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9:20 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 Said To Be Near A Yelp Deal  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Google is in discussions to buy Yelp, the Web site that lists and reviews local businesses, according to three people who had been briefed on the negotiations.  The talks show how intently the biggest Web companies are setting their sights …
Tnkgrl / tnkgrl Mobile:
Exclusive: Google Nexus One hands on  —  I just played with the Google Nexus One for a few minutes, Here's my report:  — It's extremely thin  — It's much nicer looking in person than in pictures  — There's a 4 GB micro-SD card installed  — The battery capacity is 1400 mAh
RELATED:
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Google's Nexus One lacks multitouch
Discussion: Redmond Pie and Unwired View
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
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
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:
Biz / Twitter Blog:
Update on Last Night's DNS Disruption  —  Domain Name System or DNS is an Internet protocol used to translate IP addresses into domain names so instead of typing in a long string of numbers we can enter urls like www.twitter.com into a browser to visit our favorite web sites.
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: BetaNews, ABCNEWS and iPhone Savior
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: NewTeeVee, CNET News 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 …
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.
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
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.
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 …
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.
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.
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.
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 …
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.
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 …
James Turner / O'Reilly Radar:
The Best and the Worst Tech of the Decade  —  With only a few weeks left until we close out the 'naughts and move into the teens, it's almost obligatory to take a look back at the best and not-so-best of the last decade.  With that in mind, I polled the O'Reilly editors, authors, Friends …
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Open House?  Google Has Also Been Eying Trulia in Real Estate Search Play  —  Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.  —  According to sources close to the situation, along with its pending bid effort for Yelp, Google has been in on-again, off-again acquisition talks with Trulia, the real estate search engine.
 
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 More Items: 
Susie Pan / DigiTimes:
AUO expects to volume produce 65-inch 3D displays in 2H10
Discussion: I4U News and Pocket-lint.com
Eric Eldon / Inside Facebook:
Policy Watch: Facebook Targets Dubious Subscription and Download Ads …
Reuters:
Sales of music video games plummet in 2009
Jennifer Van Grove / Mashable!:
Trident Gum Turns Fan Tweets into Full-Page USA Today Ad
Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:
Conviva CEO Swap Official; Feher In, Co-Founder Zhang To Chief Scientist
Discussion: NewTeeVee
Nick Eaton / The Microsoft Blog:
Anti-COFEE tool DECAF revealed as spoof
Discussion: CrunchGear
Steve Smith / MediaPost:
Having The Big Cookie Talk
Dirk / Layar:
We haved pulled Layar from the App Store due to crashes
Discussion: VentureBeat and ReadWriteWeb, Thanks:mrinaldesai
 Earlier Items: 
Olga Kharif / Tech Beat:
Skype Talks Cooperation With Avaya
Discussion: mocoNews
Bloomberg:
LinkedIn Joins ESPN, Skype in Shifting From Free Web Content to ‘Freemium’
Joe Wilcox / BetaNews:
Mac fan blogs miss the point about Android, iPhone and Windows Mobile
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Facebook readies its Game Dashboard to organize your social gaming life
Discussion: Maximum PC and Cathode Tan
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
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Caitlin Huston / The Hollywood Reporter:
Internal memo: Hearst Magazines president announces layoffs as part of a decision to “reallocate resources” to “continue our focus on digital innovation”

Lachlan Cartwright / The Ankler:
Sources: MSNBC renewed Rachel Maddow's contract early this fall, but with a pay cut; MSNBC bosses' plan to shake up daytime and weekend programming

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced she will leave the agency on January 20; she was the first woman to be confirmed to lead the agency

 
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