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11:40 PM ET, November 19, 2010

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Google Turns Its Local Eyes to Groupon-But Who Else Could Enter Bidding?  —  According to multiple sources close to the situation, Google is in discussions with local deals powerhouse Groupon about buying it.  —  Without making the requisite joke about the deal of the day …
RELATED:
Bloomberg:
Groupon Said to Weigh Sale to Google vs. Raising More Funds
Henry Blodget / SAI:
Hell, Yes, Google Should Buy Groupon. And Twitter. And Foursquare...
James Cowie / Renesys Blog:
China's 18-Minute Mystery  —  When the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission released its report to Congress this week, something slightly unusual happened: people read it.  And there, buried on pages 236-247, a mystery was revealed, and the media have greedily amplified it.
Discussion: Computerworld
RELATED:
Jim Wolf / Reuters:   Pentagon “aware” of China Internet rerouting
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Accel Selling Big Chunks Of Facebook Stock  —  Sometime in the last week or so, we've heard from multiple sources, Accel Partners has sold very significant chunks of Facebook stock.  So significant, in fact, that their ownership percentage has dropped to a point where they are no longer the largest venture shareholder in the company.
Discussion: VentureBeat and SAI
Heather Dougherty / Hitwise Intelligence:
Facebook.com generates nearly 1 in 4 page views in the US  —  In March, we reported an important milestone when the market share of visits to Facebook.com* surpassed Google.com*.  Since then, we have continued to watch the growth of Facebook.com, which increased 60% from the same week last year …
Tim Berners-Lee / Scientific American:
Long Live the Web  —  The Web is critical not merely to the digital revolution but to our continued prosperity—and even our liberty.  Like democracy itself, it needs defending  —  The world wide web went live, on my physical desktop in Geneva, Switzerland, in December 1990.
John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
Apple Developing CDMA-GSM ‘World iPad’?  —  Here's an interesting bit of speculation from Wedge Partners analyst Brian Blair, whose recent Qualcomm channel checks may reveal something about Apple's next-generation iPad.  According to Blair, Apple is developing a “World iPad” based on one of Qualcomm's multimode CDMA-GSM chips.
Dieter Bohn / PreCentral.net:
webOS 2.0 will be released to “all devices” in coming months (Update: Video online)  —  We just heard a confirmation from Palm's Josh Marinacci that HP / Palm intends to get webOS 2.0 on all existing webOS devices in “the coming months.”  That timeline is still vaguer that we'd like …
Andrew Sykes / Gizchina:
Genuine White iPhone 4 On the Grey Market in China!  —  This week it's all been about the iPhone 4, more specifically the elusive yet to be released (rumored to be axed) White iPhone 4.  We've brought you pictures of a genuine white iPhone 4 complete with video and we've even managed to track …
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Where Are the Android Killer Apps?  —  Every few weeks or so, I reiterate my wish for an Android analog to the iPod Touch — something more or less comparable to state-of-the-art Android phones in terms of performance, software, and quality, but costing, say, $250 (or less) with no contract.
Liz Gannes / NetworkEffect:
The Landscape Around Google's Hiring Binge  —  After a year or two of stagnancy, the Google employee count is growing rapidly again.  But the growth spurt and retention efforts seem forced, and unlikely to be the perfect formula to keep the company at the top of the Web heap, despite its clout, market share and massive revenue.
Doree Shafrir / Newsweek:
Pennies From Heaven  —  With cash for tech startups in shorter supply, angel investors are going where VCs fear to tread.  Chris Dixon is sitting in his lofty office in New York's Silicon Alley, trying to persuade an 18-year-old to take his money.  The young man is in town from California …
Dan Primack / Fortune:
Tumblr dives into a boatload of money  —  Tumblr, the lightweight blogging company, has raised between $25 million and $30 million in new VC funding, Fortune has learned.  The valuation is in the ballpark of $135 million.  —  BusinessInsider first reported on the existence of a new round last week …
RELATED:
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:   What's New At Tumblr: Funding, Hires, Office, Board Member, And A Focus On Fashion
Alexis Madrigal / The Atlantic Online:
Facebook Warns Debt Collectors About Using Its Service  —  A Florida debt collector contacted a St. Petersburg woman's Facebook friends in an effort to get her to repay a $362 car loan.  The woman, Melanie Beacham, promptly hit the collector, MarkOne Financial, with a civil suit in Pinellas County circuit court.
Discussion: The Next Web and Switched
Horace Dediu / asymco:
Why the Mac keeps growing  —  When the iPhone vs. Android rhetorical war heats up, both sides bring up the history of Macs vs. Windows PCs.  The commonly held thesis is that Windows triumphed as the PC was commoditized (and modularized).  This triumph was at the expense of the over-serving and over-priced Mac.
Austin Carr / Fast Company:
Exclusive: Foursquare's New Partnership With PepsiCo Takes Focus Off of Places  —  Foursquare's pilot program, launching today, breaks away from Facebook Places and Gowalla with badges and discounts based not only on locations but your reasons for being there.
adafruit industries blog:
Microsoft now says it's “inspired' by community finding new uses for Kinect...  Science Friday had a segment on the Xbox Kinect - apparently our bounty / hack was mentioned and now Microsoft's Alex Kipman & Shannon Loftis says “Kinect interface was left unprotected 'by design” and they're “inspired' by community finding new uses.”
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Manhunt!  LimeWire, RIAA both search for “Pirate Edition” creator  —  Last week, hacker “MetaPirate” and his “horde of piratical monkeys” released LimeWire: Pirate Edition to the world.  The program took all the file-sharing features of the popular LimeWire Pro and made them free of charge and free of central controls.
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
Apple to Offer Free MobileMe Service to Some iOS Users?  —  Earlier this month, we noted that the original golden master version of iOS 4.2 appeared to be preparing to allow users to sign in to MobileMe using their Apple IDs and even offer users the ability create a free Apple ID right from the MobileMe settings page in iOS.
Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac
Scott Austin / Venture Capital Dispatch:
A New Fund Helps Facebook Employees Exercise Stock Options  —  Google's initial public offering in 2004 turned hundreds of Googlers into instant millionaires thanks to stock options that soared in value.  The same will likely happen to Facebookers if and when Facebook decides to go public.
Discussion: All Facebook and SAI
Josh Wigler / MTV Splash Page:
Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg Gets The Comic Book Movie Adaptation Treatment  —  David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin may have had the first laugh in chronicling the life and times of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in “The Social Network,” but the young entrepreneur is getting another shot …
 
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 More Items: 
Declan McCullagh / CNET News:
Cybersecurity bill gives DHS power to punish tech firms
John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
Oracle Rests SAP Case, Slams HP CEO
Kevin Kelleher / Fortune:
How Facebook learned from MySpace's mistakes
Pete Warden / ReadWriteWeb:
Secrets of the LinkedIn Data Scientists
David Meyer / ZDNet:
Facebook, Yahoo and ISPs plead for UK free speech
Grant Gross / PC World:
Senator Threatens to Block Online Copyright Bill
 Earlier Items: 
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
You Can Now Gift Anyone With An E-mail Address A Kindle Book
Shayndi Raice / Wall Street Journal:
Small Deal Brings Scrutiny to Huawei
Phil Nickinson / Android Central:
HTC Merge 360-degree view appears, quickly disappears from Verizon's site
 

 
From Mediagazer:

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

Evan Drellich / New York Times:
The MLB is planning national packages for streaming companies to bid on in 2028, when its national TV deals with ESPN, Fox, and Turner expire

Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch:
Tubi launches Scenes, a mobile feature that lets viewers watch 60-to-90-second trailer-style clips from its library to help with content discovery

 
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