Techmeme: Closing The Redemption Loop In Local Commerce (Erick Schonfeld/TechCrunch)

3:40 PM ET, July 25, 2011

Top Items:

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

Facebook's iPad App Is Hidden Inside Of Their iPhone App — There are things out there all around us that we often miss because we're just not looking. This is perhaps most true in the tech world, where thousands of secrets are out there in the wild, hidden in code.

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

Facebook's Secret iPad App Exposed [Pictures] — So, we just exposed the awesome secret that Facebook's iPad app is actually already out there, hidden inside of the iPhone app. Now it's time to show it to you. — I've been playing with the app for much of the night, and it seems solid.

Discussion: VatorNews, The Register, PC World, The Business Insider, GottaBeMobile, ITProPortal, IntoMobile, Appolicious Advisor, MacRumors, SplatF, iPhone Alley and App Advice, Thanks:srikardhanakoti

Tiernan Ray / Tech Trader Daily:

RIM Slips: Lays Off 2,000, Splits COO Role; Is It Enough? — Shares of Research in Motion (RIMM) are down 58 cents, or 2%, at $27.33 after the company this morning announced the details of layoffs as part of a broad restructuring discussed in June. — The company plans to cut staff by roughly 10% …

Ina Fried / AllThingsD:
RIM Makes Management Changes, Just Not The Ones Many Have Been Calling For

Discussion: StreetInsider.com, SiliconANGLE, InfoWorld and Between the Lines Blog

Reuters:

Chinese city orders closures of two fake Apple shops — (Reuters) - Chinese officials in Kunming ordered two fake Apple shops to close, a local newspaper reported on Monday, an apparent reaction to a storm of media attention about an unauthorized and elaborate hoax store in the southwestern city.

Declan McCullagh / CNET News:

Street View cars grabbed locations of phones, PCs — Some locations that Google associated with Wi-Fi devices spotted in a San Francisco coffee shop. — scoop Google's Street View cars collected the locations of millions of laptops, cell phones, and other Wi-Fi devices around the world …

Discussion: Search Engine Land, Inquirer, Gizmodo, Pocket-lint, Electronista and dailywireless.org

Robert Scoble / Google+:

I talked with Google VP Vic Gundotra tonight (disclaimer, he used to be my boss at Microsoft). He is reading everything we have written about names, and such. Both pro and con. — He says he is making some tough choices and that he will be judged over time how those choices turn out.

Discussion: GigaOM, CNN, VentureBeat, Scripting News, SlashGear, BetaNews, The Business Insider, Computerworld, Pulp Tech Blog, Inquirer, CNET News, Techland, InfotropismInfotropism and The Next Web

Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:

Adobe Shuts Down Its App Stores — Adobe is shutting down two of its app stores dedicated to mobile and desktop application distribution, Adobe InMarket and the Adobe AIR Marketplace. The decision, the company says, was based on developer feedback. Adobe says it will now focus its efforts …

Discussion: Between the Lines Blog, 9to5Mac, Shiny Objects, SlashGear, Electronista and Joel Housman

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

Airbnb Bags $112 Million In Series B From Andreessen, DST And General Catalyst — The scrappy apartment sharing startup has just raised $112 million at a one billion plus valuation led by Andreessen Horowitz. We're hearing that the split is around 60 million from Andreessen …

Discussion: TechFlash, CNET News, alarm:clock, Gawker, Market Wire, AllThingsD, New York Times, Fast Company, VentureBeat and Venture Capital Dispatch

Ben Horowitz / ben's blog:
Meet Our Newest Portfolio Company, Airbnb

Discussion: PC Magazine, Financial Times and Social Markets

Andrew Grossman / Metropolis:

First Glimpse of Apple's Plans for Grand Central Terminal … Grand Central Terminal's iconic main concourse, with its ceiling of glittering stars, will likely welcome another icon later this year: a single, glowing white apple. — Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials offered …

Discussion: CNET News, The Toybox Blog, CNN and MacRumors

Zach Epstein / BGR:

HTC's Chief Innovation Officer, Horace Luke, resigns for personal reasons — BGR has exclusively learned that Horace Luke, former Chief Innovation Officer at HTC, has left the company as of April 30th 2011. “Horace Luke, HTC's chief innovation officer, has left HTC for personal reasons.

Discussion: AllThingsD and Electronista

Todd Bishop / GeekWire:

Google engineer Steve Lacey victim of Kirkland car wreck — Google engineer Steve Lacey, 43, a veteran of the Seattle region's tech community who worked for more than a decade at Microsoft, died Sunday in a car crash in Kirkland. — KING 5 News reports that that Lacey was the victim …

Discussion: KING-TV, The Loop and Robert Scoble

Alistair Barr / Reuters:

Amazon's next billion-dollar business eyed — (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc's cloud computing unit may be its next billion-dollar business and analysts will be watching for clues on how fast this secretive unit is growing when the Internet retailer reports results next week.

Discussion: The Business Insider

Todd Bishop / GeekWire:

Xbox launches Avatar Kinect: A review by my avatar — After a long wait, Microsoft today is releasing Avatar Kinect, the online video chat application that uses the Kinect sensor to track facial expressions and mouth movements and translate them into a user's avatar on screen.

Discussion: The Microsoft Blog, Ars Technica, Gizmodo, CNET News, Electronista and WinRumors

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

Atomico, Conway, And Founders Fund Put $10 Million Into Quid; Max Levchin Joins Board — Quantitative analysis startup Quid is getting a major vote of confidence and $10 million in a Series C round from a raft of serious investors. Niklas Zennstrom's Atomico Ventures, Ron Conway's SV Angel …

Discussion: VatorNews, VentureBeat, The Business Insider and Pulse2, Thanks:alexia

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

AOL Reorgs Again, Sales Boss Jeff Levick Out — Yet another management shuffle at AOL, which has been doing this consistently since CEO Tim Armstrong arrived from Google two years ago. The newest headline: Sales chief Jeff Levick, one of Armstrong's key initial hires, is out, replaced by his former deputy Ned Brody.

Discussion: The Business Insider, TechCrunch, AdAge, The Business Insider and paidContent, more at Mediagazer »

Matt Peckham / Techland:

Amazon Freezes Nintendo 3DS Sales After Customer Complaints — Oops, it looks like you can't buy the Nintendo 3DS direct from Amazon anymore, thanks to either a sales goof or some sort of actual manufacturing glitch. Nintendo's notorious no-glasses 3D games handheld is officially not for sale from the site at this moment.

Alyson Shontell / The Business Insider:

Restaurant Discount Site Savored Snags A Partnership With OpenTable — Savored, the restaurant discount and discovery site formerly known as Village Vines, tells us it is partnering with dinner reservation company OpenTable. — Starting today, OpenTable will have Savored 30% Off Deals on its San Francisco Bay Area homepage.

Discussion: Bits and AllThingsD

Hollywood Reporter:

DreamWorks Animation, Netflix Finalizing Streaming Deal … DreamWorks Animation and Netflix have been putting the finishing touches on a streaming rights deal for DWA films that could be announced in the coming days. — According to a source familiar with the situation, the animation studio …

Discussion: GigaOM, ReadWriteWeb, Tech Trader Daily, Deadline.com, GMSV, AllThingsD, Zatz Not Funny!, @mediaredef, CNET News and Company Town

Don Reisinger / CNET News:

Survey: 35 percent of consumers will pounce on iPhone 5 — Apple's iPhone 5 hasn't even been announced yet, but already U.S. consumers are poised to buy it. — According to PriceGrabber, which conducted a study earlier this month with 2,852 U.S. respondents, 35 percent of consumers plan to buy the iPhone 5 when it's released.

Discussion: Between the Lines Blog, Digital Trends, AllThingsD, Electronista, PR Newswire, IntoMobile, PhoneArena and TechUnwrapped

Todd Bishop / GeekWire:

Microsoft extends SUSE deal, agrees to buy another $100M in Linux support — Linux vendor Novell Inc. is no longer a standalone company, but Microsoft today announced an agreement with its successor, Attachmate's SUSE unit, to extend by four years the technology collaboration agreement …

Discussion: The Register, All about Microsoft Blog, TechFlash, internetnews.com, Microsoft, Electronista and TechNet Blogs

David Kaplan / paidContent:

Flipboard Kicks Off Its First Advertising Program With Condé Nast — Users who follow The New Yorker magazine's Twitter and Facebook stream through iPad social reader Flipboard will start noticing advertising as part of the mix. The ads, beginning with a campaign by American Express …

Discussion: Digits, AllThingsD, PR Newswire, AllTwitter, mediabistro.com, The inneractive Blog and AdAge, more at Mediagazer »

Brad Molen / Engadget:

AT&T confirms Gingerbread coming to entire 2011 Android lineup (and Samsung Captivate) — The HTC Status was the only device with Gingerbread on AT&T's lineup for a small slice of time, but that's quickly coming to an end. The carrier has confirmed that Android 2.3 will be pushed …

Discussion: VentureBeat, L.A. Times Tech Blog, AT&T, 9to5Google, This is my next, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, DailyTech and PhoneNews.com

John Battelle / John Battelle's Searchblog:

Looky Here, It's Me, In an Ad, On Facebook! Is This Legal? Allowed? Who Knows?! — In the past 12 hours, about ten friends (and counting) have sent me a copy of this ad on Facebook for a company called “AppSumo.” I have nearly 5000 “friends” on Facebook, a problem I've written about in the past, but seeing this ad threw me.

Timothy Williams / New York Times:

Town Turns to iPads in Cost-Cutting Move — While Apple started selling iPads to the public only 15 months ago, the 1.5-pound tablet computers seem well on their way toward ubiquity. This year, Alaska Airlines began issuing them to pilots to replace the 25 pounds of paper flight manuals they were required to carry on flights.

Discussion: PadGadget

John Leyden / The Register:

Anonymous hacks Italy's critical-national-IT protection — Evidently the protection isn't critical — Hacktivists have posted “secret documents” stolen from an Italian cybercrime unit. — The documents - 8GB of files - were extracted from a system maintained by the Centro Nazionale …

Discussion: Help Net Security, BBC, Naked Security, Liquidmatrix Security Digest and thinq_

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