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12:40 PM ET, November 18, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Alex Wilhelm / The Next Web:
Which tech companies back SOPA?  Microsoft, Apple, and 27 others  —  After writing a rather lengthy and somewhat firey post on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) yesterday, I realized this morning that I didn't know Microsoft's position on the matter.  As I edit our Microsoft channel …
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Peter Voskamp / The Wrap:
Online Piracy Act Dead?  Nancy Pelosi, Darrell Issa Both Come Out Against (Updated)  —  The tide seems to have turned against the Stop Online Piracy Act, as both Nancy Pelosi and Darrell Issa have come out against passage.  —  “Need to find a better solution than #SOPA #DontBreakTheInternet …
Marco Arment / Marco.org:
A human review of the Kindle Fire  —  I expected the Kindle Fire to be good for books, great for magazines and newspapers, great for video, and good for apps and games.  —  In practice, it's none of these.  Granted, I've only spent two days with it, so I can't share any long-term impressions.
Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:
TechCrunch CEO Reported Out After Clashing with HuffPost-ers  —  The resignations keep coming at AOL.  The latest to give notice, according to Business Insider, is TechCrunch CEO Heather Harde.  Harde, a former News Corp. executive who joined TechCrunch five years ago …
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Matt McGee / Search Engine Land:
Wolfram Alpha Offers New Twist On Flight Search: Literal Answers To What Planes Are Overhead  —  You may not love this as much as I do, but that's okay.  Wolfram Alpha has just launched what I'd have to put on any year-end list of the coolest search technologies of 2011: a tool that tells you …
Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:
Motorola fairly likely to win German patent injunction against iCloud in February — Apple demands 2 billion euro ($2.7B) bail  —  The German city of Mannheim is slowly but surely giving Cupertino some serious headache.  —  After a default judgment against Apple Inc. over two patents …
Discussion: Business Insider and SlashGear
The SF Egotist:
The end of an era: The Yahoo! billboard comes down.  —  It's been a San Francisco icon for more than a decade.  It's graced our skyline through the dot.com boom and bust.  And it's one of the most recognizable pieces of advertising the city has seen in a long time.
David Sarno / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Google+ continues battle with fading user interest, data say  —  One of technology's big unresolved dramas is whether Google can still cut into the giant social networking lead now held by rival Facebook — or if its Google+ service is already sunk.  —  Data on the subject have been sparse …
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AppleInsider:
Apple reportedly prepped AMD-powered MacBook Air, dropped it at last minute  —  Apple is said to have developed a MacBook Air running Advanced Micro Devices' Fusion Llano processor last spring, but scrapped it at the last minute because of production issues, according to an unverified report.
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Personal Is A Secure Vault For All Of Your Private, Digital Data  —  We wrote about stealthy startup Personal earlier this year when the company announced $7.6 million in funding from Steve Case's Revolution LLC, Allen&Company, and others.  This week, Personal finally launched its service …
Discussion: Mashable!, Babbage and Teds Take
Royal Pingdom:
Apple's iPad owns 88% of global tablet web traffic  —  There should be no doubt in anyone's mind that Apple's iPad is the biggest seller in the tablet space, but we have seen many iPad competitors come out over recent months, including Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Blackberry PlayBook, Amazon Kindle Fire, and many more.
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Nathan Pensky / VatorNews:
Dell, HP, and Acer scaling back tablet manufacturing
Nicholas Carlson / Business Insider:
Facebook Employees Go Nuts As Zuckerberg Tells Them The IPO Is Coming  —  A source close to Facebook employees emailed us yesterday to say that the rumor flitting from employee to employee is that “a Facebook S1 filing is coming really soon.  Possibly as soon as next month.”
Terrence O'Brien / Engadget:
BlackBerry Playbook gets massive, temporary $300 price cut in Canada  —  So, PlayBooks haven't exactly been flying off the shelves... anywhere.  Not even in RIM's native Canada.  But that might actually change over the nex few days as BestBuy, Walmart, Staples and Future Shop have chopped $300 off the price of the QNX-based slate.
Discussion: AllThingsD, Techland and Softpedia News
David Goldman / Edible Apple:
Apple asks to see Samsung's call center records  —  By David Goldman:  —  Samsung and Apple are currently in the pre-trial phase of litigation known as Discovery.  During the discovery process, each side asks the other for documents and other materials it feels will help its case.
Christian Zibreg / 9to5Google:
Google patents Android pattern unlock  —  One of the treats that immediately set apart the first version of Android from Apple's iOS software (besides the notification center invoked with a pulldown gesture) is the pattern unlock feature on the lock screen.  Whereas Apple opted for a slide gesture …
Arik Hesseldahl / AllThingsD:
Kindle Fire Costs About $203 to Build, Teardown Finds  —  Amazon.com's Kindle Fire tablet appears to cost about as much to make as it sells for — maybe a little more.  That's about $202, according to a teardown analysis by IHS iSuppli.  —  This essentially confirms what everyone has suspected …
David Kaplan / paidContent:
Major Newspaper Publishers Band Together On Social Shopping Portal  —  A group of eight newspaper publishers—Advance Digital, A. H. Belo Corporation, Cox Media Group, Gannett (NYSE: GCI), Hearst, MediaNews Group, The McClatchy Company (NYSE: MNI), and The Washington Post Co. (NYSE: WPO) …
David Pogue / Pogue's Posts:
Nook's Specs Are Exaggerated, Again  —  I had a lot of fun reviewing Amazon's new Kindles in my Times column this week.  (Yes, I had a Times column this week — it's just that it appeared on Monday, a few days earlier than its usual Thursday spot, thanks to Amazon's release schedule.)
Discussion: Hack Education
Motorola Mobility Media Center:
Motorola Mobility Stockholders Approve Merger with Google  —  Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: MMI) ("Motorola Mobility") today announced that at the Company's Special Meeting of Stockholders held today, stockholders voted overwhelmingly to approve the proposed merger with Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) ("Google").
Michael Kan / PC World:
US Committee to Investigate China's Huawei, ZTE  —  A U.S. House Intelligence Committee is launching an investigation against Chinese telecommunication equipment suppliers Huawei and ZTE to find whether the companies pose a security threat to the country.  —  The investigation will examine …
Joshua Topolsky / The Verge:
Galaxy Nexus review  —  We review the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and Google Android Ice Cream Sandwich... finally!  To say I've been eagerly awaiting a chance to review the Galaxy Nexus would be an understatement.  As I mentioned last week, I've been thinking pretty seriously that this device would be the next phone I lay out cold cash for.
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 More Items: 
AJ Glasser / Inside Facebook:
Facebook Updates Credits Payflow, Adds International Payment Methods, and Updates Transfer Policy
Emil Protalinski / Friending Facebook Blog:
48% of job seekers have used Facebook to look for work
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
3D Printing Startup Shapeways Raises $5.1 Million, Plans NYC Production Facility
Discussion: Shapeways Blog and Betabeat
Adrianne Jeffries / Betabeat:
Poaching Etiquette: As Talent Tightens, New York Startups Try to Stay Civil
 Earlier Items: 
Zachary Lutz / Engadget:
SIM-based NFC gains global support from 45 mobile carriers, all huddled around GSMA's standard
Discussion: Electronista
Reuters:
Exclusive: Lax security at Nasdaq helped hackers
Discussion: SecurityWeek and Inquirer
Tom Loftus / Digits:
Would-Be iPhone Customers Still Facing Weeks-Long Waits