Techmeme: Cisco Systems Seeks to Streamline Its Operations With a Reorganization (Arik Hesseldahl/NewEnterprise)

2:00 PM ET, May 5, 2011

Top Items:

Mark Gurman / 9 to 5 Mac:

Apple and Verizon to deliver over-the-air iOS updates to Verizon iPhone — Apple has long used the proxy of iTunes to push updates to its iOS devices: when a new software update is available, users need to plug their device in via USB, click update, and the new software version is downloaded and installed.

Trevor Mogg / Yahoo! News:
Rumor: over-the-air updates to Verizon iPhone coming with iOS 5

Discussion: TiPb

NielsenWire:

Connected Devices: How We Use Tablets in the U.S. — With new entrants like the Samsung Galaxy and the Motorola Xoom, the market for tablet computers is heating up in the United States, even though iPad continues to dominate the conversation - and market. That's the word from The Nielsen …

Discussion: AppleInsider, MacRumors iPhone Blog, PC Magazine, Between the Lines Blog, ZDNet, GigaOM, Mobilized, mocoNews, Techland, msnbc.com and 9 to 5 Mac

Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:

Nielsen: Apple's iPad still commands 82% of the U.S. tablet market — Also-rans from Samsung, Motorola and others don't seem to have made much of a dent — “Despite the addition to the market of new tablet computers like the Samsung Galaxy and the Motorola Xoom, in the United States …

Discussion: Electronista, MacStories and @jowyang

Joe Siegrist / LastPass:

LastPass Security Notification — We noticed an issue yesterday and wanted to alert you to it. As a precaution, we're also forcing you to change your master password. — We take a close look at our logs and try to explain every anomaly we see. Tuesday morning we saw a network traffic anomaly …

Discussion: eWeek, PC Magazine, Bits, SAI, PC World, CNET News, Help Net Security, Krebs on Security, ExtremeTech, Inquirer, GFI Labs blog, Naked Security, The Register, gHacks Technology News, Security Watch, Tech Europe, Netcraft, SlashGear, TheAppNews, CloudAve, Techie Buzz and Lifehacker, Thanks:sidharthdassani

Matt Brian / The Next Web:
LastPass potentially hacked, users urged to change master passwords

Discussion: GigaOM and New Scientist

Matthew Lynley / VentureBeat:

Anonymous denies involvement in Playstation Network credit card theft — Hacktivism group Anonymous, which routinely attacks major corporations and takes up political causes, said today it is not responsible for the theft of sensitive information and credit card data from Sony's Playstation Network (PSN) online gaming network.

Discussion: Ars Technica, Business Wire, GMSV, Softpedia News, Wall Street Journal, Daily Kos, Guardian, @barrettbrownlol, SC Magazine US, Techland, SlashGear, Inquirer, VG247, Eurogamer, TechEye, Bits and Destructoid

Marc Perton / The Consumerist:

Security Expert: Sony Knew Its Software Was Obsolete Months Before PSN Breach — In congressional testimony this morning, Dr. Gene Spafford of Purdue University said that Sony was using outdated software on its servers — and knew about it months in advance of the recent security breaches …

Reuters:

Exclusive: Facebook, Google considering Skype deals — (Reuters) - Facebook and Google Inc (GOOG.O) are separately considering a tie-up with Skype after the web video conferencing service delayed its initial public offering, two sources with direct knowledge of the discussions told Reuters.

Matt Rosoff / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:
Facebook And Google Ready To Battle Over Skype

Discussion: alarm:clock, paidContent, I4U News, NBC Bay Area and Gizmodo

Mercury News:

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg buys house in Palo Alto — Long after he became a billionaire, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg still rented modest digs. But now one of Silicon Valley's top tech celebrities has become a first-time homeowner, recently buying a large house in Palo Alto that is a 10-minute drive …

Discussion: The Not-So Private Parts and All Facebook

Jonathan S. Geller / BGR:

RIM to launch 10-inch BlackBerry PlayBook this fall; OS 7 devices delayed? — With BlackBerry World 2011 coming to a close, you knew there had to be some unannounced news waiting to come out of the conference, right? We have been told by multiple sources that RIM is planning on releasing …

Discussion: PC World, The Toybox Blog, Unwired View, Gizmodo, Techland, IntoMobile, RCR Wireless News, PhoneArena, Geek.com, Softpedia News and SlashGear

Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:

Android To Surpass Apple's App Store In Size By August 2011: Report (Exclusive) — There's no doubt Android Market will at some point offer more applications for download and/or purchase than Apple's App Store, as the latter's growth has been slowing down of late, while the Android application store's growth rate has been accelerating.

Discussion: Venture Capital Dispatch, research2guidance, MacHackPC, AndroidGuys, dailywireless.org, WebProNews, iPodNN and Know Your Cell

Alexis Madrigal / The Atlantic Online:

The Wall Street Journal Launches a WikiLeaks Competitor, SafeHouse — The respected Washington, D.C.-based newspaper has built a site for securely uploading documents to its own internal servers — Once upon a time, WikiLeaks was just a place where a would-be whistleblower could submit documents …

Discussion: Mixed Media, NewsGrange, Guardian, The Wire, @jason, Journalism.co.uk and FishbowlNY, more at Mediagazer »

Nick Bilton / Bits:

A Tool to Harvest iPhone Location Data — A lot people got upset about Apple collecting location data on iPads and iPhones. The company just issued an update to the devices' software in part to tamp down the reaction. — But that data could be as useful to regular people as it is to Apple.

Discussion: MacStories, textually.org and Ars Technica

Groklaw:

Oracle Ordered to Reduce Claims Against Google From 132 to 3 — The judge handling the Oracle v. Google patent litigation, Hon. William Alsup, has issued his order [PDF] on how much each side must cut back its claims and/or defenses. He didn't accept either side's numbers but came up with his own …

Discussion: Electronista

Peter Bright / Ars Technica:

Microsoft tries luring iOS devs as Windows Phone 7 dev interest falters — In an effort to drum up support for its smartphone platform among existing smartphone developers, Microsoft has released a raft of information to help iOS developers find their feet on Windows Phone 7.

Discussion: GigaOM and Datamation

Mike Melanson / ReadWriteWeb:

Google Street View Goes Inside Businesses With Google Business Photos — Today at the Social-Loco conference in San Francisco, Google VP of Product Marisa Mayer announced the newest addition to Google Places and Street View - Google Business Photos. — With Google Business Photos …

Discussion: VentureBeat, TechCrunch, Mashable!, The Next Web, Consumer Reports News and Beyond

Chris Dixon / cdixon.org:

Best practices for raising a VC round — Having raised a number of VC rounds personally and observed many more as an investor or friend, I've come to think there are a set of dominant best practices that entrepreneurs should follow. — 1. Valuation: Come up with what minimum valuation …

Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:

Google Voice CEO Craig Walker Launches Firespotter, A Google Ventures Funded Incubator — When Google Voice (previously GrandCentral) cofounder and CEO Craig Walker left Google last year, he didn't go far. In fact, he just went across the street to set up a desk at Google Ventures as an entrepreneur in residence.

Discussion: Bits, NetworkEffect, @amac, Firespotter and @googleventures

Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:

Twitter Begins Sending @ Replies to Users - Not All of Which Are SFW — Twitter has created a new official account called @TwitterSuggests and is using it to send public replies to other Twitter users. What does Twitter want to say to its users? How to use the service, of course, and more specifically whom they should follow.

Discussion: AllTwitter, louisgray.com, @pankaj and @znmeb

Arik Hesseldahl / NewEnterprise:

Cisco Systems Seeks to Streamline Its Operations With a Reorganization — With less than a week to go before it next reports its quarterly earnings, networking giant Cisco Systems announced a corporate-wide reorganization that it says will “streamline” its sales service and engineering organizations.

Discussion: At Your Servers, The Register, Cisco, Tech Trader Daily, Between the Lines Blog, internetnews.com, Wall Street Journal, ITworld.com and Reuters

Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:

Has Facebook Become The Master Key To Unlocking The Web? — When Facebook rolled out its Send button last week, I laughed. I even mocked on Twitter that Facebook wouldn't be happy until our pages were full of buttons. But the Send button, as well as integrating other aspects of Facebook into websites, does make a lot of sense.

Thanks:dannysullivan

Georgina Prodhan / Reuters:

Service launched for publishers to evade Apple cut — (Reuters) - Digital technology company Yudu launched a service on Thursday to help magazine publishers evade the 30 percent commission that Apple charges to deliver content to iPhones and iPads through its App Store.

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, more at Mediagazer »

Jay Yarow / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:

Tim Armstrong's Rambling Explanation Of What He's Getting For Plowing $40 Million Into Patch — During AOL's earnings call, one of the top questions from analysts was what is AOL's plan with Patch? — AOL dumped $40 million into the hyper local network for the second quarter in a row, and it didn't generate much revenue.

Discussion: GigaOM, @jason, AdExchanger.com, The Business Insider, Mixed Media and Street Fight

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

Google Calls Out Rivals' Web Benchmark Tools, Rebuilds Them To Better Gauge Chrome — When it comes to Chrome, Google has long been addicted to speed. And for many tasks on the web today, that speed is related to how fast your JavaScript engine is. Google has long held that their's is the fastest.

Discussion: Chromium Blog, Inquirer and Softpedia News

Royal Pingdom:

Apple now worth 5x more than in 2006, and nearly 2x as much as Google — Five years ago, Apple was a successful company. But it had not yet launched the iPhone. It had not yet launched the iPad. Back then, Apple's yearly profit was $2.4 billion. In 2010 that number had risen to $16.6 billion.

Vlad Savov / Engadget:

Sony Ericsson announces new generation of Xperia Mini and Mini Pro smartphones — Sony Ericsson has just outed a brand new pair of compact Xperia smartphones. The new Xperia Mini will run Android Gingerbread (2.3) on a 3-inch multitouch, scratch-resistant display, which comes …

Discussion: Sony Ericsson, BGR, This is my next, IntoMobile and Electronista

Brooke Crothers / CNET News:

IDC lists ARM with Intel as PC chips — Intel's power-efficient 3D transistor couldn't have come any sooner. IDC on Thursday, in its quarterly forecast, is listing not just Intel-compatible PC chips but other categories of processors, namely ARM—the power-frugal silicon of choice in the tablet and smartphone world.

Discussion: Inquirer, 9 to 5 Mac, Cult of Mac, Shelly Palmer Digital Living, Electronista, TechEye and thinq_

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