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11:40 AM ET, July 29, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Vindu Goel / Bits:
Scrabulous Shut Down on Facebook  —  Facebook says the decision to block Scrabulous for U.S. and Canadian users was made by the Scrabulous developers, not Facebook.  —  Scrabulous has been shut down on Facebook.  —  If you try to pull up the popular Scrabble-like game, you get the following message …
RELATED:
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Endgame: Scrabulous Gets Wiped Off Facebook  —  Long outplayed by two Indian brothers, Hasbro finally delivers a massive counter blow to Scrabulous, one of the most loved games on Facebook.  Scrabulous fans in North America will see the following message when they try to play the game:
Discussion: Know It All
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
‘Scrabulous’ disappears from Facebook after Hasbro suit  —  Facebook users in the U.S. and Canada can no longer access Scrabulous, the faux-Scrabble game that quickly became one of the most popular applications on its developer platform.  —  This was done independently on behalf of the Scrabulous creators …
Discussion: All Facebook
Don Reisinger / Mashable!:
Facebook Kills Scrabulous, Makes Hasbro Look Stupid  —  According to the NY Times, Facebook has officially killed Scrabulous, the world's most popular Scrabble look-a-like and one of the most popular applications on the entire service.  —  When you click on the Scrabulous link …
Om Malik / GigaOM:
British Telecom Buys Ribbit  —  British Telecom has acquired Silicon Valley-based Ribbit for roughly $105 million, according to various news outlets.  Rumors of the deal first emerged on Venturebeat, though company officials vociferously denied any deal.  Our sources say that the delays were mostly due to internal issues at Ribbit.
RELATED:
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
BT Acquires Ribbit For $105 Million
Discussion: mocoNews.net
BTplc.com:
BT acquires Ribbit
Discussion: GigaOM
ZDNet:
BT guns for Android and Skype with Ribbit buy
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Wanted: New Alcatel-Lucent leaders to fix merger debacle  —  Alcatel-Lucent said chairman Serge Tchuruk and CEO Patricia Russo-the architects of the 2006 merger that formed the company-are out.  —  The Alcatel-Lucent merger hasn't gone so hot and both Tchuruk and Russo get the blame.
RELATED:
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Alcatel-Lucent Decapitated: CEO Russo, Chairman Tchuruk Leaving (ALU)
Discussion: CNET News.com
David Jolly / New York Times:
Alcatel-Lucent Chiefs to Step Down
alcatel-lucent.com:
Second quarter 2008 revenue in line with guidance - Full year 2008 outlook confirmed
Chris Flores / Windows Vista Team Blog:
Windows ‘Mojave’ Video Posts  —  Last week we showed a video of the Mojave Experiment to a small group of folks here on campus.  Today we are excited to share the results with the public.  —  For those new to the Mojave Experiment, it's a focus group effort we initiated a few weeks ago.
RELATED:
Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Microsoft goes live with Mojave videos  —  One of the Mojave participants talks about her Vista experience on the Mojave Experiment Web site, which went live on Tuesday.  —  (Credit: CNET News)  —  So I told you about Microsoft's Mojave Experiment last week.
Discussion: Engadget, Bink.nu and Christopher Null
Todd Bishop / Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog:
Video: Microsoft's Sphere display in action  —  In the video above, Hrvoje Benko of Microsoft Research demonstrates Sphere.  Here's an advance look at the story I wrote for Tuesday's newspaper. — tb  —  Flat-panel displays might be all the rage, but at least in some situations …
RELATED:
Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Microsoft's computer in the round
Discussion: Ogle Earth and All about Microsoft
Matt Buchanan / Gizmodo:
Microsoft Multi-touch Sphere Plays 360-Degree Video, Trippiest Pong Game Ever
Discussion: OhGizmo! and Electronista
Michele Gershberg / Reuters:
Investor Pickens drops Yahoo shares: report  —  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Billionaire oil investor T. Boone Pickens has sold his entire stake of Yahoo Inc (NasdaqGS:YHOO - News) shares in frustration over its failure to reach a deal with Microsoft Corp (NasdaqGS:MSFT - News), the San Francisco Chronicle reported on Tuesday.
RELATED:
San Francisco Chronicle:
Pickens rips Yahoo management, says he dumped shares at a loss  —  Billionaire investor T. Boone Pickens excoriated Yahoo's management for failing to reach an agreement to sell all or part of the Web portal to Microsoft Corp.  —  Pickens, who bought 10 million Yahoo shares in May in hopes …
Discussion: CNET News.com and paidContent.org
Joseph Weisenthal / paidContent.org:
Sirius And XM Now Sirius XM Radio Inc.; New Share Offering Priced  —  Now comes the really hard part... XM (NSDQ: XMSR) and Sirius (NSDQ: SIRI) have just announced the completion of the merger.  The new company, SIRIUS XM Radio Inc. will now trade under Sirius' old ticker ("SIRI") starting today.
Discussion: Techland and Electronista
RELATED:
Richard MacManus / ReadWriteWeb:
Wow, How Did Cuil Get So Much Publicity on Day 1?!  —  An alternative search engine launched last night.  It's called Cuil and, if you're a reader of tech blogs and/or the New York Times, you've no doubt been hammered with the news all day.  We checked Cuil out and had a mixed user experience …
RELATED:
Kasper Jade / AppleInsider:
Apple's next-gen Macs to have something special under the hood  —  A new generation of personal computers on the way from Apple Inc. may sport some of the most significant architectural changes since the Mac maker made the jump from PowerPC processors to those manufactured by Intel Corp., AppleInsider has learned.
RELATED:
Arik Hesseldahl / Business Week:
Is Apple Revamping Its Laptop Line?
Discussion: Digg
Dancho Danchev / Zero Day:
DNS cache poisoning attacks exploited in the wild  —  Numerous independent sources are starting to see evidence of DNS cache poisoning attempts on their local networks, in what appears to be an attempt to take advantage of the “recent” DNS cache poisoning vulnerability : … Surprised?
Discussion: webmonkey and Slashdot
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
Yahoo Offers Refunds Or DRM-Free Music In Exchange For Shutting Down DRM Servers  —  We were a bit surprised last week when Yahoo decided to shut down its DRM servers, rendering all sorts of “purchased” music close to worthless.  After all, when Microsoft had done the same thing …
 
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 More Items: 
Chris Morrison / VentureBeat:
Tendril Networks brings energy efficiency to the consumer market with new devices
Discussion: CNET News.com
PC Magazine:
The Best (and Worst) Tech Support in America: VoIP
Discussion: DSLreports and FierceVoIP
Matthew Lasar / Ars Technica:
22 public interest groups roast FCC smutless broadband plan
Yuri Kageyama / Associated Press:
Sony profit plunges 50 pct from year ago
Discussion: Engadget
Beltzner / Mozilla Developer News:
Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1 now available for download
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch UK:
BBC launches Music site and the first wave of more data
Discussion: paidContent
Stefanie Olsen / CNET News.com:
IBM mobile software helps ‘senior moments’
Jemima Kiss / Guardian:
Networking site Bebo beams message to Earth-like planet
Discussion: The Register
 Earlier Items: 
Andy Space / 9 to 5 Mac:
iPhone gains MMS, sorta
Discussion: Boy Genius Report
John Ribeiro / IDG News Service:
India Developing US$10 Laptop
Discussion: Engadget and GottaBeMobile
Gartner:
Gartner Says the $100 Laptop Is at Least Three Years Away
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
Once Again (With Feeling): RIAA Told To Pay Tanya Andersen's Legal Fees
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Leaked Eee PC roadmap shows 23 models, redefines brand dilution
Tilly McLain / The MyBlogLog Blog:
MyBlogLog, a long overdue site redesign!
Eric Maurice / The Oracle Global Product Security Blog:
Security Alert for CVE-2008-3257 Released
Discussion: The Register and Zero Day
Electronista:
Dell takes on Mac mini with Studio Hybrid