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9:50 AM ET, December 15, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
The Official Google Blog:
Making URLs shorter for Google Toolbar and FeedBurner  —  This morning, we launched updated versions of the Google Toolbar and FeedBurner that offer a new URL shortening service from Google called the Google URL Shortener.  We mentioned our URL shortener as a feature in both announcements …
RELATED:
bit.ly blog:
Announcing bit.ly Pro  —  Today we're pleased to announce a new service: bit.ly Pro.  The Pro service provides custom short URLs powered by bit.ly.  Publishers and bloggers will be able to use their own short domain names to point to pages on their sites.  —  As part of our initial beta program …
Eric Eldon / Inside Facebook:
Facebook Testing New URL Shortener, fb.me  —  URL shorteners, like bit.ly, have become a popular way for people to share links on Twitter while taking up as few of the allotted 140 characters as possible.  But saving space is just one of the benefits that shorteners provide.
Robin Wauters / MobileCrunch:
Android Market grows up, hits 20,000 apps milestone  —  Rest assured that 2010 is going to be a big year for the Android operating system, with many new handsets finding their way to stores around the world (including Google's own phone) and an increasing amount of developers building tools …
Discussion: Android Central
New York Times:
Author Grants Exclusive E-Book Rights to Amazon  —  Ever since electronic books emerged as a major growth market, New York's largest publishing houses have worried that big-name authors might sign deals directly with e-book retailers or other new ventures, bypassing traditional publishers entirely.
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Is Bandwidth.com the Future of VoIP and Voice?  —  Bandwidth.com, despite having a name only a late '90s investor could love, has built a profitable all-IP network and expects to bring in $85 million in sales this year.  Today it also is announcing that it's opening up its network as a platform …
Discussion: VentureBeat and ReadWriteWeb
Esteban Kozak / The LinkedIn Blog:
Find people faster with LinkedIn's new faceted search  —  Here at LinkedIn, we believe that people search is one of the most valuable new areas of search technology.  Late last year, we announced the launch of the new people search platform, rebuilt from the ground up.
RELATED:
Stan Schroeder / Mashable!:
Facebook Could Learn a Thing or Two From LinkedIn's Faceted Search
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
The Wall Opens A Bit More: Facebook To Publish User Updates To Twitter This Week  —  A lot has been said recently about Facebook's decision to re-write its privacy rulebook to encourage users to be more open about what they share.  Privacy implications aside, at least it appears that Facebook is eating its own dogfood.
Discussion: Inside Facebook
Jesse Engle / CoTweet:
A Word About Twitter Commercial Accounts  —  Many people have asked us about Twitter's planned commercial account offering and what it means for CoTweet.  Twitter has been planning for commercial accounts for a long time.  Today Anamitra Banerji from Twitter's Product Team posted to their blog …
RELATED:
Ben Parr / Mashable!:
Twitter Starts Testing Features for Businesses
Discussion: CloudAve
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Facebook For Android Just Got A Big Upgrade, Is Catching Up To Its iPhone Cousin  —  For quite a while now now, one of the biggest problems with Android has been its app support.  In particular, the Facebook application has been quite limited: you could read your News Feed …
Google Code Blog:
Google Fusion Tables API  —  Today I'm excited to announce that Google Fusion Tables is releasing its own API.  —  What is Fusion Tables?  A product launched recently in Google Labs, Fusion Tables is a free service for sharing and visualizing data online.
Discussion: InfoWorld, ReadWriteWeb, CloudAve and ProgrammableWeb, Thanks:atul
Joseph Tartakoff / paidContent:
AlikeList Raises $5 Million For Local Business Reviews Site  —  A new local business reviews site has raised $5 million in a funding round from Syncom Venture Partners.  The startup, AlikeList, is trying to distinguish itself from existing competitors by making its recommendations more personal.
Discussion: Screenwerk, VentureBeat and silicontap.com, Thanks:geekychic
Dan Goodin / The Register:
Google's reCAPTCHA busted by new attack  —  Significant success rate  —  A security researcher has devised a successful attack on a Google-owned system for blocking malicious scripts on web-based email services and other types of sites.  —  The attack, described in a paper released Saturday …
AdSense for Feeds:
Socializing your feed with Twitter  —  Sometimes you reach across the hedgerow to share with your nearby neighbors.  Other times, members of the household move away and yet you can't keep from calling to remind them to wear a hat and such because it's chilly out.
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
One Of The 32 Million With A RockYou Account?  You May Want To Change All Your Passwords.  Like Now.  —  It's no secret that most people use the same password over and over again for most of the services they sign up for.  While it's obviously convenient, this becomes a major problem if one of those services is compromised.
Janko Roettgers / NewTeeVee:
House Committee Takes on Live-streaming Piracy  —  When the House Judiciary Committee hold its hearing, “Piracy of Live Sports Broadcasting Over the Internet,” this morning, we can be assured of two things: There's going to be more sports banter than you'd ever want to hear from members of Congress …
Discussion: TechCrunch and Brian Solis
Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Microsoft pulls China blog site amid code-theft charges  —  Microsoft said late Monday that is suspending access to an MSN China microblogging site amid allegations the service is based on code swiped from a rival.  —  Canadian start-up Plurk lashed out at Microsoft earlier on Monday …
James Brightman / IndustryGamers:
NPD: Top 10 Games Through November Reveal Nintendo Dominance  —  With 2009 quickly coming to a close, and NPD recently having released the November sales data, we're getting a pretty good picture of which titles came out on top for the year in the U.S. Today, IndustryGamers received …
Om Malik / GigaOM:
8 Years Later, the Blogging Goes On  —  It's now been eight years since I wrote the first post on the blog version of GigaOM.  Up until Dec. 13, 2001, GigaOM was nothing more than a repository for my previously published articles and résumé.  But with a little help from Ben Trott …
Thanks:atul
Donald Melanson / Engadget:
University of Antwerp stuffs 13 GPUs into FASTRA II supercomputer  —  The researchers at the University of Antwerp's Vision Lab caused quite a stir last year when they built a supercomputer with four high-end NVIDIA graphics cards, but it looks like they've truly stepped up their game for their followup …
Brian Garner / AppleInsider:
Apple named ‘Brand of the Decade’ by Adweek  —  Apple received top honors in six categories in Adweek's “Best of the 2000s” advertising awards, including “Brand of the Decade” and “Marketer of the Decade” for Steve Jobs.  —  Naming Apple the “Brand of the Decade,” AdweekMedia attributes …
Sean Fallon / Gizmodo:
Boxee Beta Leaks on BitTorrent  —  Interested in trying out the latest version of Boxee with its fancy new UI?  Beta 0.9.20.9647 is now available for download from The Pirate Bay.  [TPB]
Discussion: TechSpot and Lifehacker
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Brainstorm Tech:
The Mac's holiday momentum  —  A pair of analysts see an end-of-the-year uptick in Apple's computer sales  —  “Our conversations with industry contacts suggest that the Mac shipment levels have improved over the last two weeks,” writes J.P. Morgan's Mark Moskowitz in a report to clients issued Monday morning.
Discussion: Crave, AppleInsider and Ubergizmo
David Lenoe / Adobe Product Security Incident …:
New Adobe Reader and Acrobat Vulnerability  —  This afternoon, Adobe received reports of a vulnerability in Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.2 and earlier versions being exploited in the wild (CVE-2009-4324).  We are currently investigating this issue and assessing the risk to our customers.
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Zoho Reports Steps Out Of Beta With Pricing Model And New Features  —  Zoho Reports, the web-based productivity suite's business and data intelligence tool, is ripping off the beta tag and officially launching today with a new pricing model and set of features.
Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:
Chrome Mac, Linux betas push browser into No. 3 spot  —  Passes Safari, may beat Firefox at its own game on Linux  —  Computerworld - The release last week of betas of Chrome for Mac OS X and Linux pushed the Google browser's share past Apple's Safari and into the No. 3 spot, a Web measurement company said today.
Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac
 
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 More Items: 
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Gamer population surges — consoles in 60% of households
John Cook / TechFlash:
Swype swipes new venture round
Discussion: mocoNews and VentureBeat
Sally Singer / Vogue.com:
The Bride Wore Snowflakes
Mark Walsh / MediaPost:
Verizon Debuts Media Manager Tool
 Earlier Items: 
Jeffrey Burt / eWeek:
Neon Sues IBM Over Mainframe Business
Jon Fortt / Brainstorm Tech:
How LG is getting teens to think before they text
Discussion: CrunchGear and Between the Lines
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
ZumoDrive Lands $1.5 Million For Cloud Storage And Syncing Application
Discussion: mocoNews, VentureBeat and VatorNews
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
The Unofficial Google Text-To-Speech API
Discussion: Communications …, Webmonkey and Ajaxian, Thanks:bobcaswell
Reuters:
Google phone with T-Mobile contract in January: source
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
The Onion, backed by some Sandy Hook families and Everytown for Gun Safety, buys Infowars in a bankruptcy auction, and plans a January 2025 relaunch as a parody

Matthew Keys / The Desk:
Disney said Disney+ Q4 ARPU in the US and Canada, down 1% QoQ to $7.70, was affected partly by new wholesale arrangements with some distributors

Liam Scott / Voice of America:
Reporters Without Borders sues X in France for “complicity in disseminating false information”, after X failed to block a fake video with RSF's logo

 
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