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4:00 PM ET, September 14, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Intuit To Acquire (Former TechCrunch50 Winner) Mint For $170 Million  —  Intuit will acquire the free online personal finance service Mint, we've confirmed from a source close to the deal, for around $170 million.  Silicon Alley Insider first reported a rumor on this.  The deal should be announced in the next few days.
RELATED:
Rafe Needleman / CNET News:
Microsoft launches Bing ‘Visual Search’  —  You see that headline?  “Visual Search” is in quotation marks because Monday's announcement at the TechCrunch 50 conference about Bing's new search feature is a bit of a canard.  —  What Microsoft is launching is very cool, mind you.
RELATED:
Bing / Search Blog:
Visual Search - Why type when you can see it?  —  How many times have you seen a movie trailer and forgotten the name of it the next day?  You go online to search for it but you can't seem to find the movie with “what's-his-name” in it anywhere but you can picture the actor in your head.
Arn / MacRumors:
Apple Drops 40GB Apple TV and Discounts 160GB Model to $229  —  Apple has quietly discontinued the 40GB Apple TV overnight and reduced the price of the 160GB model down to $229.  Previously, the 40GB and 160GB models were priced at $229 and $329, respectively.  —  Now Apple is offering only a single 160GB model at $229.
RELATED:
Prince McLean / AppleInsider:
Apple's TuneKit iTunes LP format appears aimed at Apple TV  —  The iTunes LP album and iTunes Extras movie-enriching bonus material bundles Apple introduced as a new feature of iTunes 9 are built using a new TuneKit JavaScript framework and appear aimed to deliver new big screen content to Apple TV.
Ian Paul / PC World:
iPhone MMS Shows Up Early  —  Some lucky iPhone owners are reporting that multimedia messaging has started working on their iPhones.  The earliest report about MMS activation came from Mediaite blogger Ash Kalb on Saturday who said select U.S. iPhone customers now have MMS support.
Jeff / Wolfire Blog:
Preview of WebKit's WebGL / Canvas 3D  —  Yesterday, I was updating my local checkout of WebKit and I noticed a few tests for “WebGL” scroll by (view commit).  Apparently, a big WebGL patch has quietly landed.  With a name like “WebGL”, I couldn't help but investigate.  —  What is WebGL?
RELATED:
Jay Hathaway / Download Squad:
WebGL: bringing native 3D graphics to your browser
Discussion: Softpedia News
Brian Fitzpatrick / Google Public Policy Blog:
Introducing DataLiberation.org: Liberate your data!  —  Imagine you want to move out of your apartment.  When you ask your landlord about the terms of your previous lease, he says that you are free to leave at any time; however, you cannot take all of your things with you - not your photos, your keepsakes, or your clothing.
Troy / Inputs & Outputs:
Anatomy of a Malware Ad on NYTimes.com  —  On Saturday evening, Avast displayed a malware warning as I loaded a nytimes.com article.  After some digging, here's the malware I found.  —  Ad Delivery  —  nytimes.com article pages include an ad placement with the HTML DOM ID adxBigAd.
RELATED:
Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
LG officially announces GW620, its first Android phone  —  Though it already broke cover at IFA out in Germany a few days ago, LG's just sealed the deal on its very first Android phone — the GW620 landscape QWERTY slider.  Interestingly, the “Etna” name seen at IFA is missing …
Telegraph:
TMobile owner eyes multibillion dollar bid for Sprint  —  Deutsche Telekom has called in banking advisers to study a possible multi-billion dollar bid for Sprint Nextel, the third-largest mobile phone operator in the US.  —  The company's decision to call in Deutsche Bank comes hot on the heels …
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
TC50: Spawn Labs Is Slingbox For Video Games  —  Slingbox owners love their devices.  They allow you to watch your home television content anywhere you are in the world with an Internet connection.  A new startup, Spawn Labs, launching today at TechCrunch50 wants to extend that concept to video games.
Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:
BusinessWeek Staffers “Freak Out” Over Error-Filled New York Times Story  —  BusinessWeek staffers are upset about “numerous errors” in an unflattering story published on the McGraw-Hill magazine in this morning's New York Times.  —  None challenge the jist of the Times's story …
RELATED:
Stephanie Clifford / New York Times:
BusinessWeek, on the Block and Ailing
Discussion: Mediaite
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Brainstorm Tech:
Accounting rule change in Apple's favor  —  A change in accounting rules for which Apple (AAPL) — among other high-tech companies — lobbied heavily won tentative approval last Thursday.  The change could significantly affect both the company's reported earnings and its stock price.
Paul Krill / InfoWorld:
iPhone gets .Net app development  —  Novell technology lets developers use .Net and C# instead of C or Objective-C to build applications for Apple's handheld  —  Novell on Monday will offer a kit for developers to build Apple iPhone and iPod Touch business applications using Microsoft's …
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
TC50: Penn & Teller Show Off Their iPhone Magic Trick  —  The magicians Penn & Teller have this card trick.  Except it's not really a card trick, it's an iPhone app.  You tell a friend that you know Penn & Teller and that they can guess cards remotely.  To prove it you ask them to name a card …
Chris Nuttall / blogs.ft.com:
Solid-state drives offer new savings over disks  —  Solid-state Flash drives (SSDs ) are making inroads at both ends of the computer market - finding a place in small netbooks and also beginning to replace the traditional hard-disk drive for data storage in the enterprise.
Discussion: InfoWorld and Maximum PC all
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Yahoo Sells $150 Million Worth Of Alibaba.com Shares As Tensions Lurk  —  Yahoo is about to raise approximately $150 million by selling 57.48 million Alibaba.com shares, according to a term sheet obtained by Reuters earlier on Monday.  The Internet giant is selling the large chunk of shares …
Ross Miller / Engadget:
Dell gives Zune HD a 15 percent discount for launch  —  Chances are if you're wanting a Zune HD on launch day, gaming capabilities in tow, you've already gotten one pre-ordered, but if you're not already financially committed elsewhere, this deal from Dell's website might sway your opinion.
Andrew LaVallee / Digits:
App Watch: Finding Pot With the iPhone  —  Medical marijuana, meet location-based mobile marketing. … Seeing an untapped opportunity in the growing number of legal California dispensaries and limited advertising outlets, app developer NexStudios launched iPot, an application for Apple's iPhone that lists nearby stores.
Discussion: I4U News
Kim-Mai Cutler / VentureBeat:
The TechCrunch50 List: the presenting startups  —  TechCrunch50, which showcases 50 yet-unlaunched startups, kicks off today.  Here's a partial list of the companies that are demoing throughout today and tomorrow.  There are a few ones that are still unreleased:  — Story Something  — Clasemovil
Discussion: The Huffington Post, Thanks:paulboutin
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
The “Good Enough” Test: Flip vs. Apple iPod Nano  —  When Apple added a video camera to the iPhone last summer, the digerati declared that Flip, Cisco's cheap digital video camera line, was dead.  When Apple added a video camera to its cheap and tiny iPod nano last week, the digerati heaped dirt on the camcorder's grave.
Discussion: GeekSugar, PC Magazine, Gizmodo and DVICE
Jay Hathaway / Download Squad:
Which browser isn't such a battery hog?  —  If you use your laptop primarily for web browsing, the browser you choose could make a difference in how long your battery lasts.  AnandTech tested out the latest versions of the most popular Windows browsers on three different laptops …
Discussion: AnandTech and Softpedia News
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
CA Picks Up NetQoS For $200 Million In Cash  —  IT management software company CA (Computer Associates) this morning announced that it intends to acquire privately-held NetQoS, a provider of network performance management and service delivery solutions, for $200 million in an all-cash transaction.
Andy Oram / O'Reilly Radar:
RSS never blocks you or goes down: why social networks need to be decentralized  —  Recurring outages on major networking sites such as Twitter and  —  LinkedIn, along with incidents where Twitter members were  —  mysteriously dropped for days at a time,  —  have led many people to challenge the centralized control exerted by
Discussion: Scripting News
 
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 More Items: 
Serkan Toto / TechCrunch:
Location-Based Mobile Social Network Centrl Integrates Web App …
Discussion: BlackBerry Cool
Newsosaur / Reflections of a Newsosaur:
Only 51% of pubs think pay walls will fly
comScore, Inc.:
Google Dominates Internet Landscape in India and Brazil
Discussion: Bits
Robert Andrews / paidContent:
So Much For The Venture Crunch; DFJ Monies Up, Buys 3i Portfolio
Claire Cain Miller / New York Times:
Facebook Is Going for Some Twitter Sensibility
Thanks:atul
 Earlier Items: 
Melissa J. Perenson / PC World:
SanDisk Launches Speedy Extreme Pro CompactFlash Card
Discussion: Electronista
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Storytelling startup Massiverse set to launch its first cross-media tale
Discussion: Virtual Worlds News
Sharon Pian Chan / Chicago Tribune:
Microsoft interns still feel the love
Zephyr Teachout / Washington Post:
A Virtual Revolution Is Brewing for Colleges
Robert Andrews / paidContent:
Joost: Volpi Was Forced Out As Chair, ‘Investigation’ Underway
Discussion: NewTeeVee, The Register and BoomTown
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Let's Not Let Silicon Valley Become Just Like Hollywood
Discussion: VentureBeat, Thanks:bobcaswell