Techmeme: 4chan rushes to WikiLeaks' defense, forces Swiss banking site offline (Peter Bright/Ars Technica)

8:10 AM ET, December 8, 2010

Top Items:

An update on Chrome, the Web Store and Chrome OS — On the Chrome team, we're constantly amazed by the speed of innovation on the web. We designed Chrome to make the web shine, and we hope our upcoming efforts will help support this vibrant ecosystem even more.

Paul Miller / Engadget:

Google unveils Cr-48, the first Chrome OS laptop — We've had plenty of pre-knowledge on this, but surprisingly this is our first actual glimpse of Google's new unbranded “Cr-48,” the very first Chrome OS laptop. Google will distribute the laptop through its Chrome OS Pilot Program, in a sort of public beta.

Discussion: Inquirer, Guardian, Softpedia News, Pulse2, Go Rumors, Gizmodo, istartedsomething, DroidDog Android Blog, TechCrunch, Geek.com, The Toybox Blog, GottaBeMobile, Neowin.net, Tech Trader Daily, SAI and Tech Report

Om Malik / GigaOM:

The Network Computer Arrives...Finally! — Thank you Eric Schmidt for taking me down memory lane, to the heyday of another bubble, in another century. Today, at the launch of Chrome OS — a new Google operating system for web-centric computing — Schmidt talked about 1997 when he …

Thanks:ryanlawler

DigiTimes:

Inventec ships 60,000 Chrome OS netbooks to Google — Alongside Google's announcement of its new Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) operating system as well as Chrome OS on December 7, Inventec confirmed that it has already shipped about 60,000 Chrome OS-based netbooks to Google, which are expected to be used for testing.

Discussion: ZDNet, TechEye, The Next Web, Engadget and SlashGear, Thanks:michaelkroker

Matt Rosoff / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:

Where Chrome OS Will Fail: Hardware Support — Toward the end of today's Chrome OS event, Google admitted that it's still working out how to support hardware peripherals. This is how Chrome OS is most likely to fail. — For printing, vice president of product management Sudar Pichai suggested …

Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
Chrome OS launch coming in mid 2011, but Google starting pilot program

Joanna Stern / Engadget:
Google: Chrome OS laptops won't dual boot with Windows, live …

Discussion: IndustryGamers, GottaBeMobile and Daring Fireball

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

Tracked Down: Google Just Quietly Launched An Official Latitude iPhone App — I guess Google really is in a feisty mood tonight. After the Chrome Web Store, Chrome OS, some leaked Google +1 information, and a Google Groups re-launch, we've just gotten word that Google has launched an official Latitude app for the iPhone.

Discussion: IntoMobile, Electricpig.co.uk, MacStories, Go Rumors, SlashGear, The Next Web, 9 to 5 Mac and TiPb

Peter Bright / Ars Technica:

4chan rushes to WikiLeaks' defense, forces Swiss banking site offline — The forces of Anonymous have taken aim at several companies who are refusing to do business with WikiLeaks. 4chan's hordes have launched distributed denial-of-service attacks against PayPal, Swiss bank PostFinance …

Discussion: Computerworld, TechCrunch, Renesys Blog, VentureBeat, OSNews, Gawker, Guardian, Digital Trends, ITProPortal, TechnoLlama and Tea & Tech

Mike Butcher / TechCrunch Europe:
WikiLeaks continues to fund itself via tech startup Flattr

Discussion: Computerworld, The Atlantic Online, The Next Web and CNET News, Thanks:mikebutcher

Julian Assange / The Australian:
Don't shoot messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths

Discussion: Guardian and ZDNet Australia

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

CONFIDENTIAL! Looks Like “Google +1″ Was Just Accidentally Revealed (Pic) — While we haven't 100 percent confirmed it yet (update: we've confirmed with a source), what you see above is what we do very much believe to be a picture of Google's latest social foray.

Discussion: Google Watch, PhoneArena, Neowin.net, Gizmodo Australia, Ubergizmo, SAI and Electronista

Eric Slivka / MacRumors:

Steve Jobs: MobileMe to ‘Get A Lot Better’ Next Year — Apple's MobileMe service has been a bit of a mixed bag with consumers, with some seeing value in the service's email, photo/file hosting, and syncing capabilities while others feel that the $99 annual list price for the service is too high.

Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac, Electricpig.co.uk, App Advice, IntoMobile, Apple Gazette, AppleInsider, TUAW, MacStories, Softpedia News and Ubergizmo

Dean Hachamovitch / MSDN Blogs:

IE9 and Privacy: Introducing Tracking Protection — The feedback and conversation on IE9's Platform Previews and Beta to date from many different communities has made the IE9 development process, and product, substantially better than previous releases. The discussions around hardware-accelerated HTML5 …

Christopher Soghoian / slight paranoia:
Initial thoughts on Microsoft's IE9 Tracking Protection Announcement

Discussion: PC World and LiveSide.net

Jenna Wortham / Bits:

Google Executive: No Time to Build, So We Buy — As news of Google's attempted acquisition of the daily deals site Groupon ricocheted around the Web, one big question loomed large: Wouldn't it be easier for Google to build out a similar service than pay several billion dollars for Groupon?

Discussion: The Equity Kicker

Spencer Ante / Digits:
Google Executive Says Local Advertising Is Top Focus

Discussion: Screenwerk, The Praized Blog and Internet2Go

Electronista:

AT&T on iPhone: ‘exclusive arrangements end’ — AT&T today reiterated increasing clues that the iPhone's US exclusivity deal was coming to an end. CFO Richard Lindner at the UBS Media and Communications Conference on Tuesday stressed that there was no such thing as a permanent exclusive …

Discussion: eMoney and TUAW

Sarah Nahm / Chromium Blog:

A New Crankshaft for V8 — Today we are introducing Crankshaft, a new compilation infrastructure for V8, Google Chrome's JavaScript engine. By using aggressive optimizations, Crankshaft dramatically improves the performance of compute-intensive JavaScript applications - often by more than a factor of two!

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Chrome Browser, Now Used By 120 Million People, Just Cranked Up Its Speed

Discussion: PC Magazine, Fortune and Electronista

Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:

Twitter VP Of Product Jason Goldman Steps Down (At Le Web) — Our very own MG Siegler interviewed Jason Goldman, VP of Product at Twitter, at Le Web 10. — Our notes: — Siegler started off by asking about the new integrations Twitter launched yesterday.

Discussion: The Next Web, SelectStart, Mashable! and SAI

Amazon:

Every Website Can Now Be a Bookstore — Kindle for the Web enables customers to read full text of Kindle books in their web browser - no download or installation required — Websites are invited to participate in decentralized e-book sales — Kindle for the Web is Chrome OS launch partner

Discussion: VentureBeat, Gadget Lab, ReadWriteWeb, BGR, The Register, Ars Technica, Electricpig.co.uk, ResourceShelf, Examiner, Mashable!, eWeek and PC World

Eric Engleman / TechFlash:
Amazon to let people read full Kindle books in web browser

Discussion: Gizmodo

Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:

Salesforce.com Buys Heroku For $212 Million In Cash — Salesforce.com has just announced that it is acquiring Heroku, which provides a Ruby application platform-as-a-service, for approximately $212 million in cash. — That's one hell of an exit for the startup, which was founded in 2007 and has raised only $13 million in funding.

Discussion: ZDNet, PR Newswire, SAI and Mashable!

Mark Gurman / 9 to 5 Mac:

AMO-DEAD, iPad 2 will use LCD — According to Digitimes Apple has ordered the BLUs (back light units) for the upcoming iPad 2. These backlight units will reportedly be used in conjunction with LCD displays built by LG and Chimei Innolux. Apple ordering backlights means the iPad 2 …

Discussion: DigiTimes

Chris Matyszczyk / Technically Incorrect:

$1.9 million violin stolen: Great ad for Windows Phone? — If you were a famous violinist who happened to carry a $1.9 million Stradivarius around with you, it would surely be hard to concentrate on anything else. — Unless, perhaps, there was an iPhone in the vicinity.

Discussion: WinRumors and Relevant Results

Brian Hendricks / Bing:

Bing's new mall maps: Get in, get out, and the avoid the crowds — Have you ever driven to a mall, parked at one of the big department stores, then discovered the store you needed to go to was on the other side of the mall? What about experiencing the frustration of not knowing where in the mall …

Discussion: The Next Web, Search Engine Land, Ubergizmo and Engadget

Archived Page Info:

This is a snapshot of Techmeme at 8:10 AM ET, December 8, 2010.

View the current page or another snapshot:

Techmeme Sponsor Posts:

Meta:

Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few — Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.

Tribe AI:

Build AI products that matter — Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact. We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.

Zoho:

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 …

Hamming: