Techmeme: Six Things Google's Free Phone Service Can't Do (and One It Does Very Well) (Paul Boutin/Gadgetwise)

11:20 PM ET, August 27, 2010

Top Items:

Paul Allen Sues Apple, Others Over Patents — A firm run by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen is suing Apple Inc., Google Inc. and 9 other companies alleging they are violating patents developed at a Silicon Valley lab Mr. Allen financed more than a decade ago.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries / Digits:

The Paul Allen Suit: A Look at the Patents — Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's Interval Licensing is suing 11 companies, including tech giants Apple and Google, alleging patent infringement. Below, a look at the patents in the lawsuit. — Browser for Use in Navigating a Body of Information …

Discussion: Gizmodo, Thanks:atul

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

Google, Facebook To Microsoft's Paul Allen: Your Argument Is Invalid — The entire Internet (aka Facebook, Google, Apple AOL, Facebook, eBay, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo, and YouTube) has just been served with a vague and vast patent violation suit from Microsoft's co-founder Paul Allen.

Discussion: Computerworld, TiPb, Gizmodo and WebProNews

Laura June / Engadget:

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen sues Apple, Google, Facebook, AOL, eBay, Netflix, Yahoo!, Staples, OfficeMax, Office Depot, and YouTube over patents — Microsoft's co-founder Paul Allen has filed suit against nine companies over patent violations. Through his current firm, Interval Licensing LLC …

Discussion: Ars Technica

Ben Huh / benhuh!:

Condé Nast, I'm publicly offering to buy Reddit. — This was an email I sent to one of our sites, The Daily What: — Hi TDWers, I'm Ben Huh, and I run the Cheezburger Network (which includes The Daily What, if you were too Prop 19'd to notice). I have made this offer privately …

Discussion: The Daily What, Mashable! and TechCrunch

Caroline McCarthy / CNET News:

In protest, Reddit rolls its own pot ads — Quirky social-news site Reddit always seemed an unusual acquisition for Manhattan media giant Conde Nast, and it's never been more evident: asked by Conde Nast overlords to stop running advertisements on behalf of advocates of California's Proposition 19 …

Discussion: Runnin' Scared and VentureBeat, more at Mediagazer »

Jessica Guynn / L.A. Times Tech Blog:

Google buys Angstro and hires founder to help build social networking service — Highly respected entrepreneur and Internet researcher Rohit Khare has sold his company Angstro to Google and taken a job at the Internet giant to help build its social networking product Google Me.

Emily Wood / The Official Google Blog:

Find out what's hot on search with the Google Beat — Every day, there are more than a billion searches for information on Google. Have you ever wondered what those searches are about—or whether what you're searching for also happens to be on the minds of millions of others across the country?

Discussion: Search Engine Land, WebProNews, ReadWriteWeb, VentureBeat, Silicon Alley Insider, Pocket-lint, CNET News and BlueGlass, more at Mediagazer »

Mike Shields / Mediaweek: Yahoo's Who Knew? Series Sees Streams Soar

Liz Shannon Miller / NewTeeVee:
Google's New Web Series Celebrates Popular Search Terms — Too Bad It's Weekly

Discussion: MediaPost

Paul Boutin / Gadgetwise:

Six Things Google's Free Phone Service Can't Do (and One It Does Very Well) — Google began rolling out a new feature on Wednesday to users of its browser-based Gmail service that lets them make phone calls over the Internet directly from their computer. If they already use Gmail …

Thanks:rawmeet

Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
Don't Click this Button in Google Voice!

Discussion: Geek.com, eWeek, Download Squad, Techdows and calliflower.com, Thanks:rawmeet

Kevin Rose:

Digg v4: release, iterate, repeat. — At Digg it's our job to try new things, analyze the usage data, iterate, and evolve. While not everyone is happy w/the new design, as of right now the usage looks extremely good (ie. more people registering (43,000+ new users yesterday), digging, consuming, clicking, following, etc.).

Discussion: CNET News, CenterNetworks and GigaOMGigaOM

Chris Cameron / ReadWriteWeb:
Digg Responds to User Outrage: Upcoming Stories Will Return

Discussion: Search Engine Journal and TechCrunch

John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:

Einstein Would Have Used a Mac. John Lennon, Too. — Steve Jobs in a turtleneck and shorts? — What a great bit of history this is, and a nice Friday diversion. In the video embedded below, the Apple (AAPL) CEO introduces the company's 1997 Think Different campaign.

Discussion: TechCrunch, Bits and iPhone Download Blog

Stuart Parmenter / The Mozilla Blog:

Fennec Alpha Released for Android and Nokia N900 — The Alpha release of the next major version of Fennec is now available for Android and Nokia N900 users to download and test. Fennec (codename for Firefox mobile) is the first mobile browser to offer add-ons and is built on the same technology that powers desktop Firefox.

Allison O'Mahony / The Windows Blog:

Windows Live Sync to be named Windows Live Mesh — In June, we announced that as part of Windows Live Essentials beta, we brought together two programs, Windows Live Sync and the Live Mesh beta, into one: Windows Live Sync beta. We focused on four things with our beta release:

Discussion: Ars Technica, All about Microsoft Blog, TechNet Blogs, TechCrunch, MobileTechWorld, LiveSide.net, Beyond Binary, Download Squad, BetaNews and Channel 10

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:

Facebook Offers Exhibit A In Its Defense Against Teen Lawsuit — Earlier today I reported on a class action lawsuit against Facebook which argued that when it comes to teenagers, the social network should not be able to use their name or likeness to promote either Facebook itself or on behalf of advertisers without parental consent.

Discussion: MediaPost

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Lawsuit Says Teens Should Not Be Allowed To Like Ads On Facebook

Discussion: PR Newswire, Mashable!, SiliconANGLE and Silicon Alley Insider

Royal Pingdom:

The mobile app divide: Free rules on Android, paid rules on iPhone — The two mobile platforms with the most apps are Google's Android with around 95,000 apps, and Apple's iOS with around 250,000 apps. — Those are impressive numbers, but this article isn't about the sheer number of apps available.

Discussion: The Register, Silicon Alley Insider, The Next Web and Electronista, Thanks:atul

Fred / A VC:

Angel Liquidity — Lots of talk these days about new forms of angel/seed capital. But less talk about the most vexing issue facing the venture ecosystem over the past decade - that being the shrinking amount of liquidity on the way out. — If you look at how much money has been raised by venture firms …

Discussion: Venture Capital Dispatch, TechCrunch Europe, paidContent and TechCrunch, Thanks:atul

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Former Googler Adam Freed Takes COO Job at Etsy, As It Crafts More Funding

Discussion: MediaPost, Pulse2, VatorNews, msnbc.com, GigaOMGigaOM, alarm:clock, Inc.com, Silicon Alley Insider and VentureBeat

mattlemay / bit.ly blog:

Introducing @clickabit — bit.ly has a lot of data, and we are always learning interesting and unexpected things from it. For example: approximately .05% of URLs shared through bit.ly include content about cheeseburgers. (An inclusive search for cheeseburgers and “cheezburgers” raises this figure to .07%.)

Discussion: TechCrunch, ArabCrunch and The Next Web

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

Patent Suit Day Continues: Microsoft Takes Fight With i4i Over XML To The Supreme Court — While not the biggest Microsoft-related lawsuit news of the day, Microsoft just announced that it wants to take its patent infringement case against Canadian technology firm i4i to the highest level, seeking review by the US Supreme Court.

Discussion: PR Newswire, TechFlash, Network World, Dow Jones Newswires and Reuters

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

Zuckerberg: Facebook Photos Used 5 Or 6 Times More Than Competitors — Combined — Yesterday, Facebook held a developer's garage event at their headquarters in Palo Alto. To kick things off, CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stage to talk a bit about the history of Facebook.

Tricia Duryee / mocoNews:

Clearwire Confirms New ‘Pay As You Go’ Service Is Coming — Clearwire (NSDQ: CLWR) will be unveiling a new “pay as you go” service on Monday in a webcast for media and industry analysts, according to a document filed with the SEC today. Clearwire initially announced the webcast on Wednesday …

Discussion: IntoMobile, Sidecut Reports, GigaOMGigaOM and FierceWireless

Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life:

Lessons from Google Wave and REST vs. SOAP: Fighting Complexity of our own Choosing — Software companies love hiring people that like solving hard technical problems. On the surface this seems like a good idea, unfortunately it can lead to situations where you have people building a product …

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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 …

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