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5:55 PM ET, December 8, 2010

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
PayPal VP On Blocking WikiLeaks: State Department Said It Was Illegal  —  Milo Yannopoulos' very first question on stage to PayPal's VP of Platform Osama Bedier was about why PayPal blocked WikiLeaks payments and froze its account.  The question was met with boos from the mostly European audience.
RELATED:
Guardian:
WikiLeaks: Who are the hackers behind Operation Payback?  —  The MasterCard website was forced offline for several hours today, following an online assault led by a shadowy group of hackers protesting against the card issuer's decision to block payments made to the WikiLeaks website.
Jameson Berkow / FP Tech Desk:
Hackers supporting WikiLeaks target Visa  —  (update 5:25pm EST the Visa.com website has now been offline for more than one hour)(update 4:31pm EST the Operation Payback Facebook page has just been removed by Facebook)(update 4:14pm EST the Canadian Visa.ca address appears to be working …
John Battelle / John Battelle's Searchblog:
Why Wouldn't Google Mirror Wikileaks?
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
The Media Comes To The Defense Of WikiLeaks At LeWeb: “The Leakers Will Win”
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.
RELATED:
Bloomberg:
Apple, Google Asked to Pay Up as European Operators Inundated by Data  —  Google Inc., Apple Inc., and Facebook Inc. need to pitch in to help pay for the billions of dollars of network investments needed for their bandwidth-hogging services, European phone operators say.
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.
RELATED:
Rose Yao / Facebook Blog:
More Control on Mobile  —  Over 200 million people use Facebook on their mobile phones to share photos, access applications and stay connected with friends.  In October, we added a dashboard to give you a way to clearly see and control the ways applications use your information.
Lauren A. E. Schuker / Wall Street Journal:
Movies at Home, for $20,000  —  A proposed service aims to bring movies to homes the same day they hit theaters, a milestone that Hollywood has long anticipated with a mixture of fear and fascination.  —  But there's a catch: At the prices currently being discussed by Prima Cinema Inc. …
Eric Engleman / TechFlash:
Intellectual Ventures sues nine tech firms for patent infringement  —  Intellectual Ventures, a Bellevue, Wash.-based firm that's amassed a huge trove of technology patents over the years, has sued nine technology companies for patent infringement.  It's the first time Intellectual Ventures …
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
CBS Interactive Head Neil Ashe Stepping Down  —  Neil Ashe (pictured here), president of CBS Interactive, is stepping down from his post.  —  CBS confirmed the move after BoomTown made inquiries recently, after hearing of various executives who had been contacted by the media giant about the position.
Discussion: paidContent, SiliconANGLE, ClickZ, Pulse2 and SAI
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.
Jason Roberts / Codus Operandi:
How I Screwed Up My Google Acquisition  —  I began building a web-based version of PowerPoint called Preezo back in the Spring of 2005 after switching the direction of my angel-funded startup for the third time in less than a year.  Prior to that I had been working on a web collaboration concept akin …
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Marissa Mayer's Next Big Thing: “Contextual Discovery” — Google Results Without Search  —  Today at LeWeb '10 in Paris, France, our own Michael Arrington took the stage to talk with Google's Marissa Mayer.  Mayer recently took a new job within Google.  Technically, she's now the head of consumer products for the company.
Ashlee Vance / Bits:
Intel Girds For Netbook and Tablet Wars  —  Intel has formalized its interest in the new crop of computing devices that have the caught the attention of consumers and even office workers.  —  The chip giant has created a new business unit that it calls the netbook and tablet group.
Kevin May / Tnooz:
Google Places blocked from using TripAdvisor reviews  —  Now here is an interesting development - Google is no longer able to stream in reviews from TripAdvisor to Places pages after the user review giant blocked it.  —  TripAdvisor confirmed the move today in an email …
Nicholas Carlson / SAI:
Why Groupon Said No To Google's $6 Billion  —  Each and every Groupon board member stood to gain millions, hundreds of millions, or even more than a billion dollars by accepting Google's $6 billion offer to acquire the company.  —  Groupon cofounders Brad Keywell and Eric Lefkofsky might …
Discussion: Tech Trader Daily
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.
Erica Sadun / TUAW:
iTunes adds international promo codes, push notification security upgraded  —  A couple of big changes occurred today in the iOS ecosystem.  First, application promo codes may now be used internationally, instead of being limited to US store customers only.
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft Blog:
(Not so) Crazy Microsoft Rumors: Microsoft store for NYC coming in 2011  —  As part of my job as a full-time Microsoft watcher, I get a lot of tips about Microsoft from customers, competitors, partners and even Softies themselves.  However, ever since I worked for PCWeek more than 15 years ago …
Discussion: The Next Web, GeekSmack and WinRumors
Tarmo Virki / Reuters:
Google Android phones biggest network hogs: study  —  (Reuters) - Users of Google's Android phones, such as Samsung's Galaxy S, use more data services than those with other smartphones, threatening to choke wireless network capacity, an industry study showed.
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.
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
SimpleGeo Launches, Aims to Make All Apps Geo-Aware  —  Are you ready to learn a whole lot more about the world around you, every time you launch a location-aware application?  Countless apps are likely to get a lot of real-world data dumped into their databases thanks to two new data sources available for free as of today.
Discussion: SimpleGeo and The Next Web
 
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 More Items: 
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
iTunes Store Now Offering HD Movie Sales in UK
Discussion: TUAW
Sarah Lacy / TechCrunch:
ViKi Raises $4.3 Million from VC All-Stars to Translate the World's Video
Andrea James / Boing Boing:
Facebook Community Council quietly closes
Ryan Kim / GigaOM:
Twitter Adds More Ways to Say Where You Are
 Earlier Items: 
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
250 Million People Now Using Facebook Connect Every Month
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
4Chan's Moot Joins Lerer Ventures As An Advisor
Discussion: Pulse2 and SAI
Rebecca Kuo / DigiTimes:
Coretronic reportedly to supply BLUs for iPad 2
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines Blog:
Netflix inks Disney, ABC streaming deal, CFO departs
Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:
Yahoo CEO: Don't Judge Me Until 2012
Electronista:
AT&T on iPhone: ‘exclusive arrangements end’
Discussion: eMoney and The Huffington Post
Jenna Wortham / Bits:
Google Executive: No Time to Build, So We Buy
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Alex Sherman / CNBC:
Analyzing Comcast's spinoff of cable networks, purposefully structured with low debt: the move might be a signal to the industry that it's time to consolidate

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

Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:
James Harding says the Tortoise-Observer deal could create a profitable media group and there isn't a guaranteed future for the Observer with the Guardian

 
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