Techmeme: Apple set to open popup shop in core of SXSW action (Shonda Novak/Austin American-Statesman)

1:25 PM ET, March 10, 2011

Top Items:

Walter S. Mossberg / Personal Technology:

iPad 2: Thin, Not Picture Perfect — Just as most of its competitors are rolling out their first multitouch tablets to compete with its game-changing iPad, Apple on Friday will start selling a second-generation model, the iPad 2. — The new iPad 2 is about a third thinner and over 10% lighter …

John Gruber / Daring Fireball:

The iPad 2 — I've been coming up empty trying to think of a hook for this review of the iPad 2 — an angle, a narrative structure, a theme to put it in perspective and make it more than a list of benchmarks and disparate observations. Then I realized I already wrote it, a year ago, in this back-page column for Macworld:

Discussion: GigaOM, ITProPortal, Bloomberg, The Register, IntoMobile, Edge Online, @gruber, Computerworld and DisplayBlog

Joshua Topolsky / Engadget:

iPad 2 review — To say Apple's iPad 2 is an easy tablet to review is somewhat of an understatement. The device, a follow up to last year's wildly successful (and currently market-defining) iPad, is nearly identical when it comes to software, and though improved, closely related on the hardware side as well.

Discussion: Tech Trader Daily, The Apple Core Blog, Techie Buzz, TUAW, Macworld, DailyTech, Electronista, Switched, Redmond Pie and SAI

Mark Gurman / 9 to 5 Mac:
Apple posts iPad 2 guided video tours

Discussion: AppleInsider, GottaBeMobile, SlashGear, Appletell, App Advice and Engadget

Apple:

iPad 2 Arrives Tomorrow — Apple® today announced that iPad™ 2, the next generation of its magical device for browsing the web, reading and sending email, enjoying photos, watching videos, listening to music, playing games, reading ebooks and much more, will be available tomorrow …

Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
iPad 2 Availability Tomorrow: 1:00 AM Pacific Online, 5:00 PM Local In-Store

Discussion: Examiner, The Toybox Blog, I4U News and Know Your Cell

Shonda Novak / Austin American-Statesman:

Apple set to open popup shop in core of SXSW action — Computer company leases downtown space during festival, release of iPad 2 — Apple Inc. will open a temporary store Friday in the Scarbrough Building on Congress Avenue downtown, timed to the start of South by Southwest Interactive Conference …

Nicholas Carlson / SAI:

THE GORY DETAILS: Tim Armstrong's Layoffs Memo — UPDATE: We've been covering AOL's layoffs all morning long. Below is a memo from CEO Tim Armstrong detailing what's happening. — Other stories we've covered: — AOL is planning a big re-org in its tech division, with HuffPo's people getting a bigger role.

Discussion: paidContent, VentureBeat, TechEye and Bloggasm, more at Mediagazer »

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

Confirmed: AOL Gives Over 200 U.S. Employees Pink Slips — As we've heard over the past few days, AOL has started implementing layoffs across its properties in the wake of the Huffington Post acquisition. The deal, which amounted to $315 million, closed on Monday of this week.

Discussion: VatorNews, CNNMoney.com, Reuters and WebProNews, more at Mediagazer »

Om Malik / GigaOM:

Skype Founder, Others Invest $42 Million in Angry Birds — We'd heard Rovio, the company behind the Angry Birds game franchise, was out in the market looking for cash, but never did we think that it would end up raising $42 million in Series A funding from Accel Partners and Atomico, the venture fund started by Skype's co-founders.

Discussion: CNET News, 9 to 5 Mac, VentureBeat, Rovio, Guardian, paidContent, alarm:clock, TechCrunch, IntoMobile, SAI, MobileBurn.com, MediaMemo, Quintura blog and ArcticStartup Posts

Ina Fried / Mobilized: The Inside Story on the Angry Birds' Massive Funding Round

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

LinkedIn Today: A Social News Product For Professionals — Professional social network LinkedIn is holding a press event today to talk about the company's new product strategy. We're liveblogging the announcement. As we heard from Mrinal Desai, LinkedIn is expected to announce a new social news feature today.

Discussion: TechCrunch, VentureBeat, GigaOM, The LinkedIn Blog, NetworkEffect, Post Tech, Mashable!, SAI and Bloggasm

Oliver Hsiang / StumbleUpon Blog:
Stay in the Know with LinkedIn and StumbleUpon

Discussion: TechCrunch

Liz Reaves Walker / The LinkedIn Blog: Introducing LinkedIn Today

Peter Bright / Ars Technica:

pwn2own day one: Safari, IE8 fall, Chrome unchallenged — Fully patched versions of Safari and Internet Explorer 8 were both successfully hacked today at pwn2own, the annual hacking competition held as part of the CanSecWest security conference. If a researcher can pwn the browser—that is …

Discussion: PC World, Computerworld, Engadget, Security Watch, The Register, The Tech Report, Help Net Security, Inquirer, Softpedia News, Darknet, Macworld, Geekosystem and Zero Day Blog

Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:

Topsy raises another $15M for real-time search — Some of the excitement around real-time search seems to have died down recently — I'm no longer seeing hordes of startups embracing the term, and some of the most prominent companies that were active in the space have refocused.

Discussion: TechCrunch, SAI, NetworkEffect, paidContent and PE Hub Blog, Thanks:blogfisher

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry / SAI:

Paul Graham: There's No Tech Bubble, Steve Jobs Is A Dictator — Y Combinator's Paul Graham just gave a pretty good interview on Bloomberg TV about startups and the tech industry. — Graham, on top of being really smart, is also the most likable guy in Silicon Valley and very witty, so it's always worth watching him.

Discussion: ZDNet

Jolie O'Dell / Mashable!:

Why Everyone Is Talking About Node — On the 20th floor of a San Francisco skyscraper, a handful of developers are working on a new technology that's changing the way real-time web apps are built and how they scale. This technology, called Node.js, is being hailed as “the new Ruby on Rails” by some in the developer community.

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

Square's Jack Dorsey: VeriFone's Security Hole Allegation “Is Not A Fair Or Accurate Claim” — As we heard this morning, VeriFone CEO Doug Bergeron wrote an open letter to consumers and the industry, warning users of a “gaping security hole” in mobile payments startup (and competitor) Square's hardware.

Discussion: mocoNews, MobileCrunch, GigaOM, Speaking of Security, The Register, Geek.com, eMoney, Square, Personal Website … and WebProNews

Mike Swift / Mercury News:

Ex-Googlers penetrating Silicon Valley startup hierarchy — It may be too soon to equate the Xooglers, as members of the ever-expanding network of ex-Google employees call themselves, with the “PayPal Mafia” — the founders and early employees of the online payment company who went on to start Yelp, YouTube and LinkedIn.

Discussion: p2pnet and @semilshah

Samuel Gibbs / Download Squad:

Flipboard gains Instagram support, social search, and gets much faster — Flipboard has just updated its social-feed reading iPad app to version 1.2. This new version adds a performance boost and bug-fixes, with the highlight being Instagram integration. — Instagram integration

Discussion: Scobleizer, ReadWriteWeb, Inside Flipboard, Gizmodo, Mashable!, Electricpig.co.uk, GeekSugar, MacStories and TUAW, more at Mediagazer »

IDC:

Nearly 18 Million Media Tablets Shipped in 2010 with Apple Capturing 83% Share; eReader Shipments Quadrupled to More Than 12 Million, According to IDC — According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Media Tablet and eReader Tracker, 10.1 million media tablets …

Discussion: CNET News, Tech Trader Daily, MacRumors and Electronista

Jonathan Betz / Software Rants & Other Miscellany:

Foursquare, Facebook, Founders, and Passion — Late in the summer of 2009, I was talking to a very successful entrepreneur at a tech industry meet-and-greet when Dennis Crowley, co-founder of Foursquare, came into the room, at which point the person I was talking to commented …

Discussion: Know Your Cell

Ed Pilkington / Guardian:

Forbes rich list: Facebook six stake their claims — Six Facebook billionaires make it on to Forbes's latest rich list but top spot again goes to Mexican telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim — It may not have been Facebook's year at the Oscars, with The Social Network, the film depicting its creation …

Discussion: Forbes, Reuters, The Microsoft Blog and NBC Bay Area

Gautham Nagesh / Hillicon Valley:

Democrats ask Facebook founder Zuckerberg to keep lock on user info — Four Democratic senators are asking Facebook to reverse a plan that would allow application developers to request users' phone numbers and addresses. — “Anyone with ten minutes, $25, and a Facebook user's phone number …

Thanks:stiffjab

Gmail Blog:

New in Gmail Labs: Smart Labels — People get a lot of email these days. On top of personal messages, there are group mailing lists, social network notifications, credit card statements, newsletters you might have signed up for, and promotional email from a shopping site you used once months ago.

Discussion: Digital Trends, Rex Hammock's RexBlog.com, Android Phone Fans, Softpedia News, Inquirer, eWeek and Electricpig.co.uk

Ryan Kim / GigaOM:

SCVNGR Launches LevelUp to Compete With Groupon — SCVNGR, the real world location-gaming service, is applying game mechanics and a new business model to daily deals in an attempt to strengthen the relationship between merchants and their customers. With LevelUp, a pilot program that begins today …

Discussion: TechCrunch, Xconomy and Mashable!

Matt Rosoff / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:

HP's Puzzling WebOS Strategy — Hewlett Packard CEO Leo Apotheker confirmed to Businessweek earlier today that every Hewlett-Packard PC that ships in 2012 will include WebOS alongside Windows, adding some detail to HP's surprise announcement last month. — The idea is to create …

Discussion: InfoWorld and The Orange View

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