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7:00 PM ET, June 30, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Jonathan S. Geller / BGR:
Open letter to BlackBerry bosses: Senior RIM exec tells all as company crumbles around him  —  There's no question Research In Motion is in the midst of a major transitional period.  The company is planning to launch a brand new product line based on a brand new operating system within the next 12 months …
RELATED:
Research In Motion / Inside BlackBerry:
RIM's Response to “Open Letter”  —  An “Open Letter” to RIM's senior management was published anonymously on the web today and it was attributed to an unnamed person described as a “high level employee”.  It is obviously difficult to address anonymous commentary and it is particularly difficult …
Matt Hartley / Financial Post:
RIM bows to pressure, plans committee to examine leadership structure  —  Research In Motion Ltd. will create a committee that will examine possible changes to its corporate structure, including the possibility of separating the co-chairman and co-chief executive roles of its leaders Jim Balsillie …
Discussion: CNET News, Bloomberg, Reuters and @tcarmody
Reuters:
Facebook plans “awesome” launch next week: CEO  —  Facebook, the world's biggest social networking website, is set to launch a new feature next week, possibly in the mobile or tablet arena, its CEO said.  Chief Executive and founder Mark Zuckerberg told reporters in a visit to Facebook's Seattle office …
RELATED:
Peter Boctor / GeekWire:
Facebook's Zuckerberg: TV, books, movies next in line for social disruption
Discussion: Adweek
Devindra Hardawar / VentureBeat:
Google opens up, then closes Google+ invites due to “insane demand”  —  If you were desperate to get a Google+ invite yesterday, there's a very good chance you could have landed one tonight as Google gave existing Plus users the ability to invite anyone to test out the service.
RELATED:
Brad Molen / Engadget:
Google+ code reveals intent to unleash Games and Questions to the social world  —  Having a difficult time getting your honeydew list checked off because you're trying to level up in Mafia Wars?  You may want to just chuck the whole sheet of paper in the trash.
Jillian C. York:   Community Standards: A Comparison of Facebook vs. Google+
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
First Night With Google Plus: This is Very Cool
NielsenWire:
In US, Smartphones Now Majority of New Cellphone Purchases  —  Apple iOS up, Android flat, RIM down among recent acquirers.  —  Smartphones continue to grow in popularity.  According to Nielsen's May survey of mobile consumers in the U.S., 38 percent now own smartphones.
RELATED:
Casey Johnston / Ars Technica:
Nielsen: iPhone sales climb as Android sales flatten out
Discussion: BGR, The Loop and PhoneArena
The Business Insider:
Twitter Is Under Federal Investigation  —  The Federal Trade Commission is actively investigating Twitter and the way it deals with the companies building applications and services for its platform, we've learned.  —  In Spring 2010, Twitter started making noises that it planned to provide users …
RELATED:
Amir Efrati / Wall Street Journal:   FTC Makes Twitter Inquiries
Twitter Blog:
200 million Tweets per day  —  Halfway through 2011, users on Twitter are now sending 200 million Tweets per day.  For context on the speed of Twitter's growth, in January of 2009, users sent two million Tweets a day, and one year ago they posted 65 million a day.
Marc Lifsher / Los Angeles Times:
California tells online retailers to start collecting sales taxes from customers  —  Beginning Friday, Amazon.com and other large out-of-state retailers will be required to collect sales taxes on purchases that their California customers make online.  —  Workers push carts full of merchandise …
RELATED:
Danny Sullivan / Daggle:
An Open Letter To Jeff Bezos On Terminating The Amazon Affiliate Program In California  —  Dear Jeff-  —  Thank you for your letter today, informing me that after seven years of being one of your affiliates — and having earned for you about $150,000 in that time — that you “deeply regret” …
Federico Viticci / MacStories:
The iPad: Now With 100,000 Apps Available  —  At the end of March we ran a story on the iPad App Store reaching the 75,000 apps milestone in less than 365 days since the original iPad came out in April 2010.  Considering the competition the iPad had to face in the past year …
Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:
LAL Raises $5M Led by New Andreessen Horowitz Partner Jeff Jordan  —  LAL (a.k.a. LikeALittle), the service that originated with flirting on college campuses and is now trying to enable connections with any nearby people, has raised a $5 million Series A round led by its seed investor Andreessen Horowitz.
RELATED:
Marc Andreessen / ben's blog:
Meet Our New General Partner, Jeff Jordan
Discussion: TechCrunch, Digits and StartupHoodlum
Sheldon Levine / Sysomos Blog:
Lulzsec Takes Over The Internet... In only 50 Days  —  In only 50 days a group of hackers calling themselves “Lulzsec” have made quite an impact on the way people will look at internet security.  For those that don't know, Lulzsec is a community of hackers who set out to show the world …
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Flipboard 1.5 Integrates LinkedIn, Adds A Content Guide For Curated News Browsing  —  An update to social news viewing app Flipboard goes live in the app store today, with a new souped up 1.5 version that optimizes the reader experience even further.  Earlier this week we had the chance …
Julianne Pepitone / CNNMoney:
New Apple app rules kick in June 30 — will Kindle vanish?  —  Big changes are coming to Apple's App Store on Thursday — and they could mean big trouble for e-book sellers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  June 30 is the deadline for app makers to get in compliance with Apple's strict new rules …
Discussion: App Advice, MacRumors and MacDailyNews
Tom Krazit / mocoNews:
ITC Issues Split Decision In Kodak/Apple/RIM Patent Case; Review Coming  —  The International Trade Commission did not impose any injunctions Thursday against Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and Research in Motion (NSDQ: RIMM) in a complaint filed by Eastman Kodak, sending the matter back to a lower court for review.
David Pogue / New York Times:
Pretty Tablet, Though Late for the Ball  —  Have you been reading the headlines?  There was a big earthquake in Haiti.  Some men were rescued from a mine in Chile.  Oh, and apparently there was a gigantic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  —  What's that you say?  This all sounds like last year's news?
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Ready, set, sue!  Net neutrality rules almost official  —  The Federal Communications Commission sent its net neutrality rules on their final steps to becoming a real law on Thursday.  The agency sent the rules to the Office of Management and Budget to ensure it complies with arcane paper reduction rules …
Discussion: Macworld
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft follows Google in pulling plug on its home-energy service  —  Not too surprisingly, Microsoft is pulling the plug on its Hohm energy monitoring service.  —  Microsoft admitted the discontinuation of Hohm via a June 30 blog post on the Microsoft Hohm community blog.
Jennifer Pollock / California Home + Design:
CH+D Office Space: Square in San Francisco's Chronicle Building  —  Jack Dorsey's Square, which may just make old-school registers obsolete with their Square Card Readers, Square Registers and Card Cases, is HQ-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle Building on 5th and Mission.
Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:
USPTO invalidates an entire Oracle Java patent-in-suit on a preliminary basis  —  At Google's request, the USPTO is reexamining all seven Java-related patents asserted against Android's Dalvik virtual machine.  On Monday I reported on first Office actions that had been issued with respect to four of the seven patents.
 
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 More Items: 
Path Blog:
Announcing Path for Android
Madhu Gupta / The LinkedIn Blog:
LinkedIn Groups API: Professional Engagement Anytime, Anywhere
Andy Greenberg / The Firewall:
Anonymous Launches A WikiLeaks For Hackers: HackerLeaks
Thanks:forbestech
Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:
MySpace Lays off More Than Half Its Staff of 450
Charles Arthur / Guardian:
Google+ ‘blocked in China’
Discussion: Penn Olson
 Earlier Items: 
Zach Honig / Engadget:
Nokia shutters online and retail stores in UK, US web store
Horace Dediu / asymco:
How much is an iOS user worth to Apple? About $150. Every year.
Discussion: Geek.com and mocoNews
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Google Teams Up With Virgin America To Allow Passengers To Test Out Chromebooks In-Flight
John Markoff / New York Times:
Robert Morris, Pioneer in Computer Security, Dies at 78
Discussion: Global Nerdy and ExtremeTech