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8:50 AM ET, October 1, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Seth Weintraub / Computerworld:
Apple purchased Placebase in July to replace Google Maps?  —  On July 7th, Fred Lalonde, the founder of openplaces.org announced in a tweet that Apple had bought the company that produced the Maps API that his company used in their software.  —  Pushpin is the name of the software API …
Twitter Blog:
Soon to Launch: Lists  —  My name is Nick Kallen (@nk) and I'm the project lead on Lists, a new feature we're testing with a small subset of users.  The idea is to allow people to curate lists of Twitter accounts.  For example, you could create a list of the funniest Twitter accounts of all time …
Ashlee Vance / New York Times:
Cisco Buys Norwegian Firm for $3 Billion  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Cisco Systems continued to show just how serious it is about video conferencing, announcing late Wednesday night the $3 billion acquisition of Tandberg, a Norwegian video communications company.  —  Cisco has sold expensive …
RELATED:
Cisco:
Cisco Makes Recommended Offer to Acquire TANDBERG  —  Acquisition of TANDBERG to Expand Cisco's Collaboration Offering and Enable Customers to Transform How They Do Business Globally  —  SAN JOSE, Calif., NEW YORK, and, OSLO, Norway, October 1, 2009 - Cisco® (NASDAQ: CSCO) …
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
BumpTop Goes Multi-Touch.  Um, Awesome.  —  What if the desktop on your computer was just like your actual desktop?  That's the core idea behind BumpTop, a really nice looking graphical overlay for Windows-based operating systems.  But as cool as BumpTop looked, you still had to use your mouse and keyboard to manipulate it.
Joshua Siegel / Google Mobile Blog:
Introducing the new Local Search for Mobile  —  The mobile search team is always looking for new ways to make searching the world around you as easy and useful as searching the web.  Today we're introducing a redesigned local search experience on your phone that integrates with Google Maps …
Johanna Wright / The Official Google Blog:
Surfacing forum posts in search results  —  Today, we introduced a new search feature that makes it easier for you to find forum posts or discussions related to what you're searching for.  This new addition to Google search results applies to sites that tend to have a large number of posts on a specific topic.
Jeff Chin / The Official Google Blog:
Translate your website with Google: Expand your audience globally  —  How long would it take to translate all the world's web content into 50 languages?  Even if all of the translators in the world worked around the clock, with the current growth rate of content being created online …
Toshi Tajima / Google Mobile Blog:
Your mobile and desktop search history now in sync  —  Sometimes I do a search on my desktop computer, only to find that I need to repeat the same search again later on my mobile phone.  Today in the US we're launching Personalized Suggest for Android, iPhone and Palm WebOS …
Brian Krebs / Security Fix:
Hackers Breach Payroll Giant, Target Customers  —  Hackers last week apparently used stolen account information from a New Jersey company that provides online payroll services to target the firm's customers in a scheme to steal passwords and other information.
Walter S. Mossberg / Personal Technology:
HTC's Hero May Be Your Scene  —  Super-smart phones based on Google's Android operating system have been relatively slow to take off since the first one appeared a year ago.  Despite Google's iconic brand, they have yet to develop the strong bond with U.S. consumers achieved by the Research in Motion …
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
Microsoft:
MSN Introduces Online Tools to Help People Make Smarter Health and Lifestyle Decisions  —  From swine flu info to symptom checkers, MSN My Health Info includes a broad range of widgets and tools to attract health-minded consumers.  —  Today, MSN released the beta of My Health Info …
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Twitter's Geolocation API Appears To Be Live.  But Most Of You Are Lost.  —  I noticed something interesting tonight.  In the new build of Tweetie 2 (not out yet), a bunch of little red location markers started appearing next to tweets in my stream.  Knowing that this new version …
Discussion: Softpedia News, Thanks:ritubpant
Boy Genius Report:
BlackBerry Storm 2 hitting Verizon Wireless around October 25th?  —  One of our ninjas just blessed us with a product inventory shot from Best Buy.  It shows that Best Buy locations will be getting BlackBerry Storm 2 dummy units starting October 25th.  Why is that important?
Jolie O'Dell / ReadWriteWeb:
Delicious' New Flavors: Refined Search, Interactive Graphs, & Much More  —  On the Delicious blog today, the social bookmarking site has announced a slew of enhancements in addition to the usual bug fixes for their most recent release.  —  From their interactive graphs to their iPhone-optimized mobile site …
Wi-Fi Alliance:
Wi-Fi Alliance launches updated Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ n program  —  Additional tests and branding elements bring added measure of end-user confidence  —  Additional Resources:  —  The Wi-Fi Alliance has begun product testing for its Wi-Fi CERTIFIED n program, updating its two-year-old Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 802.11n draft 2.0 program.
Gina Trapani / Lifehacker:
Google Wave First Look  —  If you're not one of the 100,000 lucky users who gets an invitation to Google Wave today, don't fret.  You can check out Google Wave right here.  —  But first, ground rules.  Click on all images in this post to see them full size.  Uppercase “Wave” refers to the entire Google Wave product.
Jeff Smykil / Ars Technica:
A peek inside an iTunes LP file  —  On the shiny exterior, the new iTunes LP may seem like some sort of fancy proprietary format.  In actuality it's an image-heavy, JavaScript-driven webpage that only renders correctly in iTunes or, with a bit of hackery, WebKit-based browsers such as Safari, Omniweb, or Google's Chrome.
Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac and digg.com
Eric Engleman / TechFlash:
Amazon settles lawsuit over deleted Kindle copy of ‘1984’  —  Amazon.com caused a stir a few months ago when it remotely deleted copies of George Orwell's “1984” and “Animal Farm” from people's Kindles as part of a dustup with publisher.  A Michigan high school student, Justin Gawronski …
Discussion: Softpedia News, Thanks:toddbishop
Tricia Duryee / mocoNews:
Facebook Users Download 1 Million Mobile Apps A Week—With The Help Of GetJar  —  GetJar, an independent mobile app store, is rolling out a new service today that is getting high-profile attention from brands like Facebook and Photobucket because it drives users to download their mobile applications to the phone.
Discussion: VentureBeat and GigaOM
Electronista:
iPhone, Android, Pre trump others in satisfaction  —  Modern touchscreen phones like the iPhone, Android devices and the Palm Pre are proving to be much more enjoyable to use than conventional smartphones — at times in spite of their networks, according to a CFI study.
Nielsen Wire:
Women, Teens, and Seniors Help Fuel 34% Mobile Web Spike  —  Web visitors using a mobile device increased 34 percent year-over-year, from 42.5 million mobile Web visitors in July 2008 to 56.9 million in July 2009 according to The Nielsen Company.  Overall, year-over-year growth among the 13-17 …
Discussion: Digits and ResourceShelf
Greg Kumparak / MobileCrunch:
Verizon debuts the HTC Imagio, their first smartphone with V CAST TV  —  Aaaand the rumor mill nails it again.  Confirming rumors from a few weeks back, Verizon has just announced that their big, beautiful Windows Mobile 6.5 handset, the HTC Imagio, will be launching on the same day as 6.5 itself: October 6th.
Eliot Van Buskirk / Epicenter:
Newsy: The News Is Broken, But We Can Fix It  —  It's old news that news consumers shield themselves from pesky dissenting viewpoints by patronizing only those outlets which present a comfortably conforming world view.  The right religiously watches Fox News and the left MSNBC …
Discussion: MacMegasite
Charlie Sorrel / Gadget Lab:
Sony Includes PSP Movies on Blu-ray Disks  —  Sony is very excited that it has worked out how to add PlayStation Portable compatible movie files to its Blu-ray titles.  Too excited, in fact, as the main benefit is for Sony itself, as it no longer has to include a separate DVD-ROM disk in the box.
Discussion: Maximum PC, CrunchGear and The Register
Dan Moren / Macworld:
Tweetie pricing fuss highlights App Store flaw  —  You need no better sign that Twitter and the iPhone have gone mainstream than the absolute furor that's erupted over Tweetie 2 for iPhone.  A fuss over upgrade pricing ?  Have we now so exhausted our concerns over swine flu and the health-care debate …
theBookseller.com:
Kindle prepared for pre-Frankfurt UK launch  —  The Bookseller has heard from authoritative sources that Amazon.com will finally announce the arrival of its e-book device the Kindle in the UK next week.  The news confirms the story first reported by The Bookseller in July that publishers were expecting an October release of the device.
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Report: Comcast Buying NBC for $35 Billion.  Comcast: “Inaccurate”  —  Here's the big media deal everyone has been waiting for.  Or at least, here's the report: Sharon Waxman of TheWrap reports that cable giant Comcast (CMCSA) is buying all of NBC Universal from GE (GE) for $35 billion.
 
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 More Items: 
Eric Pfanner / New York Times:
Web Survey Finds Speed Is Quickest Overseas
Discussion: BBC
Howard Kurtz / Washington Post:
L.A. Times, Post to End Joint News Service
Discussion: Associated Press and paidContent
Motoko Rich / ArtsBeat:
The Vook: A Picture Book, but the Pictures Move
Discussion: Beet.TV, Thanks:beet_tv
Scott Merrill / CrunchGear:
Pioneer outs the first 12x Blu-ray writer
Discussion: Gizmodo, Neowin.net and Electronista
Emil Protalinski / Ars Technica:
Microsoft Recite dies on December 31, 2009
Discussion: jkOnTheRun and TechFlash
Elizabeth Woyke / Forbes:
Best Buy Partners With Google On Mobile
Discussion: Android and Me and Googling Google
Forbes:
Broadcom's Nicholas After The Fall
 Earlier Items: 
Liz Gannes / NewTeeVee:
Blackwave Raises $7M for Video Storage and Delivery
Discussion: paidContent
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
City of Portland, Oregon Officially Backs Open, Structured Data
Discussion: dailywireless.org and Silicon Florist, Thanks:turoczy
AT&T:
AT&T Acquires Plusmo to Further Mobile Applications Strategy
BBC:
Google bosses on trial in Italy
Discussion: Pulse2 and p2pnet
Taylor Buley / Forbes:
Recognize That Cute Picture Online?
Alex Himel / Facebook Developers:
Facebook Connect, Easy as 1, 2, 3
 

 
From Mediagazer:

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

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

 
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