Techmeme: PayPal Loses Top Payment Exec to Google, Appoints New Head (Tricia Duryee/eMoney)

7:35 PM ET, January 26, 2011

Top Items:

A Continued Commitment to Security — This Friday is Data Privacy Day, an international effort by governments, businesses and advocacy groups to raise awareness about the importance of staying in control of personal information. A key part of controlling information has always been protecting …

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

“Let The Hacking Begin” Declares Person Who Hacked Zuckerberg's Facebook Fan Page — Earlier today, a strange message appeared on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's fan page. It read as follows: … Who wrote such an odd and seemingly drunken message? Well, if you believe the page, Zuckerberg himself did.

Discussion: InfoWorld, Examiner, Telegraph, Mashable!, NEWS.com.au, Computerworld, PC World, LAPTOP Magazine, Naked Security, CNET News, The Register, Guardian, Techie Buzz, The Not-So Private Parts, SlashGear, Digital Trends, GMSV and Gearlog, Thanks:gigjets

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Facebook Beefs Up Security With Social Captchas and All HTTPS, All The Time

Discussion: Computerworld, ReadWriteWeb and techPresident

Richard Lai / Engadget:

Exclusive: Sony Ericsson Xperia Play (PlayStation Phone) preview — Oh yes. After all the unbearable teasing since we unveiled the first ever photos of the PlayStation Phone, we've finally managed to get hold of the real deal for an in-depth preview. Honestly, we couldn't wait any longer …

Discussion: PC World, 9 to 5 Mac, Ars Technica, TechSpot, IGN Gear, LAPTOP Magazine, Redmond Pie, gameinformer.com, msnbc.com, Gearlog, Android and Me, VG247, Electronista, Android Community, Gizmodo, Android Phone Fans, IntoMobile, SlashGear and Geek.com

Jonathan S. Geller / BGR:

Exclusive: BlackBerry PlayBook and smartphones to run Android apps? — As crazy as that sounds, we have been told by multiple trusted sources that RIM is seriously considering a feature that will allow BlackBerry devices to run Android apps. Here is what we know... Research In Motion …

Eric Slivka / MacRumors:

Verizon iPhone Listings Go Live on Apple's Site [Update: Removed] — With the Apple online store's downtime last night, the company appears to have rolled out full details of the options available for Verizon iPhone customers. With both 16 GB ($199) and 32 GB ($299) models available …

Discussion: PC World, CNET News, Appolicious Advisor and PhoneNews.com

Eric Slivka / MacRumors:

AT&T Offering Unlimited Data to Keep iPhone Customers From Defecting to Verizon? — Associated Press reports that AT&T is quietly offering some of its iPhone customers the ability to switch to unlimited data plans as a means to keep them from defecting to Verizon, which is rolling …

Discussion: Examiner, DSLreports, Associated Press, Crave, Engadget, WMPoweruser.com, SlashGear and MacStories

Android Developers Blog:

Android 3.0 Platform Preview and Updated SDK Tools — Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) is a new version of the Android platform that is designed from the ground up for devices with larger screen sizes, particularly tablets. It introduces a new “holographic” UI theme and an interaction model that builds …

Mike Melanson / ReadWriteWeb:

Netflix Adds 7.7 Million Subscribers in 2010 to Pass 20 Million — Netflix is announcing its Q4 2010 earnings (pdf) today and one of the big stories, as you might expect, is the company's explosive growth. According to the letter the company issued to its shareholders …

Discussion: CNET News, MediaMemo, Between the Lines Blog, SAI, Mashable!, Gearlog and Engadget, more at Mediagazer »

Ryan Lawler / GigaOM:
Netflix: ISPs Overcharging Subs With Tiered Data Plans

Discussion: SAI and fierceonlinevideo.com …

Dina Bass / Bloomberg:

Microsoft Shipped 2 Million Units of Windows Phone 7 Software Last Quarter — Microsoft Corp. said it shipped more than 2 million copies of the Windows Phone 7 operating system last quarter, as the company tried to reverse sliding smartphone market share. — Customer satisfaction …

Discussion: Ars Technica, Digits, CNET News, Mobilized, Engadget, VentureBeat, Hardware 2.0 Blog, TG Daily, X-bit labs, TomsTechBlog.com, Gearlog, LiveSide.net, GottaBeMobile, ConceivablyTech and @asymco

Eric Slivka / MacRumors:

MacBook Pro Supplies Tightening Ahead of Potential Refresh — MacRumors has heard from several sources that supplies of Apple's existing MacBook Pro models, particularly the 15" and 17" sizes, are beginning to run low in Apple stores and at third-party retailers, suggesting that the company …

Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac, MacStories and Macgasm

Daniel Eran Dilger / AppleInsider:

Apple revamps its public website using HTML5 — Apple has relaunched its entire website with a new design using HTML5, adding a darker, glossy navigation bar and speedy new animated page layouts for Mac and iPod pages. — The redesign officially upgrades the site from “HTML 4.01 Transitional” …

Discussion: The Next Web and MacGazette.net

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

Android In-App Payments Coming Soon — Were Delayed Because Developers Were Busy — Today at the Inside Social Apps conference in San Francisco, Inside Network's Kim-Mai Cutler sat down with Eric Chu, a group manager at Google for the Android platform. The two discussed the platform mainly from a developer perspective.

Discussion: SAI, NetworkEffect, Lifehacker, NBC Bay Area, GottaBeMobile, Mike Rowehl, Local Media Watch, Android Phone Fans and msnbc.com

Oliver Chiang / SelectStart:
Unhappy With Slow Growth Of Android App Purchases, Google Talks 2011 Roadmap

Discussion: L.A. Times Tech Blog, MediaPost, Engadget, AppleInsider, CNET News, Gadget Lab, MobileTechWorld, Helloform, Digital Trends, TiPb, FierceMobileContent and pocketnow.com

Cory Ondrejka / Facebook:

HTML5 Games 0.1: Speedy Sprites — Speed, it seems to me, provides the one genuinely modern pleasure. — Aldous Huxley, 1949 — Bruce Rogers and I graduated from Facebook's Engineering Bootcamp in January and began researching how HTML5 could apply to games across the Web.

Discussion: @coryondrejka and MSDN Blogs

@facebook: Opportunities for #HTML5 in social gaming: http://ow.ly/3KSt5 #techmeme

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:

Google Starts Censoring BitTorrent, RapidShare and More — Check out TorrentFreak's new News Bits feed! . — The entertainment industries' quest to root out piracy on the Internet has yet again resulted in commercial censorship. A few weeks ago Google announced that it would start filtering …

Discussion: paidContent and The Next Web

Loïc Le Meur / Loic Le Meur Blog:

7 digital trends at Davos 2011 [World Economic Forum talk] — It's my 9th Davos in a row and I am lucky to be invited to speak twice this year, I'm giving a talk on future trends “digital convergence” in David Kirkpatrick's session and I moderate my own dinner on “social networking addiction” …

Thanks:loic

Brian McClendon / Google LatLong:

Retiring real estate on Google Maps — At Google one of our key philosophies is to take risks and to experiment. To that end, in July 2009 we announced the ability to find property for sale or rent directly on Google Maps. This is one of the “search options” next to the search box on Google Maps …

Discussion: paidContent, NewsGrange, Search Engine Land, Relevant Results and Property Pal

Dan Primack / Fortune:

Exclusive: Elevation's Bodnick is headed to Quora — Marc Bodnick is stepping down as a co-founding partner of private equity firm Elevation Partners, in order to join social question-and-answer site Quora, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation.

Discussion: VentureBeat, SAI and TechCrunch

Steve Clayton / The Official Microsoft Blog:

Microsoft is Imagining a NUI future — You don't have to look very far to realize that technology is becoming more natural and intuitive. In a typical day, many people use touch or speech to interact with technology—on their phones, at the ATM, at the grocery store and in their cars.

Discussion: WinRumors, Fast Company, Softpedia News and The Next Web, Thanks:linderholm

Mike Melanson / ReadWriteWeb:

Facebook Experimenting With Voice Calling — Last September, news broke that Facebook and VoIP service Skype were about to announce a “deep integration partnership” that would bring integration of SMS and voice chat. A couple weeks later, we got Skype 5., which included an integrated Facebook phonebook …

Discussion: Inside Facebook, The Daily What and Disruptive Telephony

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Facebook Brings Back (Part of) Beacon, and No One Blinks — In 2007, Facebook unveiled a plan to let brands turn Facebook users' online activities into ads. Cue uproar, and an eventual apology from Mark Zuckerberg. — Yesterday Facebook unveiled a plan to let brands turn Facebook users' online activities into ads.

Discussion: BetaNews, Ars Technica, eWeek, Wall Street Journal and broadstuff, more at Mediagazer »

Tricia Duryee / eMoney:

PayPal Loses Top Payment Exec to Google, Appoints New Head — PayPal's Osama Bedier has resigned after eight years at the eBay-owned company and will take a job across town at Google. — In a blog post, Scott Guilfoyle, PayPal's CTO, made the announcement and introduced the new head of the platform team, Matthew Mengerink.

Discussion: GigaOM, The PayPal Blog and Android Phone Fans

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

Verizon Starts Bundling Broadband Services With Google Apps To Small Business Customers — This is interesting. Verizon has just announced that it is bundling broadband with Google Apps for its small business customers. — Called Google Apps for Verizon, the package combines Google's …

Discussion: PR Newswire, SAI and Fortune

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

Kevin Rose: Yahoo Contacted Digg To See If We Wanted To Take Over Delicious — It looks like Yahoo has been looking for a home for Delicious for some time now. On his Diggnation web show this week, Digg founder Kevin Rose said that Yahoo contacted Digg to see if the company would be interested …

Discussion: NBC Bay Area, Thanks:jkernsjr

Devindra Hardawar / VentureBeat:

Facebook phone from HTC rumored to debut next month — Here we go again: Rumors of a potential Facebook phone have emerged once more, this time from the London business site City A.M. — According to the site, which makes no mention of its sources, Taiwanese manufacturer HTC will unveil …

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