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2:20 PM ET, August 25, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Yukari Iwatani Kane / Wall Street Journal:
Jobs, Back at Apple, Focuses on New Tablet  —  Just a few months after Steve Jobs had a liver transplant, the Apple Inc. chief executive is once again managing even the smallest details of his company's products, this time focused on a new tablet device.  —  Since his return in late June …
Rafat Ali / paidContent:
Yahoo Acquiring Arab Portal Maktoob After All; Around $75M-$80M  —  Last month we got a tip that Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) was in final stages of buying onlien of the largest Arab online portals Maktoob, for about $75 million.  This was right when the MSFT-Yahoo deal was announced …
RELATED:
Dylan Bowman / Maktoob Business:
Yahoo! to acquire Maktoob.com  —  Yahoo! has agreed to acquire Maktoob.com, the Arab world's largest online community, marking the first major investment by a U.S. technology company in a region where internet penetration is still in its infancy.  The global internet giant said on Tuesday …
Andrew Nusca / Between the Lines:
Liveblog: Sony announces $399 7" Wi-Fi 3G e-book Reader; will it kill the Kindle?  —  Get BTL via:  —  We're here live in New York for Sony's Reader press event. … 10:46 AM: That's all, folks!  —  10:45 AM: Haber announces “Reader Daily Edition, our first 3G wireless reader with 7-inch display.”
RELATED:
John Timmer / Ars Technica:
Sony to link Readers with libraries, allow e-book borrowing
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Sony Launches Words Move Me, A Literary Twitter Clone
Discussion: GigaOM and Fast Company
Gary Wolf / Wired News:
Why Craigslist Is Such a Mess  —  The Internet's great promise is to make the world's information universally accessible and useful.  So how come when you arrive at the most popular dating site in the US you find a stream of anonymous come-ons intermixed with insults, ads for prostitutes, naked pictures, and obvious scams?
Discussion: Epicenter
RELATED:
Fred / A VC:
What We Can Learn From Mess  —  Gary Wolf wrote a Wired cover story about craigslist called “Why Craigslist Is Such A Mess”.  It's a somewhat strange article because it is highly critical of craigslist's design, management, and lack of innovation.  But you cannot read that article …
Joe Hewitt:
Innocent Until Proven Guilty  —  I'd like to add my voice to the stream of complaints about the iPhone App Store, but before I say anything critical, I have to promise one thing.  No matter how annoyed I get, I will not stop developing for Apple's platforms or using Apple's products as long …
RELATED:
Spanner Spencer / www.pocketgamer.biz:   Facebook app developer calls for Apple to remove the iPhone submissions process
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
The Pirate Bay Returns With Guns Blazing  —  When The Pirate Bay was shut down yesterday many believed that this was the end for the Internet's largest BitTorrent tracker.  —  However, despite the fact that the site is set to be sold later this week, the Pirate Bay team worked around the clock …
RELATED:
Computerworld:
Pirate Bay ISP victim of sabotage after shutdown
Claire Cain Miller / Bits:
A Teenager's Dream: An iPhone App for Free Texting  —  A recently released app that offers free text messages on the iPhone is welcome news to parents of teenagers upset over the cellphone bills of their hypertexting children.  But can it be a sustainable business?
Discussion: Phone Arena
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Brainstorm Tech:
Apple taps ‘Puddy’ to attack Windows 7  —  After a hiatus of three and a half months without a new TV ad, Apple (AAPL) broke out a pair of fresh “Get a Mac” spots Monday night to soften the ground for the next operating system war with Microsoft (MSFT).  —  Earlier that day …
Dan Nystedt / PC World:
Asustek's Android Eee PC Remains in Deep Freeze  —  The CEO of netbook pioneer Asustek Computer said Tuesday that he still sees no clear market for mini-laptops known as smartbooks, the reason the company isn't moving forward in that product segment.  —  The company raised hopes …
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Xbox 360 Pro and Elite price cuts confirmed in Target ad for next week  —  We just received a pair of pics from “next week's” Target Ad.  As has been heavily rumored, the Xbox 360 60GB Pro system will be cut to $250 while the 120GB Elite will drop to $300.  Knowing that Target's weekly ads run …
Jordan Weitz / Google LatLong:
Arterial traffic available on Google Maps  —  Commuters have long relied on traffic sites to help them determine their last-minute path around poor traffic on the highway.  But if the traffic looks bad on the highways, you'll probably want to know how it looks on the alternate routes through arterials.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Mark Zuckerberg: “Spotify Is So Good”  —  The ink isn't even dry on the MySpace/iLike acquisition, and already Facebook has a new crush on a different music service, Spotify.  —  We've heard that Facebook has been talking with the European startup about a partnership for well over a year …
BBC:
Anger at UK file-sharing policy  —  Internet service providers (ISPs) have reacted with anger to new proposals on how to tackle internet piracy.  —  The government is proposing a tougher stance which would include cutting off repeat offenders from the net.
RELATED:
Stan Schroeder / Mashable!:
Whatever You Do, Please, PLEASE Don't Search for Jessica Biel  —  You think you know danger?  You don't know danger.  The internet's biggest perils are hidden beneath a pretty face; a simple Google search for Jessica Biel might result in a site filled with viruses, trojans, and spyware.
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Opera 10 Slated For September 1 Launch.  Will Anyone Take Notice?  —  That other browser maker, Opera Software, has just released Opera 10 RC1 to the masses and has announced it will be debuting the final version of its upgraded desktop browser next week on September 1.
RELATED:
Opera Press Room:
Opera 10 sprints toward the finish line with new release candidate
Discussion: CNET News, The Register and AppScout
Noam Cohen / New York Times:
Wikipedia to Limit Changes to Articles on People  —  Wikipedia, one of the 10 most popular sites on the Web, was founded about eight years ago as a long-shot experiment to create a free encyclopedia from the contributions of volunteers, all with the power to edit, and presumably improve, the content.
Nigel Kendall / Times of London:
Sony boss reveals plans for PlayStation  —  The Times was the only UK publication at Gamescom in Cologne last week to speak with Sony Computer Entertainment boss Kazuo “Kaz” Hirai.  We met up with him the morning after he had taken the stage to announce the new PlayStation 3 Slim …
David Sarno / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
15 U.S. states with the fastest broadband Internet speeds  —  Data courtesy the CWA.  —  When it comes to Internet speed, the U.S. is still far down the ladder of industrialized nations, ranking 28th behind leaders South Korea, Japan, Sweden and Holland, according to a study by a labor union for telecommunications workers.
Discussion: CNET News, GigaOM, eWeek and DSLreports
Kevin Ohannessian / Fast Company:
Felicia Day and The Guild's Path to Level 80 Digital Success  —  The Guild may not be on network television, but with millions of downloads and a third season starting, Felicia Day is proving that a geek community is better than broadcast.  —  If you don't think a massively multiplayer …
Jason Snell / Macworld:
Parallels releases Switch to Mac bundle  —  Striving to provide an all-in-one-retail-box solution to Windows users who want to switch to the Mac, Parallels announced Tuesday that it's releasing a new version of its Parallels Desktop software that comes with a USB transfer cable …
Dancho Danchev / Zero Day:
Research: 80% of Web users running unpatched versions of Flash/Acrobat  —  According to a research published by Trusteer earlier this month, 79.5% of the 2.5 million users of their Rapport security service run a vulnerable version of Adobe Flash, with 83.5% also running a vulnerable version of Acrobat.
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Rackspace launches cloud app partner portal  —  Rackspace on Tuesday rolled out Cloud Tools, a repository of partner tools, applications and services for cloud computing.  —  The marketplace puts apps and tools into four buckets:  — Monitoring and reporting;  — Development tools;
Kasper Jade / AppleInsider:
Apple to retain, redesign plastic MacBook family  —  Once rumored for extinction, Apple's entry-level polycarbonate MacBooks are on the verge of a refresh that will solidify them at the base of the Mac maker's notebook offerings for the foreseeable future, AppleInsider has learned.
Discussion: MacRumors
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Apigee's Ambition Is To Be The Google Analytics For APIs  —  The Web has come a long way from a collection of Web pages to repositories of programmable data freely flowing from one site to another through APIs (Application Programming Interfaces).  But it is difficult to keep track of all of the thousands of APIs out there.
 
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 More Items: 
Josh Bernoff / Groundswell:
Social technology growth marches on in 2009, led by social network sites
Fortune:
How LinkedIn's founder got started
NY Daily News:
Apple to open shop on upper West Side
Discussion: AppleInsider
Rafat Ali / mocoNews:
Verisign Finally Finds Buyer For Mobile Messaging Biz: Syniverse, For $175 Million
Dana Oshiro / ReadWriteWeb:
Opera Mini Is Most Downloaded Mobile App
Discussion: TechCrunch Europe
Elinor Mills / CNET News:
Cracking GSM phone crypto via distributed computing
 Earlier Items: 
Doug Aamoth / CrunchGear:
Acer Veriton Z280G all-in-one business nettop announced
Discussion: Softpedia News and Electronista
John Cook / TechFlash:
Paul Allen, DCM and others invest $29M in Smith & Tinker
BBC:
Loophole over DVD age rating law
Discussion: GamesIndustry.biz
InfoWorld:
The no-junk business iPhone apps finder
Discussion: ITworld.com
LG:
LG ARENA Wows the Mobile World by Hitting One Million Sales
Discussion: Mobile Roar
Clint Boulton / eWeek:
JaJah Jump-starts Enterprise Voice with Microsoft
Discussion: Bink.nu
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
A growing number of podcasters, including Tim Ferriss, are moving away from interviews to monologues or co-hosts, as some well-known guests can be overexposed

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
A New York judge finds Sirius XM liable for a difficult subscription cancellation process; Sirius says it will appeal but abide by a new “click-to-cancel” rule

Brian Steinberg / Variety:
Sources: NBCUniversal Vice Chairman Bonnie Hammer plans to leave the company at the end of the year; she has been with the company since 2004

 
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