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12:10 AM ET, February 20, 2010

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
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 …
RELATED:
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Why Apple's New Ban Against Sexy Apps Is Scary  —  Last night, we reported on a new restriction that was being applied to Apple's App Store: no more applications with “overtly sexual content”.  At this point, the exact nature of that ban is unclear.  But it's a policy shift that may alarm …
Dave Heiner / 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:
Liz Gannes / GigaOM:
Facebook Acquires Contact Importing Startup Octazen  —  Octazen's contact importer helped Facebook make its userbase viral.  —  Facebook last week acquired a small Malaysian startup called Octazen Solutions, maker of a contact importer that the social network had already been using to grow …
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
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.
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
School District Says It Only Turned Spy Cameras On 42 Times; FBI Now Investigating  —  More details are coming out about the case we wrote about yesterday concerning the school district that could (and did) turn on webcams on student laptops.  The district is now claiming that, yes …
RELATED:
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 …
Matt Buchanan / Gizmodo:
Motorola Doesn't Love Android That Much After All  —  Talking to the WSJ about the new Motorola, CEO Sanjay Jha had some interesting stuff to say.  Like, if Motorola wasn't poor, they'd develop their own OS.  And now that Windows Phone doesn't suck, they're open to using it again.
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Let The Credits Roll (In), Netflix Is Down  —  For at least the past hour, Netflix has been down.  Normally, this wouldn't be a huge deal since as they note, “Our shipping centers are continuing to send and receive DVDs , so your movies will be processed as usual.”
Darren Murph / Engadget:
New Chromium OS build brings full NVIDIA Ion acceleration, hope for the future  —  Chrome OS.  Man, seems like Google has gotten its hands into quite a few things since we last heard of that, but the underground is keeping things lively with new builds of Chromium OS — you know, to keep us satisfied while we wait for the real deal.
Discussion: Electronista and Gizmodo
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?
Michelle Quinn / Bay Area:
Making Computer Science More Enticing  —  The top 10 companies in Silicon Valley employed a lower percentage of Hispanics, African-Americans and women in 2005 than they did a decade ago, according an article earlier this week.  —  It's an issue I've covered over the years …
Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land:
Google: “With Buzz We Failed To Appreciate That Users Have Differing Privacy Expectations”  —  Google scheduled a privacy discussion for reporters and bloggers at its San Francisco offices a couple of weeks ago.  The timing turned out to be unexpectedly ironic.
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
Go Rumors:
Sony Develops A Universal Game Console Controller  —  In an attempt to tackle competition from the likes of Microsoft and Nintendo, Sony is reportedly working on a game controller that can serve as a universal controller; capable of also being used with Xbox or Nintendo.
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.
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 and Obsessable
PewResearch.org:
Does Google Make Us Stupid?  —  Respondents to the fourth “Future of the Internet” survey, conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project and Elon University's Imagining the Internet Center, were asked to consider the future of the internet-connected world between now and 2020 and the likely innovation that will occur.
Discussion: AppScout, Thanks:mrinaldesai
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.
Margaret Lyons / PopWatch:
Couple marries in Apple store, quotes Steve Jobs in their ceremony  —  “Just had an unauthorized wedding in the apple store.  Priest dressed as Steve Jobs.  Read vows from iPhone.”  So tweeted my friend Raygan Sunday night.  Apple wedding?  On Valentines Day?  Indeed:
Todd Hoff / High Scalability:
Twitter's Plan to Analyze 100 Billion Tweets  —  If Twitter is the “nervous system of the web” as some people think, then what is the brain that makes sense of all those signals (tweets) from the nervous system?  That brain is the Twitter Analytics System and Kevin Weil, as Analytics Lead at Twitter …
Thanks:atul
 
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 More Items: 
Susan Decker / Bloomberg:
Motorola Bid to Block RIM Imports to Get ITC Probe
Discussion: eWeek
Charles Starrett / iLounge:
Find My iPhone now accessible from iPhone, iPod touch
Discussion: Apple, Macworld, TidBITS and TUAW
Darryl K. Taft / eWeek:
IBM Awarded $74.4M Contract to Upgrade Federal Procurement System
Donna Howell / IBD Click:
Google Search Results Manipulated? Clooney Clue Tips Off Researchers
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Twitter Didn't Kill Gordon Lightfoot. Big Media Did.
Lauren Goode / Digits:
No IPO in 2010, Yelp Says  —  Investors hungry for Yelp shares might …
 Earlier Items: 
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
The Rubicon Project Says Ad Server Is Dead, Details Future Plans
Discussion: VentureBeat and paidContent
Dan Grover:
Toward a Grand Unified Theory of n00bs
Discussion: BetaNews, Thanks:atul
Mark Suster / Both Sides of the Table:
App is Crap (why Apple is bad for your health)
Discussion: Communities Dominate Brands, Thanks:atul
Joe Eskenazi / The Snitch:
S.F. ‘Likely’ to Enter Google's Fiber Network Sweepstakes
Thanks:alexiat
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Matthew Keys / The Desk:
DirecTV terminates its Dish acquisition after a group of Dish creditors rejected a modified bond exchange offer

Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
A growing number of podcasters, including Tim Ferriss, are moving away from interviews to monologues or co-hosts, as some well-known guests can be overexposed

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
A New York judge finds Sirius XM liable for a difficult subscription cancellation process; Sirius says it will appeal but abide by a new “click-to-cancel” rule
 
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