 million in damages to an obscure Canadian firm and stop selling …
Elizabeth Woyke / Forbes:
Reinventing Chumby  —  The interactive device's open-source software will power picture frames and other gadgets by the end of the year.  —  Say “Chumby” and an image of a squat beanbag with a touch-screen comes to mind—that is, if you know what a Chumby is.  —  That mix of cute and obscure is set to change soon.
New York Times:
Lawyer and Author Adds His Objections to Settling the Google Book Lawsuit  —  SAN FRANCISCO — A growing chorus of authors, academics and other book industry figures is objecting to the settlement of a class-action suit that would allow Google to profit from digital versions of millions of books it has scanned from libraries.
Jon Stokes / Ars Technica:
How I rode a Samsung tablet PC to retro role-playing nirvana  —  Great art stands the test of time, and demands of us a commitment commensurate with its greatness... or, at least that's the kind of thing I only half-ironically told myself as I pulled the trigger on the purchase of an obsolete …
Discussion: GottaBeMobile.com
Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:
Wikipedia Lauches Official iPhone App  —  The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization behind the popular Wikipedia, just released its first official iPhone application for Wikipedia.  Wikipedia Mobile, which is available for free in the App Store now (iTunes link), gives users access to iPhone-formatted Wikipedia articles.
Andrew Allemann / Domain Name Wire:
AOL Sues Advertise.com for Trademark Infringement  —  AOL stretches its trademarks beyond belief.  —  Apparently AOL thinks it owns every domain name that is some variation of “Advertising”.  —  The company just filed a lawsuit against Advertise.com.  Advertise.com was formerly known …
Zach Epstein / Boy Genius Report:
Possible new iTunes 9 screenshots depict Facebook social playlist integration, third-party device support  —  Ready for round 2, ladies and gents?  A tipster just dropped a new handful of iTunes 9 screenshots in our inbox and while their authenticity cannot be confirmed, they're certainly worth mentioning.
Discussion: MacRumors, 9 to 5 Mac and I4U News
Electronista:
Logitech bows track-anywhere laser mice  —  Logitech on Wednesday answered Microsoft's BlueTrack with two mice using its own technology to work on any available surface.  The Performance Mouse MX and Anywhere Mouse MX both use a laser variant nicknamed Darkfield that uses microscopy …
Discussion: PC World and Crave
Julian Lee / Sydney Morning Herald:
Aussie publishers reject Amazon Kindle  —  The race by newspaper publishers to explore platforms to deliver their content digitally is hotting up with news that Amazon Kindle is, in effect, out of the running in Australia.  —  Fairfax Media, publisher of the Herald, has rebuffed Amazon's portable e-reader …
Discussion: The Register
Lance Whitney / CNET News:
Rogue pharmacies still a problem for search engines  —  With Bing, Microsoft is trying to reinvigorate its role in the search business.  It has also inadvertently brought renewed attention to the problem of illicit pharmacies operating on the Internet.  —  The attention on Bing came earlier …
Discussion: LegitScript Blog
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Apple: How They Can Sell 50 Million iPhones A Year  —  Apple (AAPL) is on track to sell more than 50 million iPhones a year by the September 2011 fiscal year, Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi asserted in a research note this morning, up from an estimated 20 million in fiscal 2009.
Eric Engleman / TechFlash:
Trying to find an end table at Ikea?  There's an app for that  —  Ever gotten overwhelmed in a cavernous Ikea store, battling the crowds to look at blond wood furniture and get a plate of Swedish meatballs?  One developer thinks he has the answer: an iPhone app to help shoppers track products …
Discussion: Silicon Florist, Thanks:johnhcook
David Kaplan / paidContent:
CBS Kicks Off Fall Season Via Video Magazine Insert With Entertainment Weekly  —  After a sluggish TV Upfront season, CBS (NYSE: CBS) is hoping to generate some excitement around its fall season by promoting its shows with a special magazine insert that plays video clips, the network announced at a morning press conference.
Web Ecology Project:
Detecting Sadness in 140 Characters:  —  Sentiment Analysis and Mourning Michael Jackson on Twitter  —  with Michael J. Edwards and Erhardt Graeff  —  Michael Jackson's death created an emotional outpouring of unprecedented magnitude on Twitter.  In this report, we examine 1,860,427 tweets …
 
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 More Items: 
Ryan Singel / Epicenter:
Court Overturns First Stock Option Backdating Conviction
Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
Hackers ‘Steal’ New Leona Lewis, Timberlake Track
Discussion: p2pnet and paidContent
Ernesto / freakbits.com:
BitTorrent and P2P Banned in Antartica
Discussion: Techdirt, Mashable! and Download Squad
Technology Review:
How to Forecast Malicious Internet Attacks
Betsy Taylor / Associated Press:
Woman charged with harassment over suggestive post
Discussion: Ars Technica and The Register
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
FriendFeed Cofounder Paul Buchheit Discusses Facebook Acquisition (video)
Discussion: The SiliconANGLE
Joseph Tartakoff / paidContent:
Industry Moves: Microsoft Hires A Former Adobe Flash Evangelist To Pitch Silverlight
Thanks:c_santiago
 Earlier Items: 
Harry McCracken / Technologizer:
The Press Releases of the Damned!
Discussion: Slashdot
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
MySpace Disables Auto-Play Of Profile Songs To Get Streaming Costs Under Control
Discussion: Softpedia News, AppScout and hypebot
The ChubbyBrain Blog:
Venture Capital Backed Mobile App Startups Remain Predominantly Mobile OS Agnostic
Scott M. Fulton, III / BetaNews:
First Google Chrome 4 reveals the beginnings of cloud synchronization
Discussion: internetnews.com
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Is Mint Going After Freshbooks?  Its New Features Point In That Direction.
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Max Tani / Semafor:
News media personalities including Andrew Ross Sorkin, David Remnick, Rachel Maddow, Mehdi Hasan, and Bari Weiss reflect on the things they got wrong in 2024

William Christou / The Guardian:
A look at Syria's state news agency Sana, which had led the Assad regime's propaganda effort for the past 13 years, with its journalists unable to report freely

Lillian Rizzo / CNBC:
Industry executives say media companies expect ad spending to stabilize in 2025 and even grow for platforms with sports and live events

 
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