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2:40 PM ET, August 4, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Google Threw A Punch, Microsoft Fires Back With A Missile  —  Earlier today, Google came out swinging.  Seemingly sick of being continuously slapped in the face by the patent issue, Google's SVP and Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond, wrote a blog post calling out several of Google's rivals …
RELATED:
Mary Branscombe / TechRadar.com:
How Microsoft makes money from Android  —  In Depth: And more secret Microsoft patent profits revealed  —  The recent revelation that Microsoft makes a packet from Android might come as a surprise.  —  But Android isn't the only competitor Microsoft makes money from - and more often than not, the competition is happy with the deal.
Discussion: Electronista
David Drummond / The Official Google Blog:
When patents attack Android
Mark Douglas / The Big Blog:
Skype 2.1 for Android enables video on majority of Android devices  —  We promised to add support for additional handsets when we launched our new Skype for Android app with video a couple of weeks ago.  Today we are pleased to announce that with the release of Skype 2.1 for Android …
Seth Weintraub / 9to5Mac:
Lion USB sticks now available for $69 through AppleCare, free to some  —  Our good friends in Applecare alerted us to the fact that Lion USB keys were now available and in stock at Apple.  While officially they will cost a lofty $69, it appears, at least from the wording above …
John Paczkowski / AllThingsD:
iPhone 5, “Simplified iPhone 4” Headed to China Telecom in October?  —  If Apple hasn't yet signed an agreement to bring the iPhone to China Telecom, it must be very close to doing so.  In July, Reuters reported that long-running discussions between the two companies were moving toward a deal …
Jack Purcher / Patently Apple:
Apple's Inductive Charging Patent Finally Surfaces  —  On August 4, 2011, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals two specific concepts of an “Inductive Charging System” for use with iOS devices.  The first concept involves an oddly designed charging tower.
Alex Sirota / Yahoo! Developer Network:
Introducing Yahoo! WebPlayer  —  Today we're announcing the first beta version of Yahoo! WebPlayer.  At its core, Yahoo! WebPlayer is a powerful Web based media player written in HTML and JavaScript.  It supports a variety of video and audio media formats and services, for example Yahoo! Video, YouTube, MP3 or WMA.
Discussion: WebProNews and @jason
Ben Parr / Mashable!:
Google To Revive Realtime Search, Thanks to Google+  —  Google Realtime Search is coming back soon, and it will include data from Google+ and other social sources.  —  Realtime Search was, until last month, the search giant's method of delivering relevant data from Twitter, Facebook and other social media services in real time.
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
FYI Google, Facebook's Former CTO Says It Would Take Two Years For ~250 People To Build A Clone  —  As the fruits of Google's rush to build a social network are now achingly public, someone has asked a pretty apropos question on Quora, “How long would it take to build Facebook as of July 2011?”
Discussion: ZDNet, All Facebook and Quora
Bloomberg:
Sony's Debut of PlayStation Vita Player in U.S., Europe to Miss Christmas  —  Sony Corp. (6758) plans to begin sales of the PlayStation Vita portable player in the U.S. and Europe next year, missing the key Christmas-holiday shopping season.  —  The product will initially launch in Japan …
Ben / Carrypad:
Exclusive: Eight Leaked Sony S1 and S2 Screenshots Reveal Honeycomb 3.2, Chumby App, Proprietary Adapter and More  —  Today I went snooping around Sony's support site where I was able to uncover some support documents for their upcoming S1 and S2 tablets that have gone public before they were supposed to.
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Security researchers hack Google's Chrome OS  —  When Google first started talking about its Google Chrome OS software a few years ago, one of the selling points was the promise that it would come with much better built-in security than other operating systems.
Discussion: Inquirer and The Download Blog
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Warner Bros. Pulls Back the Curtain on Flixster Collections, Its Ambitious Digital Video Bet  —  Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes spent a lot of yesterday's earnings call discussing the company's future in digital video.  Here's one of his focal points: Flixster Collections …
Ryan Kim / GigaOM:
New York can't and shouldn't try to rival Silicon Valley  —  New York's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, envisions his city wresting the title of “technology capital” of the U.S. from Silicon Valley and has embarked on an ambitious plan to build or expand a science and engineering campus in New York.
Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:
Study: Android is least open of open source mobile platforms  —  Market research firm VisionMobile has published a report that evaluates the openness of eight major open source software projects.  The study—which was partly funded by the European Union—focuses largely on open governance …
Bill Pardi / Windows Phone Blog:
Look who's talking: Speech in Mango  —  On a recent run around town with my wife to grab dinner and pick up one of the kids, a text message came in from my son.  Not an unusual event in itself, but what made this message interesting is that my phone read it aloud to me — and I replied back with my voice.
Justin Rubio / IGN:
Leaked Verizon Document Reveals New Galaxy Tab, 4G Curve, and More  —  Provider's 2011 smartphone and tablet roadmap revealed.  —  This year's holiday season is just a couple of months away and it looks like Verizon has quite a lineup prepared for your shopping needs.
Discussion: PC World, Droid Life and PhoneArena
Frederic Lardinois / SiliconFilter:
Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia is Losing Contributors  —  Few websites have changed the way we access knowledge as much as Wikipedia.  Now, however, it looks like the online encyclopedia is hitting some snags, as the number of volunteers who write and edit its articles is getting smaller.
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Vonage releases Time to Call iPhone app with low-cost international calling over 3G/WiFi  —  Vonage has released a new application for the App Store called Time to Call.  The application is free to download and offers low-cost international calling to users.
Eliot Van Buskirk / Evolver.fm:
Former Google Engineer Builds Turntable.fm Clone: Rolling.fm  —  One good turn(table) deserves another, one might say.  —  Hot on the heels of Turntable.fm's big reported round of funding comes Rolling.fm, a Turntable.fm clone that does just about everything the original service does.
Discussion: Techdirt, Pulse2 and All New Musings
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
French online deal firm wants EU probe into Google  —  (Reuters) - French online daily deals company Deal du Jour has complained about Google's business practices to EU antitrust regulators, the latest company to take its grievances about the web search giant to the European Commission.
Seth Weintraub / 9to5Mac:
Jailbreak hotspot-ers: AT&T is moving you to a tiered data plan involuntarily  —  We've gotten word from some readers that AT&T is moving forward and removing unlimited plans for users who jailbreak iPhones to tether or hotspot off of AT&T's unlimited data plans (for those grandfathered):
Discussion: BGR and TechCrunch
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Meltwater Acquires Mark Cuban-Backed Realtime Search Engine IceRocket  —  Social media monitoring company Meltwater Group has acquired IceRocket, a realtime social search engine.  Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.  —  IceRocket is a real-time search engine that crawls over 200 million blogs …
Rip Empson / TechCrunch:
Augme Technologies To Acquire Mobile Ad Firm Hipcricket For $44.5 Million  —  Mobile marketing service, Augme Technologies, today announced that it will be acquiring Hipcricket, a mobile marketing and advertising platform for $44.5 million — $6 million of which is in cash and $38.5 million in common stock.
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Pirate Pays Up: Warner Music Cashes $12 Million LimeWire Check  —  We knew this was going to happen, but it's such a man-bites-dog story it's worth noting, anyway: A big file-sharing outfit ended up handing over a bunch of cash to a content company.  —  In this case the check-writer is LimeWire …
Kevin Michaluk / CrackBerry.com blogs:
Do Not Panic PlayBook owners... Android App Player still looking to be on schedule  —  A rumor hit the internet yesterday in regards to the much-anticipated Android App Player for the BlackBerry PlayBook stating that the feature won't arrive until “late fall” despite RIM previously stating that it will arrive late summer.
Discussion: Electronista
 
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 More Items: 
Sara Forden / Bloomberg:
VeriFone Cleared to Buy Hypercom in Settlement With U.S.
Discussion: Network World and Reuters
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
LocalResponse Buys Social TV Advertising And Check-In Platform Philo
Discussion: VentureBeat, GigaOM and VatorNews
Amar Toor / Engadget:
T-Mobile loses 50,000 customers in Q2 2011, revenue dips slightly
Jack Kim / Reuters:
North Korean hackers hired to attack South Korea game network
Discussion: Guardian and Inquirer
Joseph Volpe / Engadget:
Microsoft Research's .NET Gadgeteer steps out into the light, shoots daggers at Arduino (video)
Discussion: Computerworld, SlashGear and TechCrunch
John Cook / GeekWire:
Why Zillow insiders want to keep the stock above $25 per share
Discussion: The Business Insider, Thanks:toddbishop
 Earlier Items: 
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
American Airlines And Gogo Roll Out In-Flight Personal Device Video Streaming To 767 Fleet
Discussion: Newlaunches.com and Gadget Lab
Alyson Shontell / The Business Insider:
THE BILLION-DOLLAR CLUB: 12 Startups With Skyrocketing Valuations
Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:
Exclusive: Randi Zuckerberg Leaves Facebook to Start New Social Media Firm (Resignation Letter)
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Athena Stavrou / The Independent:
More than 230 media industry professionals, including anonymous BBC staff, sign a letter accusing the BBC of bias favoring Israel in coverage of Gaza

Dominick Mastrangelo / The Hill:
Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt quits as a contributing columnist at WaPo, after abruptly leaving a Post live video event hosted by Jonathan Capehart

Devin Gordon / New York Times:
AI in Hollywood is a tech leap with a vast impact but remains a tool, not a replacement, for creatives; its speed, quality, and cost allow for VFX breakthroughs

 
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