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12:00 PM ET, March 21, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Paul Miller / Engadget:
Sony hates you, offers $50 “Fresh Start” option to build your laptop crapware-free  —  Sony has quite the history of crippling excellent, beautiful hardware with horrible, useless software.  The company's UX UMPC bluescreened on us the first time we turned it on, and crashed the first time we tried …
Farhad Manjoo / Salon:
The Wall Street Journal's Web site is already (secretly) free  —  Late in January, Rupert Murdoch put an end to speculation that he would set free the Wall Street Journal's subscription-only Web site.  —  While he planned to “expand” the site's free offerings, “the really special things …
Katie Marsal / AppleInsider:
Apple pushing Safari downloads on Windows users  —  In an apparent bid to rapidly gain share of the online browser market dominated by rival Microsoft, Apple is leveraging its vast iTunes install base to recommend that Windows users also download and install the latest version of its Safari web browser.
RELATED:
Mike Schramm / The Unofficial Apple Weblog:
Is Apple pushing Safari 3.1 on Windows users?  —  If you run iTunes or QuickTime on your Windows PC, but not Safari, you might have seen an uninvited guest show up in the Apple Software Update earlier this week.  Yes, Apple thinks you need yet another browser.
Discussion: Apple Gazette
Ryan / CyberNet:   Apple Pushes Safari “Update” on Windows
Mark Hendrickson / TechCrunch:
LinkedIn, Now For Companies  —  LinkedIn, the boring social network that won't find you a date but may land you a job, is expanding beyond people profiles.  —  On Friday morning they will launch company profile pages that partly serve as fact sheets for about 160,000 companies and partly serve …
RELATED:
Danis Dayanov / The LinkedIn Blog:
The Engineering component |  LinkedIn Company Profiles  —  Over the course of the last years there were several important features that we've brought to you.  The past few months in particular has seen the rapid deployment of features such as these: Profile photos, Redesigned Homepage …
Discussion: Contentinople and Web Strategy
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
LinkedIn's business directory goes live
Discussion: The Social Times and Coop's Corner
Maisy Samuelson / The LinkedIn Blog:
Now Companies too have profiles on LinkedIn!
Caroline McCarthy / CNET News.com:
Gibson turns volume up to 11 with new ‘Guitar Hero’ lawsuit  —  Legendary guitar manufacturer Gibson Guitar has sued six major retailers—Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target, Amazon.com, Gamestop, and Toys-R-Us—for selling Activision's Guitar Hero video game series, MarketWatch reported Friday.
Discussion: Gearlog, Engadget, Geek Gestalt and Kotaku
RELATED:
Associated Press:
Gibson Guitar sues retailers over ‘Guitar Hero’ game
Discussion: CrunchGear
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Breaking: FCC Confirms that Big Winner in Spectrum Auction is Verizon.  So Why Is Google Smiling?  —  The big winner of the FCC's $19.6 billion auction of wireless spectrum that ended yesterday is Verizon.  That was pretty much everyone's guess.  —  At a press conference today …
RELATED:
Michael Liedtke / Associated Press:   Losing wireless battle may be Google win
Stefanie Olsen / CNET News.com:
Q&A: Battelle talks blog roll-ups, Google, and Federated Media's future  —  John Battelle knows tech booms and busts.  He's been at the forefront of them for nearly two decades.  —  In 1993, he co-founded Wired, a print magazine that set a standard in technology coverage and spawned popular sites …
Nivi / Venture Hacks:
Getting Recommended … On April 1st, we started publishing the best damn term sheet hacks we could find.  Why?  Because a lot of entrepreneurs ask the same question: … We're trying to make everything we've learned—from other entrepreneurs, investors, and lawyers—readily available.
Discussion: HipMojo.com and VentureBeat
RELATED:
Mark Hendrickson / TechCrunch:
Venture Hacks Branches Out From Blogging, Launches Recommendations System
Discussion: MYBLOG by Ouriel
Sarah Lai Stirland / Threat Level:
Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig Bets ‘Wikipedia’ Approach Will Transform Congress  —  Stanford law professor Larry Lessig plans to use collaborative software to change Congress.  —  Courtesy Larry Lessig  —  A prominent Stanford law professor on Thursday launched an ambitious project …
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Do you have to be in every conversation?  —  Sarah Perez at ReadWriteWeb has a good post about how the conversation is leaving blogs and going to Twitter, FriendFeed and other services.  More importantly, she touches on a big question: How do you keep up?  —  Perez then dutifully notes …
RELATED:
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
The Conversation Has Left the Blogosphere
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Little old lady suing Sony, Samsung, Nokia and everyone else for infringing on her laser patents  —  Oh sure, she looks friendly enough.  But don't let her matronly, argyle looks fool you.  Retired Columbia University Professor, Gertrude Neumark Rothschild, is looking to extract some cold …
Discussion: Reuters, eWeek, Inquirer and Electronista
RELATED:
Associated Press:
AT&T to pay FCC $1.3B down payment  —  NEW YORK - AT&T says it will pay an initial down payment of $1.3 billion to the Federal Communications Commission for its portion of wireless spectrum licenses it won in a government airwaves auction.  —  AT&T says it will pay the down payment …
Discussion: Engadget, Engadget Mobile and Techland
RELATED:
Eric Bangeman / Ars Technica:
DirecTV DVR clampdown: a sober reminder of DRM suckitude  —  DirecTV DVR owners got some bad news from the satellite TV provider recently when the company announced that it will break some of the existing functionality of the DVRs.  Effective April 15, subscribers will only have 24 hours …
 
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 More Items: 
Reuters:
DISH may plan mobile TV with new airwaves: analysts
Doug Aamoth / CrunchGear:
Firefox 3: So easy a caveman could do it
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Chart Me Up: Web 2.0 Venture Deals
Dave Winer / Scripting News:
What's wrong with Wikipedia
Discussion: Glass House
Phil McKenna / New Scientist:
Climbing robot throws its weight around
Discussion: Switched, Engadget and Digg
Business Wire:
SplashCast Closes Over-Subscribed Series A Funding and Appoints …
Andrew Schotz / Herald-Mail:
Proposed Md. bill would make intentional theft of wireless Internet access a crime
Discussion: Techdirt and DSLreports
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
Publisher Posts Mac Books on The Pirate Bay
Discussion: MacUser, CrunchGear and Digg
 Earlier Items: 
Paul Boutin / New York Times:
So You Want to Be a Blogging Star?
Discussion: Valleywag
Steven Clift / MediaShift Idea Lab:
Is Citizen Media Skipping Small Town America?
Discussion: MediaVidea
Zach Epstein / The Boy Genius Report:
FliXee and YouTube Integration Added to Flixwagon
Glenn Derene / Popular Mechanics:
The 10 Video Formats HD DVD Will Meet in Heaven: Buzzword
Discussion: Digg
Ben Jones / TorrentFreak:
Get BitTorrent on Your TV with Myka
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Ning: All Our Charts Point Up And To The Right
Ionut Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
Google's Broken Bookmarking Systems
Discussion: louisgray.com
David Pogue / New York Times:
Camcorder Brings Zen to the Shoot
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Authentic Brands licenses Sports Illustrated's publishing rights to The Players' Tribune owner Minute Media for 10 years, with plans to keep the print edition

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
Ofcom rules that five GB News programs presented by Conservative politicians have broken its due impartiality rules and puts the channel “on notice”

Sam Wolfson / The Guardian:
A look at the rise of celebrity-hosted interview podcasts, whose long running times mean guests delve into deep and personal topics, resembling therapy sessions

 
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