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1:30 AM ET, August 26, 2010

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Robin Schriebman / Gmail Blog:
Call phones from Gmail  —  Gmail voice and video chat makes it easy to stay in touch with friends and family using your computer's microphone and speakers.  But until now, this required both people to be at their computers, signed into Gmail at the same time.
RELATED:
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Google Voice Phone Booths To Start Popping Up In Airports, Universities  —  Google wants to get you hooked on Google Voice, and it's got a new weapon in its arsenal: charming red telephone booths inspired by the sort that litter the UK.  Today at a press event where it announced the launch …
Brad McCarty / The Next Web:
Google calls: Not a Skype-killer, but still a viable option.
Discussion: GigaOM
David Pogue / New York Times:
New Kindle Leaves Rivals Farther Back  —  Too bad there's not a reality TV show called “America's Most Freaked-Out Tech-Company Meetings,” where you watch classic panicked board meetings.  For example, when the Apple employee left an iPhone 4 prototype in a bar.
RELATED:
Harry McCracken / Technologizer:
New Kindle is Here, Selling Like an Unspecified Number of Hotcakes  —  Amazon has announced that it's started shipping its third-generation Kindle e-reader to customers.The new version is thinner and lighter, with a better screen and longer battery life, and it now starts at $139 (for a Wi-Fi version).
Kevin Rose / Digg Blog:
Digg Version 4  —  I'm excited to announce that today we opened up the newest version of our Digg platform.  We've been working hard on this next evolution of Digg (what we've been calling “v4") and everyone here is really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the changes we've made.
RELATED:
Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
Digg Trying Hard — Maybe Too Hard — to Stay Relevant  —  The new version of Digg finally launched for all users today, although the site had some teething problems for much of the morning.  It was unavailable for almost two hours, and remained slow for some time afterward …
Kim-Mai Cutler / Inside Facebook:
Slide's Max Levchin Becomes a VP of Engineering at Google  —  Max Levchin, who was the chief executive of Slide and a PayPal co-founder, has landed a new title at Google as a vice president of engineering, we've confirmed with the company.  It's the latest leadership adjustment since …
Discussion: Pulse2
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft Blog:
Is this Microsoft's new Internet Explorer 9 interface?  —  Microsoft has delivered four developer previews of Internet Explorer (IE) 9 so far, but has yet to show off the new interface for its next-generation browser.  That is expected to happen on September 15, during Microsoft's beta launch event in San Francisco.
Adam Smith / Adam Smith's Blog:
Thoughts After Y Combinator Demo Day  —  There's lots of motion in the ocean in the early stage investing world.  TechCrunch has a write-up on the companies that presented at Y Combinator's demo day yesterday.  I had several of my own thoughts.  —  Quality  — The average company quality is up.
Discussion: VentureBeat
RELATED:
Tim Conneally / BetaNews:
Adobe updates Web-based Photoshop, no longer demands membership  —  Now approaching its third year online, Adobe's Web-based photo editing suite Photoshop Express underwent a significant redesign which launched Wednesday.  Adobe Photoshop Express Editor, Organizer, and Uploader are included in the refresh.
Discussion: Pulse2 and Download Squad
RELATED:
Declan McCullagh / CNET News:
Intel CEO: U.S. faces looming tech decline  —  ASPEN, Colo.—Intel Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini offered a depressing set of observations about the economy and the Obama administration Monday evening, coupled with a dark commentary on the future of the technology industry if nothing changes.
Eliot Van Buskirk / Epicenter:
Intuit Squares Off In Mobile Credit, With A Little Help From Apple  —  Look out, Square — you have a new competitor, and it should go on sale in Apple stores before month's end.  —  Intuit and mophie have teamed on a credit card-swiping iPhone accessory called Complete Credit Card Solution …
Discussion: Bloomberg
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Is Apple Really Going To Announce A TV Gadget At An Event With A Guitar On The Invitation?  —  Apple has invited reporters to an event in San Francisco on Sept. 1, with this guitar as the invitation art.  —  This tells us it's obvious that Apple will announce updates to its music lineup at the event …
Discussion: Fortune, NBC Bay Area and AppleInsider
RELATED:
Quora:
Why does the Facebook Places icon so obviously contain a “four” in a “square”?  —  I've seen many people point this out on Twitter/etc, and all of them have had a (predictably) disparaging tone.  Facebook must have been aware of the allusion to Foursquare in their new icon - how do they benefit by this?
Discussion: TechCrunch
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
SCVNGR's Secret Game Mechanics Playdeck  —  Some companies keep a playbook of product tips, tricks and trade secrets.  Zynga has an internal playbook, for instance, that is a collection of “concepts, techniques, know-how and best practices for developing successful and distinctive social games”.
Discussion: SmoothSpan Blog and Android and Me
Mike Prospero / LAPTOP Mag:
Android Battery Test Reveals Droid X Lasts Longest, AMOLED Handsets Trail  —  Ever since the first Android phone appeared, we've been developing a battery test that would accurately gauge their endurance, and lend some objective data to our anecdotal tests.Finally, we've come up with one …
Mike Luttrell / TG Daily:
Digital Chocolate sues Facebook game giant Zynga over Mafia Wars  —  Casual gaming company Digital Chocolate has just filed suit against Zynga, the leader in social gaming, because it says it owns the exclusive rights to the name “Mafia Wars.”  —  Zynga's Facebook game Mafia Wars has become …
Caitlin Fitzsimmons / All Facebook:
Now QR Codes Can Generate Likes On Facebook  —  Technology that brings together the real world and the virtual world of Facebook seems to be becoming the next big thing.  Last week Facebook launched its location check-in service Places.  Yesterday we wrote about a Coca-Cola festival in Israel …
Discussion: SFGate, Thanks:srikardhanakoti
Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg / Wall Street Journal:
Amazon Loses E-Book Deal  —  A month after jolting the book industry with a deal to give Amazon.com Inc. exclusive digital access to some of the country's best-known literary works, literary agent Andrew Wylie is largely abandoning the agreement.  —  The Amazon deal was struck after Mr. Wylie failed …
Joab Jackson / PC World:
Red Hat Offers Its Cloud APIs as Industry Standard  —  As the industry call for cloud interoperability grows more fervent, open-source enterprise software company Red Hat has submitted its cloud platform, Deltacloud, to the DMTF (Distributed Management Task Force) as a potential standard …
Matt McGee / Search Engine Land:
Bing's Market Share Up 51% In Past 12 Months  —  Bing's search engine market share has risen 51% in the U.S. over the past 12 months according to Nielsen stats announced today.  —  According to Nielsen, Bing's market share in July 2010 was up to 13.6%, a 51% jump from its 9% market share in July 2009 …
Discussion: Nielsen Wire, Neowin.net and WebProNews
Mark Hachman / PC Magazine:
IBM Describes Fastest Microprocessor Ever  —  PALO ALTO—IBM revealed more details of its 5.2-GHz chip on Tuesday, the fastest microprocessor ever announced.  Don't bet that you'll ever be able to buy it, though.  —  At the Hot Chips 2010 conference here, IBM executives described the z196 …
Discussion: Electronista, SlashGear and Obsessable
Graeme Wearden / Guardian:
Shareholder trading values Facebook at more than $33bn  —  With shares selling for up to $76, investors are calculating social networking site is worth nearly twice as much as Yahoo!  —  Facebook is now being valued at more than $33bn (£21.3bn) as investors try to secure a stake …
Discussion: The Social, broadstuff and DealBook
Walter S. Mossberg / Personal Technology:
Cell Towers For the Home Work Best in Worst Sites  —  If you have lousy cellphone reception in your house, you may have wished you had a cellular tower nearby.  Well, now you can buy your own and plant it right inside your home.  Verizon (VZ), Sprint (S) and AT&T (T) all have started selling gadgets …
Thanks:rawmeet
 
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 More Items: 
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Twitter Reverts Its Facebook App As Facebook Continues Friend Blockade
Discussion: Digits
Danah Boyd / Technology Review:
Why Privacy Is Not Dead
Thanks:rawmeet
Kevin Poulsen / Threat Level:
WikiLeaks Airs Classified CIA Memo, But Real Message Is No Secret
Discussion: The Register, Geek.com and Boing Boing
Evan Selleck / SlashGear:
Sharper Image Literati eReader Unveiled, Features Color LCD and $159 Price Tag
Tom Simonite / Technology Review:
A Search Service that Can Peer into the Future
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Encrypted and obfuscated? Your P2P protocol can still be IDed
 Earlier Items: 
Emily Glazer / WSJ Blogs - WSJ:
It's Still Too Early to Value Location Services, Businesses Say
Discussion: SiliconANGLE
Ian Sherr / Wall Street Journal:
Online Coupons Get Smarter
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Why Motorola Bought 280 North
Discussion: Computerworld and Know Your Cell
Jay Baer / Convince and Convert Blog:
Is Starbucks the Most Dangerous Competitor to Facebook?
Peter Burrows / BusinessWeek:
Apple's New Video Strategy Coming Into Focus
Mark Milian / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Podcaster Leo Laporte, the everywhere man
Adam Vaughan / Guardian:
Apple blocks iPhones from green ranking scheme