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7:45 AM ET, May 13, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Dan Lyons / The Daily Beast:
Facebook Busted in Clumsy Smear on Google  —  THE DAILY BEAST ON:  —  The social network secretly hired a PR firm to plant negative stories about the search giant, The Daily Beast's Dan Lyons reveals—a caper that is blowing up in their face, and escalating their war.
RELATED:
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Facebook, You're Going To Need A Better Answer For Your Slimeball Stunt  —  At this point, I think it's pretty clear what Facebook's strategy for this whole Burson-Marsteller caught-with-their-pants-down situation is going to be: say as little as possible and move on.  And it will work.
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Examining Facebook's “Smear Campaign” Concerns About Google Social Circles
Discussion: VentureBeat, SEO Book.com and Guardian
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
How Facebook Enables The Google Social “Scraping” It's Upset About
Beth Krietsch / PRWeek US:   Burson-Marsteller and Facebook part ways
Paul Reynolds / Consumer Reports News:
Will Amazon make a tablet?  ‘Stay tuned,’ says Jeff Bezos  —  Asked today about the possibility of Amazon launching a multipurpose tablet device, the company's president and CEO Jeff Bezos said to “stay tuned” on the company's plans.  In an interview at Consumer Reports' offices …
Chris Rawson / TUAW:
Samsung announces 2560 x 1600 display, could pave the way for iPad 3  —  Samsung will demonstrate an all-new 10.1-inch display at the SID Display Week 2011 International Symposium next week.  Samsung's new display will have a 2560 x 1600 resolution, far in excess of anything on the tablet market today.
Ben Brooks / The Brooks Review:
The Ballmer Days Are Over  —  Disclaimer: I own Microsoft stock.  Yes, this is not pro-Microsoft but I feel the need to be very open about this.  —  He's employee number 30 and has been with Microsoft since mid-1980.  In 2000, after nearly 20 years of service, Microsoft promoted Steve Ballmer to Chief Executive Officer.
Jim Finkle / Reuters:
Cisco braces for biggest layoffs in its history  —  * Could be biggest layoff in company's 26-year history  —  Cisco Systems Inc (CSCO.O) is expected to cut thousands of jobs in possibly its worst-ever round of layoffs to meet Chief Executive John Chambers' goal of slashing costs by $1 billion.
Discussion: VentureBeat and PC Magazine
Kellex / Droid Life:
DROIDX2 Launching May 26th with Dual-core Processor, qHD Screen and Gingerbread  —  The Motorola DROIDX2 was rumored to originally be scheduled to release today, but with the push back of the DROID Charge, we were wondering if it hadn't been pushed back as well.  According to Verizon, that is definitely the case.
Associated Press:
How bin Laden emailed without being detected by US  —  WASHINGTON - Despite having no Internet access in his hideout, Osama bin Laden was a prolific email writer who built a painstaking system that kept him one step ahead of the U.S. government's best eavesdroppers.
Nathan Brown / Edge Online:
PSN Outage Begins To Hit Retail  —  Gamer patience begins to wear thin as retailers report increased trade-ins of PS3 consoles for Xbox 360s.  —  The ongoing PlayStation Network outage is beginning to have an effect on the high street, Edge can reveal.  —  Our sources indicate a growing trend …
Wall Street Journal:
Google Near DOJ Settlement Over Online Drug Ads  —  Google Inc. is close to settling a U.S. criminal investigation into allegations it made hundreds of millions of dollars by accepting ads from online pharmacies that break U.S. laws, according to people familiar with the matter.
RELATED:
Pamela Parker / Search Engine Land:
Report: Google May Pay $500 Million To Settle Complaint Over Illegal Drug Ads
Discussion: The Tech Trade
Jon Boone / Guardian:
Taliban join the Twitter revolution  —  Tweets about attacks on ‘infidel forces’ give Taliban new weapon in Afghanistan's information war  —  When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, they eschewed most modern technology, including television and music players.  —  But in the latest sign …
DigiCha:
Have Facebook Executives Used The Media To Ruin Mark Zuckerberg's China Dream?  —  Brad Stone of BusinessWeek has written a long and glowing profile of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg in which Stone reveals that Sandberg and CEO Mark Zuckerberg disagree on the wisdom of entering China:
Discussion: Digital Trends and Pulse2
Nathan Olivarez-Giles / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Boston developer wants cut of Winklevoss twins' $65-million Facebook settlement  —  A Boston software developer has been awarded a day in court to make his case for a cut of the Winklevoss twins' $65-million settlement with Facebook, according to a report.  —  Developer Wayne Chang has argued …
Discussion: LAW.com and Pulse2
Phillip Torrone / Make:
Why Google Choosing Arduino Matters and is This the End of “Made for iPod” (TM)?  —  This week is the yearly Google I/O at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.  It's a meet and greet for lots of people and companies, a big dot-com over-the-top party, and most of all it's geared towards “web …
Discussion: InfoWorld
Liz Gannes / NetworkEffect:
Blogger Goes Down, Taking 30 Hours of Posts and Comments With It  —  Google's Blogger service has been offline or unreliable for much of the day, with Blogger-hosted blogs changed to read-only mode, and posts and comments made after 7:37 a.m. PDT on May 11, 2011, removed.
Dan Moren / Macworld:
Apple needs to press play on Game Center  —  iOS gaming social network shows promise, but needs tender love and care to prosper  —  As I went in for the putt, I realized that this was for the marbles—all of them.  My heart racing, I aimed, tapped, and...score!
David Segal / New York Times:
Online Seller Who Bullied Customers Pleads Guilty  —  The online eyeglasses seller who terrified customers in the hopes of creating buzz about his Web site, and raising its profile in Google searches, pleaded guilty on Thursday to two counts of sending threatening communications, one count of mail fraud and one count of wire fraud.
Discussion: Search Engine Land, Pulse2 and Gawker
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Hulu, Networks Close To New Deal  —  Hulu and its network TV owners are close to a new deal that will keep programs from NBC, Fox and ABC on the Web video site.  —  An agreement to extend the content licenses that owners News Corp., Disney and NBCUniversal signed two years ago …
Antony Bruno / Hollywood Reporter:
Why Record Labels and Google Music Couldn't Agree on the Cloud … Google's decision to launch a music locker service was a big topic of discussion on the sidelines of the NARM conference in Los Angeles this week.  The reaction from the more veteran music industry attendees is simply anger.
Andrew Song / Facebook:
Introducing Login Approvals  —  Facebook has always been committed to both protecting our users' account and information, as well as giving them more control over their Facebook experience.  From our User Operations team, who work to re-secure compromised accounts, to the Engineering team …
Discussion: Geek.com and All Facebook
RELATED:
Donald Melanson / Engadget:
Netflix releases Android app for select HTC phones, Samsung Nexus S  —  Well, it looks like the LG Revolution won't be the first Android phone to get Netflix after all.  The app has just hit the Android Market and is apparently available for HTC Incredible, Nexus One, Evo 4G, and G2 …
Ariel Schwartz / Fast Company:
Cell Phones Are Killing The Bees: Study  —  New experiments find that cell phone signals don't just confuse bees, they off them.  What does this mean for our food supply?  —  Do you enjoy eating?  Then you may not be too happy if bee populations plunge.  That's because out of the 100 crops …
Discussion: FM Blog, The Toybox Blog, Mashable! and SAI
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Microsoft apologizes for Online Services glitches, massive email delays  —  Microsoft tonight detailed and apologized for a series of glitches that caused a huge email backlog in its cloud-based Microsoft Exchange Online subscription service — in some cases delaying messages for as long as three to nine hours.
Telegraph:
First injunction specifically bans Facebook and Twitter  —  The first injunction specifically banning the publication of information on Facebook and Twitter was issued yesterday amid growing fears about the culture of secrecy in courts.  —  The far-reaching order was issued in the Court …
Discussion: Guardian and The Next Web
 
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 More Items: 
Erik Sherman / BNET:
Facebook Seeks Patent on Passing Personal Info Between Users
Brian Womack / Bloomberg:
Alibaba Transferred Alipay Ownership Without Board Approval
Mikael Ricknäs / Network World:
35 percent use mobile apps before getting out of bed
Discussion: Ericsson News Center and TUAW
Jillian York / Aljazeera:
Africa's cascade of Internet censorship
Dan Goodin / The Register:
FBI fights to protect ISPs that snoop on their customers
Discussion: @qthrul
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft to accelerate its CRM release schedule
Discussion: MSDN Blogs and The Next Web
 Earlier Items: 
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
Comcast Offers Help to The Pirate Bay, Problems Fixed
Discussion: Inquirer and thinq_
Jack Purcher / Patently Apple:
Apple Introduces us to a Live Chameleon-Like Screen Saver Designed Specifically for iOS Devices & Fashion Accessories
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Could BitTorrent Be The Distributed Social Network People Have Been Clamoring For?
Discussion: @xamat, GigaOM and L.A. Times Tech Blog, Thanks:alliewag
Jay Yarow / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:
RON CONWAY: The Scariest Man In Silicon Valley
Discussion: @eghosao
 

 
From Mediagazer:

The New York Times Company:
The New York Times names Dick Stevenson as Washington bureau chief; Stevenson has been at the paper for nearly 40 years and Washington editor since 2021

Ayodeji Rotinwa / Columbia Journalism Review:
A look at the Agora Center for Research, a Ugandan newsroom sitting between activism and investigative reporting, posting its work on various social media sites

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”

 
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