Check out Mini-Techmeme for simple mobiles or Techmeme Mobile for modern smartphones.
1:40 PM ET, November 30, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
The End Of The CrunchPad  —  It was so close I could taste it.  Two weeks ago we were ready to publicly launch the CrunchPad.  The device was stable enough for a demo.  It went hours without crashing.  We could even let people play with the device themselves - the user interface …
Mike Elgan / Computerworld:
7 reasons why e-book readers make lousy gifts this year  —  An e-reader seems like a sweet, substantive and long-lasting gift.  But so is a fruitcake.  —  Computerworld - Two years ago, the best holiday gift was an Amazon Kindle — if you could get your hands on one.
RELATED:
Matt Hamblen / Computerworld:
Kindle has best sales month in November, Amazon says  —  Kindles are still available, while Sony and Nook e-readers are out of stock  —  Computerworld - November was the best sales month ever for the Kindle e-reader, even before traditionally heavy sales on Cyber Monday, Amazon.com Inc. said early today.
Business Wire:
Kindle Breaks Record for Sales in a Single Month During November
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Apple Online Sales Huge On Black Friday, Apple Retail Mac Down  —  Update: Munster has issued a new Black Friday report that includes e-commerce information.  —  It looks like Apple's Web business was huge: Sales were up 39% year-over-year on Black Friday, according to comScore …
RELATED:
Mark Wilson / Gizmodo:
LEAK: The Google Phone “Is a Certainty”  —  According to a trusted source who's seen it with their own eyes, the Google Phone “is a certainty.”  —  And by “Google Phone” we don't simply mean another Android handset.  We're talking about Google-branded hardware running a version of Android we haven't yet seen.
Kim Yoo-chul / The Korea Times:
Apple, Chip Bully?  —  Chipmakers Claim iPhone Maker Disrupts Flash Market  —  There are growing complaints in the semiconductor industry that Apple, the “smart” phone maker extraordinaire and major chip buyer, is manipulating NAND flash memory prices through its “questionable” purchasing strategies, industry sources said Sunday.
Stewart / Alsop-Louie Partners:
Droid Doesn't: It's Not Ready For Prime Time  —  The Motorola Droid is truly terrible, in part because it has such promise (and has been amazingly well reviewed — I worry I'm missing something).  Ironically, most of the blame for the cruddiness of the phone really should be laid at Google's feet, not Motorola's.
Bing / Search Blog:
Top Bing Searches in 2009  —  Cue Music.  Awwww, 2009.  It was a year of UFO shaped dirigibles, mom jeans on pop stars, real housewives, a new president, and a new decision engine.  Oh and there may have been something about Vampires too, we weren't really paying attention.
Ashlee Vance / New York Times:
Open Source as a Model for Business Is Elusive  —  SAN FRANCISCO — In many ways, MySQL embodies the ideals of the populist software movement known as open source, in which a program's creator releases it to the world free of charge, and legions of volunteers contribute improvements that are also freely shared.
Jeremy Kirk / PC World:
Latest Microsoft Patches Cause Black Screen of Death  —  Microsoft's latest round of security patches appears to be causing some PCs to seize up and display a black screen, rending the computer useless.  —  The problem affects Microsoft products including Windows 7, Vista and XP operating systems …
Royal Pingdom:
Study: Males vs. females in social networks  —  Have you ever wondered how many of Twitter's users are women?  Or men?  What about Facebook, MySpace, Digg, LinkedIn, and other sites in the social media sphere?  —  We have tracked down this information for a number of social network sites (19 of them).
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch Europe:
French court slams eBay with €1.7M fine over LVMH product resale dispute  —  [France] A commercial court in Paris has fined eBay €1.7 million euros (roughly £1.6 million) for allegedly not sticking to an injunction banning users from selling on products of luxury goods …
RELATED:
PR Newswire:
eBay Responds to French Court Ruling Versus LVMH
Discussion: Seeking Alpha
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
The New TweetDeck Goes List Crazy And Adds Maps To GeoTweets  —  Streamreaders just keep getting better and better.  A new version of TweetDeck is rolling out today with some major improvements, including support for Lists, Retweets, maps for geo-tagged messages, and LinkedIn streams.
David Carr / New York Times:
The Fall and Rise of Media  —  Historically, young women and men who sought to thrive in publishing made their way to Manhattan.  Once there, they were told, they would work in marginal jobs for indifferent bosses doing mundane tasks and then one day, if they did all of that without whimper or complaint …
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Features Chrome For Mac Beta Will Be Missing  —  As we've noted, Chrome for Mac is getting very, very close to its official beta launch.  The team is down to a mere 8 bugs to fix before it's ready (and it looks like the list has been trimmed to 7 as of a few hours ago).
Harry McCracken / Technologizer:
The State of Windows 7 Satisfaction  —  Windows 7 is scarcely more than a month old.  Most of the people who will eventually use it haven't gotten around to trying it yet; those that have are still settling in.  And the Win 7 experience will change rapidly as remaining bugs are squashed …
Discussion: Softpedia News
Simone Weichselbaum / NY Daily News:
Gangs in New York talk Twitter: Use tweets to trash-talk rivals, plan fights  —  The city's street gangs are becoming tweet gangs.  —  Manhattan's young thugs have turned to Twitter, and the cops who track them are fast behind, the Daily News has learned.  —  It's old-school crime meets …
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
Twidroid 3.0 Launches with Plugin Support  —  Originally set to launch in “early December,” Twidroid surprised us by launching the next version of the popular Android Twitter client here on the last day of November instead.  Twidroid 3.0, which is now available in the Android Marketplace …
Discussion: VatorNews, Shotton.com and rssCloud Blog, Thanks:atul
Chris Saad / Got Kit?:
Echo Whirlpools are here!  —  Whirlpools is a new feature that is slowly being released for Echo.  We are very excited about this upgrade, we hope you will enjoy it.  —  What's new?  —  Long conversation threads can now be collapsed to 4 items (the first 2, the last 2 with an expander line in the middle).
Thanks:chrissaad
Loïc Le Meur / Loic Le Meur Blog:
More On Seesmic's Vision of Programmable Twitter clients  —  I announced during Ray Ozzie's keynote at the Microsoft PDC that Seesmic is building a programmable Twitter client so I am glad that Dave Winer likes this idea too and might be interested in building the first features.
Discussion: rssCloud Blog, Thanks:seesmic
Sascha Segan / PC Magazine:
LG, AT&T Announce 1-GHz Projector Phone  —  Here's a whole bunch of firsts for the U.S.: LG today announced the Expo, a Windows Mobile 6.5-based smartphone with a built-in fingerprint sensor and optional pico-projector powered by a Qualcomm 1-GHz processor that I assume is their Snapdragon chipset, though LG doesn't say.
Brian Prince / eWeek:
IBM Reportedly to Buy Guardium for Database Security  —  IBM is reportedly acquiring database security vendor Guardium for $225 million.  The acquisition announcement is expected to be made this week.  —  Rumors are circulating that IBM is acquiring database security vendor Guardium for $225 million.
Discussion: TechCrunch
Caroline McCarthy / CNET News:
Location start-up SimpleGeo maps out funding  —  Venture firm First Round Capital has led the Series A funding round for start-up SimpleGeo, a buzzed-about new company that has built a product for easy integration of “location” features into Web and mobile apps, according to multiple sources familiar with the deal.
Discussion: All Points Blog
Leander Kahney / Cult of Mac:
Stolen Belgian iPhones Starting To Appear on Russian Black Market … Batches of stolen iPhones snagged during the “Great iPhone Heist” in Belgium earlier this month are showing up on the Russian black market.  —  Two weeks ago, thieves made off with 3,000-4,000 iPhone 3GS …
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of Techmeme at 1:40 PM ET, November 30, 2009.

View the current page or another snapshot:


 
 Techmeme Sponsor Posts: 
Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Zoho:
CIO challenge 5: Can we find an effective solution that also minimizes operational costs?  —  Welcome to the next and final installment of our CIO series!  After what feels like a thousand cups of coffee …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Sponsor Techmeme
 
 See Also: 
Techmeme: site main
Techmeme River: reverse chronological Techmeme
Techmeme Mobile: for phones
Techmeme Leaderboard: Techmeme's top sources
 
 Subscribe: 
Techmeme RSS feed
Techmeme on X
Techmeme on Mastodon
 
 
 More Items: 
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Yahoo Mobile Head David Ko Takes Over Audience Job Too (But Mobile …
Discussion: paidContent
Ryan Lawler / NewTeeVee:
Hulu Adds Advanced Search Capabilities
Discussion: Hulu Blog
Ben Sillis / Electricpig:
Google Maps Navigation comes to the UK!
Paul Venezia / Paul Venezia's blog:
Digital tyranny in the U.K. — is the U.S. next?
Monica Chen / DigiTimes:
PC vendors pessimistic toward future of MIDs
 Earlier Items: 
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Sony outs world's first TransferJet chips for short-range wireless transfer
Discussion: CrunchGear
Owen Fletcher / Computerworld:
Baidu targets Google with mobile search app
Daniel Lyons / Newsweek:
Google This!  —  The tech giants duke it out—again.
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
It's Not Easy Being Popular. …
Chris Saad / Paying Attention:
Calling for open  —  Steve Gillmor often writes fantastic …
Discussion: TechCrunchIT and The SiliconANGLE, Thanks:atul
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Alex Sherman / CNBC:
Analyzing Comcast's spinoff of cable networks, purposefully structured with low debt: the move might be a signal to the industry that it's time to consolidate

Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch:
Tubi launches Scenes, a mobile feature that lets viewers watch 60-to-90-second trailer-style clips from its library to help with content discovery

Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:
James Harding says the Tortoise-Observer deal could create a profitable media group and there isn't a guaranteed future for the Observer with the Guardian

 
Sister Sites:

Mediagazer
 Top news and commentary for media professionals from all around the web
memeorandum
 What US political commentators are discussing online right now
WeSmirch
 The top celebrity news from all around the web on a single page