Check out Mini-Techmeme for simple mobiles or Techmeme Mobile for modern smartphones.
1:55 PM ET, March 17, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Guypo / Blaze.io:
iPhone vs. Android - 45,000 Tests Prove Whose Browser is Faster  —  Android 52% faster, speeds past iPhone on 84% of sites* … Browser performance is a big deal.  Browser speed was a major bullet point - if not the top point - in practically every browser release this last year.
RELATED:
Jim Dalrymple / The Loop:
Study comparing Android to iPhone Web browsing speed flawed  —  A Canadian software company, Blaze Software, released a report today of what it calls the “largest ever research study of smart phone browser performance.”  The problem is, the study is flawed.
Discussion: Techland and Pulse2, Thanks:khaled
Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:
The Times Announces Digital Subscription Plan  —  The New York Times rolled out a plan on Thursday to begin charging the most frequent users of its Web site $15 a month in a bet that readers would pay for news they have grown accustomed to getting free.  —  Beginning March 28 …
RELATED:
Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:
The newsonomics of The New York Times' pay fence  —  t's official — and the world still turns.  After 14 months of planning, The New York Times is finally launching its pay system, starting in the U.S. March 28.  It's been a gestation period longer than a manatee's, due to customer-service identification …
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Apple Gets Its First Big Publisher: New York Times Subscriptions Will Be Sold Through iTunes  —  The New York Times has finally unveiled its paywall plans, a year-plus in the making.  —  And with the Times' announcement, Steve Jobs gets his first big publisher to announce it is signing …
Cory Doctorow / Boing Boing:   New York Times paywall: wishful thinking or just crazy?
Arn / MacRumors:
Steve Jobs Offers Support to Apple Employees Affected by Earthquake  —  Photo of Apple Store in Sendai, Japan by naok  —  Apple CEO Steve Jobs is reported to have sent a message to Apple staff regarding the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan.  The contents of the email were posted to Chihouban.com …
Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:
Rustock Botnet Flatlined, Spam Volumes Plummet  —  The global volume of junk e-mail sent worldwide took a massive nosedive today following what appears to be a coordinated takedown of the Rustock botnet, one of the world's most active spam-generating machines.
Douglas MacMillan / Bloomberg:
Groupon Is Said to Discuss IPO Valuation of Up to $25 Billion  —  Groupon Inc. has held talks with banks about an initial public offering that would value the online-coupon company at as much as $25 billion, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions.
Arn / MacRumors:
Apple Airs 'If You Don't Have an iPhone' TV Ads  —  Apple has posted three new iPhone ads to their website and YouTube channel.  The new ads start off with the phrase “If you don't have an iPhone” and demonstrate some specific features found on the iPhone.  The three ads include:
Jeff Bertolucci / PC World:
Samsung's MacBook Air Challenger Ready to Ship  —  You can thank me in advance for not calling the ultra-slim Samsung Series 9 laptop a “MacBook Air killer,” which it certainly is not.  It is, however, a sleek featherweight of a portable PC, one that gives Apple's attractive Air a run for its money in the look-at-me competition.
Discussion: eWeek, Mashable!, Pulse2 and Softpedia News
androidnews.de:
Amazon Appstore: Apps and Prices Leak [EXCLUSIVE] [UPDATE]  —  Today we accidentally tripped over some information regarding available apps and prices in Amazon's Appstore.  The store itself is still not working yet, but now we have some first impressions of which apps Amazon is going to feature …
Devin Coldewey / CrunchGear:
Rumor: Asus To Launch $200 Chrome Netbook  —  The netbook market has more or less dried up; the little things might still be useful for light computing, but they've been clobbered by tablets as the go-to device for quick email and web browsing.  Could it be that they're just not cheap enough?
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:
The day Apple landed in Gauna  —  Why did one of the world's fastest growing tech companies fall twice as fast as the market?  —  Boy.  You leave town for one day and — if you'll forgive an expression Elmore Leonard warns writers never to use — all hell breaks loose.
Discussion: MediaMemo, SAI and Bloomberg, Thanks:philiped
Matt Rosoff / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:
Microsoft Is More Ethical Than Google, Apple, Or Facebook  —  Google's motto may be “do no evil,” but that hasn't fooled an organization that rates the most ethical companies in the world.  —  This year, the Ethisphere Institute named Microsoft to its list of its 110 most ethical companies in the world …
Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
Paramount Pictures Partner With BitTorrent Release Movie  —  Distracted Media's Enzo Tedeschi and Julian Harvey first hit the BitTorrent conciousness in mid 2010 when trying to raise funding for their latest project by selling frames of their upcoming horror movie.
Christian Belady / TechNet Blogs:
How Big is the Datacenter Construction Business?  —  As the demand for cloud services continues to grow, there are many companies in the datacenter industry (particularly start-ups) that have met with me to discuss their businesses.  Their proposals usually included huge expectations …
Sebastian Anthony / Download Squad:
Internet Explorer 9 downloaded 2.3 million times in first day; Firefox 3 managed 8 million!  —  Internet Explorer 9, in its first 24 hours of availability, has racked up a grand total of 2.3 million downloads.  An impressive number, until you compare it to the latest major releases from Mozilla …
RELATED:
Ryan Gavin / The Windows Blog:
2.3 Million Downloads of IE9 in the first 24 hours
Devin Coldewey / CrunchGear:
Sony To Subpoena Two Years Of PS3 Hacker's PayPal Records  —  Query: If I donated $10 to Geohot's legal defense fund, does that make me liable for his actions, and do I have no right to keeping that donation private?  It was, after all (if I made it), a perfectly legal transaction between two private citizens.
Stephen Shankland / CNET News:
Google offers help for U.S. nonprofits  —  U.S.-based nonprofit organizations can get discounts on advertising and Google Apps subscriptions as part of a new Google for Nonprofits program launched today.  —  Nonprofits will be able to take advantage of the exclusive offers through a one-stop application process.
Dan Frommer / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:
Apple Supply Chain Temporarily Affected By Japan Earthquake, But “Demand Stronger Than Ever”  —  Apple's supply chain is likely temporarily going to be affected by the Japan earthquake and tsunami, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster writes today, but demand for Apple products is stronger than ever …
Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
Sprint ‘Project Leapfrog’ rumors claim LTE network upgrade is underway  —  If we had a dime for every time Sprint CEO Dan Hesse (or spectrum partner Clearwire) has talked about a possible migration to LTE, we'd have... well, at least several dimes.  A new rumor that's popped up from a couple sources today …
Lizette Chapman / Venture Capital Dispatch:
Frankness, Facebook Go A Long Way For Accel Partners' Kevin Efrusy  —  (EDITOR'S NOTE: The following story originally appeared in the March edition of Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst, as part of a monthly feature profiling “rising stars” of the next generation of general partners.)
Robin Davey / hypebot:
Only 10% of Your Friends See Your Facebook Posts, And Only 1% Like It.  —  Post by: Robin Davey, Head of Music and Film Development at GROWVision.  —  How do I know this?  Well I conducted a simple experiment that you are all welcome to replicate.  —  I simply posted on my wall asking anyone who saw the post to like it.
Wall Street Journal:
Retailers Push Amazon on Taxes  —  Wal-Mart, Target and Others Look to Close Loophole for Online Sellers Amid State-Budget Crises  —  Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Target Corp. and other large retailers are ratcheting up a political campaign to force Amazon.com Inc. to collect sales taxes …
Liz Gannes / NetworkEffect:
Can a Spot on Apple's Top App List Be Bought?  Welcome to Cross-Selling!  —  Can a spot on Apple's top iPhone app list be bought?  Is there a price per head that mobile apps must pay to get users?  —  The answer seems to be an unequivocal yes, especially for free gaming apps.
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of Techmeme at 1:55 PM ET, March 17, 2011.

View the current page or another snapshot:


 
 Techmeme Sponsor Posts: 
Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Zoho:
CIO challenge 5: Can we find an effective solution that also minimizes operational costs?  —  Welcome to the next and final installment of our CIO series!  After what feels like a thousand cups of coffee …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Sponsor Techmeme
 
 See Also: 
Techmeme: site main
Techmeme River: reverse chronological Techmeme
Techmeme Mobile: for phones
Techmeme Leaderboard: Techmeme's top sources
 
 Subscribe: 
Techmeme RSS feed
Techmeme on X
Techmeme on Mastodon
 
 
 More Items: 
Tricia Duryee / eMoney:
Zong Extends Mobile Payments to Game Consoles and More
Discussion: TechCrunch and GigaOM
Ian King / Bloomberg:
Intel, Qualcomm Say Earthquake in Japan Won't Slow Chip Output
Discussion: eWeek and Fudzilla
Alex Howard / Gov 2.0:
Pew: More than half of US adults went online to get election news in 2010
Matt Brian / The Next Web:
Firefox 4 Gets March 22 Public Release Date
Tim Stevens / Engadget:
iPod touch showing freaky graphical glitches after iOS 4.3 update? (video)
Discussion: Neowin.net and BGR
 Earlier Items: 
Ronny Kerr / VatorNews:
Just-Eat raises $48 million for online food
Discussion: Bloomberg
Mark Spoonauer / LAPTOP Magazine:
HTC Thunderbolt First Speed Tests: Freakin' Fast, Mixed Hotspot Mode Results
Discussion: VentureBeat, GigaOM and Engadget, Thanks:mspoonauer
Rip Empson / TechCrunch:
HeyZap Goes After Social Discovery, Launches Check-in For Mobile Games
Parmy Olson / Disruptors:
Is This The Girl That Hacked HBGary?
Discussion: Digital Trends and The Register
 

 
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

 
Sister Sites:

Mediagazer
 Top news and commentary for media professionals from all around the web
memeorandum
 What US political commentators are discussing online right now
WeSmirch
 The top celebrity news from all around the web on a single page