Techmeme: Google's Eric Schmidt Shown as Perverter of Privacy on Times Square Jumbotron (Ariel Schwartz/Fast Company)

10:45 PM ET, September 2, 2010

Top Items:

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:

Exclusive: Facebook Blocked API Access to Ping After Failure to Strike Agreement, So Apple Removed Feature After Launch — It's not as mysterious as it seems, this mini-controversy about finding friends on Facebook for Apple's new social music network. — According to sources familiar …

Discussion: TechCrunch, 9 to 5 Mac, Engadget, TUAW, BlogsDNA, Erictric, Mashable!, SlashGear, Gizmodo, Techie Buzz, MacRumors, I4U News, Telegraph, AppleInsider, MacNN, Electricpig.co.uk, Pulse2, GigaOM, Kevin Burton's NEW FeedBlog, Technologizer, Nicke's shared items …, Cult of Mac, Smarterware, MediaPost, Fast Company and everythingiCafe, Thanks:rawmeet

Miguel Helft / Bits:

Apple-Facebook Friction Erupts Over Ping — If it is true that the enemy of your enemy is your friend, then Apple and Facebook ought to be friends. Their common enemy, of course, is Google. — But Apple's entry into social networking with the iTunes music social network Ping on Wednesday, has made them frenemies.

Discussion: BoomTown, TechCrunch and BuzzFeed

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

iTunes Ping And Facebook Were Friends Yesterday. And I'm Still Connected. — There seems to be some confusion out there right now about iTunes Ping, Apple's new music social network, and Facebook. Some people seem to think it was never a part of iTunes, that Apple decided against connecting …

Discussion: VentureBeat, Kevin Burton's NEW FeedBlog, CNET News, MediaMemo, Computerworld, Inside Facebook and Download Squad

John Siracusa / Ars Technica:

Apple's trouble with TV — Apple TV has been a persistent loser from a company that usually only tolerates winners. It's clear that Apple wants to do something “in the living room,” but damned if it can figure out exactly what that is. Yesterday, Apple took another run at this thing, announcing an “all-new” Apple TV.

Discussion: Computerworld, Macworld and TidBITS

Larry Dignan / Between the Lines Blog:

Ranking the digital living room barbarians: Netflix rules; Apple, Google others likely to struggle — Apple is trying again with Apple TV in an attempt to be the center of the digital living room. The concept isn't new since Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Amazon and others are also targeting your living room.

Discussion: Velocity, NewTeeVee, Fortune, VentureBeat, ZDNet, GMSV and MediaPost, more at Mediagazer »

Don MacAskill / SmugMug's Don MacAskill:
What the AppleTV should have been — tl;dr: The new AppleTV is a huge disappointment.

Thanks:donmacaskill

David Pogue / Pogue's Posts:

Laptops Look Like Racecars — and Not in a Good Way — At a meeting with Advanced Micro Devices the other day, representatives talked to me about chip sets and clock speeds, of discrete graphics and die sizes. But in passing, they mentioned an additional company initiative that really perked me up: laptop stickers.

Discussion: Lifehacker, Electronista, Geek.com and Technologizer

Nick O'Neill / All Facebook:

HUGE: Facebook Testing New “Subscribe To” User Feature — Facebook is in the process of testing a new feature which lets you subscribe to all the actions of a specific user. In other words, you can receive notifications anytime a specific user takes an action on Facebook.

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, Fast Company, Techie Buzz and TechCrunch

Evan Williams / Twitter Blog:

The Evolving Ecosystem — Just over four months ago, at Chirp, our Twitter developer conference, I talked about how “Twitter is too hard” and what we're doing to address that. — One major area of difficulty I highlighted was getting Twitter on your phone.

Discussion: TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, jkOnTheRun, MobileContentToday, Mashable!, CallingAllGeeks and VentureBeat

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Ping Averts Its Gaze: Apple's New Social Network Doesn't Really Want to Know Much About You — Steve Jobs says Ping is supposed to be a “social music discovery” service: You share your musical taste with friends and vice versa. But if you really want to share, you're going to find it harder than you think.

Discussion: eMarketer and Blog Posts, BetaNews, Adotas and ReadWriteWeb

Connie Loizos / PE Hub Blog:
Why Ping May Be Bad News for Blippy: UPDATED

Discussion: ProgrammableWeb and Mashable!, Thanks:atul

Paul Miller / Engadget:

Samsung Galaxy Tab preview — After a week of painful teasing, Samsung has come clean about its Galaxy Tab 7-inch Android tablet. We got the nitty gritty specs, along with some quality time with the device, and we like what we're seeing on both fronts. Follow along after the break …

Kat Hannaford / Gizmodo:
Samsung's Galaxy Tab Runs Froyo, Has Flash and Measures 7-Inches

Peter Parkes / The Big Blog:

Make group video calls with up to 10 people with the new beta version of Skype for Windows — Today we've released an update to Skype for Windows. The second beta of Skype 5.0 brings a number of changes both outside and in - most importantly, you can now make group video calls with up to 10 people.

Discussion: Mashable!, VentureBeat, Gizmodo, Erictric and ReadWriteWeb

Agence France Presse:

Walkman outsells iPod in Japan for first time — TOKYO — In a rare victory for Sony over arch-rival Apple, the Walkman portable music player outsold the iPod in Japan in monthly sales for the first time in August, a survey showed Thursday. — Sony's share of the Japanese market …

Discussion: Digital Daily, MediaPost, PE Hub Blog and Anything But iPod

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:

In The Coming HTML5 Browser Wars, The Markup Should Remain The Same — On Monday, Google made a big splash with a customized Arcade Fire video page that showed off all the cool things HTML5 can do, from video, animations and 3D rendering to gorgeous fonts and choreographed windows.

Discussion: The Social Path

Yinka Adegoke / Reuters:

Apple and Google to clash in music space by Christmas — (Reuters) - Google Inc is in talks with music labels on plans for a download store and a digital song locker that would allow its mobile users to play songs wherever they are as it steps up its rivalry with Apple Inc, according to people familiar with the matter.

Discussion: Electronista, IntoMobile, Ubergizmo and Tech Trader Daily, Thanks:atul

Roberto Baldwin / Mac|Life:

Apple Removes Ability to Create Ringtones from iTunes 10 — While trying out the new iTunes today, we realized that we could no longer set the option to see if a track purchased from the iTunes store could be made into a ringtone within iTunes 10 for $.99. — In previous versions of iTunes …

Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac

Tarmo Virki / Reuters:

Samsung says to focus on Android, bada software — (Reuters) - The world's second-largest cellphone maker, Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), has decided to use Google's (GOOG.O) Android as a key software platform for its smartphones alongside with its own new bada software, a company executive said.

Discussion: Unwired View, PhoneDog.com, Android Community, IntoMobile, All About Symbian, Android Phone Fans, Electronista, FierceWireless, Obsessable, Engadget and WMPoweruser.com

Paul Miller / Engadget:

Sharp shows off mobile prototype with 3D screen, 3D camera, and 3D output — We've seen enough home theater 3D already to be well and sick of it, but mobile 3D is still an upcoming sector, one which Sharp seems to be making a bid for. It's showing off a mobile device prototype …

Discussion: Softpedia News and Know Your Cell

James Ledbetter / Slate:

Why is everyone always writing off Netflix? — People who think and write about technology companies for a living are prone to be wrong now and again. Try to find, for example, veteran analysts or journalists who haven't at some point made a claim about Apple that they didn't later regret.

Vivian Lin Dufour / Yahoo! Search Blog:

Yahoo! Search Serves Suggestions Closer to You — We're making Search more intuitive by taking user context and applying it to the search experience. Today we are introducing an enhanced Yahoo! Search Assist, providing suggestions geographically closer to you as you type your query.

Discussion: Screenwerk, Search Engine Journal and WebProNews

Ariel Schwartz / Fast Company:

Google's Eric Schmidt Shown as Perverter of Privacy on Times Square Jumbotron — Google's “Don't Be Evil” motto has become increasingly controversial in the past year as the Internet giant made private GMail contacts public with Google Buzz, collected personal information from Wi-Fi networks …

Discussion: Tech Daily Dose, ReadWriteWeb, Search Engine Land, Bits, Gawker and New York Magazine

Claire Cain Miller / New York Times:

YouTube Ads Turn Videos Into Revenue — SAN BRUNO, Calif. — Last month, a YouTube user, TomR35, uploaded a clip from the AMC series “Mad Men” in which Don Draper makes a heartfelt speech about the importance of nostalgia in advertising. — Viewers wouldn't notice, but that clip also makes …

Discussion: Bits

Michael Oryl / Mobile Burn:

Verizon offers unlimited and 25MB pre-paid data plans — Today Verizon Wireless introduced new 3G data plans for its pre-paid users. Two plans are now available to pre-paid customers: a month of unlimited data for $30, or 25MB of data in a month for $10 (with $.20/MB overage charge).

Discussion: Android Phone Fans, MobileCrunch, Verizon, mocoNews and Obsessable

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

This Spam Infographic About Spam Infographics Makes My Head Hurt — Buzzfeed, the Huffington Post of Internet memes, wins the “more meta than thou” award for making “An Infographic Backlash Infographic” inspired by the tragic tale of a guy whose job it was to game Digg back when Digg had enough traffic to make it worth gaming.

Discussion: BuzzFeed

Chloe Albanesius / PC Magazine:

Facebook Adds Remote Log-Out Security Feature — Facebook on Thursday added a remote log-out feature that will allow users who accidentally left themselves logged in on a particular device to end those sessions from another location. — “Have you ever borrowed a friend's phone to use Facebook …

Discussion: Between the Lines Blog, Mashable! and CNET News

Craig Newmark / Tech Life:

What I Should Have Said to CNN's Amber Lyon When She Ambushed Me — CNN's Amber Lyon has been crowing for weeks about scoring an ambush interview against me. Boy, if she only knew that successfully ambushing me is about as big an accomplishment as stealing nuts from one of the birds or squirrels I like to Tweet about.

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