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4:15 PM ET, August 13, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Mike Isaac / Gadget Lab:
Google Steps Up to Defend Android Developers From Patent Lawsuit  —  Google has intervened in an ongoing intellectual property dispute between smartphone application developers and a patent-holding firm, Wired.com has learned, marking the Mountain View company's first public move …
Discussion: TiPb, CNET News, Electronista and The Next Web, Thanks:mj_isaac
RELATED:
Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:
Google's reexamination requests against two Lodsys patents don't stand on their own
Discussion: The Next Web
Nick Pinto / Runnin' Scared:
Your Phone Numbers and Facebook: What You Should Actually Worry About  —  ​If you're on Facebook, you've likely seen the panicky message that's been circulating, warning that the social networking behemoth has started publishing all your phone contacts for everybody to see:
Discussion: The Huffington Post
RELATED:
Josh Ong / AppleInsider:
City of Cupertino posts further details, renders of Apple mega-campus  —  The City of Cupertino has revealed more details and renderings regarding Apple's plans to build a 2.8 million square-foot spaceship-like circular office building in the city.  —  The city is currently in the midst of its review process of Apple's plans.
Jason Cross / PC World:
Windows Laptop Makers Can't Catch Up to the MacBook Air  —  The PC world is buzzing lately about how laptop manufacturers are struggling to compete with Apple's MacBook Air, which has exploded in popularity since the introduction of the third-gen model in 2010.
Discussion: ZDNet
Thomas Hawk / Thomas Hawk Digital Connection:
Flickr is Dead  —  Poll:  —  Which one of these two albums looks better?  —  Flickr (the same view since 2004)  —  or  —  Google+ (with added infinite scrolling this week)  —  You know what?  It doesn't matter.  It's totally irrelevant.  The Google one looks far better, but that's so beside the point at this point.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Dropbox Chooses Investor Group, Valuation Set at $5+ Billion  —  We've been tracking the twists and turns of the Dropbox mega funding round feeding frenzy for over a month now.  In July Sarah Lacy wrote that they'd be raising $200 million to $300 million at a $5 billion or higher valuation.
Discussion: The Business Insider
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Mozilla Brings The Sign In Button To The Browser Level  —  If you're on a website that uses accounts, the sign in button can be anywhere.  Sure, there are some common best practices, but I can think of dozens of sites that put them all over the place.  Mozilla is looking to fix that, by bringing the sign in to the browser level.
Discussion: Identity at Mozilla
Rich Jaroslovsky / Bloomberg:
Hacker Mitnick Duped Corporate Cyber-Cops, Cracked Wiretaps  —  Genius comes in many forms.  Kevin Mitnick has at least two, neither particularly admirable.  —  As he portrays himself in “Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker,” Mitnick possesses a rare ability to penetrate sophisticated computer systems.
Meghan Kelly / VentureBeat:
Roku grabs $8M, weeks after releasing Roku 2  —  Roku, a device that streams web content to televisions, has collected $8 million in funding, according to a form D filed with the SEC today.  Roku confirmed the round and its lead investors Globespan Capital Partners and Menlo Ventures.
Discussion: GigaOM
Matt McGee / Search Engine Land:
Google+ Public Posts Coming To Google's Social Search Results  —  Google has added another source to its social search results: public posts from Google Plus.  —  Social search has been adding annotations to search results when content from your social connections (not to be confused …
Discussion: Google+
RELATED:
Eva Galperin / Electronic Frontier Foundation:
BART Pulls a Mubarak in San Francisco  —  This week, EFF has seen censorship stories move closer and closer to home — first Iran, then the UK, and now San Francisco, an early locus of the modern free speech movement.  Operators of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART) …
RELATED:
Eve Batey / SF Appeal:
BART Defends Decision To Cut Off Cell Service After Civil Rights, FCC Concerns Raised
Christopher Williams / Telegraph:
UK riots: teenager charged with BlackBerry incitement  —  A teenager from Essex has been charged with using the instant messaging service BlackBerry Messenger to encourage others to take part in riots.  —  The 18-year-old, from Clacton, was accused of intentionally encouraging or assisting …
Jennifer Van Grove / Mashable!:
Jonathan's Card: Starbucks Shuts Down Social Experiment Over Fraud Concerns  —  Jonathan Stark's community-giving Starbucks Card is no more.  At 7 p.m. PT Friday, Starbucks reluctantly pulled the plug on Stark's pay-it-forward social experiment following allegations of fraud or misuse.
 
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 More Items: 
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Patent Holders Trying To Drag 3rd Parties Into Patent Disputes
 Earlier Items: 
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google Videos Brings Movie Rentals to Android Phones
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Alex Sherman / CNBC:
Analyzing Comcast's spinoff of cable networks, purposefully structured with low debt: the move might be a signal to the industry that it's time to consolidate

Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:
James Harding says the Tortoise-Observer deal could create a profitable media group and there isn't a guaranteed future for the Observer with the Guardian

John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Substack, very deliberately, tries to have it both ways by saying publications on their platform are independent while presenting them all as parts of Substack

 
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