Check out Mini-Techmeme for simple mobiles or Techmeme Mobile for modern smartphones.
9:45 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 …
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
Erik Sherman / Wired In:
New Privacy Laws in India and China Could Make IT Outsourcing Ugly  —  Think privacy issues are a pain when they affect consumers?  Get ready for the grandfather of all corporate computing headaches.  Big privacy-law changes in India and China are about to turn data-processing outsourcing …
Discussion: Slashdot
Sean Hollister / Engadget:
RIM recalls 900 faulty BlackBerry PlayBooks, here are the serial numbers (update)  —  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.
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Honeycomb Has A Fighting Chance Against The iPad  —  If you'd asked me a week ago what I thought about Honeycomb, the tablet version of Android, I would have said that it was in very bad shape and that it would be several months before it could even hold a candle to the iPad 2.
RELATED:
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines Blog:
Nvidia CEO: Next wave of Android tablets address first-gen shortcomings
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 …
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:
Damon Poeter / PC Magazine:
Sony PSN Back Online, Just Not Everywhere
Daniel Ionescu / PC World:
Green Light is On — Sony PlayStation Network Returns in US
Discussion: Kotaku and Technologizer
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 …
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Senator Wyden & Zoe Lofgren Not Impressed By PROTECT IP Or Feds' Responses To Questions About Domain Seizures  —  The two elected officials we've seen push back the most on plans like COICA are Senator Ron Wyden and Rep. Zoe Lofgren.  So, it should come as little surprise that the two of them have released …
Discussion: TorrentFreak and Senator Ron Wyden
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.
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of Techmeme at 9:45 PM ET, May 15, 2011.

View the current page or another snapshot:


 
 Techmeme Sponsor Posts: 
Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
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:
5 common accounting mistakes  —  This is a guest post by Yaali Bizappln Solutions.  A lot of businesses manage their customers and finances on separate platforms.  This disconnect often leads to missed invoices …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
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: 
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
 Earlier Items: 
Mark Gurman / 9 to 5 Mac:
Watch out Instapaper: Mac OS X Lion's Safari Reading List to sync with iOS devices
Discussion: Gizmodo, Electronista and App Advice, Thanks:markgurman
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
A growing number of podcasters, including Tim Ferriss, are moving away from interviews to monologues or co-hosts, as some well-known guests can be overexposed

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
A New York judge finds Sirius XM liable for a difficult subscription cancellation process; Sirius says it will appeal but abide by a new “click-to-cancel” rule

Brian Steinberg / Variety:
Sources: NBCUniversal Vice Chairman Bonnie Hammer plans to leave the company at the end of the year; she has been with the company since 2004

 
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