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12:15 PM ET, December 20, 2010

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
New York Times:
Google TV Faces Delays Amid Poor Reviews  —  Google TV has just enacted its first programming cancellation.  —  The Consumer Electronics Show next month in Las Vegas was meant to be the great coming-out party for Google's new software for televisions, which adds Web video and other computer smarts to TV sets.
RELATED:
Hiroko Tabuchi / New York Times:
Sony Optimistic About Google TV Despite Setbacks  —  TOKYO — Sony acknowledged on Monday that reviews of its new Internet-enabled Google TV have been mixed but remained upbeat about its prospects, even as Google asked other TV makers to delay new models until the software can be refined.
Staska / Unwired View:
Holy crap!  Nokia is in talks with Microsoft about Windows Phone devices?!  —  Holy crap!  —  I don't believe I'm writing this, especially after publicly ridiculing even idea of such a thing for a year now.  But given the source of the info...  Here it goes- in his weekly op-ed Mobile …
RELATED:
Ryan Kim / GigaOM:
Nokia and Microsoft Looks Like a Desperate Hook Up
Vlad Savov / Engadget:
iPhone 4 hits new low of $147 on contract at Sam's Club this week  —  Radio Shack's $149 price for the 16GB iPhone 4 just got undercut by a whole two bucks.  We've been tipped off to Sam's Club now offering the AT&T-locked device for a $147 fee, subject to the usual two-year agreement.
Max Read / Gawker:
Mark Zuckerberg's Beijing Adventure  —  Now that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has overthrown the internet and been named Time's “Person of the Year” is there anything left for him to do?  Yes: Conquer China, beginning with this weekend's visit to Beijing.  —  Zuckerberg, who's been learning Mandarin …
Mark Gurman / 9 to 5 Mac:
Best Buy bundling free Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T MiFis with iPads, contract required  —  Best Buy has just started a offering a new iPad bundle which includes your choice of an AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint MiFi.  These MiFis support up to five wireless devices including the iPad.
Ed Bott / Ed Bott's Microsoft Report Blog:
Microsoft quietly shuts down Office Genuine Advantage program  —  Late last week, with absolutely no public announcement, Microsoft quietly retired one cog in its antipiracy machine.  —  An anonymous tipster informed me on Friday that Microsoft had shut down its Office Genuine Advantage (OGA) program as of Thursday, December 16.
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry / SAI:
Apple's Cleverest — And Most Annoying — Marketing Gimmick  —  It's universally acknowledged that Apple is one of the best companies in history when it comes to marketing, and that Steve Jobs is a very detail-oriented man.  An example of these two things is a tiny, but great marketing gimmick that Apple uses.
Discussion: Examiner
Olga Kharif / Business Week:
Facebook Ramps Up Big E-Commerce Drive  —  The social network is teaming up with startups, vendors, and even giant Internet rivals to turn Facebook pages into online shopping outlets fueled by recommendations from friends who “like” to buy  —  Facebook is ramping up efforts to entice companies …
Lukas Zinnagl / TechCrunch Europe:
Breaking: eBay acquires brands4friends private sales site for $200 million  —  Germany's largest fashion club has just been acquired by eBay for a whopping $200 million (€150 million).  Although eBay's acquisitions have almost stalled since the failed take-over of Skype, this strategic transaction makes sense.
Pui-Wing Tam / Wall Street Journal:
Tech Revival Lifts Silicon Valley  —  Firms Hire, Expand as Northern California Region Shows Best Signs of Life in State's Ailing Economy  —  The revival of Silicon Valley is on display at the juncture of San Jose's North First Street and Highway 237, which for years was largely undeveloped.
Discussion: SAI
Adam Satariano / Bloomberg:
Insider-Trading Suit Shows Piercing of Apple's Veil of Secrecy  —  Dec. 20 (Bloomberg) — Walter Shimoon was one of a select few who get a peek behind the veil Apple Inc. cinches tightly around its products.  —  His alleged attempt to profit illegally from that privilege caught up with Shimoon last week …
Discussion: iPhone in Canada Blog
Royal Pingdom:
The most reliable (and unreliable) blogging services on the Web  —  Blogging services have been around for a long time, with pioneers like Blogger paving the way for WordPress.com and more recent arrivals like Tumblr and Posterous.  There are millions upon millions of blogs out there, many of them residing on these services.
Courtney Boyd Myers / The Next Web:
Foursquare adds photos and comments to its new iPhone app  —  Last Thursday, a little tweet tipped us off to a new Foursquare release coming early this week.  This morning, Foursquare founders Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai unveiled their latest: a more useful and social version of their iPhone app, featuring photos and comments.
Robin Wauters / TechCrunchIT:
Qualcomm To Sell Spectrum Licenses To AT&T For $2B, Kill FLO TV In March 2011  —  Qualcomm has just announced that it has agreed to sell its Lower 700 MHz D and E Block U.S. spectrum licenses to AT&T for a whopping $1.925 billion, following its previously announced plan to restructure …
Jon Marcus / Times Higher Education:
Drop out and innovate  —  The man who financed Facebook is offering 20 two-year $100,000 fellowships to teenagers with big ideas - as long as they leave university.  Jon Marcus reports  —  Before he was 21, Peter Thiel was a ranked chess master and founded the Stanford Review …
Jasmin Melvin / Reuters:
Internet road rules near FCC vote  —  (Reuters) - A controversial proposal for Internet traffic rules that would allow providers to ration access to their networks is scheduled to come before communications regulators for a vote on Tuesday.  —  The rules would ban high-speed Internet providers …
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 More Items: 
David Dalka / TechCrunch:
Dear Facebook, Please Return Our Social Networking Space
Thanks:jimhedger
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Online ad sales eclipse newspaper advertising in 2010
Gwen / Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Not-So-Gentle Persuasion: US Bullies Spain into Proposed Website Blocking Law
Discussion: ZeroPaid.com
Micah L. Sifry / techPresident:
From Wikileaks to OpenLeaks, Via the Knight News Challenge
The Business Insider:
Buyer Beware: Zynga Blocks SecondMarket From Selling Its Stock!
Frédéric Filloux / Monday Note:
Rebooting Web Publishing Design
more at Mediagazer »
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Flirting Social Network Likealittle Hits 20M Pageviews In 6 Weeks
Thanks:blogfisher
 Earlier Items: 
Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:
Blip.tv Readies HTML5 as its Standard Player, Replacing Flash
Michelle Higgins / New York Times:
Airport Apps Put You First in Line
Steve Gillmor / TechCrunch:
The @Mention Cloud  —  There's a real struggle going on right …
Glenn Chapman / Agence France Presse:
Firefox backs “Do Not Track” with online stealth
Steven Loeb / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:
SNL: Julian Assange Hacks Into Mark Zuckerberg's 'Person Of The …
Discussion: Examiner, TechEye, Pulse2 and Mediaite
 

 
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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