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12:20 PM ET, May 20, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Jesusdiaz / Gizmodo:
iPhone 3G Launch Date Confirmed  —  We all suspected it, but now it is confirmed: someone very, very close to the 3G iPhone launch has told me that Apple will announce their new model at the WWDC Keynote on June 9th.  The second-generation iPhone will be available worldwide right after the launch …
John P. Falcone / CNET News.com:
Look out, Apple TV: The $100 Netflix Player has arrived  —  The Netflix box is finally a reality.  —  The Netflix Player by Roku is the first product that allows subscribers to have movies and TV shows from the service's Instant Viewing feature (aka “Watch Now") to be streamed directly to their TV screen.
RELATED:
Danny Dumas / Gadget Lab:
Review: Roku Netflix Set Top Box is Just Shy of Totally Amazing  —  Netflix Player by Roku  —  Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've heard this all before, right?  For years now, everyone from computer companies like Apple to OS companies like Microsoft to content providers like NBC have been trying …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Netflix Roku: Free Is Such A Beautiful Word  —  Netflix made a big splash today with their announcement of a $100 set top box, built by a California startup called Roku, that streams free movies (for Netflix subscribers) to the living room.  —  Good for them.
Discussion: PSFK
Brian Lam / Gizmodo:
First Netflix Streaming Box Review, $100 and Unlimited Downloads!
Discussion: DVICE, I4U News, GigaOM and Digg
Andrew Ross Sorkin / New York Times:
A Gamble, but What if He Wins?  —  About a month and a half ago, Carl Icahn and I went to dinner at Tse Yang, an upscale Chinese restaurant in Midtown Manhattan.  Mr. Icahn, the corporate raider turned activist investor, came blustering through the dimly lit restaurant about 20 minutes late …
RELATED:
Jasmine France / CNET News.com:
Now at Napster: 6 million DRM-free MP3s  —  Probably the biggest piece of digital music news to come out of CES 2008 was that Napster was planning to offer its complete catalog of more than 6 million tracks in the unprotected MP3 format.  —  On Tuesday, with the launch of version 4.5 …
RELATED:
Darren Waters / BBC NEWS | dot.life:
DRM is dead, long live DRM
Discussion: last100 and TechRadar.com
Joseph Weisenthal / paidContent.org:
Napster Starts Selling MP3s; 6 Million Tracks; All Majors Signed On
Discussion: Download Squad and MarketingShift
Joseph Weisenthal / paidContent.org:
IAC Acquires GirlSense.com Parent StarNet; Targeting Tweens  —  On path to break into five pieces, IAC (NSDQ: IACI) has announced the acquisition of StarNet Interactive, the parent company of the GirlSense.com community site.  Basically the site offers a virtual way to play dressup …
RELATED:
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:   OMG! InterActiveCorp buys teen fashion site
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
How to Make Facebook Useful Again  —  Oh the heels of some of Facebook's missteps (ahem, Beacon) and the proliferation of a myriad of useless, silly, and time-wasting apps, some former Facebook users decided to quit the site for good this year.  However, a handful of early adopter angst doesn't have Facebook worried.
Discussion: AppScout
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch UK:
BBC's Sound Index is good, but we won't get the data  —  The BBC's SoundIndex, currently in beta, lists the top 1,000 artists based on discussions crawled from Bebo, Last.fm, Google Groups, iTunes, MySpace and YouTube.  The top five bands according to SoundIndex right now are Coldplay …
Discussion: BBC NEWS and PSFK
RELATED:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:   Who's The Hottest Band On The Internet? Coldplay, Says BBC SoundIndex
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Google Backers Back Aster Data Systems.  It's All About The Clusters.  —  Clusters are the way to go.  Google and Yahoo run their Websites on distributed databases spread across vast clusters of servers.  Now Aster Data Systems, a startup that is coming out of stealth mode today …
Tim Leberecht / CNET News.com:
Mobile IM to surpass SMS?  —  A recent Gartner study estimates that 189 billion mobile messages have been sent by U.S. mobile-phone subscribers in 2007.  It forecasts 301 billion mobile messages sent in 2008.  —  If correct, those figures would still account for only a small fraction …
Reuters:
T-Mobile to keep iPhone exclusivity in Germany  —  PARIS (Reuters) - T-Mobile TMOG.UL expects to remain the only seller of Apple's (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) coveted iPhone in Germany, T-Mobile Chief Executive Hamid Akhavan said on Tuesday.  —  “We have a very good relationship with Apple …
Richard Ford / Times of London:
‘Big Brother’ database for phones and e-mails  —  A massive government database holding details of every phone call, e-mail and time spent on the internet by the public is being planned as part of the fight against crime and terrorism.  Internet service providers (ISPs) …
Simson Garfinkel / Technology Review:
Alarming Open-Source Security Holes  —  How a programming error introduced profound security vulnerabilities in millions of computer systems.  —  Back in May 2006, a few programmers working on an open-source security project made a whopper of a mistake.  Last week, the full impact …
Karl / DSLreports:
Sprint To Impose 5GB Monthly EVDO Cap - 300MB per month when you're off the network...  When comparing Sprint and Verizon's EVDO service, Verizon usually came up short, given their 5GB monthly cap, and terms of service that restricts everything but browsing and e-mail.
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Yet Another Microsoft Memo.  Satya Nadella, VP of Search Writes:  —  Well, like you I am finding that Microsoft memos are better at telling the story (or lack there off) than other people's voices.  Today, we got our grubby paws on Microsoft VO of Search Satya Nadella's memo sent out to the troops.
Discussion: Beyond Search and BoomTown
RELATED:
Rafat Ali / paidContent.org:
MSN Does Another Reorg: Merging Search And Content Teams; Jorgensen Heading It
Discussion: HipMojo.com
 
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 More Items: 
Kdawson / Slashdot:
66% Apple Market Share For Sales of High-End PCs
Ionut Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
Videos Taken Down From YouTube
Discussion: CNET News.com
Dell:
Dell to Appoint Brian Gladden Chief Financial Officer
Discussion: Andrew Lark and The Register
Micah L. Sifry / techPresident:
Is Barack Obama Following Your Friendfeed? [UPDATED]
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb
WPP:
WPP names Torrence Boone to lead Project Da Vinci, the global agency start-up
Todd Bishop / Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft to test Zune Social advertisements
Discussion: WebProNews
Associated Press:
Comcast invests in P2P video-delivery startup
 Earlier Items: 
Security Document World:
Passports & Visas  —  ePassports get LED video display
Discussion: Engadget and TechRadar.com
Sid Yadav / Rev2.org:
Userplane Media Player: White Label Video Hosting
Discussion: TechCrunch
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Apple 2.0:
Report: iPhone headed for joint launch in Japan and Korea
Nwahs / TmoNews:
T-mobile to release 16 new phones by August?
Courtney Chin / Inside AdSense:
Introducing third-party ads on the Google content network
Lilly Peel / Times of London:
The phone for six-year-olds  —  Mobile phones branded …
Discussion: textually.org
Joshua Topolsky / Engadget:
3G iPhone revealed in third-party case render?
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Don't Look For BFFs When Pitching For VC Dollars