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5:40 AM ET, October 20, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Jonny Evans / 9 to 5 Mac:
Apple execs book flight time for mystery product, ‘not iPhone’, bafflement follows  —  We're deciphering Apple executives and their fourth quarter statements right now - but the initial take away at this stage is the company's mysterious admission that “air freight costs” are set to rise “abnormally” in the company's first quarter.
RELATED:
Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
Apple's Tim Cook scoffs at iPhone competitors  —  The iPhone was the hot new thing a year or two ago, but now it's seeing increasing competition from Google, Palm, and others — for example, my editor Matt Marshall just declared that he's abandoning his iPhone for Droid, the Android phone coming at the end of the month.
Tim Conneally / BetaNews:
The new iPod nano: A flop?  —  The good news in Apple's earnings call this afternoon, according to CFO Peter Oppenheimer, is that the Cupertino company has sold more Macs and iPhones than it ever has in the past, beating previous Mac sales records by 444,000 or 17% year over year …
Discussion: MobileContentToday
AppleInsider:
Apple profits surge 46% on record sales of 3M Macs, 7.4M iPhones  —  Apple said Monday that fourth-quarter profits rose more than 46 percent to 1.67 billion, or $1.82 per diluted share, on sales of $9.87 billion for the three-month period ended September 26, 2009.
Apple:
Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results
Peter Burrows / BusinessWeek:
How Low Will Apple Go On Price?
Discussion: Computerworld
Nilay Patel / Engadget:
Apple to introduce host of new machines, new multitouch input devices tomorrow?  —  We're not sure why John Gruber and Dan Lyons are having some sort of megalomaniacal Apple super-pundit standoff, but we'll sit here and take the spoils: Gruber's just one-upped Lyons's earlier vague tease …
Ross Miller / Engadget:
Barnes & Noble ‘Nook’ e-reader with color touchscreen out Tuesday for $259, says WSJ (update: Best Buy connection?)  —  Looks like the cat's out of the bag.  The Wall Street Journal's had a glimpse at what it says is an upcoming ad for Barnes & Noble's impending announcement …
Kevin Michaluk / CrackBerry.com blogs:
First Images: BlackBerry Watch is FOR REAL!  —  * Update - Just to be clear as I've seen some confusion in the commments, but as far as we know at this time the inPulse watch is not being made by/for BlackBerry (it won't feature a BlackBerry logo), but is being made for use with BlackBerry Smartphones.
Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog:
This shouldn't be the image of Hack Day  —  I love hack days.  I was working in the vicinity of Chad Dickerson when he organised the first internal Yahoo! Hack Day back in 2005, and I've since participated in hack day events at Yahoo!, Global Radio and the Guardian.
Ben Parr / Mashable!:
LEAKED: Details of the Facebook Home Page Redesign [Screenshots]  —  A few weeks ago, we caught wind that Facebook was testing a new homepage design.  Screenshots revealed a few interesting changes, such as a decrease in size for the Facebook Publisher box and a new, Friendfeed-like “Top News” filter for the news feed.
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
The New Twitter Hole That Probably Isn't  —  Earlier this evening the LA Times Tech Blog ran a post claming that Google has unrestricted access to Twitter's protected tweets, or, as the Times put it, the “key to the city”.  And you can apparently search those tweets with a not-too-difficult advanced Google search.
Discussion: L.A. Times Tech Blog and CNET News
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Photobucket To Be Valued At $60 Million In Sale To Ontela  —  Lots more details are coming in on the Photobucket fire sale by MySpace/News Corp. The sale is all but complete, say new sources.  And the buyer is definitely Washington state based Ontela.  —  Ontela, a mobile photo upload …
Discussion: The Seattle Times, TechFlash and mocoNews, Thanks:mrinaldesai
Jeff Aguero / The Official Google Blog:
Flying in a WiFi wonderland: Free Internet from Google on Virgin America flights  —  We know the holiday season seems to come earlier every year (sorry, Halloween), but before you make your final travel plans, we're excited to let you know that we're partnering with Virgin America …
Steven Levy / Wired News:
Mob Rule!  How Users Took Over Twitter  —  Last August, the people who putatively run Twitter — the small crew that three years ago launched the world's fastest-growing communications medium — announced a relatively minor change in the way the site functions.
Caroline McCarthy / CNET News:
Twitter hits five billion tweets  —  Former Current Media executive Robin Sloan appears to have posted Twitter's five billionth tweet, in the form of a reply to another user that otherwise read only “Oh lord.”  —  The landmark status of Sloan's tweet, which he has nicknamed “The Pentagigatweet …
Discussion: Mashable! and Gawker, Thanks:mrinaldesai
Craig Newmark / The Huffington Post:
A Nerd's Take On The Future Of News Media  —  There are a lot of new technologies which already affect news consumption and future business models.  As a nerd, I'm excited by the new tech, particularly mobile, including new display systems and pervasive connectivity.
Discussion: broadstuff and Podcasting News, Thanks:atul
Knot Pipatsrisawat / Facebook Blog:
Giving Groups a Stronger Voice  —  Facebook Groups have long been a part of the Facebook experience as a way for people to organize and discuss particular issues of interest.  However, until now, Group activities have been isolated to the group page and it was often difficult to find out what currently was going on within a group.
Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
T-Mobile Tap coming November 11, Samsung Behold II on November 18?  —  The CLIQ might be getting the lion's share of the Android spotlight on T-Mobile at the moment, but it's not the only Google-equipped gear in the carrier's pipeline — the other big news there would be the Behold II from Samsung …
Dan Bricklin:
VisiCalc turns 30 and SocialCalc turns 1.0  —  According to my notebook from 1979, 30 years ago today Dan Fylstra, head of Personal Software, our Bay Area publisher, told me that he had the first production VisiCalc packages in hand.  I received mine the next day (Saturday delivery).
Apm / alarm:clock:
Tweet Ad Network Ad.ly Funded  —  LA-based Ad.ly, which has developed in-stream advertising on Twitter, has raised $500K.  The round came from GRP Partners.  Ad.ly monetizes Twitter feeds from people who have 7 figure followers, as well as those we have fewer.
Discussion: TechCrunch
Steve / The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs:
Why the Borg's copycat business model no longer works  —  So I had brunch with Larry yesterday and he showed up carrying the Sunday Times and we were talking about the huge and incredibly embarrassing photo (above) of Ballmer that they ran on the front of their business cover.
springdesign.com:
Spring Design Announces Dual-Screen,  —  Google Android-based E-book Reader, Hyperlinking Text with Multimedia  —  Secondary color touchscreen supplements text with web-based or any linked multimedia content; Enables users to enhance original text with their own embedded video, audio, photos and notes
Daniel Terdiman / CNET News:
Internet Archive's BookServer could ‘dominate’ Amazon  —  SAN FRANCISCO—An initiative in the works from the nonprofit Internet Archive to centralize the electronic distribution of commercially viable books could upend the publishing industry and declaw Amazon.com, an industry analyst said.
Discussion: The Register
Noah Shachtman / Danger Room:
Exclusive: U.S. Spies Buy Stake in Firm That Monitors Blogs, Tweets  —  America's spy agencies want to read your blog posts, keep track of your Twitter updates — even check out your book reviews on Amazon.  —  In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA and the wider intelligence community …
Alex Pham / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Video game sales break 6-month losing streak, eke out tiny gain in September  —  Halo: ODST, released in September, topped that month's games chart.  Credit: Bungie.  —  Sales of video games and consoles in the U.S. eked out a tiny gain in September, ending a 6-month streak of year-over-year declines.
Tom Krazit / CNET News:
Ad agencies stump for Microsoft-Yahoo search deal  —  An advertising industry association—backed by four of the world's largest ad agencies—sent a letter to the Department of Justice Monday endorsing the Microsoft-Yahoo search deal, saying it “enhances competition.”
Matt Asay / The Open Road:
EU's MySQL inquiry may backfire for open source  —  It takes time, leadership, and a fair amount of luck to successfully build an open-source community.  It also takes money.  Lots of it, if IBM's $1 billion commitment to Linux is any indication.  —  Unfortunately, the return …
 
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 More Items: 
Tom Abate / San Francisco Chronicle:
Tech exports down this year - bottom unclear
Diane Bartz / Reuters:
Fake security software in millions of computers: Symantec
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
FriendFeed Not Dead, Just In A State Of “Chrysalis,” Says Co-founder
Discussion: The Next Web and VentureBeat, Thanks:atul
Deborah Gage / PE Hub Blog:
Accel Expands In India
Discussion: PR Newswire
Carolyn Duffy Marsan / InfoWorld:
IPv6 addresses: North American ISPs are now grabbing for them over IPv4
Chris Kanaracus / Computerworld:
BMC buys Tideway for component tracking tools
Discussion: eWeek and PE Hub Blog
Jacqueline Emigh / Computerworld:
Apple Restores Banned 3G TV iPhone App
Discussion: PC World and Digits
 Earlier Items: 
The Local:
Pirate Bay appeal pushed back to next summer
Discussion: Softpedia News and Slyck
Richard Perez-Pena / Media Decoder:
Times Says It Will Cut 100 Newsroom Jobs
Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:
SCO fires CEO Darl McBride, architect of litigation strategy