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2:45 PM ET, October 8, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
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 …
RELATED:
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Brainstorm Tech:
What's wrong with Windows 7  —  Reading between the lines of Walt Mossberg's review  —  It's a given that Windows 7, scheduled for release in two weeks, is an improvement over Vista.  But how does it stack up against Apple's (AAPL) Snow Leopard?  —  The definitive word comes …
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Ballmer: Testers didn't ring Vista warning bells; Could the same …
Discussion: Gizmodo
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Twitter Talking Separately to Microsoft and Google About Big Data-Mining Deals  —  Is there gold in them thar tweets?  —  Maybe so, because-according to sources familiar with the situation-Twitter is in advanced talks with Microsoft and Google separately about striking data-mining deals …
RELATED:
Ryan Tate / Gawker:
Selling Your Tweets to the Enemy  —  Tech bloggers are in a tizzy over the prospect of tech giants Google or Microsoft getting real-time access to the thoughts of Twitterers, but Valleywag has learned that cash-hungry Twitter is already selling access to its “firehose” of data.
RELATED:
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Twitter Down, Again, Just Like the Old Days  —  Unless the 400+ people I follow on Twitter have all gone mute at the same time, I suspect that something's wrong with Twitter, since I haven't seen a new message for the last hour or so.  A quick scan of Facebook — and Twitter's own search engine …
Discussion: Technologizer, CloudAve, RedEye and /Message
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Stuck In The Twitter Jam?  Try This Hidden Route.  —  So, I'm a late riser most days (I like to go to bed late, real late).  And today when I awoke, I thought it was a Vanilla Sky dream situation — but rather than Tom Cruise being the last person on Earth, I thought I was.
Andrew LaVallee / Digits:
IPhone Tethering Still Unavailable, AT&T Says  —  AT&T subscribers still won't be able to use their iPhones as wireless modems for their computers, despite the carrier's reversed position on Internet-phone applications. … Tethering, the process of using an Internet-enabled mobile device …
Steve Gillmor / TechCrunchIT:
Ozzie on the realtime wave  —  In June, I spent several days on the Microsoft campus talking with Microsoft executives about the impact of realtime and the emerging era of cloud computing.  My conversation with Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie began with a discussion of the recently unveiled Google Wave …
Discussion: paidContent and The Equity Kicker
Reza Ziaei / Google Mobile Blog:
Introducing Search Options for mobile  —  Finding the exact information you need sometimes requires filtering and refining your search results.  Earlier in the year, we launched a collection of tools called Search Options which enable you to easily and quickly do this from a computer.
Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
BlackBerry Bold 2 to be announced October 21 for T-Mobile, AT&T  —  We have it on good authority that T-Mobile and AT&T both currently plan on announcing the Bold 2 — also known as the Onyx — on October 21.  As a refresher, this would be the touchpad-driven piece with model number 9700 that's …
Fred / Electronic Frontier Foundation:
It's My Browser, and I'll Auto-Click if I Want To  —  Free file hosting provider MediaFire seems to think that, when you follow a link to download a file from its service, it has the right to control your browser.  This is yet another example of a web site owner forgetting that it's your computer …
RELATED:
Skipper / Skipscreen Blog:
MediaFire tells Mozilla to ban SkipScreen from addons.mozilla.org
Discussion: Softpedia News
Joanna Stern / Gizmodo:
Sony Vaio X: World's Lightest Laptop $1300 (Actually Affordable, For a Vaio)  —  Sony's X comes out from its dark hiding spot.  Not only is the 11-inch carbon fiber notebook super slim, but it's actually affordable on the Sony scale of economy, starting at $1,300.  (Update: It's got netbook guts.)
RELATED:
Philipp Lenssen / Google Blogoscoped:
Join the Minimalist Google Homepage Prototype  —  You might have heard of the new experiment Google is running for its homepage, showing only logo and search box (and apparently search buttons, at times) unless your mouse moves over the page.  To join this prototype, you can go to google.com …
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 …
Stephen Shankland / Crave:
Intel's Light Peak optical links could arrive in 2010  —  In September, Intel showed off Light Peak as if it were the latest the latest hot idea out of the labs.  But the fiber-optic communication technology could well be coming to near you next year rather than in some distant sci-fi future.
Matt Asay / CNET News:
Cisco becomes a major Linux server vendor overnight  —  In the battle for supremacy among the software industry's Big Four, Cisco may be placing the biggest bets and angling for the biggest returns.  Some still think of Cisco as a networking hardware vendor, but hardware is simply Cisco's beachhead …
Discussion: Bits, searchnetworking … and NoMoreServers.com, Thanks:atul
John Poirier / Reuters:
Lawmakers seek FCC probe into Google Voice  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives called on the Federal Communications Commission to investigate Google Inc's ability to block calls to rural telephone exchanges.
Discussion: DSLreports
Greg Kumparak / MobileCrunch:
Yes, Rock Band is coming to iPhone.  Here's proof.  —  A few weeks back, we got a press release from EA's PR company.  It was tucked within an attachment titled “Rock Band Verizon iPhone Fact Sheet_V3.docx”.  As if seeing “iPhone” behind “Verizon” wasn't strange enough …
Venture Capital Dispatch:
VC Fund-Raising Drops, Marketing Not Worth ‘Brain Damage’  —  Just like their portfolio companies, venture capital firms continue to find it difficult to raise funding compared with last year.  —  Through the end of the third quarter, 83 venture funds raised $8 billion …
Steve Gillmor / TechCrunchIT:
Ozzie FUSEs social media teams in Microsoft reorg  —  For months now we've been wondering when Microsoft was going to start making moves in the social media space.  Rumors of talks with Twitter have been swirling at all levels of the company, but now a subtle re-org may shed light …
Ppk / QuirksBlog:
There is no WebKit on Mobile  —  Last week I spent a lot of time on WebKit in order to produce a comprehensive comparison of all WebKits.  My purpose was to prove there is no “WebKit on Mobile,” and to gain some more insight in the complicated relations between the various WebKits.
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes / Hardware 2.0:
End of the line for NVIDIA chipsets, and that's official  —  GPU giant NVIDIA has confirmed that the company is putting the brakes on the Nforce chipset line because of legal wranglings with Intel.  —  According to an spokesman, NVIDIA will “postpone further chipset investments”.
Emma Barnett / Telegraph:
YouTube to sign landmark content deal with Channel 4  —  YouTube and Channel 4 are on the brink of signing a landmark content deal which will see the majority of the broadcaster's content hosted in full on the video sharing site.  —  YouTube and Channel 4 have been in talks for at least …
Google Webmaster Central Blog:
A proposal for making AJAX crawlable  —  Today we're excited to propose a new standard for making AJAX-based websites crawlable.  This will benefit webmasters and users by making content from rich and interactive AJAX-based websites universally accessible through search results on any search engine that chooses to take part.
Steve Lohr / Bits:
Google Apps: A Long Road Ahead  —  Google's efforts to cater to corporate and government customers — the enterprise market — have long been seen as half-hearted.  Google is a consumer company, after all, so the enterprise side of the business looked to be the poor relation.
Discussion: Forrester Research and NoMoreServers.com, Thanks:mgcreed
 
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 More Items: 
Daniel Ek / Spotify:
Overnight success takes a long time...
Thanks:mgcreed
Michael McWhertor / Kotaku:
Activision Lays Off Shaba's Ranks, Closes Studio
Paul Bonanos / GigaOM:
Amie Street Raises $3.9M Series B Round
Discussion: TechCrunch and paidContent
Robert Andrews / paidContent:
Dailymotion Raises Another $22 Million As Costs Prove Challenging
Discussion: TechCrunch Europe and NewTeeVee
Robert Miller / Skype Blogs:
Skype and eBay Win Appeal in Patent Case
Business Wire:
Burst Media Acquires Giant Realm
Discussion: paidContent and CenterNetworks
 Earlier Items: 
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Should Twitter Buy Oneforty?
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
Best Buy Announces MobileMe Competitor “mIQ”
Discussion: mocoNews
Dan Roberts / Guardian:
Royal Mail loses Amazon contract as postal strikes loom
Discussion: AuctionBytes Blog and The Register