Techmeme: Sprint to offer ‘certified pre-owned’ devices (Andrew Munchbach/Boy Genius Report)

1:15 PM ET, October 12, 2010

Top Items:

Brian X. Chen / Gadget Lab:

Why Windows Phone 7 Will Make Android Look Chaotic — Microsoft may be late to the game with a consumer-savvy phone OS, but Windows Phone 7 is aiming to do right a lot of what Google is doing wrong. Based on what I saw during a visit to Microsoft's headquarters two weeks ago …

Todd Brix / The Windows Blog:

Introducing App Hub for Windows Phone 7 & Indie Game Developers — Earlier today Microsoft and its partners announced the first wave of Windows Phone 7 devices and when they will be available. Events are taking place in regions around the world to give people a first look at actual devices by carrier.

Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider, WMPoweruser.com, Electronista, FierceDeveloper, MSDN Blogs, Inquirer, The Microsoft Blog, DailyTech, Tim Anderson's ITWriting, VatorNews, Bink.nu and Go Rumors, Thanks:rawmeet

Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft Blog:

Seven new things to know about Windows Phone 7 — October 11 was the official Microsoft launch of Windows Phone 7. I asked readers what they wanted to know and have gotten a number of reader questions about Microsoft's strategy, the products and the future. Here are the answers I've been able to get (so far).

Discussion: Hardware 2.0 Blog and PC World

Dan Nystedt / PC World:
HTC CEO Talks on Business Behind New Windows Phone 7 OS

Discussion: Engadget, Gizmodo, PhoneDog.com, The Register and GottaBeMobile

Sascha Segan / PC Magazine:
Dell Venue Pro: Windows Phone 7's Dark Horse? Hands On

Discussion: Forward Thinking, TmoNews, T3.com News, ThinkMobile, Engadget, Fone Arena, The Register, Direct2Dell, I4U News and Smartphones …

Kevin C. Tofel / GigaOM:
Windows Phone 7 Shows Why RIM, Nokia Need a Fresh Start

Discussion: Mashable!, Geek.com, displayblog, Fast Company, Gadget Lab and techblog.dallasnews.com, Thanks:rawmeet

Amazon.com:

Kindle Singles, Which Can Be Twice the Length of a New Yorker Feature or as Much as a Few Chapters of a Typical Book, Coming Soon to the Kindle Store — Less than 10,000 words or more than 50,000: that is the choice writers have generally faced for more than a century—works either …

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, Ars Technica, Nieman Journalism Lab, TechFlash, paidContent, TechCrunch, Mashable!, Digital Trends, Techland, Gadget Lab, jkOnTheRun, Pocket-lint, Electronista, Technologizer, SlashGear, Geek.com and Gizmodo

Larry Dignan / Between the Lines Blog:

Amazon's Kindle Singles e-books: One shrewd business move — Amazon's Kindle store is getting more like a music store everyday. Now you can buy a whole book or just a single—an e-book that's about twice as long as a New Yorker feature. — In a statement, Amazon called on writers …

Discussion: BetaNews, Crave and MediaMemo

Josh Fruhlinger / InfoWorld:

Oracle-IBM pact cuts Android off at the knees — Larry Ellison's latest move could seriously undermine Android, no matter how Oracle's courtroom battles with Google turn out. — If you have only a passing interest in Java development, you probably didn't think of much of yesterday's announcement …

Discussion: internetnews.com, Bits, Bob Sutor, Android Community and Computerworld

Electronista:

Walmart confirms iPad reaching its stores on Friday — Walmart this evening confirmed that the iPad would reach its stores this week. The tablet arrives in its stores on Friday, October 15, and will include all models at the same prices that Apple charges.

Mark Hachman / PC Magazine:

Twitter Events Now a Priority; Is the Hashtag Dead? — Twitter Events, an event-specific grouping of tweets, is going to be a priority now that Evan Williams has chosen to focus on product strategy, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said on the sidelines of an event Monday night in San Francisco.

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, Epicenter and The Huffington Post

Douglas MacMillan / Bloomberg:
Twitter Aims to Get 1 Billion Users, Matching Facebook Target

Discussion: Hillicon Valley and Pulse2

Wall Street Journal:

Indian Firms in Talks to Sell iPhone — MUMBAI—Two Indian telecom operators are in talks with Apple Inc. to launch an iPhone in India based on the code division multiple access technology in a bid to tap the growing smartphone market in one of the world's fastest-growing mobile markets, people familiar with the matter said.

Discussion: Hillicon Valley, AppleInsider, PC Magazine, Cult of Mac, MacStories, I4U News, SlashGear, MacDailyNews, MacNN, Gearlog, Phones Review, Pluggd.in and everythingiCafe

Wall Street Journal:

‘Scrapers’ Dig Deep for Data on Web — At 1 a.m. on May 7, the website PatientsLikeMe.com noticed suspicious activity on its “Mood” discussion board. There, people exchange highly personal stories about their emotional disorders, ranging from bipolar disease to a desire to cut themselves.

Discussion: Screenwerk, Digits, Security Watch and AdExchanger.com

Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:

“Done Deal” - DeNA To Announce Ngmoco Acquisition Very Soon (Confirmed) — An update to our post last week on Japan's DeNA mulling over an acquisition of San Francisco based social gaming startup ngmoco. The deal is supposedly done and will be announced shortly, possibly on Tuesday.

Liz Gannes / GigaOM:

Twitter Founders: Gladwell Got It Wrong — “Laughable,” “absurd,” “ludicrous” and “pointless” were words Twitter founders Ev Williams and Biz Stone used Monday night to describe a recent Malcolm Gladwell story in the New Yorker about the futility of social media to create real social change.

Discussion: Silicon Valley Watcher, Guardian, blogs.telegraph.co.uk, Digital Trends, Tom Foremski, VentureBeat and PE Hub Blog

AppleInsider:

Bloomberg to profile Steve Jobs in one-hour TV special this Thursday — Apple chief executive Steve Jobs will be the subject of a TV special that will air on Bloomberg television this week, tracing the Silicon Valley superstar from his days as a college dropout through his leadership role …

Discussion: MacRumors Page 2

Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:

Ars Technica: banned in Iran! — “403 Forbidden”: that's what Ars readers in Iran are now seeing when they try to connect to arstechnica.com. We were alerted to the block by a loyal Iranian reader late last week, and we checked our traffic statistics over the weekend; we do, in fact, appear to be banned.

Discussion: ArabCrunch, Post Tech, Gamertell and Epicenter

Ari Levy / Bloomberg:

Pandora Chases Drive-Time Radio After Capturing Mobile Market — Pandora Media Inc., the top Internet radio company, is luring advertisers such as Hallmark Cards Inc. and MillerCoors LLC to its streaming service and gearing up to chase the lucrative drive-time market.

Austin Carr / Fast Company:

Twitter Crushing Facebook's Click-Through Rate: Report — What is the most effective way for marketers to spread their message online? Facebook? Twitter? Company blogs? Email? — According to a new report by marketing firm SocialTwist, Internet sharing trends have shifted heavily …

Discussion: New Media Age and Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, more at Mediagazer »

Ina Fried / CNET News:

Ballmer on tablets, PCs and more (Q&A) — NEW YORK—While Microsoft showed off Windows Phone 7 yesterday as its answer to the iPhone, many are still wondering what the company's response will be to the iPad. — CEO Steve Ballmer has noted on several occasions that there will be some Windows 7 slates …

Discussion: TechEye, Erictric, PC World, Crave and The Social

Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:

Google Launches Two New Android Apps To Help The Blind Navigate Around Town — They rarely get much press attention, but some of the greatest features to come out of the new era of smartphones are related to accessibility. A few months back, blind iPhone user Austin Seraphin wrote about how the device had changed his life.

Discussion: PC World, Eyes-Free Android, MWD Tech News, Gizmodo, Android Community, Pocket-lint, Lifehacker and ThinkMobile

Robin Harding / Financial Times:

Google to map inflation using web data — Google is using its vast database of web shopping data to construct the ‘Google Price Index’ - a daily measure of inflation that could one day provide an alternative to official statistics. — The work by Google's chief economist, Hal Varian …

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, Guardian, Victus Spiritus and Bloomberg

Sarah Perez / ReadWriteEnterprise:

Xobni Brings Gmail Gadgets to Outlook — In May, email management company Xobni introduced a new platform which allowed developers to port their contextual Gmail gadgets to Outlook. Using the APIs (application programming interfaces) provided by Google, third-party developers were able …

Discussion: Huddle.net's Collaboration …

Stephen Shankland / CNET News:

Google funds power backbone for major wind farm — Google said today it's invested in a project called the Atlantic Wind Connection, an effort to create a 350-mile power transmission backbone linking wind turbines several miles offshore with sites along the United States East Coast.

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