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10:30 AM ET, July 25, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Full Text Of AOL Email: XDrive, AOL Pictures, MyMobile And Bluestring To Shut Down  —  Below is the full text of the email AOL EVP Kevin Conroy sent out to staff on July 14, outlining the reorganization of his product groups and announcing the “sunsetting” of XDrive, AOL Pictures, MyMobile and Bluestring.
RELATED:
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
AOL gussies up for potential sale, but who's buying?  —  AOL is shutting down XDrive, AOL Pictures and other properties in a belt tightening move that may indicate the company is setting itself up to be sold.  The larger question: Who will buy AOL from Time Warner?
Peter Kafka / Silicon Alley Insider:
More AOL Cost-Cutting: Dumping Properties; Cutting Back On Blogs (TWX)  —  AOL is “sunsetting” (i.e. killing or trying to sell) some of its underperforming units, including Bluestring, Xdrive, AOL Pictures and MyMobile.  TechCrunch has the memo, issued last week, by EVP Kevin Conroy, who oversees the company's product group.
Discussion: AppScout
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:   AOL To Shutter A Slew Of Products, EVP Kevin Conroy's Future Uncertain
Denver Post:
Missing ‘spam king’ kills self, family  —  BENNETT — Just four days after escaping a federal minimum-security work camp, “Spam King” Eddie Davidson shot his wife and child and wounded a teen-age girl before turning the gun on himself.  —  Sheriff's deputies responded to a report of gunfire …
RELATED:
Charlie Demerjian / Inquirer:
Escaped spammer kills himself  —  Comment Yay.  No, YAY!  —  NOT ALL STORIES have a happy ending, but the tale of escaped spam king Edward “Eddie” Davidson sure does.  After walking away from prison, he got a gun, killed his family, then killed himself.  —  While it is hard not to feel bad …
Lester Haines / The Register:
Inquirer celebrates spammer murder-suicide
Discussion: CNET News.com
Andru Edwards / Gear Live:
Apple beta testing iPhone 2.1 firmware, adding more GPS features  —  We just got word that Apple has released a beta version of iPhone OS 2.1 to developers.  Along with the 2.1 firmware, a new version of the iPhone SDK has been seeded as well, but the new SDK can't be used for submitting applications to the App Store at the moment.
RELATED:
Aidan Malley / AppleInsider:
Apple seeds iPhone 2.1 with directional GPS, push notification
Discussion: Apple Gazette
PR Newswire:
Netflix Announces Q2 2008 Financial Results  —  Subscribers - 8.4 million Revenue - $337.6 million GAAP Net Income - $26.6 million GAAP EPS - $0.42 per diluted share  —  Netflix, Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX - News) today reported results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2008.
RELATED:
Daniel AJ Sokolov / heise Security UK:
Speculation over back door in Skype  —  According to reports, there may be a back door built into Skype, which allows connections to be bugged.  The company has declined to expressly deny the allegations.  At a meeting with representatives of ISPs and the Austrian regulator on lawful interception …
Discussion: Memex 1.1, open and Zero Day
Svetlana Gladkova / Profy.Com:
Google's Begun Growing Very Fast  —  I have just seen a press release (in Russian) issued by Begun, the Russian contextual advertising company recently acquired by Google from Rambler.  The ad company reports on the revenue it has received in the first 6 months of 2008 …
Discussion: Mashable!
Amit Agarwal / Digital Inspiration:
Believe In Superstitions?  Avoid The Word “me” In Product Names  —  If you are superstitious and believe that names can bring (or deny) good luck, avoid giving your products a name that ends with “me”.  —  This is not a recommendation of any soothsayer but just a personal observation …
Discussion: MacBlogz
RELATED:
Richard MacManus / ReadWriteWeb:
Android Is For The Masses, iPhone For The Rich  —  Our network blog last100 has an interesting interview with Nicolas Gramlich, founder of anddev.org - an online community for Android developers.  As editor Steve O'Hear notes in his intro, there have been issues with Google's mobile OS of late …
Discussion: last100 and localmobilesearch.net
Kim Hart / Washington Post:
High-Stakes Race to Unlock a Wider Web  —  Critics Say New Technology May Hinder TV Signals  —  The nation's top technology companies have spent millions of dollars and nearly two years building devices, poring over laptops and working in federal labs trying to come up with a new way of …
Discussion: Digg
Corynne McSherry / Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Here We Go Again: Yahoo! Music Throws Away the DRM Keys  —  Just over a month after consumer backlash caused MSN Music to rescind its decision to deactivate the digital rights management ("DRM") servers that allowed MSN Music purchasers to “reauthorize” music files after upgrading operating systems …
RELATED:
comScore:
Are We There Yet? comScore M:Metrics Reports Mobile Map Use Grows 82 Percent in United States, 49 Percent in Europe  —  As families hit the road this summer, more will be turning to the mobile device for turn-by-turn directions  —  Mobile map usage growing much faster than online map usage
Brian Stelter / New York Times:
Griping Online?  Comcast Hears and Talks Back  —  PHILADELPHIA — Brandon Dilbeck, 20, a student at the University of Washington, was complaining recently on his blog, Brandon Notices, about Comcast's practice of posting ads in its on-screen programming guide.  —  He assumed he was writing for his own benefit.
Discussion: Gizmodo
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Loopt strikes a deal to make massive use of GPS data cost effective  —  Loopt, the location-based social network, uses GPS technology in cellphones to figure out where you are.  Because of this it can tell you things such as which of your friends are around you, or what restaurants you are near.
Discussion: Startup Meme and All Points Blog
 
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 More Items: 
Chris Morris / Forbes:
Doom'ing The iPhone  —  While he's best known for creating …
Discussion: Touch Arcade
Adrian Covert / Gizmodo:
Golden Shellback Hands-on: Phones Can Make Calls While Underwater
Dianne See Morrison / paidContent.org:
Italian Prosecutors To Charge Google Execs Over Third-Party Content
University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute:
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH CANCER INSTITUTE
Darryl K. Taft / eWeek:
Open Web Foundation to Keep Data ‘Open’
Web 2.0 Asia:
A discouraging news for Korean open web movement
Discussion: open
Media Molecule hits little big time / BBC:
Game On  —  Sony has very high hopes for LittleBigPlanet
Dave McClure / Master of 500 Hats:
Second Age of Aquarius: Facebook Connect + Facebook Payments …
 Earlier Items: 
Robert Vamosi / CNET News.com:
Vulnerable to a DNS cache poisoning at home?
Jesus Diaz / Gizmodo:
iPhone 2.0 Jailbreak and Unlock Now for Windows
Nilay Patel / Engadget:
Toshiba working on a netbook / UMPC that's actually interesting
Joe McDonald / Associated Press:
China says has more people surfing the Web than US
Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
Source: Facebook's internal valuation is $4 billion. But so what.
Discussion: The PE Data Center
Computerworld:
Forrester: Windows Vista rejected like ‘new Coke’ by enterprises
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Microsoft to show off spherical Surface next week
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
The Day After: Looking At How Well Knol Pages Rank On Google
 

 
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”

Todd Spangler / Variety:
YouTuber MrBeast announces a deal with Prime Video for Beast Games, a reality-competition show with 1,000 contestants, promising the winner a $5M cash prize

 
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