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12:20 PM ET, July 21, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Alyson Shontell / The Business Insider:
Google+ Makes Its First Aquisition And Buys Social Group Startup Fridge  —  This past weekend we wrote that social group startup Fridge was shutting down the product.  We assumed that meant it was being acquired.  —  We assumed right.  Austin Chang, Fridge's founder …
Ingrid Lunden / paidContent:UK:
Read It And Weep: Nokia Reports Loss Of Nearly €500 Million, Huge Declines  —  Nokia's CEO Stephen Elop once said that his chief competitor is not Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), but if you compare today's quarterly figures from Nokia (NYSE: NOK) with those of the Cupertino mobile upstart, the contrast couldn't be greater.
RELATED:
Matt Brian / The Next Web:
Apple's iPad remains dominant as Windows tablets outsell the PlayBook  —  A new report from research firm Strategy Analytics indicates that from over 15 million tablet shipments in the second quarter of 2011, Apple still dominates the market with a 61% share but has seen Android tablets eat into its market share over the past year.
RELATED:
Tom Warren / WinRumors:
Bing gets Metro treatment, includes HTML5 live tiles  —  Microsoft is testing live tiles across its Bing search engine homepage.  —  The software giant first announced its HTML5 version of Bing at the original beta launch of Internet Explorer 9 in September.
Alexis Madrigal / The Atlantic Online:
Larry Page's First 100 Days as Google CEO: Focus, Focus, Focus  —  Larry Page has demonstrated he wants to create a more streamlined, more potent Google, and he's doubling down on search  —  When a new President is sworn into the Oval Office, we like to take stock of what directions …
RELATED:
Nick Marshall / Electricpig:
2011 MacBook Air benchmarks are amazing, outperforms all 2010 MacBook Pros  —  The subtle change in clock speed from 1.4 to 1.6 GHz in the 2011 11-inch MacBook Air might sound small on paper, but in terms of benchmarks, it's nothing short of monumental.  Using Geekbench as a baseline …
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Jack Dorsey Cleaning House At Twitter: 4 Key Product Guys Are Out  —  Breaking news out of Twitter this afternoon, four key product managers have just been let go, we've learned.  The move was led by Jack Dorsey and will see key product guys Kevin Cheng, Josh Elman, and two others we've yet to confirm, leave the company.
Todd Haselton / BGR:
Nexus S for AT&T landing on July 24th for $99.99, pre-orders start today  —  Samsung on Thursday announced that an AT&T-ready version of its Nexus S smartphone will be available from Best Buy and Best Buy Mobile Stores beginning on July 24th for $99.99 on contract.
Paul Sawers / The Next Web:
Anonymous & LulzSec issue joint statement to FBI  —  Anonymous and LulzSec have published a statement aimed at the FBI and ‘International law authorities’, in response to an article that appeared on National Public Radio (NPR) yesterday, titled: FBI Tries To Send Message With Hacker Arrests.
Robert X. Cringely / I, Cringely:
The Decline and Fall of Facebook  —  Roger McNamee is a smart guy and a very successful investor as a co-founder of Elevation Partners.  He made a breakfast presentation last month at the Paley Center for Media in Los Angeles that is well worth watching.  I could probably get half a dozen columns …
Richard Dunn / Gmail Blog:
Make multiple calls in Gmail  —  Over the years, we've expanded Gmail's communication abilities by allowing you to make voice and video calls to other computers and more recently call phones.  Until now, though, you were limited to making one call at a time.
Austin Carr / Fast Company:
Circles Fatigue: The Dark Side Of Google+  —  One of Google Plus's most unique features, Circles, initially attracted users to the service and set it apart from competitors.  But it may also be one of the network's biggest turnoffs—only a few weeks in, and Circles fatigue is taking hold.
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines Blog:
AT&T's Q2: 3.6 million iPhone activations; Android 40 percent of smartphone sales  —  AT&T's smartphone diversification effort appears to be paying off as the company added 331,000 net postpaid subscribers, activated 3.6 million iPhones and doubled Android device sales from a year ago.
Zach Honig / Engadget:
Acer buys iGware, makes a $320 million bet on the cloud  —  There's no question that cloud computing has hit the mainstream — even the US federal government, which isn't typically a front-runner when it comes to tech adoption, has taken the plunge.  Now, Taiwanese hardware maker Acer …
Christopher Williams / Telegraph:
Nato investigates Anonymous hacking claims  —  Nato is investigating claims that its computer network has been infiltrated and confidential documents published online by the hacking collective Anonymous.  —  Anonymous' emblem is a Guy Fawkes mask  —  The claims were made this afternoon via AnonymousIRC …
Fortune:
Larry Summers calls Winklevoss twins ‘A**holes’  —  NEW YORK (Fortune) — What did Larry Summers really think of the Winklevoss twins?  —  “Rarely, have I encountered such swagger, and I tried to respond in kind,” the former president of Harvard said in an interview at Fortune's Brainstorm Tech conference.
Andy Chalk / The Escapist:
Hackers Hit Anonymous Social Network  —  Just two days after it was revealed to the world, the Anonymous Social Network has been hacked.  —  Disclaimer: this whole situation could very easily be one big, silly joke.  It's certainly ridiculous enough to merit at least a little bit of disbelief.
Nick Bilton / Bits:
Zynga Is Hit With Countersuit Over Game Designs  —  Vostu, a Brazilian company whose social games are popular in South America, filed suit against the online gaming giant Zynga on Wednesday, responding to a suit from Zynga claiming that Vostu copied its game designs.
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines Blog:
Wolfram launches new document format, meet CDF  —  Wolfram on Thursday rolled out its Computable Document Format (CDF), which aims to turn documents into interactive applications.  —  The goal is to turn “lifeless documents” into ones that bring data to life, show the data behind assumptions and illustrate concepts.
Tomio Geron / Social Markets:
EBay's PayPal Payments Going Offline With Point Of Sale Product  —  eBay's PayPal unit has been a big driver of the company's growth as the company has retooled its marketplaces unit.  Now PayPal is not just going after online and mobile payments, it's also targeting offline “point of sale” transactions with merchants.
Business Week:
Cyber Weapons: The New Arms Race  —  The Pentagon, the IMF, Google, and others have been hacked.  It's war out there, and a cyber-weapons industry is exploding to arm the combatants  —  In the early morning hours of May 24, an armed burglar wearing a ski mask broke into the offices of Nicira Networks …
Josh Lowensohn / CNET News:
Apple playlist patent suit winner hits replay for repay  —  Personal Audio, the company that was awarded $8 million in damages from Apple in patent infringement ruling earlier this month, has come back with a new lawsuit taking aim at additional Apple products it says infringe on the same intellectual property.
Patrick Thibodeau / Computerworld:
Top general says Defense Department IT in ‘Stone Age’  —  Cartwright sees fault with proprietary systems  —  Computerworld - WASHINGTON — U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James “Hoss” Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was sharply critical Tuesday of the Defense Department's IT systems and sees much room for improvement.
Discussion: The Cloud Blog
Christian Zibreg / 9to5Mac:
Lion disables Flash Player hardware acceleration (and other Adobe goodies)  —  In addition to the goodies Lion brings to your everyday computing, some unwanted side-effects surface with Adobe writing in a knowledge base article yesterday (via TUAW) that the operating system disables hardware acceleration …
Bloomberg:
Apple, Google Are Said to Be Among Companies Sizing Up InterDigital Offers  —  Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Google Inc. (GOOG), aiming to bolster their patent portfolios, are among companies weighing possible bids for InterDigital Inc., a mobile-phone technology designer, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.
 
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 More Items: 
Kevin Gosztola / Firedoglake:
The Government Clampdown on Anonymous for ‘Operation Avenge Assange’
Dylan Tweney / VentureBeat:
Former DoubleClick team raises $6M for comparison-shopping engine
Discussion: Mashable! and TechCrunch
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Google Hires JustSpotted/Scoopler Team To Work On Google+
Sebastian Anthony / ExtremeTech:
Firefox 8 for Windows x64: Has 64-bit browsing finally come of age?
 Earlier Items: 
Todd Brix / Windows Phone Developer Blog:
Windows Phone Developers Get New App Hub Features: Mango app submission just one month away
 

 
From Mediagazer:

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”

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced she will leave the agency on January 20; she was the first woman to be confirmed to lead the agency

Lachlan Cartwright / The Ankler:
Sources: MSNBC renewed Rachel Maddow's contract early this fall, but with a pay cut; MSNBC bosses' plan to shake up daytime and weekend programming
 
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