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8:50 PM ET, August 16, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Donald Melanson / Engadget:
Why is LTE equipment being installed in an Apple Store?  —  Well, this is certainly interesting.  While rumors of an LTE-enabled iPhone had died down for a little while, they sprung back to life yesterday with a report that just such a device was being tested by carriers.
RELATED:
Nicholas Kolakowski / eWeek:
ATandT Planning First LTE Devices For Aug. 21 Debut
Discussion: BGR
Eric Savitz / The Tech Trade:
Google: S&P Cuts Rating To Sell From Buy; Sees Risks In Deal  —  Citing concerns about about Google's plan to spend $12.5 billion to buy Motorola Mobility, Standard & Poor's analyst Scott Kessler today cut his rating on the search engine's stock to Sell from Buy, slashing his price target on the stock to $500, from $700.
RELATED:
Andrew Ross Sorkin / DealBook:
Is Google Turning Into a Mobile Phone Company?  No, It Says  —  Back in 2004, Eric E. Schmidt, then Google's chief executive, proclaimed, “We're not going into the phone business, but we're going to make sure Google is on those phones.”  —  Less than a year later, however, Google did the opposite.
Frank X. Shaw / @fxshaw:
funny! RT @billcox: Google is about algorithms. Why not apply it to PR? Behold, the Android Press Release Generator: http://t.co/mctb8K0
Discussion: Daring Fireball and @m4tt
Olga Kharif / Bloomberg:
RIM Left in 'No Man's Land' By Google Deal
Discussion: Wall Street Journal
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Apple currently plans to start pre-orders for next iPhone on Sept. 30, launch Oct. 7  —  We've independently heard that Apple has plans to begin selling the next-generation iPhone on Friday, October 7th; the date first reported by TiPB.  According to our sources, Apple has been weighing between launching …
JP Mangalindan / Fortune:
Facebook: Google+ has no users  —  Facebook executives have choice words for Google's efforts to bring casual games to its fledgling social network.  —  FORTUNE — A little less than two months after Google launched its fledgling social network, Google+, Silicon Valley's latest rivalry is heating up.
RELATED:
Josh Lowensohn / CNET News:
Google, Facebook spar over Google+ invite issue  —  The link that some Google+ users were reportedly unable to see.  —  A purported mishandling of Google+ invite links that keeps them from surfacing on Facebook user news feeds has resulted in a “he said, she said” match between the two companies.
Discussion: Forbes.com and SlashGear
John Martellaro / The Mac Observer:
Calculating the Size of Apple's Spaceship HQ  —  TMO TALK (25)  —  New architectural information has been released about Apple's proposed, so-called spaceship headquarters in Cupertino.  There are lots of things to know about it, but one interesting fact is the diameter.
Reuters:
Taiwan's HTC sues Apple over patents  —  (Reuters) - Smartphone maker HTC Corp sued Apple Inc, claiming infringement of three patents through Apple's sale of Macintosh computers, iPads, iPods, iPhones and other devices.  —  The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware seeks …
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Fox Starts Its Web Pullback, and ABC Gets Ready to Follow  —  Fox has formally kicked off the The Great Free TV Web Pullback of 2011.  Now get ready for ABC to do the same.  —  Yesterday Fox followed through with its previously announced plans to keep its new shows off the Web for eight days …
Daniel Rocha / Inside Search:
The evolution of sitelinks: expanded and improved  —  (Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog)  —  When you're searching, you often have a specific task in mind, like figuring out which exhibits are showing at a nearby museum.  Despite this narrow goal, people often start with a broad query …
Josh Lowensohn / Crave: The gadget blog:
Starbucks serves up free iPhone apps  —  Starbucks is now serving up paid applications for free as part of its “Pick of the Week” program.  —  The next time you go into a Starbucks for a drink or snack, you could end up walking out with a free iPhone app too.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:
A peek at Steve Jobs' book jacket - front, back and spine  —  The look of Walter Isaacson's bio will be as spare and restrained as any Apple product  —  Click to enlarge.  Copyright Simon & Schuster … He's talking, of course, about Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson, the first book …
Discussion: Gizmodo, Gizmodo Australia and DailyTech, Thanks:philiped
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Apple releases $69 OS X Lion thumb drive, ships in 1-3 business days  —  As expected, Apple has released OS X Lion on a USB thumb drive via their online store.  The $69 thumb drive ships in 1-3 business days and requires 7GB of available storage space.  One caveat for users that install OS X Lion via …
RELATED:
Harry McCracken / Time:
Techmeme  —  Want to know what's new in the world of tech?  You could visit one of the big news sites or blogs.  Or you could go right to the site that reporters and bloggers check obsessively throughout the day.  Gabe Rivera's Techmeme pulls together articles from around the Web …
Emil Protalinski / Friending Facebook Blog:
Yahoo, Facebook test “six degrees of separation” idea  —  Summary: Yahoo and Facebook have teamed up to figure out whether the “six degrees of separation” idea is valid or not.  —  Yahoo has partnered with Facebook to test the iconic social experiment known as “six degrees of separation” …
Discussion: Mercury News
Todd Yellin / Netflix Blog:
Netflix Launches “Just for Kids”  —  Watch kids watch a movie or TV show.  Notice how they differ from adults.  First, kids love to watch the same thing over and over again.  More importantly, kids identify with shows more by the characters than by the title.  —  Todd Yellin here.
Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:
Galaxy Tab 10.1 injunction suspended for all EU countries except Germany  —  Dutch website Webwereld, which also raised issues yesterday concerning pictures of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 presented by Apple to the Düsseldorf court, was first to break the news that the Landgericht (district court) …
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
AWS Launches GovCloud, A Secure Region For U.S. Government Agencies And Contractors  —  Many government agencies have been slower to adopt the cloud because of the specific regulatory requirements, compliance issues and security regulations.  To mitigate this, Amazon Web Services is launching AWS GovCloud …
Frederic Lardinois / SiliconFilter:
Mozilla Officially Launches Firefox 6  —  Mozilla today officially launched Firefox 6, the latest stable version of its popular browser.  Since its switch to a more frequent release schedule, Mozilla has already pushed out a number of releases, so version numbers themselves …
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Live From 500 Startups Demo Day: McClure's Second Batch Of Startups, Unleashed  —  We're in Mountain View at Dave McClure's 500 Startups HQ where the second ever 500 Startups Demo Day is about to start.  Today 31 startups will present to press and investors here in McClure's bright …
Christian Torres / Washington Post:
More drug companies close Facebook pages as Walls open  —  As Facebook gradually opened pharmaceutical industry pages to public commenting this week, some companies said they had not yet seen troublesome comments, while others continued to move offline to avoid potential risks.
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb and Gizmodo
Kinnari Jhaveri / The Official Google Blog:
Shop your favorite catalogs with Google Catalogs  —  (Cross-posted on the Commerce and Mobile blogs)  —  For years, shoppers have enjoyed flipping through glossy print catalogs to be inspired, discover new trends and find great products.  Today, mobile technologies can make catalog shopping more engaging, social and creative.
Courtney Boyd Myers / The Next Web:
New IRS rules require PayPal to report sales information  —  Due to new IRS rules, PayPal has started asking users to provide their tax ID number, which is either your Social Security number, Individual Tax Identification Number or your Employer Identification Number.
Gary Price / Search Engine Land:
New: “Google Related” Toolbar Shows Google Content As You Surf  —  Google has just released a new info discovery tool named Google Related that allows users to find and access content that's similar to what they're viewing in their web browser.  —  Before the brief overview below …
 
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 More Items: 
Edmund Lee / AdAge:
What's the Most Popular Channel on YouTube?
Discussion: The Business Insider
Matthew Lynley / VentureBeat:
Updated: Cloud storage provider Box.net raising $35M at $550M valuation
Jenna Wortham / Bits:
Skillshare Raises $3.1 Million to Turn Everyone Into Teachers
Discussion: Betabeat
John P. Mello Jr / Computerworld:
XXX Pricing Set, Businesses Claim Domain Extortion
Michael Stroh / The Windows Blog:
New Xbox LIVE features, games on the way for Windows Phone
 Earlier Items: 
Joshua Topolsky / This is my next:
BlackBerry Bold 9930 review
Discussion: AllThingsD, Engadget and Fonehome
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Audio Magazine Shuffler.fm Gets Big Update, Gives Us Sneak Peek at iPad App
Discussion: Guardian
Kashmir Hill / The Not-So Private Parts:
Facebook Offers Court ‘Smoking Gun’ Against Paul Ceglia
Tricia Duryee / AllThingsD:
BuyWithMe Scoops Up New York City's Scoop St.
Discussion: TechCrunch and Betabeat
 

 
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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