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4:15 PM ET, March 17, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
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:
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?
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.
RELATED:
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.
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:
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.  —  Rustock spam volumes, from M86 Security Labs
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:
Guardian:
Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media  —  Exclusive: Military's ‘sock puppet’ software creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda  —  Jeff Jarvis: Washington shows the morals of a clumsy spammer  —  The US military is developing software …
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.
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.
Discussion: All Facebook
Michael Kleber / Google Code Blog:
Your Web, Half a Second Sooner  —  At Google we're constantly trying to make the web faster — not just our corner of it, but the whole thing.  Over the past few days we've been rolling out a new and improved version of show_ads.js, the piece of JavaScript used by more than two million publishers …
Discussion: Inside AdSense and Softpedia News
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! and Pulse2
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?
Charles Starrett / iLounge:
iPad 2 Wi-Fi, 3G models show microphone differences  —  iLounge has discovered that the microphones in the Wi-Fi and 3G models of the iPad 2 have different sonic qualities.  As noted in our comprehensive review, the microphone hole of the iPad 2 has been moved from its position beside …
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Scribd's HTML5-Based Document Viewer Is Now Portable, Retroactively Upgrades 20M+ Embeds  —  Last May, document sharing hub Scribd launched one of its biggest features yet: a document reader based entirely in HTML5.  Up until then Scribd had presented its documents using …
Discussion: VentureBeat
Dirk Dougherty / Android Developers Blog:
Application Stats on Android Market  —  [This post is by Eric Chu, Android Developer Ecosystem.  —Dirk Dougherty]  —  On the Android Market team, it's been our goal to bring you improved ways of seeing and understanding the installation performance of your published applications.
Discussion: The Radioactive Yak
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.
Edward J. Naughton / The Huffington Post:
Google's Android Contains Legal Landmines for Developers and Device Manufacturers  —  Android-powered smartphones have been creating quite a stir among the tech crowd lately — and not necessarily the kind of buzz that Google was hoping for.  Oracle sued Google for infringing several patents …
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 and SAI, Thanks:philiped
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 …
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 …
Maggie Shiels / BBC:
Twitter boss on application snub  —  Twitter co-founder Biz Stone insists that improving the user experience is his company's main priority.  —  Twitter founder Biz Stone has rejected suggestions that the site is shunning developers in order to make money.
Discussion: Gartner, IntoMobile and The Next Web
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Exclusive: Facebook Co-Founder Eduardo Saverin Leads $6.5M Round For Jumio  —  Jumio is still gearing up for the launch of its online and mobile payments solution, due for release in 6 to 8 weeks, but the company has lined up an investor that is sure to draw even more attention to the stealth startup …
Discussion: Pulse2
 
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 More Items: 
Arik Hesseldahl / NewEnterprise:
Intel Acquires Silicon Hive, a Spin-Out From Philips
Discussion: Xconomy
Tricia Duryee / eMoney:
Zong Extends Mobile Payments to Game Consoles and More
Discussion: VentureBeat, TechCrunch and GigaOM
Ian King / Bloomberg:
Intel, Qualcomm Say Earthquake in Japan Won't Slow Chip Output
Discussion: NewEnterprise, eWeek and Fudzilla
Alex Howard / Gov 2.0:
Pew: More than half of US adults went online to get election news in 2010
Meghan Peters / Mashable!:
Japan's Prime Minister Launches English-Language Twitter Account for Quake Updates
Discussion: Asiajin and Penn Olson
Devin Coldewey / CrunchGear:
Sony To Subpoena Two Years Of PS3 Hacker's PayPal Records
 Earlier Items: 
Lizette Chapman / Venture Capital Dispatch:
Frankness, Facebook Go A Long Way For Accel Partners' Kevin Efrusy
Tim Stevens / Engadget:
iPod touch showing freaky graphical glitches after iOS 4.3 update? (video)
Discussion: Neowin.net and BGR
Mark Spoonauer / LAPTOP Magazine:
HTC Thunderbolt First Speed Tests: Freakin' Fast, Mixed Hotspot Mode Results
Discussion: VentureBeat, GigaOM and Engadget, Thanks:mspoonauer