Check out Mini-Techmeme for simple mobiles or Techmeme Mobile for modern smartphones.
5:00 PM ET, July 12, 2010

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Consumer Reports Electronics Blog:
Lab tests: Why Consumer Reports can't recommend the iPhone 4  —  Lab test: Apple iPhone 4 design defect confirmed  —  It's official.  Consumer Reports' engineers have just completed testing the iPhone 4, and have confirmed that there is a problem with its reception.
RELATED:
Nick Bilton / Bits:
Consumer Reports Says iPhone 4 Has Design Flaw  —  Updated Added link to earlier Consumer Reports blog post and comments from Michael Gikas, senior editor of electronics at Consumer Reports.  3:14 p.m. Added request for comment from AT&T and Apple.  —  Consumer Reports said in a blog post …
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft's Ballmer: Windows 7 slates are coming this year  —  Microsoft isn't going to sit idly by and let slates from Apple and various Android backers run away with this market.  —  Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told the 14,000 partners during his July 12 keynote at the Worldwide Partner Conference …
RELATED:
Todd Bishop / TechFlash:
Microsoft's new Windows Azure ‘appliance’ to be tested by eBay  —  Microsoft is looking spread the reach of its fledgling Windows Azure cloud-computing initiative with the announcement of a “platform appliance” that its industry partners and large customers will be able to use to run …
Alex Heaton / The Windows Blog:
Windows Intune Second Public Beta Available Today  —  Hi, I'm Alex Heaton, Group Product Manager for Windows Intune at Microsoft.  Today, I'm happy to share some news about Windows Intune, which is our forthcoming solution for PC management and security.  Windows Intune brings together …
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:   Microsoft launches a CRM app store
Tom Warren / Neowin.net:
Windows 7 SP1 public beta released
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Skype Blocks, Threatens To Sue Fring (Update: Skype Says Fring Is Lying)  —  Late last week, mobile communication services provider fring released an updated iPhone app that enabled iPhone 4 owners to engage in unrestricted 2-way video calling over Wi-Fi or 3G internet with other iPhone, Android or Symbian devices.
RELATED:
Robert Miller / The Big Blog:
Fring's mis-use of Skype software was damaging to our brand and reputation  —  An hour or so ago, Fring reported on their blog that we had blocked their access to Skype.  I want to make one thing absolutely clear: this is untrue.  —  Fring was using Skype software in a way it wasn't designed to be used …
Tom / fring:
Skype Cowardly Blocks fring  —  For 4 years we have led mobile communication innovation, most recently with video calling on any advanced Smartphone and network.  —  Now that fring expanded capacity to support the huge demand for video calling for all users, Skype has blocked us from doing so.
Mark Friedman / The Official Google Blog:
App Inventor for Android  —  App Inventor is a new tool in Google Labs that makes it easy for anyone—programmers and non-programmers, professionals and students—to create mobile applications for Android-powered devices.  And today, we're extending invitations to the general public.
RELATED:
Steve Lohr / New York Times:
Google's Do-It-Yourself App Creation Software  —  Google is bringing Android software development to the masses.  —  The company will offer a software tool, starting Monday, that is intended to make it easy for people to write applications for its Android smartphones.
Research In Motion / Inside BlackBerry:
BlackBerry 6: Another Sneak Peek  —  In the almost ten years I've worked at Research In Motion (RIM), I've never been as excited about a BlackBerry® software launch as I am for BlackBerry 6, which is on track for release this summer.  I'm absolutely in love with the BlackBerry 6 experience …
Claire Cain Miller / New York Times:
Techmeme Offers Tech News at Internet Speed  —  SAN FRANCISCO — News lovers in Washington can't live without Mike Allen at Politico.  Hollywood squabbles over the relative merits of Sharon Waxman's TheWrap versus Nikki Finke's Deadline.  The newspaper industry reads the news collected by Jim Romenesko.
Niraj Sheth / Wall Street Journal:
Shortages of Phone Hindering Sprint 4G  —  Sprint Nextel Corp.'s big bet on its super-fast 4G network is running into stronger-than-expected head winds, Chief Executive Dan Hesse said in an interview.  —  Sprint is still the only U.S. carrier with a 4G network, which offers users faster speeds for data and video.
RELATED:
Niraj Sheth / Digits:   Draining Power on the Evo 4G? Sprint Suggests Another Battery
Jemima Kiss / Guardian:
Waging war on Wordpress: Posterous prepares the switch  —  Blogger, Wordpress and Typepad ruled the blogging roost for years, but a combination of Twitter, social networking and the rise of lite blogging have been eating away at long-form blog platforms.  —  Twitter has played a significant role …
Agence France Presse:
Samsung targets Apple iPhone, wants top spot back  —  PARIS (AFP) - South Korean technology giant Samsung Electronics said on Monday that it hoped to regain its number one spot by value in the French mobile phone handset market from Apple by September this year
John Cook / TechFlash:
The venture capital well is running dry ... for the VCs  —  Entrepreneurs aren't the only ones struggling to find capital in these choppy economic times.  The venture capitalists who write the checks are encountering their own hard realities on the fundraising trail.
Discussion: Digital Daily
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Apple Rolls Out Four More iPhone 4 Ads — Each About FaceTime  —  Yesterday, I broke down Apple's minute-long FaceTime commercial for iPhone 4, noting how it seemed almost as if Don Draper from the hit AMC show Mad Men had created it.  Now Apple has four other 30-second spots for the iPhone 4 …
Steve Souders / High Performance Web Sites:
Diffable: only download the deltas  —  There were many new products and projects announced at Velocity, but one that I just found out about is Diffable.  It's ironic that I missed this one given that it happened at Velocity and is from Google.  The announcement was made during a whiteboard talk, so it didn't get much attention.
Discussion: techno.blog
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
After Some Flashy Investing, Is Andreessen Horowitz's Next Move a Big New Fund?  —  Since it launched almost exactly a year ago with a $300 million fund, the venture firm of Andreessen Horowitz has cut a rather high-profile path through the Silicon Valley investing community.
Thanks:atul
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
TweetDeck Turns Two, Desktop App Passes 15 Million Downloads  —  Popular stream reader TweetDeck turned two on July 4th, and founder Iain Dodsworth just put up a post giving an update on the company's progress.  Tweetdeck now employs 15 people and recently raised more than $3 million in a series B round, led by betaworks.
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of Techmeme at 5:00 PM ET, July 12, 2010.

View the current page or another snapshot:


 
 Techmeme Sponsor Posts: 
Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Zoho:
CIO challenge 5: Can we find an effective solution that also minimizes operational costs?  —  Welcome to the next and final installment of our CIO series!  After what feels like a thousand cups of coffee …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Sponsor Techmeme
 
 See Also: 
Techmeme: site main
Techmeme River: reverse chronological Techmeme
Techmeme Mobile: for phones
Techmeme Leaderboard: Techmeme's top sources
 
 Subscribe: 
Techmeme RSS feed
Techmeme on X
Techmeme on Mastodon
 
 
 More Items: 
Stephen Lawson / Computerworld:
Open mobile still on the way, AT&T's CTO says
Discussion: VentureBeat and IntoMobile
Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
HP's Phil McKinney previews printed displays and other mobile tech
Discussion: CNET News and Gadget Lab
Rachel King / ZDNet:
mSpot debuts mobile Movies for iPad application
Monica Chen / DigiTimes:
Pegatron reportedly lands Apple desktop orders; announces June results
Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac and Cult of Mac
Nicholas Deleon / TechCrunch:
NOOKstudy: B & Ns' Foray Into The Education Market
Discussion: ZDNet, ReadWriteWeb, Crave and CrunchGear
Owen Fletcher / Digits:
Apple's Wi-Fi-Enabled iPhone Clears a Hurdle in China
 Earlier Items: 
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
My Fantasy Foursquare Life
Michael Cooney / Network World:
Researchers tout new weapon in Internet censorship arms race
Kevin Poulsen / Threat Level:
FBI Raids ‘Electronik Tribulation Army’ Over Witness Intimidation
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Boom! Foursquare Crosses 2 Million Users
Discussion: Xconomy and Softpedia News
Colin Barras / New Scientist:
Innovation: Shrewd search engines know what you want
Todd Hoff / High Scalability:
So, Why is Twitter Really Not Using Cassandra to Store Tweets?
Discussion: Mashable!
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:
James Harding says the Tortoise-Observer deal could create a profitable media group and there isn't a guaranteed future for the Observer with the Guardian

Alex Sherman / CNBC:
Analyzing Comcast's spinoff of cable networks, purposefully structured with low debt: the move might be a signal to the industry that it's time to consolidate

Brian Steinberg / Variety:
Sources: Comcast execs told staff that MSNBC may have to change its identity as part of the spinoff, including losing access to NBC News' newsgathering process
 
Sister Sites:

Mediagazer
 Top news and commentary for media professionals from all around the web
memeorandum
 What US political commentators are discussing online right now
WeSmirch
 The top celebrity news from all around the web on a single page