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10:45 PM ET, October 7, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Google: We're Hiring, and Spending, Again  —  Google CEO Eric Schmidt used the opening moments of a New York City press conference to reinforce a message he's been delivering for a couple months: The worst is over, things are looking up, and Google is spending accordingly.
RELATED:
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Reviewing Some Bad Google Search Results With Sergey Brin  —  After today's Google search press briefing, where I raised the issue of some poor quality search results in Google at one point, Sergey Brin asked me to demonstrate a few.  My pleasure!  Below, what we reviewed and comments from Google's cofounder.
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Schmidt: “We Have Not Yet Found The Evil Room.”  —  Earlier today, Google's Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt held an informal press conference of sorts (see my live notes), touching upon pretty much everything under the Google sun.  One issue that kept on coming up was Google's growing power in general.
Discussion: Brainstorm Tech
The Official Google Blog:
Quickly view formatted PDFs in your search results  —  Google search results sometimes include documents that were not originally formatted to be viewed in a web browser, such as PDFs.  In the past, the only way to view these documents was to download them and open them in a separate viewer application.
Kevin Poulsen / Epicenter:
Google's Abandoned Library of 700 Million Titles  —  Imagine a world where Google sucks.  —  It might seem a stretch.  The Google logo is practically an icon of functionality.  Google's search engine and other tools are the company's strongest, if unstated, argument in favor …
Discussion: Television Archiving, Thanks:atul
Emil Protalinski / Ars Technica:
Microsoft mulling 128-bit versions of Windows 8, Windows 9  —  Believe it or not, Windows 7's successor(s) have been in the planning and early development stages for a while now.  We haven't posted anything about any of them yet, but we've been watching closely to see if anything really interesting turned up.
Walter S. Mossberg / Personal Technology:
A Windows to Help You Forget  —  In just two weeks, on Oct. 22, Microsoft's long operating-system nightmare will be over.  The company will release Windows 7, a faster and much better operating system than the little-loved Windows Vista, which did a lot to harm both the company's reputation …
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
Steven Levy / Gadget Lab:
Kindle Goes International — With a Little Help From AT&T  —  Although Amazon's Kindle e-reader has become the first major hit in its category — and the best-selling product in Amazon's entire store this year — it does have its drawbacks.  One of the biggest is that its wireless connection to the Kindle store works only in the U.S.
RELATED:
Marc Lostracco / Torontoist:
Kindle Still Won't Ignite in Canada
Andrew Lookingbill / Google LatLong:
Your world, your map  —  One of the exciting challenges of working on the Geo team at Google is that the physical world is constantly changing, and keeping on top of these changes is a never-ending endeavor.  For example, 15,000 miles of roadway are built in the United States each year.
Wall Street Journal:
EU to Settle Microsoft Case by Year End  —  BRUSSELS—The European Union signaled it would accept a settlement proposal outlined this summer by Microsoft Corp. that would end the bloc's pursuit of antitrust charges over the Internet Explorer Web browser, drawing the software giant closer …
Discussion: Bloomberg
RELATED:
Richard Waters / blogs.ft.com:
Microsoft prepares to pack up its briefs and go home
EU Press Room:
Antitrust: Commission market tests Microsoft's proposal to ensure …
Robert Mueller / CNET News:
FBI head banned from online banking after phishing attempt  —  SAN FRANCISCO—No one is immune from cyberthreats, not even the head of the FBI.  —  FBI Director Robert Mueller was banned by his wife from doing online banking after he nearly fell for a phishing scam, he said on Wednesday during …
Discussion: The Register and PC World
RELATED:
Wall Street Journal:
Dell to Build Android Phone for AT&T  —  Dell Inc. expects to launch a smart phone on AT&T Inc.'s cellular network as soon as early 2010, said people briefed on the plans.  —  The Dell phone uses Google Inc.'s Android mobile-operating system, said the people briefed on the matter.
Adam Ostrow / Mashable!:
Drew Carey Raises Bid to $1 Million for @Drew on Twitter  —  Over the weekend, we reported on Drew Carey's bid of up to $100,000 (if he reaches 100,000 followers by Nov. 9th) for the Twitter name @drew.  The name is currently up for auction by Drew Olanoff, who was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year …
Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:
What A $3.65 Billion Mistake Looks Like  —  In 1999, Yahoo (YHOO) paid $3.65 billion for GeoCities.  Today it sent out a “final notice” warning GeoCities users that its pulling the plug.  —  Yahoo is shutting down or selling a lot of businesses lately.  (Find out what's for sale here.)
Discussion: CNET News, Mashable! and Obsessable
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Buffalo ships world's first USB 3.0 hard disk drives this month  —  It's fine to announce USB 3.0 gear, but it's another thing entirely to actually put it up for retail.  Buffalo's making the boast today that its HD-HU3 series of USB 3.0 hard disks will be the “world's first!!” to ship.
Jennifer Vilaga / Fast Company:
FTC Responds to Blogger Fears: “That $11,000 Fine is Not True”  —  As you've likely heard by now, the Federal Trade Commission is trying to reign in freebie-grabbing bloggers and graft-happy social media users masquerading as unbiased critics.  The agency announced an update to the FTC Act of 1980 …
New York Times:
U.S. Begins Inquiry of I.B.M. in Mainframe Market  —  The Department of Justice has started a preliminary investigation into whether I.B.M. abused its monopoly position in the market for the mainframe computers, which remain vital to many of the world's largest businesses.
Discussion: VentureBeat and Bits, Thanks:atul
Tony Dokoupil / Newsweek:
Striking It Rich: Is There An App For That?  —  Seeking fortune and fame, entrepreneurs rushed to create programs for Apple's App Store.  That's not always what they found.
Nilay Patel / Engadget:
Samsung Moment slider coming to Sprint, packing Android (update: official, $179)  —  Samsung just accidentally leaked a Sprint-bound Android QWERTY slider called the Moment in an otherwise totally boring press release about its OLED handset lineup — it'll have an 800MHz processor …
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
C:\ONGRTLNS.OSX  —  Or: There Is No Replacement for Creator Codes in Snow Leopard  —  Ignore, for the moment, the specific technical details of how creator codes work (or, perhaps better put, worked).  What matters is the behavior they enabled, which was the ability for documents …
Thanks:atul
Jennifer Martinez / GigaOM:
NeighborGoods: Craigslist for Your Neighborhood  —  NeighborGoods, a web site that lets you share stuff with people in your neighborhood, today is launching publicly in its first city, Los Angeles.  It's somewhat of a cross between Facebook and Craigslist.  For example, if you need to borrow …
Discussion: TechCrunch and lalawag
Tameka Kee / paidContent:
Personal Web Systems Raises $1.2 Million For Web-to-TV Browser  —  Ready for WebTV 2.0?  Personal Web Systems, a tech firm that's developing a web-to-TV browser add-on, has raised $1.2 million worth of a proposed $1.8 million round of funding, per an SEC filing.
Discussion: alarm:clock and NewTeeVee
Stephen Shankland / CNET News:
Google: Computer memory flakier than expected  —  Wondering why your computer just crashed again?  Its memory might be to blame, according to real-world Google research that finds error rates higher than what earlier work showed.  —  With hundreds of thousands of computers in its data centers …
Charles Arthur / Guardian:
Spotify leaves Napster gasping  —  Only when you put the numbers in perspective does the remarkable nature of Spotify's offering becomes clear.  If you're a premium user - paying £10 a month - you can store more than 3,000 tracks offline, to listen to as and when you want …
DigiTimes:
Foxconn said to be tapped to make Apple tablet PC, shipments expected to begin in 1Q10  —  Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) will be the manufacturing partner for an upcoming tablet PC device from Apple, according to market sources.  The device is expected to hit the market …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
New Google Logo Celebrates The Barcode  —  Google's new logo is a barcode which, as far as we can tell, says “Google.”  Today is the 57th anniversary of the first patent on the bar code.  Inventors Norman Woodland and Bernard Silver filed the patent on October 1949, and it was granted, No. 2,612,994 (pdf), on October 7, 1952.
CBC News:
Google Street View goes live in Canadian cities  —  Google Street View, a feature of Google Maps that shows high-resolution street-level images on the internet, has gone live in several Canadian cities.  —  The service is now available in Toronto, Calgary, Montreal, Quebec City, Halifax …
 
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 More Items: 
Christine Herron / Christine.net:
What's the Secret Success of MINT.com? …
Discussion: Venture Capital Dispatch, Thanks:atul
Janko Roettgers / NewTeeVee:
VideoWTF Wants to Answer All Your Video Production Questions
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Apple's Mighty Mouse Never Lived Up To Its Name. And Now It Can't.
Discussion: AppleInsider, 9 to 5 Mac and Engadget
Caroline McCarthy / CNET News:
New report warns of dangers of trashy avatars
Discussion: Gartner
George White / Dealscape:
PE lobbyists throw VCs under the bus
David Kaplan / paidContent:
Scribd Releases Co-Branded Reader For Media Sites With An Eye Towards Ad Sales
Discussion: WebProNews
Nat Ives / AdAge:
Magazine Publishers Talk of Creating Online Ad Network
Discussion: the Econsultancy blog
 Earlier Items: 
Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:
Researcher refutes Microsoft's account of hijacked Hotmail passwords
Discussion: ScanSafe STAT Blog and Macworld
some blog:
Someecards iPhone app rejected for making fun of celebrities?
Discussion: TechCrunch and Gadget Lab
Caroline McCarthy / CNET News:
Oops! Hack lets anybody join the MySpace network on Facebook