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5:50 PM ET, September 16, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Twitter Shakes Things Up Again: Fred Wilson, Bijan Sabet Leaving Board  —  Twitter's is reshaping itself yet again, this time at a corporate level: Investors Fred Wilson and Bijan Sabet are leaving the company's board at the end of the month.  Sources say the company won't fill their seats.
RELATED:
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Twitter Loses Its Chief Scientist, Summize Co-Founder Abdur Chowdhury  —  The turnover continues at Twitter.  Following the exit of Biz Stone, the firing of four key product guys, and the departure of a number of early Twitter employees, we've learned that another big name has left the company: Chief Scientist Abdur Chowdhury.
Matt Asay / The Register:
Google shamed by Apple in race to HTML5  —  Now that's embarrassing  —  Open...and Shut If ever there were a company made to beat Apple in mobile, it's Google.  —  Apple, with its rigid devotion to a native app experience, is the perfect target for Google, king of the web.
RELATED:
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Forget Apps, Carbyn Has Built A HTML5 OS  —  HTML5, HTML5, HTML5 — it seems to be the only thing anyone wants to talk about these days.  And that excitement could get kicked into overdrive next week when Facebook unveils Project Spartan, their platform for HTML5 apps.  But why wait?
Josh Lowensohn / CNET News:
Mac App Store tweak aims to curb accidental buys
Mike Elgan / Datamation:
Why Facebook is the New Yahoo  —  Facebook's awkward attempts to copy Google+ smack of a quiet desperation.  —  Sure, Facebook looks massively successful.  With a mind-boggling 750 million users, the social site can do no wrong, right?  —  Wrong.  —  Look closer, and it looks like Facebook can do nothing right.
Arnold Kim / MacRumors:
Apple Working on Allowing the Merging of Multiple Apple IDs  —  MacRumors has learned that Apple is working on a process to merge multiple Apple IDs into a single login.  The issue of juggling multiple Apple ID logins has been a minor inconvenience in the past, but with the early developer testing …
Zach Epstein / BGR:
BlackBerry PlayBook price slashing begins: $249 and up for Rogers workers  —  Research In Motion co-CEO Jim Balsillie revealed on the company's second-quarter earnings call that RIM would soon be dropping prices on its BlackBerry PlayBook tablets.  While the new price points have not yet been disclosed …
Roberto Baldwin / Gizmodo:
Belkin's Got a Crazy Half-Off-Everything Sale Today (Updated)  —  Networking and accessories vendor Belkin is about to make your Friday spendtastic.  [Today only,] Through September 30, you can get 50% off everything at Belkin.com with no minimum purchase.  Just use coupon code “FB50” when you check out and you're set.
Ouriel / Appsfire Blog:
1 million apps!  (iOS + Android)  —  There you go.  We just hit the a significant milestone.  If you take all the apps ever developed on iOS and Android we just reached today 1 million mobile apps combined, or at least, that's what our appGenome™ is telling us.
Dan Frommer / SplatF:
The creative naming habits of big web portals  —  Google is working on a Flipboard clone called “Propeller.”  This is yet another example of a product from one of the big web portals having the same name as a product from another big web portal.  —  Kind of a surprise, given how creatively named …
RELATED:
Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:
It's Called Google Propeller and It's Aimed at Flipboard (and Facebook, Too, Natch)
Diane Bartz / Reuters:
Seven states join effort to stop AT&T/T-Mobile deal  —  (Reuters) - Seven states have joined the U.S. Justice Department's lawsuit to stop AT&T's proposed purchase of T-Mobile USA, the Justice Department said on Friday.  —  Attorneys general from California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York …
Grant Gross / PC World:
Obama Signs Patent Overhaul Legislation  —  U.S. President Barack Obama has signed the America Invents Act, the first major overhaul of the U.S. patent system in about 50 years.  —  The America Invents Act, passed 89-9 by the U.S. Senate last week, would allow new challenges to patents granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Jon Mitchell / ReadWriteWeb:
New Chrome Blurs The Line Between Web and Native Apps  —  Google just shipped a new stable release of the Chrome browser that includes two new technologies: Native Client, which allows execution of C and C++ code within the browser, and the Web Audio API, which brings advanced audio capabilities to JavaScript.
Nicholas Carlson / Business Insider:
Microsoft Source: We're Talking About Buying Yahoo  —  As big shareholders flee AOL and Yahoo's board flounders, consolidation is “definitely” in the air, a source close to Microsoft's portal, MSN, tells us.  —  “Definitely, people are talking about it.”  —  This source - who asked …
Discussion: Computerworld, Bloomberg and SlashGear
Orin S. Kerr / Wall Street Journal:
Should Faking a Name on Facebook Be a Felony?  —  Congress contemplates draconian punishment for Internet lies.  —  Imagine that President Obama could order the arrest of anyone who broke a promise on the Internet.  So you could be jailed for lying about your age or weight on an Internet dating site.
Susan Decker / Bloomberg:
Samsung Claims Apple IPad, IPhone Infringe Australian Patents  —  Sept. 16 (Bloomberg) — Samsung Electronics Co. accused Apple Inc. of patent infringement in Australia, adding to multiple lawsuits across at least four continents involving the two companies' dispute over smartphone technology.
Frederic Lardinois / SiliconFilter:
Even Google is Tired of Needlessly Paginated Content  —  Google just announced that it will now do its best to lead searchers directly to the single-page version of the online content it indexes instead of the paginated versions of the same content.  Whenever an obvious “view-all” …
Aayush Arya / The Next Web:
Internet users to triple in India by 2014: Google  —  According to Rajan Anandan, Google's country head in India, the country currently has about 100 million Internet users, and the number will increase to 300 million by 2014, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Joseph Volpe / Engadget:
MasterCard demos Google Wallet, QkR platform for mobile payments  —  You've most likely heard plenty about NFC-capable smartphones, but little in the way of actual real-world uses for the chip.  Well, MasterCard's looking to change all of that, and throw in a few innovations of its own courtesy of its in-house R&D labs and Google.
Chloe Albanesius / PC Magazine:
Latest iPhone 5 Rumors: Oct. 15 Launch?  Sprint?  Leaked Cases?  —  We've gone another week without an announcement from Apple about its next-gen iPhone, but that hasn't stopped the rumor mill.  Will Sprint get the iPhone?  Did a case maker just leak iPhone 5 specs?
RELATED:
Nick Bilton / Bits:
Plenty of Chatter About a New iPhone
Bertrand Damiba / Google Mobile Blog:
Introducing Voice Actions for Android in the UK, France, Italy, Germany and Spain  —  Last year in the US, we introduced Voice Actions, a series of spoken commands that let you control your Android phone or tablet with your voice.  You can call businesses and contacts, send texts …
Mike Hirshland / VCMike's Blog:
My Next Chapter  —  Effective today, I will be leaving Polaris Venture Partners, and setting out to launch a new seed firm.  —  While I am excited by the prospect of building something new, it is difficult to leave the partnership I have been part of for 12 years.
Jefferson Graham / USA Today:
Facebook wants to be big among small businesses  —  At Google, Sandberg served as vice president of global online sales and operations in a role that helped build the company's money-gushing search-advertising business.  —  Now, the chief operating officer at the world's largest social network wants the same for Facebook.
 
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 More Items: 
Danny Winokur / Adobe Flash Platform Blog:
Flash Support on Windows 8 and Metro
Discussion: Engadget, eWeek, SlashGear and OpsanBlog, Thanks:sjespers
Ian Chan / Twitter Developers:
SSL Support for Tweet Button and Follow Button
Discussion: The Next Web
Josh Constine / Inside Facebook:
Facebook Locks the Top Navigation Bar in Place as Users Scroll
Wall Street Journal:
Senior China Officials Meet With Baidu Chief
Discussion: DigiCha
Joel Spolsky / Joel on Software:
Should you launch at a conference?
Discussion: Holler @ and Global Neighbourhoods
Royal Pingdom:
Microsoft's web server is losing ground: IIS market share back to 1997 levels
Discussion: Ars Technica and SC Magazine US, Thanks:pingdom
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
EU probing Google on Internet search
 Earlier Items: 
Kim Zetter / Threat Level:
Hacker Ring Appears to Make Good on Promise to Expose Celebrities
Felix Salmon:
Can Netflix still win when cable TV loses?
Mark Surman / The Mozilla Blog:
Mozilla Launches Open Badges Project
Discussion: Hack Education and Softpedia News, Thanks:arpitnext
Ina Fried / AllThingsD:
Apple, Starbucks Expanding iTunes Giveaways to Include Apps, Books and TV Shows
Chris Brandrick / PC World:
Windows 8 Gets Sad New Blue Screen of Death
Discussion: The Register and rand($thoughts);
 

 
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

Charlie Savage / New York Times:
Trump says Republicans must kill the PRESS Act, which would protect journalists' records and sources from the US government; the bill is stalled in the Senate

 
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