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5:40 PM ET, February 19, 2010

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Kasper Jade / AppleInsider:
Apple plans dual graphics enhancements on future MacBook Pros  —  One of the advances Apple plans for future MacBook Pro models is an improvement to the handling of the notebooks' dual graphics chips, AppleInsider has learned.  —  Dual-graphics auto switching
Mscorp / Microsoft On The Issues:
The Browser Choice Screen for Europe: What to Expect, When to Expect It  —  Vice President and Deputy General Counsel  —  Over the next few weeks, Microsoft will begin offering a “Web browser choice screen” to Internet Explorer users in Europe, as required by the European Commission.
RELATED:
Mark Wilson / Gizmodo:
Microsoft's Impartial, Antitrust-Friendly Browser Ballot Screen  —  You may have forgotten about it, but Microsoft got in to a bit of trouble with the European Commission for anti-competitive practices (including force-feeding customers IE).  Microsoft's plea bargain was to add other browser options alongside its own.
Discussion: All about Microsoft
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Did Apple Just Ban Sexual Content From The App Store?  —  Apple may have just made a major change to the App Store that could render many developers' applications worthless.  We've just heard from Jon Atherton, the developer behind Wobble iBoobs, who says that he just received an Email …
RELATED:
Nick Saint / Silicon Alley Insider:
Apple's War On Porn Is Just Getting Started (AAPL)  —  Apple means business this time — apps that sell sex are being tossed out of the App Store en masse.  —  For the past 12 hours, app developers have been getting notices from Apple saying that their apps have been taken down …
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Will You Pay for Hulu on the iPad?  It May Be Your Only Choice.  —  Will Hulu come to the iPad?  Probably.  One day.  But you had better get ready to pay for it.  —  Hulu and its owners, three of the big broadcast TV networks, want to bring some version of the Web video service to Apple's device.
Elizabeth Woyke / Forbes:
Sprint Says First 4G Handset Will Launch By Summer  —  Elizabeth Woyke is a technology writer for Forbes  —  How useful is a super-fast wireless broadband network if there are no super-speedy phones that run on it?  —  It's a question consumers have been asking since 2008 when Sprint Nextel launched …
Nellie Andreeva / Hollywood Reporter:
William Shatner in S**t My Dad Says  —  Twitter sensation turned into TV pilot for CBS  —  Twitter sensation S**t My Dad Says is becoming a TV pilot with William Shatner set to play the larger-than-life dad at the center of it.  —  The casting of Shatner lifts the contingency …
Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:
School backs off on laptop spying policy in wake of lawsuit  —  Less than a day after Harriton High School's questionable laptop policy made headlines online, its school district has disabled its remote monitoring capabilities.  The Lower Merion School District (LMSD) issued a statement …
Discussion: Electronista
RELATED:
Dr. Christopher McGinley / Lower Merion School …:
LMSD response to ‘invasion of privacy’ allegation
New York Times:
Two Chinese Schools Said to Be Tied to Online Attacks  —  SAN FRANCISCO — A series of online attacks on Google and dozens of other American corporations have been traced to computers at two educational institutions in China, including one with close ties to the Chinese military, say people involved in the investigation.
RELATED:
Jaikumar Vijayan / Computerworld:   Chinese school linked to Google attacks also linked to '01 attacks …
Brad Stone / Bits:
Vook, Maker of Multimedia E-Books, Raises $2.5 Million  —  Brad Inman wants to bring books into the 21st century.  His year-old startup, Vook (which we've written about here and here) mashes and mixes videos and photos with text to create multimedia books for devices like the iPhone and soon, the iPad.
Discussion: paidContent and Beet.TV
James Niccolai / PC World:
Google Gets US Approval to Buy and Sell Energy  —  Google has received federal approval to buy and sell energy on the open market, giving it more options for the way it powers its data centers and opening the door to a potential move into the energy-trading business.
Richard Lai / Engadget:
Dell Mini 5 prototype impressions  —  Dell's puzzled the world for quite some time with its outlandish Mini 5 — at first glance it's just another Android-based MID, but a quick fiddle with it reveals the full-fledged 3G phone inside.  So will it fit in a pocket?  Can we carry it around like a normal phone?
Discussion: Liliputing and GottaBeMobile.com
Donna Howell / IBD Click:
Google Search Results Manipulated?  Clooney Clue Tips Off Researchers  —  Security researchers say attackers are using Google's (GOOG) PageRank system to boost their own sites in search results, to reach more victims.  And by similar means, attackers have infected major online ad systems.
Dan Grover:
Toward a Grand Unified Theory of n00bs  —  The blogosphere has been abuzz lately about a post on the blog Read Write Web.  The post itself is an uneventful one about the growth of Facebook Connect as a means of authentication on third-party sites.  —  The reason we're all talking …
Thanks:atul
Mark Gurman / 9 to 5 Mac:
Alpha-numeric Passcode on your iPhone and iPod touch  —  Today we've got something interesting for you security-minded folks with iPhones or iPod touches.  You know how Apple only lets you use four numbers as your passcode to unlock your device?  That's as weak as banks PINs and school lockers.
Discussion: iClarified, MobileCrunch and TiPb
Eric Slivka / MacRumors iPhone Blog:
Apple Updates Me.com Landing Page for iPhone Users  —  Apple today posted an updated support document detailing recent enhancements to its me.com landing page for iPhone and iPod touch users.  The new landing page offers instructions for setting up MobileMe services via the device's Settings application …
Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac, Apple, Macworld, TidBITS and iLounge
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Twitter Didn't Kill Gordon Lightfoot.  Big Media Did.  —  The Internet killed yet another celebrity before his time yesterday.  This time, it was poor old folkie Gordon Lightfoot, who, of course, is not dead, merely befuddled.  —  So are a lot of reports about the reports of his death, which pin the blame on Twitter.
Discussion: GigaOM and Ministry of Gossip
Vinod Sreeharsha / VentureBeat:
Facebook critics' profiles restored after press uproar  —  After an uproar in Latin American media, three Argentines involved in a book that portrays the social network in a cynical and satirical light had their Facebook profiles restored today.  —  The author of the book Faceboom …
Jack Purcher / Patently Apple:
Apple Getting Serious About Near Field Communication on the iPhone  —  In November 2009, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that revealed various concepts behind a newly advanced application in development code named Grab & Go.
Darryl K. Taft / eWeek:
IBM Awarded $74.4 Million Contract to Upgrade Federal Procurement System  —  IBM announced that the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) has awarded the company a $74.4 million contract to modernize the federal government's acquisition and procurement system.
Lauren Goode / Digits:
No IPO in 2010, Yelp Says  —  Investors hungry for Yelp shares might have to dine elsewhere for now. … Jeremy Stoppelman, the co-founder and chief executive of the user-generated reviews site, said Thursday that it is unlikely to issue an initial public offering for “several years.”
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
James Galbraith / Macworld:
Mac Pro firmware update cuts performance lag  —  A firmware update usually doesn't grab much attention—particularly if it's released in the midst of Macworld Expo.  And yet, last week's release of Mac Pro Audio Update 1.0 brings welcome relief to many Mac Pro users.
Discussion: MacRumors
 
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 More Items: 
Todd Hoff / High Scalability:
Twitter's Plan to Analyze 100 Billion Tweets
Thanks:atul
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Scribd Inks Distribution Deal With Indie Book Publisher Author Solutions
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
The Rubicon Project Says Ad Server Is Dead, Details Future Plans
Discussion: VentureBeat
Chris Dale / YouTube Blog:
Tiger Woods Press Conf.: Live on YouTube 8 a.m. PT/11 a.m. ET
Sean Cooper / Engadget:
SK Telecom shoves Android onto a SIM, we check it out
Mark Suster / Both Sides of the Table:
App is Crap (why Apple is bad for your health)
Thanks:atul
Eric Engleman / TechFlash:
Bezos sells 2 million Amazon shares for about $234 million
 Earlier Items: 
Joe Eskenazi / The Snitch:
S.F. ‘Likely’ to Enter Google's Fiber Network Sweepstakes
Thanks:alexiat
Warner Crocker / GottaBeMobile.com:
Jobs' Flash Attack Puts iPad Credibility on the Line
Liz Gannes / GigaOM:
WordPress Outage Takes Us and 10.2M Blogs Out for 2 Hours
Greg Knieriemen / iKnerd.com:
Google Buzz Lawsuit an Embarrassment for Harvard
Discussion: ABCNEWS, Thanks:layeredbyte