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7:55 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 …
Eric Eldon / Inside Facebook:
Countries That Adopted Facebook Early See Lower Traffic Growth Rates, Occasionally Negative  —  Many of the largest, earliest-established countries on Facebook have seen odd traffic fluctuations in the last months, according to our Inside Facebook Gold data.
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.
Launch:
L019: Bitcoin P2P Currency: The Most Dangerous Project We've Ever Seen  —  by Jason Calacanis and the LAUNCH team  —  A month ago I heard folks talking online about a virtual currency called bitcoin that is untraceable and un-hackable.  Folks were using it to buy and sell drugs online …
Discussion: gd0t.com, Thanks:hunterowens
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.
 
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 More Items: 
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Connecting The Dots On eBay's Local Shopping Strategy
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Access To iPad App Flipboard Compromised In China
Discussion: NetworkEffect and Penn Olson
Marcus Wohlsen / Associated Press:
Twitter feed lawsuit underscores power of a tweet
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: CNET News, Digitizor and GottaBeMobile
 

 
From Mediagazer:

The Guardian:
Sources: the Foreign Office has asked the BBC World Service to draw up a budget of up to £70M a year lower than the BBC management says it needs

Anthony D'Alessandro / Deadline:
Sony Pictures' Motion Picture Group Chairman and CEO Tom Rothman signs a multiyear contract extension, making him the longest-serving film chief in Hollywood

Murray Stassen / Music Business Worldwide:
WMG launches the WMG Pulse app in beta to let artists and their teams access real-time information about streaming performance and more across various platforms

 
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