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5:40 AM ET, December 1, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Todd Bishop / TechFlash:
Microsoft looking into Windows ‘black screen of death’ problem  —  Microsoft says it's looking into reports that its latest security updates are causing some Windows machines to stop working and display a mostly black screen with no desktop icons, taskbar, sidebar or other elements …
RELATED:
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 …
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 …
RELATED:
Brian Caulfield / Forbes:
Why The Crunchpad Didn't Pencil Out  —  Ignore the soap opera.
Discussion: PC World and eSarcasm
Mark Milian / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
What's powering Web apps: Google waving goodbye to Gears, hello to HTML5 [Updated]  —  Of all the things Google is really good at, patience isn't necessarily one of them.  —  To prove Web applications like Gmail and Google Docs could be as sophisticated as desktop apps …
Alaska Miller / Silicon Alley Insider:
Check Out Google's Favorite Android Apps  —  Google named the winners today in its second annual mobile apps contest.  —  The top prizes for this year's Android Developer Challenge went to:  — Sweet Dreams, which lets you avoid late-night phone calls and save battery power
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Droid Nears Its Million-Device Target  —  Motorola and Verizon's $100 million marketing push seems to be paying off: The much-ballyhooed Droid smartphone made by Motorola and powered by Google's Android 2.0 OS is inching toward its goal of a million devices sold during the fourth quarter of 2009.
Scott Moritz / TheStreet.com:
Apple iPhone May Go to T-Mobile Next  —  Stock quotes in this article: AAPL , VZ , MOT , T  —  NEW YORK (TheStreet) — Apple's (AAPL Quote) path to U.S. smartphone dominance may take an abrupt detour as the iPhone's next destination may be Deutsche Telekom's (DT Quote) T-Mobile and not Verizon (VZ Quote).
Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
Yahoo's 2009 searches topped by Michael Jackson and Twilight, not Twitter  —  Barely more than a few hours after Microsoft revealed the year's top queries on its new search engine Bing, Yahoo followed suit with its own top 10.  Unsurprisingly, Michael Jackson topped both lists …
Alessandra Ghini / Photoshop.com:
Mobile photo editing & sharing now available for global iPhone users!  —  Photoshop.com Mobile is excited to announce the latest news: the iPhone app is now available in every country with an app store.  Now our international users can upload, edit & share photos from their iPhone, too.
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.
Joel Rosenblatt / Bloomberg:
Nokia Sues Samsung, Display Panel Manufacturers Over Price-Fixing Claims  —  Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) — Nokia Oyj, the world's largest maker of mobile phones, sued Samsung Electronics Co., LG Display Co., AU Optronics Corp. and other manufacturers of liquid-crystal displays over claims they colluded to fix prices of panels.
Arn / MacRumors:
Apple Takes Control of ‘TabletMac’ Trademark  —  A couple of years ago, a company called Axiotron announced an aftermarket modification for the MacBook that converted the Apple laptop into a tablet.  The modification remains for sale at $699 and takes a stock MacBook, removes the keyboard and screen …
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Plancast Is Foursquare... For The Future  —  If you're going to leave your job at TechCrunch, you better have a good reason.  I think Mark Hendrickson actually may have had one.  —  Hendrickson left TechCrunch in March.  After about two years of writing and doing development for TC, he got the startup itch.
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
The Facebook Verified App Saga Ends Tomorrow  —  For the last six months, you may have noticed that some of your favorite apps on Facebook Platform carried a special badge deeming them to be “Facebook Verified”.  These apps “passed Facebook's review for trustworthy user experiences” …
Scott M. Fulton, III / BetaNews:
Confirmed: Office 2010 to ship in June  —  After several Web sites today claimed to having seen a possibly inadvertent notice from Microsoft claiming June as the release month for its forthcoming Office 2010 (we looked hard and couldn't find it ourselves), a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed …
John Herrman / Gizmodo:
Kindle Outsells Every Other Product On Amazon (And What This Really Means)  —  According to a breathless press release, the Kindle ereader is the “#1 bestselling product across all product categories on Amazon.”  That means it sold more than the iPod Touch.  More than the Wii.  More than Going Rogue.
BBC:
India blocks millions of mobiles  —  Millions of Indian mobile phones with no valid unique identification code have been blocked for security reasons.  —  The International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number is a 15-digit code which appears on the operator's network whenever a call is made.
Discussion: Times of India
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
hi5 recruits a beastly gaming veteran as its president  —  Social network hi5 has hired a pioneer in the video game industry to kick its social gaming strategy into high gear.  It remains to be seen if hi5 truly realizes what it's getting in the hiring of Alex St. John.
Dan Goodin / The Register:
FreeBSD bug gives untrusted root access  —  ‘Unbelievably simple’ exploit  —  A security bug in the latest version of the FreeBSD can be exploited to grant unprivileged users complete control over the operating system, a German researcher said Monday.  —  The flaw is present in FreeBSD 8 …
BNO News:
BNO News Launches Wire Service; MSNBC.com Takes Over @BreakingNews  —  “At least 10 people are dead after an explosion at a restaurant in Orsk, Russia.”  Based on a media report, that was the first tweet from BNO News on May 13, 2007 at 7.07 p.m. EDT.  We have come far since we posted that tweet …
Discussion: Guardian, Thanks:atul
Journal Business Staff / Edmonton Journal:
Edmonton company sues Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft  —  EDMONTON - Wireless processor company Eleven Engineering is taking on the three giants of the gaming industry in a patent infringement case.  The Edmonton company is suing Nintendo Co., Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp. over claims …
Discussion: Bloomberg
AWS Evangelist / Amazon Web Services Blog:
IBM Tivoli Now Available on Amazon EC2  —  Adoption of the AWS Cloud by mainstream ISVs is underway as you read this.  There are numerous posts about IBM's work to bring their product line into the AWS environment, and today's is no exception.  IBM Tivoli monitoring is now available …
Discussion: ITworld.com and The Register
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
M.I.T., Google, And Umberto Eco Want To Erect a Realtime Cloud Over The 2012 London Olympics  —  What is it with architects that they feel the need to glom onto the latest buzzwords to justify their projects?  A group from M.I.T.'s Senseable City Lab is looking for funding …
Discussion: Erictric
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Exclusive: Digg Steals A Google Exec As New VP Product  —  Digg has poached Keval Desai away from Google as their new Vice President of Product, we've confirmed from the company.  Desai's last day at Google is today.  —  Desai is a long time Google employee, first joining the company in 2003.
Discussion: WebProNews and ChasNote
Gregg Pollack / Riding Rails:
Ruby on Rails 2.3.5 Released  —  Rails 2.3.5 was released over the weekend which provides several bug-fixes and one security fix.  It should be fully compatible with all prior 2.3.x releases and can be easily upgraded to with “gem update rails”.  The most interesting bits can be summarized in three points.
Discussion: LinuxWorld.com and eWeek
Jay Yarow / Silicon Alley Insider:
Microsoft Has No Plans To Fund A Google Boycott  —  All that hoopla about Microsoft subsidizing News Corp's boycott of Google?  Just noise, says the Michael Liedtke of the AP.  —  He spoke with three Microsoft sources who all say Microsoft is not going to pay publishers to pull their content from Google.
Discussion: The Microsoft Blog
Mac Slocum / Nieman Journalism Lab:
How a shift in perspective salvaged Boston.com's local search project  —  In 2006, Boston.com launched a local search tool that was supposed to be a big part of the site's future.  The project made perfect sense on paper: Readers would get search results focused on eastern Massachusetts.
Discussion: Local Onliner
 
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 More Items: 
Gartner:
Gartner Says Worldwide Server Market Showing Signs of Stabilization …
Ramu Nagappan / Macworld:
Apple opens up iTunes LP and Extras to developers
Todd Bishop / TechFlash:
Allen's Charter exits Ch. 11
Discussion: Thomson IR and Tech Trader Daily
 Earlier Items: 
Kim-Mai Cutler / VentureBeat:
Twitter takes down Lists temporarily as site buckles
Discussion: The Next Web and The Social
James Hamilton / Perspectives:
2010 the Year of MicroSlice Servers
Discussion: OakLeaf Systems
Carmi Levy / BetaNews:
Not-so-mobile battery life: Time to force the issue
Clint Boulton / eWeek:
Google Wave Users Want More of Their Friends on Wave
Discussion: Download Squad
Filip Truta / Softpedia News:
VirtualBox 3.1.0 Final Released
Discussion: The Register