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8:30 PM ET, December 18, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Google In Discussions To Acquire Yelp For A Half Billion Dollars Or More  —  Google and Yelp are in advanced acquisition negotiations, we've confirmed from multiple sources.  And while the deal isn't done, we've heard that it's very likely to close.  The price is supposedly at least $500 million.
RELATED:
Claire Cain Miller / New York Times:
Google Is in Talks to Buy Yelp  —  SAN FRANCISCO — In a sign that Google is interested in broadening its reach among local businesses, the search giant is in acquisition talks with Yelp, the review site for local businesses, according to three peoplewith knowledge of the deal.
Spencer E. Ante / Business Week:
Verizon Prepares for the iPhone  —  Verizon Wireless is buttressing its network in the event Apple drops AT&T as the exclusive carrier of its popular smartphone  —  There's no telling yet whether or when AT&T (T) might lose its position as the sole U.S. carrier of the Apple (AAPL) iPhone.
RELATED:
Sam Diaz / Between the Lines:
Verizon prepares for iPhone? Don't believe the headlines
Discussion: Creative Capital
RELATED:
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Google's Nexus One lacks multitouch
Discussion: Redmond Pie and Unwired View
NASDAQ.com:
Mac Clone Computer Maker Psystar To Shutter  —  SAN FRANCISCO -(Dow Jones)- Psystar Corp. is in the process of closing down its operations, a move that follows a court decision earlier in the week barring it from selling products already found to have violated Apple Inc. (AAPL) copyrights.
RELATED:
Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:
Contrary to report, Psystar not shutting down, lawyer says  —  Mac clone maker's lawyer says another attorney misquoted; Psystar not out of business, but site is down  —  Computerworld - Although Mac clone maker Psystar has turned off the lights at its Web site, the firm is not shutting down permanently …
Discussion: The Register, TUAW and AppleInsider
Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:
Twitter's own account caused blackout, says DNS provider  —  Twitter's authorized account made changes to DNS records, shunting users to hacker site, says Dyn Inc.  —  Computerworld - Hackers redirected Twitter.com's traffic to a rogue Web site for more than an hour early today by accessing …
RELATED:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Twitter Hacked, Defaced By “Iranian Cyber Army”
Nik Cubrilovic / TechCrunch:
The Anatomy of The Twitter Attack: Part II
Discussion: eWeek and BayNewser, Thanks:glassjubo
Chris Davies / SlashGear:
Notion Ink Tegra Android smartpad uses Pixel Qi display  —  CES 2010 is likely to see a fair few internet tablets being announced, but SlashGear has heard about one particular model that has more than a little promise.  Notion Ink's as-yet unnamed Android “smartpad” is based …
Steve / The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs:
Some last-minute thoughts  —  Obviously we will be following Operation Chokehold today and hope to bring you up-to-the-minute coverage of events as they are unfolding around the nation.  To do that, we'll need your help.  We need you to send in reports, updates, photos — whatever.
RELATED:
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Brainstorm Tech:
AT&T survives Operation Chokehold
Discussion: ABCNEWS, iPhone Savior and Techdirt
Phone Arena:
Verizon to get Palm Pre Plus, LG VS750, and Motorola Devour smartphones  —  Published on: Today by PhoneArena Team  —  Thanks to a few of our tipsters, we've learned what new smartphones are lurking to be released by Verizon Wireless over the next couple of months.
Mia / YouTube Blog:
Facebook Feeds Begin Showing Up on YouTube's Homepage  —  You might have noticed that YouTube's been getting a lot more social lately.  We've launched several features in the last few months that let you better connect with the platforms that matter most to you (and discover new videos you're likely to love in the process).
Discussion: CNET News, NewTeeVee and 901am
Karl Bode / DSLreports:
Verizon Responds To FCC Inquiry On ETFs, Erroneous $1.99 Fee  —  And the excuses are just as lame as you thought they'd be...  · fcc  · business  · wireless  —  As we've been covering, the FCC recently sent a latter to Verizon asking them to explain why they just doubled …
Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
DRM Fiasco Ruins James Cameron's Avatar 3D Preview  —  ‘Avatar’ from Titanic director James Cameron is certainly the most anticipated film of the year.  —  Set on a moon under siege by humans determined to exploit its resources, this science fiction epic has been in the planning for many years …
Joab Jackson / PC World:
Mozilla Rolls out Latest Firefox Beta  —  The Mozilla development community has rolled out the latest beta of its Firefox 3.6 browser.  —  In addition to the usual round of bug fixes, Firefox 3.6 beta version 5, comes with a number of new features and performance enhancements.
Lance Whitney / CNET News:
Sex, porn, Jacko top kids' searches in 2009  —  Sex, porn, and Michael Jackson were among the most popular items kids searched for online in 2009, as tracked by Symantec's OnlineFamily.Norton.  —  Symantec on Thursday revealed the top 100 favorite search terms among children 18 and under found …
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Brainstorm Tech:
Where in the world are Apple's 78 million handsets?  —  Mostly in the U.S., but Japan, France, Australia and China are coming on fast, says AdMob  —  Click to enlarge.  Source: AdMob  —  By the end of December, according to Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster, Apple's (AAPL) will have sold 78 million iPhones and iPod touches worldwide.
Fred / A VC:
Open APIs and Open Standards  —  As Dave Winer has been pointing out in recent weeks, there is something quite interesting happening in the blogging/microblogging world.  —  First WordPress allowed posting and reading wordpress blogs via the Twitter API.  —  Then yesterday our portfolio company Tumblr did the same.
Dan Primack / PE Hub Blog:
Twitter App Store Oneforty Gets Funded  —  Back in June, Twitter app store oneforty became the first TechStars Boston company to get seed funding (just two weeks after presenting).  Now it has become the first one to get institutional VC funding, with a small round that was led by Flybridge Capital Partners.
Zee / The Next Web Network:
Wordpress 2.9 is out.  —  It's out.  The world's most popular blogging engine has released it's latest update and you can grab it now.  —  You can upgrade easily from your Dashboard by going to Tools > Upgrade, or you can download from WordPress.org.  —  Along with a mass of bug and security fixes …
Discussion: WordPress
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Google Grabs Plaxo's CTO To “Turbocharge” The Opening Of The Social Web  —  Back in June, Google lost Kevin Marks, one of the social web's main proponents within the company.  Today, they've gained a new one: Joseph Smarr.  —  Smarr is joining Google to “help drive a new company-wide focus …
Jay Yarow / Silicon Alley Insider:
Amazon Won't Be The Only One Selling Kindle Books Next Year (AMZN)  —  Scribd, the YouTube for print, is working on a new way to get e-books onto your Kindle without buying them from Amazon.  —  Right now, to get one of the tens of millions of Scribd documents has — books, papers …
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Rackspace Goes Down.  Again.  Takes The Internet With It.  Again.  —  Another day, another Rackspace outage.  The hosting company had a complete and total failure today that took down a number of big sites on the Internet, including ours.  This has been happening all too often in recent months, including downtime just last month.
Reuters:
Sales of music video games plummet in 2009  —  DENVER (Billboard) - What a difference a year makes.  —  The music-game category raked in $1.4 billion in revenue last year, according to Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter, driven largely by sales of “Rock Band 2” and “Guitar Hero World Tour.”
Joe Wilcox / BetaNews:
Mac fan blogs miss the point about Android, iPhone and Windows Mobile  —  It amazes me how Mac and tech blogs can take data touting Google Android phone gains and turn it into an iPhone beats Windows Mobile phone foo fest.  Give it up.  The data reveals much more interesting findings than that.
Olga Kharif / Tech Beat:
Skype Talks Cooperation With Avaya  —  Now that gearmaker Avaya and Web-calling service Skype share a private-equity owner, the two companies are discussing ways they can better work together.  “We are having conversations with [Skype],” Avaya CEO Kevin Kennedy said in an interview today.
Discussion: paidContent
 
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 More Items: 
James Turner / O'Reilly Radar:
The Best and the Worst Tech of the Decade
Susie Pan / DigiTimes:
AUO expects to volume produce 65-inch 3D displays in 2H10
Discussion: I4U News
Eric Eldon / Inside Facebook:
Policy Watch: Facebook Targets Dubious Subscription and Download Ads …
Jennifer Van Grove / Mashable!:
Trident Gum Turns Fan Tweets into Full-Page USA Today Ad
Nick Eaton / The Microsoft Blog:
Anti-COFEE tool DECAF revealed as spoof
Steve Smith / MediaPost:
Having The Big Cookie Talk
Bloomberg:
Facebook Can Take More Time on IPO Following Russian Investment, DST Says
Discussion: paidContent, Thanks:mrinaldesai
Dirk / Layar:
We haved pulled Layar from the App Store due to crashes
Discussion: VentureBeat and ReadWriteWeb, Thanks:mrinaldesai
 Earlier Items: 
Bloomberg:
LinkedIn Joins ESPN, Skype in Shifting From Free Web Content to ‘Freemium’
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Facebook readies its Game Dashboard to organize your social gaming life
Discussion: Maximum PC and Cathode Tan
Kristin / Search Blog:
Bing iPhone app - upcoming fixes
Philipp Lenssen / Google Blogoscoped:
Google Guru?  —  Chris writes in to say he's spotted a new service …
Discussion: Search Engine Land and WebProNews, Thanks:atul