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11:00 AM ET, November 5, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
The Official Google Blog:
Transparency, choice and control — now complete with a Dashboard!  —  Today, we are excited to announce the launch of Google Dashboard.  Have you ever wondered what data is stored with your Google Account?  The Google Dashboard offers a simple view into the data associated with your account — easily and concisely in one location.
Walter S. Mossberg / Personal Technology:
Motorola's Droid Is Smart Success for Verizon Users  —  Verizon Wireless customers tend to love the company's fast 3G network.  But many tech-oriented Verizon loyalists gripe about the carrier's high-end smart phones, which haven't matched the cachet and versatility of the Apple iPhone sold by AT&T (T).
RELATED:
David Pogue / New York Times:
Call It an ‘App Phone’ (A What?)  —  Last week, I reviewed not one, but three new phones.  You'd think that would be enough for a while, but fall is peak season for new mobile devices, and another major release — Motorola's Droid — is upon us this week.  —  But before we get to today's big review of the Droid, we need a noun.
John Cox / Network World:
Verizon confirms Droid tethering option, hefty price tag  —  Motorola Droid smartphones to match capability of Apple's iPhone  —  Verizon has confirmed that customers will have the option of connecting a laptop to their new Motorola Droid smartphones, on sale tomorrow, using the phone as a wireless modem.
Discussion: CNET News and DSLreports
The Official Google Blog:
Introducing Google Commerce Search: Finding holiday gifts faster  —  The holiday season is right around the corner, so online retailers are gearing up for spikes in traffic.  When people go to shop online, search is big part of finding the right product, whether they're looking for a gift or just something for themselves.
RELATED:
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Search Til You Drop: Google Launches Hosted Commerce Search For Retailers  —  Searching retail sites can be frustrating at times.  While many retailers try to present product search in a visually appealing way, search can often be slow or difficult to refine.
Andy Ihnatko / Chicago Sun Times:
iCan't stand by and watch Droid ad smear iPhone  —  Verizon's ubiquitous “iDon't” commercial has been peppering TV for weeks now.  It makes two conventional mistakes in advertising.  It's not clear that it's an ad for the Verizon Droid phone, a remarkable new handset made by Motorola …
Taylor Wimberly / Android and Me:
Has the T-Mobile HSPA 7.2 rollout begun?  Yes!  Confirmed.  —  Earlier today we reported that T-Mobile's HSPA 7.2 upgrade was still on track for 2009.  One of our readers Ted left an interesting comment: HSPA has been lit up in Chicago!  I just tested it and got 6.8 Mbps!
Fortune:
Steve Jobs: CEO of the Decade  —  Why him?  Steve Jobs revived Apple and remade entire industries, defying the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression — and his own serious health problems.
Discussion: MacDailyNews
RELATED:
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
I Love the Smell of Settlement in the Morning: Skype Founders Set to Get 10 Percent, Option to Buy Three Percent More and Two Board Seats  —  According to several sources close to the situation, barring any unforeseen delay, a deal to settle the Skype imbroglio is likely to be announced around the time the markets open tomorrow.
Discussion: GigaOM and Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check, Thanks:atul
Dan Goodin / The Register:
Tech titans meet in secret to plug SSL hole  —  Web authentication busted on Apache, IIS  —  Researchers say they've uncovered a flaw in the secure sockets layer protocol that allows attackers to inject text into encrypted traffic passing between two endpoints.
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
CrunchPad Dead?  Delayed By Higher-Than-Expected Costs?  —  The CrunchPad, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington's entry into the gadget business, is still missing in action.  —  Are higher-than-expected costs to blame?  —  One story we heard from a few people on a recent trip to California …
Paul Meller / PC World:
EU Breaks Deadlock in Debate Over Right to Internet Access  —  After months of often bitter debate, European Union lawmakers reached agreement on how to preserve citizen's rights to Internet access in a meeting that ended in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Imad / Moblin Blogs:
Moblin v2.1 project release for netbooks and nettops - it's here  —  The Moblin™ project steering committee today announces the project release of Moblin v2.1 for Intel Atom* processor-based netbooks and nettops.  This project release includes the broadest feature additions …
Dan Goodin / The Register:
Twitter fanatic glimpses dark side of OAuth  —  ‘Secure’ authentication can be anything but  —  A mobile enthusiast and professional internet strategist got a glimpse of OAuth's dark side recently when he received an urgent advisory from Twitter.  —  The dispatch, generated when Terence Eden tried …
Twitter Status:
Testing new tweet notifications  —  We're starting a limited test of notifications on twitter.com for when you have new tweets.  So if one of the folks you follow has tweeted since you loaded your homepage, you'll get a little notice saying “1 new tweet” that, when clicked, will display the new content.
Pew Internet:
Social Isolation and New Technology  —  This report adds new insights to an ongoing debate about the extent of social isolation in America.  A widely-reported 2006 study argued that since 1985 Americans have become more socially isolated, the size of their discussion networks has declined …
T3.com News:
Motorola Droid not coming to T-Mobile or O2 in the UK  —  Motorola tantalised with the Droid when it was unveiled in the US by mobile network Verizon, but here in the UK we're left not knowing which network will pick it up - or if it'll even launch here.  — Read our Motorola DEXT review here
Discussion: Android Phone Fans
John Cook / TechFlash:
Plumber vs. Programmer: A face-off over an online directory  —  For more than 30 years, Evan Conklin has practiced plumbing in the Seattle area fixing broken water heaters, leaky faucets and malfunctioning toilets.  And during those three decades, Conklin has seen a lot of crap in the business world.
Discussion: Screenwerk
The Paperboy / Gizmodo:
Microsoft Courier's Swipes, Snips and Scribbles: The Leaked Interface  —  We've seen slides and videos of Microsoft's Courier booklet in action, but nothing has quite explained how all of these things actually work.  This document explains Courier's interface, gestures and features more in-depth than ever before.
Zachary M. Seward / Nieman Journalism Lab:
Google CEO Eric Schmidt envisions the news consumer of the future  —  For all the bluster about Google as an enemy of the news industry, you might be surprised to learn that Eric Schmidt, the company's CEO, is kind of a triumphalist for mainstream media, big newspapers, and print.
Discussion: The Equity Kicker, Thanks:atul
Jonny Evans / 9 to 5 Mac:
Dating habits of iPhone users revealed  —  Hey, fresh this morning from the spurious but strangely amusing iLifestyle desk comes a breakdown of the dating habits of iPhone users..  —  According to Retrevo (remember them, they told Apple what to charge for its current fantasy tablet product last week) …
Brian Garner / AppleInsider:
Apple's latest 10.6.2 beta packs fixes for VMWare, iMacs, Apple TV  —  Apple has released a new beta of the Mac OS X 10.6.2 update with fixes for various performance issues dealing with AirPort, graphics drivers, and Apple TV, among others.  —  Those familiar with the build …
Boy Genius Report:
HTC DROID Eris gets unboxed  —  One of our connects just blessed us with a couple shots of the HTC DROID Eris and graciously unboxed the retail packaging.  We could bore you with meaningless details about how the phone is thinner and lighter than the Sprint HTC Hero, feels much better in the hand …
Douglas MacMillan / Business Week:
Private Online Shopping Sites Cash In  —  A Virtual Velvet Rope  —  The most exclusive club in town may be just a few mouse clicks away.  Invitation-only shopping sites with names like Gilt Groupe and Rue La La are gaining popularity online.  They're generating millions of dollars in revenue …
Jeff Smykil / Ars Technica:
Developers stealing from developers: an App Store tale  —  If you are Paul Haddad of TapBots, LLC, it isn't unusual to get requests for contract work.  When your applications are as eye-catching and functional as his, you garner attention.  So when he received an e-mail earlier this month …
Discussion: Edible Apple and Gadgetopia
Ville Heiskanen / Bloomberg:
Research In Motion May Buy Back $1.2 Billion in Stock  —  Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) — Research In Motion Ltd., maker of the BlackBerry phone, will repurchase as much as $1.2 billion in shares to compensate investors as its growth slows.  —  The company will buy as many as 21 million shares …
Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac
Elinor Mills / CNET News:
Mac Game: Art project or malware?  —  As part of his Master of Fine Arts thesis project, Zach Gage wrote a game to run on Macintosh computers that resembles Space Invaders but with a digital roulette twist—for every alien space ship the player destroys a random file on the computer is deleted.
Jeffrey R. Young / Chronicle of Higher Education:
Music Industry Changes Tune of New Program to Fight File Sharing  —  Under a blanket of secrecy, six colleges have begun testing an experimental service from major recording labels that lets students legally download all the music they want and put it on any device.
Discussion: p2pnet and Slashdot
 
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 More Items: 
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Isabella Products and AT&T launch two-way sharing digital photo frames
Discussion: Engadget and Gizmodo, Thanks:enauzer
Cory Doctorow / Boing Boing:
Tell the FCC to say no to Hollywood's insane “Selectable Output Control” kill-switch
John Cook / TechFlash:
Frazier Technology Ventures to dissolve; Madrona hires Jordan
Discussion: PE Hub Blog
Telegraph:
BBC website suffers outage
Stephen Baker / Blogspotting:
Buying Twitter followers?
Mallary Jean Tenore / poynter.org:
Texas Tribune's Launch ‘Just the Beginning’ of Databases, What's to Come
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
RealNetworks to Lay Off Four Percent of Staff Today
Discussion: CNET News and AppScout
 Earlier Items: 
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
A Little Perspective (Digg, Twitter, Facebook)
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
CNN Explains the Cloud ... Badly
Discussion: CNN and Behind the Scenes, Thanks:enauzer
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Offerpal Tries Out A New CEO. Shukla, Queen Of Scams, Is Out.
Discussion: VentureBeat, Forbes and paidContent
Preston Gralla / Computerworld:
Is Apple targeting Windows 7 pirates?
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Matthew Keys / The Desk:
DirecTV terminates its Dish acquisition after a group of Dish creditors rejected a modified bond exchange offer

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

Gene Maddaus / Variety:
WGA East members working for PBS member stations reach a deal, averting a strike; the union says the deal expands protections to animation writers

 
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