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4:00 PM ET, February 17, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
The Official Google Blog:
An update to Google Social Search  —  Today we're doing a little bit more to bring you all the goodness of Google, plus the opinions of the people you care about.  As always, we want to help you find the most relevant answers among the billions of interconnected pages on the web.
RELATED:
Matt McGee / Search Engine Land:
Google's Search Results Get More Social; Twitter As The New Facebook “Like”  —  Your friends' activity on Twitter, Flickr and elsewhere — but for now, not Facebook — will soon be a lot more visible in Google's search results, including having an impact on how pages rank.
Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land:
Redesigned Bing Bar Toolbar More Like A “Dashboard”  —  Bing is introducing a totally redesigned version of its toolbar, called the “Bing Bar.”  Apparently it has been “rebuilt from the ground up,” says Microsoft's Stefan Weitz.  Indeed, it operates more like a kind of “dashboard” …
RELATED:
David Sarno / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Official list of attendees at Obama tech meeting: CEOs of Twitter, Netflix, Oracle, Yahoo, others  —  Here's the official list of attendees of Thursday evening's meeting of technology industry chiefs with President Obama in San Francisco.  It includes many of Silicon Valley's biggest names.
Discussion: Bits and SAI
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Jake Tapper / Political Punch:
Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt and Mark Zuckerberg to Meet With President Obama Thursday in San Francisco
DigiTimes:
Apple secures 60% of global touch panel capacity, causing tight supply  —  In order to achieve its internal goal of shipping 40 million iPad products in 2011, Apple has occupied close to 60% of the global touch panel capacity causing tight supply among Apple's competitors, according to sources from upstream component makers.
RELATED:
Darrell Etherington / GigaOM:   Prepaid Touch Panels Could Be the Secret to iPad's Success in 2011
Greg Weston / CBC News:
Foreign hackers attack Canadian government  —  An unprecedented cyberattack on the Canadian government, apparently from China, has given foreign hackers access to highly classified federal information and forced at least two key departments off the internet, CBC News has learned.
RELATED:
Computerworld:   China denies role in reported government of Canada hack
Ben Fritz / Company Town:
Redbox digital service will go toe-to-toe with Netflix  —  Redbox is gearing up to challenge Netflix head-on, the kiosk DVD rental company confirmed Wednesday.  —  At a meeting with analysts, Redbox President Mitch Lowe said his company's forthcoming digital option will be subscription-based …
Jan Wildeboer:
Microsoft: Absolutely NO (GPLv3-or-compat-licensed) Free Software for Windows Phone and Xbox Apps.  —  This is rather uncool, IMHO, I stumbled upon this forum entry and was quite astonished.  It points to the Microsoft Application Provider Agreement that governs the Windows Marketplace …
Declan McCullagh / CNET News:
FBI: We're not demanding encryption backdoors  —  The FBI said today that it's not calling for restrictions on encryption without backdoors for law enforcement.  —  FBI general counsel Valerie Caproni told a congressional committee that the bureau's push for expanded Internet wiretapping authority …
RELATED:
Matt Rosoff / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:
Sony Exec: We Are Not Abandoning iTunes  —  Sony has no plans to withdraw Sony Music songs from Apple's iTunes as payback for Apple's decision to block the Sony e-reader app from the App Store.  —  Sony is launching its own subscription service, Music Unlimited, in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand today.
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Spotify Signs On EMI For US Launch.  At Least One More To Go...  It's getting closer: Spotify has finalized a U.S. distribution deal with EMI Music, multiple sources tell me.  —  Both EMI and Spotify declined to comment.  —  Coupled with last month's Sony deal, Spotify now has the approval …
Discussion: SAI, Mashable!, The Next Web and Gizmodo
Ben Rooney / Tech Europe:
Motorola Executive Defends Tablet Price Tag … Motorola mobility chief Sanjay Jha confirmed that the company's new Xoom tablet will go on sale in the U.S. at $800, a higher price tag than current market leader Apple's iPad.  —  And in what has been described as the worst kept secret in the tech world …
Leander Kahney / Cult of Mac:
Confirmed: Apple To Build Biggest Store Yet In Grand Central Terminal [Exclusive]  —  Apple will be building a massive store in New York's Grand Central Terminal, we have independently confirmed.  The store will open in the fall, likely early September — and it will be Apple's largest retail space in the world.
Popular Mechanics:
Confessions of an Apple Store Employee  —  Apple is famous for its secrecy, with a code of silence that runs from top management all the way down to its retail employees.  One Apple Store employee decided to throw protocol to the curb and tell us what it's really like working at the vaunted retail outlets.
Discussion: MacRumors, MacStories and TUAW
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Presenting Our National Broadband Map.  It's a Start.  —  The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) unveiled a nationwide broadband map for the U.S. today, and said that “between five and ten percent of Americans don't have broadband.”
RELATED:
Amy Schatz / Digits:
NTIA, FCC Publish New National Broadband Map
Discussion: Gizmodo
John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
Mac Growth Outpaces Market for 19th Straight Quarter  —  The Mac has been on a growth tear for a few years now, outperforming the broader PC market in most every sector.  Indeed, December 2010 marked the 19th consecutive quarter that it did so.  Mac shipments grew 23.5 percent for the month …
Discussion: Ars Technica, MacStories and TUAW
Jay Yarow / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:
CHART OF THE DAY: The Death Of The Music Industry  —  Here is a stunning visualization of the collapse of the music industry from Bain.  As you can see, the growth of digital sales is not doing enough to offset the death of the CD.  —  (Chart via Peter Kafka, who spotted it on Flickr.)
Discussion: Evolver.fm
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines Blog:
IBM Watson's next adventure: Healthcare with Nuance  —  IBM has said its Watson computer would be applied beyond Jeopardy and now is making good on that promise.  IBM and Nuance Communications have launched a research program to commercialize Watson for the healthcare industry.
Reuters:
Intel says will find new MeeGo partners  —  (Reuters) - Chipmaker Intel Corp (INTC.O) said it would look for new partners for the MeeGo mobile operating system after partner Nokia chose to focus on Microsoft's Windows Phone platform.  —  Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini said in a meeting …
Shayndi Raice / Wall Street Journal:
Android Big in Barcelona  —  System Powers Slew of New Devices; Some Fear Market Duopoly With Apple's iOS  —  A year after wireless carriers gave Google Inc. a testy reception at their big industry conference in Barcelona, the software company's Android operating system has become the star of the show.
 
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 More Items: 
Claude Brodesser-Akner / New York Magazine:
YouTube Offering Millions for Celebrity-Created Content
Discussion: GigaOM and Techland
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Next New Networks SEC Filing Pretty Much Confirms YouTube Buyout
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Benchmark Capital Bets On Super-Quiet-Stealth-Shhhh ccLoop
Farhad Manjoo / Fast Company:
Are Silicon Valley's Engineers Underpaid?
Liz Gannes / Network Effect:
Posterous by the Numbers: 12.3M Blogs and 9.2M Monthly Visitors
Michael Kan / PC World:
China Microblog Blocks Searches for Hillary Clinton
 Earlier Items: 
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
BitTorrent is to stealing movies what “bolt-cutters are to stealing bicycles”
Don Reisinger / The Digital Home:
Study: 83 percent watched Web video in January
Sean Hollister / Engadget:
Dell's 2011 smartphone and tablet lineup leaked: Android Ice Cream, WP7 sliders, and a slate running Windows 8