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2:55 PM ET, December 4, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Mark Milian / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Google quietly rolls out Dictionary [Updated]  —  What does “googling” mean?  Google can tell you.  —  The search giant has quietly rolled out Google Dictionary, which presents definitions and synonyms.  Exactly what you'd expect from a dictionary.  —  In addition to Google's own database …
RELATED:
Andre Lebedev / The Official Google Blog:
Now on Google Finance: streaming news  —  Ever since we launched real-time and streaming quotes on Google Finance last year, we've heard from users how vital that up-to-date information has been.  Especially in today's volatile financial environment, current information can be the difference between …
John Leyden / The Register:
Spyware threat haunts squeaky-clean iPhones  —  Research finds rogue app privacy risks to regulation models  —  Apple's line that iPhone users who toe the line and resist any temptation to jailbreak, unlock or otherwise desecrate their smartphone are protected from threats has been called into question by new research.
Discussion: MacNN, The Next Web and Pocket-lint.com
Patrick Hoge / bizjournals:
CrunchPad partner plans media event  —  The man whom TechCrunch blog network founder and editor Michael Arrington blamed for killing his CrunchPad hardware project has scheduled a video call with reporters and industry analysts for Monday, according to a Silicon Valley public relations firm.
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Microsoft is making progress on search: You noticed Bing's glitch  —  It's a happy day for Microsoft's search team.  Bing had a half hour outage late Thursday and a few folks actually noticed.  —  Bing went down for a half hour between 6:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. PST over a configuration glitch.
Discussion: LiveSide
RELATED:
Search Blog:
A note about today's outage
Monica Chen / DigiTimes:
Vendors to launch Atom N450-based netbooks on January 11, 2010  —  Asustek Computer, Acer, Lenovo and even Micro-Star International (MSI), which originally planned to launch in December, are all set to launch their Atom N450-based netbooks on January 11, 2010, complying with their agreement …
Jim Dalrymple / The Loop:
Apple sued for infringing digital camera patent with iPhone  —  St. Clair Intellectual Property Consultants filed a lawsuit against Apple claiming the company is violating several of its digital camera patents.  —  Filed in the United States District Court in Delaware …
Randy Abrams / ThreatBlog:
PayPal Admits to Phishing Users  —  Yes, it is true, I am not making this up.  I do not believe that PayPal has stolen anything from users, but they have told me that their own email is phishing.  —  Here's what happened.  I sent them one of their own legitimate emails and told …
Leland / Twitter Blog:
Takeout dogfood  —  Hi all, this is @leland, user experience lead on the @twittermobile team.  I wanted to share a little bit of what we've been working on and thinking about.  —  It's probably no secret that Twitter has an active developer community, using our APIs to create fantastically innovative apps.
Matt Wilson / L.A. Daily News:
Apple clears first hurdle in bid for new Cupertino campus  —  Apple Inc. is one step closer to building a second campus in Cupertino after waiting eight months for city planners to rezone its 7.78-acre property on Pruneridge Avenue to allow office use.  —  The planning commission …
Kevin Rose / Digg the Blog:
Five Years of Digg...and counting  —  Five years ago today, Digg.com went live.  What started as a simple idea has certainly come a long way.  From a vision of a new way to surface news, and a team of three, to 40+ million monthly visitors and 80+ passionate employees...well, suffice it to say that I'm very proud of what we've become.
Discussion: TechCrunch and Erictric
Chris Matyszczyk / CNET News:
New Droid ad: iPhone is ‘digitally clueless’  —  Perhaps you have already become used to Verizon's Droid tossing names at the iPhone like an 8-year-old boy behind his teacher's back.  —  However, the latest ill feelings directed at Apple's little cutey seem beyond even anything heard in an elementary school.
Om Malik / GigaOM:
FCC Wants to Know Why Verizon Increased Termination Fees  —  Updated with Verizon's response: The Federal Communications Commission wants to know why Verizon decided to double its early termination fee (ETF) for new customers who sign on to the wireless service using advanced devices...longhand for smartphones.
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
FCC admits CableCARD a failure, vows to try something else  —  The Genachowski-led Federal Communications Commission (FCC) seems to delight in dropping bombshells on a weekly basis, but we didn't see this one coming: the FCC admits that its CableCARD mandate has been an abysmal failure.
Discussion: Bits
Ryan Singel / Threat Level:
Geez, Google Wants to Take Over DNS, Too  —  Google now wants to be your browser's phone book, launching a DNS service Thursday in hopes that users will let the ad and search giant take over yet another part of their net experience.  —  Browsers ask Domain Name System (DNS) …
Jonny Evans / 9 to 5 Mac:
Apple announces free iTunes Christmas give-aways for Europe  —  Apple UK has announced the ‘iTunes 12 Days of Christmas’ promotion, offering free songs, music videos, apps, TV episodes and films on a daily basis during the promotion.  —  The promotion run from December 26 to January 6.
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
An In-Depth Look At Pivot, Microsoft's Newest Data Visualization Tool  —  At Microsoft's PDC event a few weeks ago, Microsoft Live Labs introduced a new technology, called Pivot, to make sense of interconnectedness between objects on the web.  The underlying premise of Pivot is to view relationships between …
Discussion: Microsoft
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Source: Google Is Acquiring AppJet, The Company Behind EtherPad  —  We're hearing whispers that Google is in the process of acquiring AppJet, the small startup that builds the popular collaboration tool EtherPad.  A number of ex-Googlers are AppJet executives, including CEO Aaron Iba, CTO J.D. Zamfirescu, and COO Daniel Clemens.
Discussion: The EtherPad Blog
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Apple Told To Pay Patent Troll OPTi $21.7 Million  —  Apple was told to pay $21.7 million in a patent case against OPTi Inc., a semiconductor vendor-turned-patent troll.  —  The patent (no. 6.405,291) regards “pre-snoop” cache memory technology.  —  The decision was made in the plaintiff …
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
Apple Quietly Adds 3.33 GHz Quad-Core Option to Mac Pro [Updated: Xserve]  —  Apple has quietly upgraded its Mac Pro offerings, adding the option of a 3.33 GHz quad-core processor and adding the ability to configure both the quad-core and 8-core models with 2 TB hard drives …
iSuppli:
Acer Takes No.-2 PC Rank in Q3; Market Returns to Annual Growth  —  Marking a major milestone in the history of the computer industry, an Asian OEM has captured the No.-2 position in the global PC market on a quarterly basis for the first time, according to iSuppli Corp.
Jamie Lendino / AppScout:
Verizon VZ Navigator Developer Gets Acquired  —  TeleCommunication Systems, a messaging and location-based service provider, has agreed to acquire Networks in Motion, the company behind Verizon's $9.99-per-month VZ Navigator GPS app, for $170 million.  —  Network In Motion's board has accepted …
Eric Zeman / InformationWeek:
HTC Droid Eris To Get Android 2.0 Update  —  Verizon Wireless has said that the HTC Droid Eris will receive a significant system update at some point in the fist quarter of 2010.  The update will boost the Eris' version of Android to at least 2.0, and possibly even 2.1.
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch Europe:
Amazon and Vente-Privee in talks over 2 billion Euro acquisition, say sources  —  [France] US retailing giant Amazon is in deep and secret negotiations with Vente-Privee, the French private sales club which has taken the ecommerce and fashion industries by storm, our sources say.
Clint Boulton / eWeek:
Google Visual Search Coming for Android Phones  —  Table of Contents:  —  Google is working on Google Visual Search, a mobile application that lets users take a picture of a location from their Android-powered smartphone and trigger a Google search that pulls up information associated with the image.
 
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 More Items: 
John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
Cisco Closer to Closing Tandberg Deal
Discussion: GigaOM
Chris Preimesberger / eWeek:
Oracle Denies Report About Offering Compromise on MySQL to Quell EC
Nathan Becker / Dow Jones Newswires:
Kodak Sells OLED Business To LG, Cos Will Share Patents
Greg Kumparak / MobileCrunch:
AdMob Launches Beta Ads For Palm WebOS
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
MySpace Launches New Mobile Website with Built-in IM
Discussion: MySpace Press Room and Erictric
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
Star That Tweet! Favit Launches in iTunes App Store
Discussion: The Next Web and TUAW
Lee Mathews / Download Squad:
Google Chrome Extension Gallery treads lightly on copyright issues
 Earlier Items: 
Alan Long / Hitwise Intelligence:
Facebook driving the Industry growth (NZ)
Elinor Mills / CNET News:
Defense Dept. pulls software over privacy issues
Frank Watson / Search Engine Watch:
It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas: Changes At Google to Increase Ad Spends
David Kaplan / paidContent:
With Redesign, Reuters.com Goes After Consumer Audience
Dan Macsai / Fast Company:
G-Railed: Why Did Google Bury the Web's Oldest Entertainment Publication?
Discussion: IMDb and digiday:DAILY
Alaska Miller / Silicon Alley Insider:
EBay Founder Invests $1.4 Million Into Emergency Alert System
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
The music industry is entering a cycle of consolidation, driven by a slowdown at the major labels, the growing market for independents, and the rapacity of PE

Max Tani / Semafor:
Sources: CNN is considering making network anchor Kaitlan Collins its chief White House correspondent and relocating her show from New York to DC

Manuel Roig-Franzia / Washington Post:
An interview with Alsu Kurmasheva of RFE/RL, a seasoned editor and broadcaster who spent months in a Russian prison before being released in a prisoner swap

 
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