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12:50 PM ET, February 3, 2010

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Verizon Drops ‘Droid’ Brand For Newest Android Phone (VZ, MOT, GOOG)  —  More Android phones are coming to Verizon Wireless, but the latest one won't get the carrier's memorable “Droid” branding.  —  The Motorola Devour, announced today, is scheduled to launch in March.
Wall Street Journal:
Textbook Firms Ink E-Deals For iPad  —  Major textbook publishers have struck deals with software company ScrollMotion Inc. to adapt their textbooks for the electronic page, as the industry embraces a hope that digital devices such as Apple Inc.'s iPad will transform the classroom.
Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:
SlideShare Launches Custom Channels for Businesses  —  SlideShare just announced that it now offers businesses the ability to create their own custom channels on the popular document sharing service.  These channels allow businesses and enterprises to share their presentations, e-books and whitepapers with a wider audience.
Discussion: TechCrunch and Mashable!
Twitter Status:
Reason #4132 for Changing Your Password  —  As part of our ongoing efforts to monitor our user base for odd activity, we noticed a sudden surge in followers for a couple accounts in the last five days.  Given the circumstances surrounding this, we felt it was best to push out a password reset …
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
He Calls Google A Vampire, But Mark Cuban's Mahalo Is Doing The Sucking  —  Yesterday, Mark Cuban warned media owners in a keynote speech that Google is a vampire trying to suck them dry, giving them nothing back and daring owners to block it.  This is the same Mark Cuban who is an investor in Mahalo …
RELATED:
Kevin Fox / fox @ fury:
Do the iPad's missing apps point to a multitasking dashboard?  —  Steve's iPad keynote felt just a little off.  We got what we wanted, but it still felt a little like the iPad was a vehicle full of potential rather than a self-contained package of productivity.  This morning I woke up and realized what was missing: The minor apps.
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Salesforce Simplifies The Creation Of Business Applications With Visual Process Manager  —  2009 was a banner year for Salesforce.com.  The enterprise cloud computing company made significant enhancements to its product lineup, reported overall strong earnings, and even launched their own …
Leander Kahney / Cult of Mac:
John Gruber's Daring Fireball Gets Comments (Whether He Likes It or Not)  —  John Gruber of Daring Fireball is the most influential Apple pundit on the web, but readers often complain about the lack of comments on his website.  —  In fact, Gruber's site is famous for not having comments.
Discussion: rizzn.com and Mashable!, Thanks:atul
Scott Moritz / TheStreet.com:
RIM Coiled for Spring Surprise: Rumor  —  Stock quotes in this article: RIMM , MOT , AAPL , GOOG  —  WATERLOO, Ont.  (TheStreet) — Finally, some signs that the creative sap is running again at Research In Motion(RIMM Quote).  —  RIM has been fairly criticized for losing a step …
Discussion: I4U News and FierceWireless
Jonny Evans / 9 to 5 Mac:
Apple's iPad heralds tablet explosion, analysts say  —  Apple's iPad tablet launch last week reflects the real start of a new market segment for media tablets that the analysts at ABI Research predict will grow from four million units shipped this year to 57 million each year by 2015.
David Sarno / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Skype says new 3G iPhone app coming ‘really soon,’ will have CD-quality sound  —  After the news last week that Apple and AT&T are now allowing VoIP apps to make phone calls over the 3G network, Skype said it's still waiting to release a new 3G-ready version of its software for the iPhone.
Google Nexus One:
New Software Update for Nexus One phones  —  Starting today, Nexus One users will begin to receive an over-the-air software update on their phones.  This update provides some great new features, and fixes a few problems that some users might have experienced, including:
RELATED:
Nick Bilton / Bits:
The Twitter Train Has Left the Station  —  George Packer usually writes about foreign affairs, politics and books for The New Yorker, but this week he decided to attack Twitter in a blog post that ironically got much of its attention because a link to it was reposted more than 700 times on Twitter.
Discussion: SiliconANGLE, Thanks:atul
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Nokia: Ovi Maps With Free Navigation Averages A Download Per Second, 1.4M Total  —  I'm starting to suspect people like free stuff - a shocker, I know.  —  Nokia says the new version of Ovi Maps that includes free walk and drive navigation has been downloaded over 1.4 million times since its introduction on 21 January 2010.
Chris Brandrick / PC World:
iPhone OS 3.1.3 Update Brings Jailbreak Woes  —  Apple released version 3.1.3 of the iPhone operating system (OS) on Tuesday, much to jailbreakers dismay.  The update, which is available now via iTunes, fixes a number of known bugs, patches known security issues, and improves various iPhone features.
Richard MacManus / ReadWriteWeb:
Mobile App or Browser-Based Site?  Report Says The Browser Will Win on Mobile  —  Mobile search company Taptu has released a detailed report showing that the future of the Mobile Web is likely to be dominated by cross-platform browser-based mobile web sites - rather than apps built specifically for iPhone …
Discussion: Taptu Mobile Search
Jack Purcher / Patently Apple:
Apple's iPad May Gain an Intelligent Bezel in the Future  —  Today, the US Patent and Trademark Office officially published two major granted patents of Apple's covering tablets and advanced touch technologies.  The first patent may provide us with a glimpse of a future implementation of an intelligent tablet bezel.
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
IBM buys Initiate; Bets on healthcare IT  —  IBM on Wednesday acquired privately held Initiate Systems, which makes data integrity software, for an undisclosed sum.  —  With the purchase (statement), IBM plans to bolster its focus on the healthcare and government verticals.
Discussion: Datamation, PR Newswire and TechCrunch
Connie Loizos / PE Hub Blog:
Digg's MySpace Problem — and What It's Doing About It  —  There's a lot of talk about tech IPO candidates lately.  Conspicuously missing from those lists is longtime media darling Digg.  Reportedly courted by Google in 2008, the five-year-old news aggregator has been elbowed out of the spotlight …
NPD Group:
Nearly 95 Percent of e-Reader Owners Are Happy With Their Devices  —  E-Reader satisfaction is high among owners, according to a new report e-Reader Owners: Attitudes and Usage from leading market research company The NPD Group.  Almost all owners (93 percent) said they were “very satisfied” or “somewhat satisfied” with their device.
Discussion: CNET News and TWICE
Paul Thomasch / Reuters:
Next threat to Amazon's $9.99 books?  Rupert Murdoch  —  * Amazon now appears ready to talk pricing - Murdoch  —  * Says Apple deals allow for some higher e-book pricing  —  Enjoy $9.99 electronic books while you can — for they soon may be a thing of the past.
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
What's new in Windows Mobile 6.5.3  —  A few blogs noted on February 2 that Sony Ericsson has a new Windows Mobile phone out that's running the Windows Mobile 6.5.3 operating system.  —  What's new in 6.5.3?  This looks like the long-rumored update to Windows Mobile that provides support for capacitive-screen phones.
Paul Boutin / VentureBeat:
Video ad network BrightRoll turns profit, outreaches Hulu, closes $10M third round  —  BrightRoll co-founder and CEO Tod Sacerdoti — pronounced “satch er DOH tee” if you don't speak Italian — has three reasons to be happy this week.  First, video advertising network BrightRoll is …
Discussion: NewTeeVee and Mashable!
Chris Foresman / Ars Technica:
Nehalem Mac Pros take 20% performance hit when playing audio  —  Apple's latest Mac Pro, jammed with multicore Nehalem-based Xeon processors, is designed to be a computing beast with power to spare for the most demanding tasks.  Since the current Mac Pros became available in October of 2009 …
Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac, Macsimum News and MacNN
 
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 More Items: 
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Another Googler Joins the Obama Administration-Now We've Got a Foursome!
Discussion: The Register
James Niccolai / PC World:
Dell Plans New Line of ‘cloud’ Servers This Year
Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:
Journalism Online's Private Beta Goes Public; First Press+ Screenshots
Subrahmanyam KVJ / VentureBeat:
Nokia extends presence in emerging markets
Matthew Campbell / Bloomberg:
Orange, T-Mobile Merger Review Is Requested by U.K. Antitrust Regulator
Discussion: Dow Jones Newswires
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Yammer Grabs $10 Million More in Funding
Discussion: paidContent
 Earlier Items: 
Kim-Mai Cutler / DigitalBeat:
Facebook co-founder's Asana gives a peek at Lunascript
Thanks:atul
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
3Crowd Comes Out Of Stealth, Reveals Its Plan To Disrupt The CDN Market
Discussion: NewTeeVee and VentureBeat
Andy Greenberg / Forbes:
Oracle Hacker Gets The Last Word
Jack Purcher / Patently Apple:
Apple Granted Patent for Next Generation Apple TV Technology
Brandon LeBlanc / The Windows Blog:
Internet Explorer 8 Officially Becomes World's Most-Used Browser
 

 
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”

Mark Sweney / The Guardian:
National World, one of the UK's biggest newspaper groups, gets a £56.2M buyout offer from shareholder Media Concierge, a 40% premium to its Nov. 21 stock price

Max Goldbart / Deadline:
The English Premier League ends its content partnership with IMG and plans to bring content production and distribution in-house in 2026

 
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