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4:00 PM ET, January 29, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Google's Newspaper Ads: Big Hopes For Small Barcodes (GOOG)  —  Google's efforts to get into the newspaper ad business have yet to yield much.  One tool it hopes will eventually change that: Small, square barcodes, like the one at the right, at the bottom of print ads.
RELATED:
Adam Ostrow / Mashable!:   Interactive Barcodes in Newspaper Ads: The Next Frontier for Google?
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
U2 Manager Says Google And Its Hippie Friends Should Pay The Recording Industry  —  from the still-haven't-found-what-i'm-looking- for... dept  —  While the IFPI and the RIAA have been actively pushing for ISP liability for file sharing, it appears some in the industry are taking it even further.
RELATED:
Ben Fenton / Financial Times:
U2 manager urges ISPs to help fight web piracy  —  The music industry should shift the focus of its battle with internet piracy towards the technological industries which have “built multibillion dollar industries on the back of our content without paying for it”, according to Paul McGuinness, manager of rock group U2.
Guardian:
Silicon Valley's hippy values ‘killing music industry’
Discussion: Mashable!
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Our Tech President Endorsements: Barack Obama and John McCain  —  It's sadly clear that our current leaders have little understanding of technology and why it's important to our economy and culture.  That has to change.  —  We've been interviewing 2008 presidential candidates for the last few months …
RELATED:
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:   YouTube + Digg + Obama = YouBama
barracudanetworks.com:
Legal Defense of Free and Open Source Software  —  The purpose of this Web page is to inform the community of Barracuda Networks' plans to defend itself and the free and open source software (FOSS) community from a patent threat by Trend Micro.  In addition, we wanted to share …
RELATED:
Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:
Barracuda defends open-source antivirus from patent attack
Discussion: InfoWorld
Aude Lagorce / MarketWatch:
Motorola may exit its handset business: analyst  —  LONDON (MarketWatch) — There is a possibility that Motorola, Inc. (MOT:, , ) may exit the handset business and concentrate on becoming an enterprise and government company, Richard Windsor, an analyst with Nomura International, told clients a in note published on Tuesday.
RELATED:
Electronista:
Motorola pondering exiting the cell business?  —  Motorola may be looking to fold its cellphone business after years of struggling to restore the business to profit, says an investor note from Nomura analyst Richard Windsor.  After a damaging quarter that saw Motorola's cellphone sales suffer …
Electronista:
EU: Telcos can withhold downloaders' identities  —  As a pan-European policy, telecom companies have no obligation to hand over the personal information of those accused of illegal downloading, the European Court of Justice has ruled.  The decision is a response to a Spanish court …
RELATED:
Aoife White / Associated Press:   EU court: Downloaders can stay private
Kip Kniskern / LiveSide:
Wall Street Journal signs up with Microsoft for Contextual and Paid Search advertising  —  Microsoft will become the exclusive third-party ad provider for the Wall Street Journal network of sites, including The Wall Street Journal Online, Barrons.com, MarketWatch.com, AllThingsD.com and others.
Ed Bott / Ed Bott's Microsoft Report:
Windows 7 = Vista Release 2  —  All the kerfuffle over Windows 7 - leaked memos, shaky handheld video clips of leaked builds, equally shaky tentative release schedules - is amusing.  I don't have any inside information to offer, only a perspective drawn from 17 years of watching the Windows development process in action.
Sam / a gthing science project:
The True Cost of SMS Messages  —  I just found out that AT&T (A-fee&fee?) is raising their text message pricing.  When I first signed up for AT&T 6 or so years ago it cost 10 cents to send an SMS message, and it was free to receive them.  —  When AT&T switched to Cingular the price of sending …
John Graham-Cumming:
How many users does Digg have?  —  According to my calculations: around 2.7m registered users.  —  I obtained this number by finding random Digg users and extracting their user id.  The user id is in a hidden HTML form input field on each Digg user's page.  The Digg user page also gives their date of registration.
Discussion: The Next Web
RELATED:
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Digg Nearly Triples Registered Users In a Year, Says Sleuth Programmer
Discussion: PDA
Matt Cutts / Gadgets, Google, and SEO:
11 Power Tips for Gmail  —  Wow, I can't believe how many people commented on my late-Friday night post about desired features for Gmail.  If you want to suggest something for Gmail, that thread is the better place to do it.  But looking through the comments, I saw a few requests that can already be done today.
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
VMware Down 30% As Growth Disappoints; Now What?  —  VMware (VMW) shares have plunged more than 30% today following the company's announcement late yesterday of both a $5 million revenue shortfall compared with Street expectations in the fourth quarter and a 2008 growth projection that left the Street wanting more.
Wall Street Journal:
Sprint Revives Clearwire Talks  —  Sprint Nextel has revived serious discussions with startup Clearwire to form a joint venture that would bring in funding from the likes of Intel, Google and Best Buy to build a high-speed wireless network using WiMax technology.
Brad Stone / Bits:
Slashdot Founder Questions Crowd's Wisdom  —  One of the oldest rivals to the community news site Digg is pointing to recent unrest at the site as evidence that the social news model is flawed.  —  Last week, frequent users of Digg protested changes in its algorithms that were designed …
BBC:
Quarter of US iPhones ‘unlocked’  —  More than a quarter of iPhones sold in the US have been “unlocked” to work on network providers other than Apple's exclusive partner AT&T, a study says.  —  One million iPhones, or 27% of those sold last year, have been adapted to work on other networks …
 
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 More Items: 
Symbian Smart Phones World:
Video: ShakeSMS Video Demonstration
Peter Ha / CrunchGear:
Continental announces in-flight Wi-Fi
Schneier on Security:
Security vs. Privacy
Discussion: Techdirt
Kenneth C. Green / Inside Higher Ed:
The Movie Industry's 300% Error
Discussion: p2pnet
Futuremark:
Futuremark Announces the Futuremark Games Studio
Emily Price / Download Squad:
Destroy the web with NetDisaster - Today's Time Waster
Discussion: Webware.com
Business Wire:
ShoZu Raises $12 Million in Series C Funding; Round Led by New …
Inside CRM:
50 Social Sites That Every Business Needs a Presence on
Discussion: ResourceShelf
 Earlier Items: 
CNN:
Apple gains in premarket; Piper Jaffray reiterates buy, $250 price target
Discussion: Macsimum News
Steve Williams / Digg the Blog:
Digg Joins the DataPortability Project
Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:
Firefox share up over 20% in Europe, mostly at expense of IE
Discussion: TechSpot News and IT Facts
Juan Carlos Perez / IDG News Service:
EBay Plans Lower Fees, Tighter Seller Standards
Brian Prince / eWeek:
More Database Vendors Enter the Cloud
Discussion: GigaOM and CNET News.com
Brent Csutoras / Search Engine Land:
How To Create Compelling Social Media Profiles
Daniel Shen / DigiTimes:
HTC share of Windows Mobile smartphone segment declining
Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
Rapidshare To Be Forced to Shut Down Following Court Defeat?
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Ruth La Ferla / New York Times:
Graydon Carter opens a physical store called Air Mail Newsstand in NYC, as an extension of his digital newsletter Air Mail, selling books, magazines, and more

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Filing: Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav's 2023 compensation package was worth $49.7M, up 26.5% from the year prior, with $23.1M in stock awards

Andrew Beaujon / Washingtonian:
Interviews with over a dozen current and former WAMU staffers and contractors show management's contradictory, unclear messaging about its closure of DCist

 
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