Check out Mini-Techmeme for simple mobiles or Techmeme Mobile for modern smartphones.
7:10 PM ET, May 15, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Robert X. Cringely / I, Cringely:
Why Microsoft bought Skype  —  There is so much to write about but I'll begin with Microsoft buying Skype for $8.5 billion.  The pundits are debating whether this move by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer makes good business sense, but that's the wrong way to look at it.
RELATED:
Jean-Louis Gassée / Monday Note:
Ballmer's latest acquisition  —  In a bold move, Microsoft acquires Nokia and catapults itself to the top of the smartphone world.  The full integration of Windows Phone 7 software into Nokia hardware will result in a better user experience for customers, a zero-fragmentation platform for developers …
Discussion: eWeek
Patrick Seybold / PlayStation Blog:
Play On - PSN Restoration Begins Now  —  Thank you for your patience and encouragement over the last few weeks.  As covered in the post from earlier today, you can now update the firmware on your PS3 and change your password.  Kazuo Hirai just announced that we have begun the phased restoration …
RELATED:
Daniel Ionescu / PC World:   Green Light is On — Sony PlayStation Network Returns in US
Damon Poeter / PC Magazine:
Sony PSN Back Online, Just Not Everywhere
Sean Hollister / Engadget:
RIM recalls at least 900 faulty BlackBerry PlayBooks, here are the serial numbers  —  We found the BlackBerry PlayBook to be a pretty solid piece of hardware, but it seems there was a problem batch — an inside source tells us that nearly 1,000 faulty tablets were shipped to Staples, and now they're being recalled.
Tom Warren / WinRumors:
More Windows Phone 7.5 features leak, Facebook chat built-in  —  Additional Windows Phone 7.5 features leaked on Sunday.  —  Ryan and Travis Lowdermilk from the Windows Phone Dev Podcast revealed some new features from “Mango” on Sunday.  Mango, known to be Windows Phone 7.5 …
Wyatt Buchanan / San Francisco Chronicle:
Social-networking sites face new privacy battle  —  (05-15) 04:00 PDT Sacramento —  California could force Facebook and other social-networking sites to change their privacy protection policies under a first-of-its-kind proposal at the state Capitol that is opposed by much of the Internet industry.
Discussion: PR Newswire and SocialTimes.com
Shea Bennett / AllTwitter:
Another Milestone For Twitter As @LadyGaga Becomes First User To Reach 10 Million Followers  —  Last month I wrote about how Justin Bieber had become the second Twitter user to reach 9 million followers, with Lady Gaga being the first.  —  I speculated on which of them would be the first to reach 10 million.
Rip Empson / TechCrunch:
Native Apps Or Web Apps?  Particle Code Wants You To Do Both  —  When it comes to app development for mobile devices, cross-platform implementation is the new hot thing.  Developers have long struggled with fragmentation across operating systems, when they want to just be able to create …
Andrew Myers / Stanford News:
New Stanford computing lab imagines the mobile-social future  —  At the MobiSocial Lab, an engineering research team asks fundamental questions about the marriage of mobile communications and social networking, and begins to design the future of open-source social networking.
Edmund Lee / AdAge:
Bing Adds Facebook Recommendations to Search  —  In Battle Against Google, Microsoft Seeks Leg Up in Social Search  —  Microsoft will begin adding Facebook data to its Bing search results on Tuesday, including the ubiquitous “like,” in another bid to differentiate from arch-rival Google.
Marcus Wohlsen / Associated Press:
Twitter feed lawsuit underscores power of a tweet  —  When Adorian Deck was home sick from high school, he entertained himself like countless other teenagers have in recent years: He started a Twitter account.  Unlike other teenagers, Deck's account became a sensation.
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Connecting The Dots On eBay's Local Shopping Strategy  —  It's no secret that eBay has been heavily investing in a local commerce strategy.  The central core of this is trying to capitalize on the $917 million online-to-offline buying market, which Forrester estimates will eventually reach $1.3 trillion …
Mark Gurman / 9 to 5 Mac:
iPhone 5 front and rear-facing camera parts appear, point to relocated camera flash?  —  Just off the heels of rumors pointing to Apple repositioning the iPhone LED flash to the top-right side of the next-generation iPhone, purported iPhone 5 camera parts have appeared online.
RELATED:
Electronista:
iPhone ‘5G’ case shows edge-to-edge screen, moved flash
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of Techmeme at 7:10 PM ET, May 15, 2011.

View the current page or another snapshot:


 
 Techmeme Sponsor Posts: 
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 6: 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.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
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: 
Eric Eldon / Inside Facebook:
Countries That Adopted Facebook Early See Lower Traffic Growth Rates, Occasionally Negative
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Access To iPad App Flipboard Compromised In China
Discussion: NetworkEffect and Penn Olson
Mark Gurman / 9 to 5 Mac:
Watch out Instapaper: Mac OS X Lion's Safari Reading List to sync with iOS devices
 Earlier Items: 
Ludwig Kietzmann / Joystiq:
PlayStation Network restoration begins, first phase includes online play
Discussion: Reuters, Bits, Kotaku, Mashable!, VG247 and Massively
Mark Gurman / 9 to 5 Mac:
Nuance and Apple partnership is all but confirmed: Lion uses Nuance speech technology
Discussion: Netputing, App Advice, TUAW and Electronista
Harry McCracken / Technologizer:
PlayStation Network Outage: Now It's the Worst One Ever, Right?
Discussion: Digitizor and GottaBeMobile
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Matthew Keys / The Desk:
Prime Video users will be able to watch local PBS stations and PBS Kids for free in coming months, and two new free PBS channels with ads starting November 26

Michael Gold / New York Times:
President-elect Donald Trump announces he has chosen Karoline Leavitt, who served as his campaign's press secretary, to be his White House press secretary

Freedom of the Press Foundation:
Freedom of the Press Foundation launches its own Mastodon server, social.freedom.press, consolidating its accounts, and will still use Threads and Bluesky

 
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