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10:50 PM ET, October 29, 2010

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Sarah Ellison / Fortune:
Get ready for Verizon's ‘Dream Phone’  —  The soon-to-be-unveiled Verizon iPhone is the answer to many consumers' prayers.  But a deal with Apple will test the company that Ivan Seidenberg has spent his career building.  —  By Sarah Ellison, contributor  —  The most talked-about cellphone …
RELATED:
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:   For Apple, AT&T Is The Company You Sleep With, Verizon Is The Company You Marry
Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
iPhone locked for early 2011 on Verizon, says Fortune
Discussion: Fortune
Ashlee Vance / New York Times:
Microsoft Plans to Buy Canesta  —  MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Prepare for Windows 8: Minority Report Edition.  —  Microsoft said on Friday that it was buying Canesta, a small Silicon Valley company that specializes in gesture-recognition technology.  —  Interest in this technology has surged …
RELATED:
Canesta:
CANESTA ANNOUNCES DEFINITIVE AGREEMENT TO BE ACQUIRED BY MICROSOFT  —  Canesta, Inc. today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to have its products, technology, intellectual property, customer contracts, and other resources acquired by the Microsoft Corporation.
Discussion: Computerworld
Brian Caulfield / Shiny Objects:   Paving The Way For Kinect, Microsoft Scoops Up Motion-Sensing Intellectual Property
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft: Our strategy with Silverlight has shifted  —  At Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference (PDC) this week, the future of Silverlight is one topic that has gotten short shrift.  There have been no sessions about Silverlight 5 and only one mention of Silverlight in the kick-off keynote.
RELATED:
Joe Wilcox / BetaNews:
Why is Microsoft suddenly so hot for HTML5?  —  Well, it's not about customers.  —  Microsoft has quite aggressively touted HTML5 during PDC 2010, which wraps up today.  It's seemingly inconsistent with Microsoft's revamped cloud strategy, which is very much about taking propriety software to the cloud.
Thanks:rawmeet
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Lars Rasmussen, Father Of Google Maps And Google Wave, Heads To Facebook  —  When Google put their faith in Wave, an ambitious new project last year, they knew it was a gamble.  But a big part of it was the team behind the project.  A team led by Lars Rasmussen, the engineer best known …
Discussion: Delimiter
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
Facebook acquires file-sharing service Drop.io  —  Facebook has acquired most of the assets of Drop.io, a New York-based start-up that lets users privately and sporadically share files through a drag-and-drop interface with additional options like phone calls and even faxing, the company announced Friday on its blog.
RELATED:
Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
Facebook hires Drop.io's Sam Lessin, calls it an acquisition
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Twitter Updates Logos, Rules: Info On Logo Use, Screenshots, And Capital “T” Tweets  —  Today on the Twitter blog, the company wrote a post that was all of three sentences to let people know about their new logos.  Yay!  —  But there's actually quite a bit more to it then it seems.
RELATED:
James Buckhouse / Twitter Blog:   New Twitter, new look
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:   Do Twitter's Application Naming Rules Spell Bad News For TweetDeck?
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
After A Five Month Stay (And $750M Acquisition), AdMob CEO Omar Hamoui Leaves Google  —  Last November, Google announced that it had acquired leading mobile ad network AdMob for a whopping $750 million.  Today, less than a year after the deal closed, AdMob founder and CEO Omar Hamoui is leaving Google, we've confirmed with the company.
Joseph Tartakoff / paidContent:
10-Q Watch: Google Paid $179 Million In Cash For Social App Maker Slide  —  Google (NSDQ: GOOG) paid $179 million in cash to buy social app maker Slide in August, according to the company's quarterly filing with the SEC. Previous reports put the price tag as high as $229 million.
Discussion: CNET News and SAI
RELATED:
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Google's 2010 M&A Bill: $1.6 Billion and Counting
Discussion: CNET News
Mark Gurman / 9 to 5 Mac:
Steve Jobs: No USB 3 ‘at this time’  —  Over the past few months multiple rumors emerged claiming that Apple would adopt USB 3.0 for their line of Macs.  Since this is yet to happen, reader, Tom Kruk e-mailed the man in charge asking why he cannot order a Mac with USB 3.0.  —  Jobs' Reply:
Nicholas Carlson / SAI:
Larry And Sergey Wanted Steve Jobs To Be Google's First CEO  —  The first guy Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin wanted to hire to be their CEO was Apple's Steve Jobs.  —  We learned this detail watching Bloomberg TV's “Game Changers” documentary on the founding of Google.
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Facebook Holding Special Mobile Event This Wednesday  —  Facebook has just sent us an invitation to a special event that's happening this Wednesday.  The theme?  Mobile.  —  We don't know what Facebook is planning to launch (though we'll do our best to find out beforehand), but we have a few guesses.
Royal Pingdom:
Is Goo.gl really the fastest URL shortener? (chart)  —  A few weeks ago, Google made its URL shortener, Goo.gl, open for everyone and gave it its own website, similar to Bit.ly's.  Previously, Goo.gl could only be used by Google's own services.  —  When they announced this …
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb and Techie Buzz
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Best Buds: Gmail Creator Joins Facebook Co-Founder, Donates 100K To Legalize Marijuana  —  It's pretty easy being green if you're a Silicon Valley notable apparently.  We just got word that Paul Buchheit, creator of Gmail, Friendfeed and now a Facebook employee, has surpassed Facebook co …
Discussion: Paul Buchheit
Sascha Segan / PC Magazine:
Samsung's ‘Nexus Two:’ More Details Come Out  —  Samsung is indeed working on an unlocked Google Android phone as reported by Gizmodo this morning, but it may not be called the “Nexus Two” and it isn't coming out on November 8.  —  Gizmodo riled the Internet today with photos and details of a slim …
Marco Arment / Marco.org:
The Mac App Store isn't for today's Mac developers  —  Apple's recently announced App Store for the Mac is a Really Big Deal™, for reasons I'll get to in a moment.  But a lot of existing Mac developers have pointed out major issues or unknowns that need to be addressed:
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Here's AOL Now-Live New Homepage (and Welcome Back to the Adorkable Lindsay Campbell)  —  Today, BoomTown interviewed AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, along with NPR CEO Vivian Schiller, at the Online News Association conference in Washington, D.C. about the future of journalism on the Web.
Mike Vernal / Facebook Developers Blog:
An Update on Facebook UIDs  —  As we outlined previously, we recently learned that some developers on Facebook Platform were inadvertently sharing User IDs (UIDs) due to an issue with the way that web browsers work.  While we found no evidence that this inadvertent sharing resulted …
Discussion: All Facebook and Inside Facebook
Joshua Topolsky / Engadget:
The PlayStation Phone: new photos, more details!  —  We've gotten our hands on some more images of the PlayStation Phone, and gleaned a few more juicy details about the handset.  Firstly, as you can see in the photos, the model in question does indeed seem to be codenamed “Zeus” (as we reported on the 27th).
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Sprint CEO: The iPad Has Been Good to Us  —  It might not be selling iPads in its stores like rivals AT&T and Verizon, but Sprint is benefitting from the brisk demand for Apple's hot new device, regardless.  Dan Hesse, CEO of the third-largest carrier in the U.S., told me in an interview …
Nicholas Carlson / SAI:
Foursquare Doomed?  Facebook Places Has 7X More Users  —  About 30 million people have tried Facebook places, a single source who works with Facebook tells us.  —  Reached for a response to this number, Facebook rep Larry Yu told us, “[I] don't have any guidance to offer right now, I'm afraid.”
 
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 More Items: 
Faruk Ates / FarukAt.es:
The Addictive Allure of Instagram
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
An Apple Integrated SIM: What It Could Mean
Discussion: PhoneArena and Tech Europe
Ina Fried / CNET News:
Microsoft releases lock on Windows Phone 7 developers
Thanks:rawmeet
Will Larson / Digg Blog:
Introducing Digg's Streaming API
Harrison Hoffman / The Windows Blog:
Windows Live serves up local photo spots on foursquare
Discussion: The Next Web and LiveSide.net, Thanks:rawmeet
Ben Fritz / Company Town:
Redbox planning to expand onto the Web next year
 Earlier Items: 
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
AOL Sells Buildings, Land To CB Richard Ellis Realty Trust …
Discussion: Business Wire, Pulse2 and SAI
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Demand Media's IPO Is On Deck, With Amended Filing
Subel Bhandari / Agence France Presse:
Everest summit wired up with Internet
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
Leaked DVD Screener of The Social Network A BitTorrent Hit
Jon Brodkin / Network World:
89,000 Microsoft employees will get a Windows Phone 7 handset
Monica Chen / DigiTimes:
Asustek details tablet PC plans
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Caitlin Huston / The Hollywood Reporter:
Internal memo: Hearst Magazines president announces layoffs as part of a decision to “reallocate resources” to “continue our focus on digital innovation”

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced she will leave the agency on January 20; she was the first woman to be confirmed to lead the agency

Lachlan Cartwright / The Ankler:
Sources: MSNBC renewed Rachel Maddow's contract early this fall, but with a pay cut; MSNBC bosses' plan to shake up daytime and weekend programming

 
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