Check out Mini-Techmeme for simple mobiles or Techmeme Mobile for modern smartphones.
4:45 PM ET, August 14, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Peter Burrows / Business Week:
What May Be Behind the iPhone 3G Glitches  —  Dropped calls and choppy Web surfing on Apple's latest smartphone may stem from an Infineon chip.  A fix is on the way  —  Complaints over dropped calls and choppy Web connections on Apple's iPhone 3G have sparked a wave of debate in the blogosphere over the root cause of the problems.
RELATED:
Peter Burrows / Byte of the Apple:
Coming in September: Better 3G In The iPhone 3G  —  As we reported last night, two reliable sources say Apple will issue a software fix that will address the widespread complaints regarding lost calls and inconsistent 3G access with the iPhone 3G.  The problem (and it is a real issue …
Discussion: Crave and InformationWeek Weblog
Jim Goldman / Tech Check with Jim Goldman:
Netflix Goes Dark And Finds It's No Place To Be  —  It started this morning with an email apology from online movie rental powerhouse Netflix, confirming to its 8.4 million users that the company was suffering a shipping and distribution outage.  —  I called the company this morning …
RELATED:
Rafe Needleman / Webware.com:
Netflix users suffering service's longest outage ever
Discussion: Associated Press and Webomatica
Nancy Gohring / Network World:
Facebook faces class-action suit over Beacon  —  A class-action suit filed in California charges Facebook and a handful of other companies, including Blockbuster, Fandango and Overstock, with violating online privacy and computer fraud laws related to Facebook's controversial Beacon system.
RELATED:
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
Class-action suit means Facebook's Beacon just won't go away  —  A class-action lawsuit filed earlier this week targets Facebook and eight of the participants in Beacon, its ill-fated advertising product that shared information about third-party site activity with the social network.
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:   Facebook Gets Slapped With Another Lawsuit Over Beacon, Wishes It Could Opt Out
Vasanth Sridharan / Silicon Alley Insider:
Facebook Faces Class Action Suit Over Beacon Ad System
Discussion: AppScout
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Ben Ling Lands (Back) at Google-This Time, at YouTube  —  Ben Ling-the high-profile Facebook platform exec who came from Google less than a year ago and then up and left the social networking site earlier this week-is about to head back to...Google, this time taking a job leading monetization efforts …
Discussion: VentureBeat
RELATED:
Jack Davis / Docu-Drama:
Heinen settles with SEC over Apple option backdating complaint  —  In doing so, Heinen neither admitted or denied the Commission's allegations.  —  According to the complaint, “Heinen caused Apple to fraudulently backdate two large options grants to senior executives of Apple …
RELATED:
Karey Wutkowski / Reuters:
Ex-Apple general counsel settles backdating case
Vasanth Sridharan / Silicon Alley Insider:
Indie Game Developer Finds Success On Xbox 360 — Est.  $825K Sales In First Week  —  Console game developers — people who make games for the Xbox, PlayStation, etc. — have mostly been big companies — EA, Activision, etc. — because of the high cost of game development and retail distribution.
Discussion: Braid, p2pnet, Gearlog, Destructoid and Gizmodo
InfoWorld:
MobileMe users fall prey to phishing scam  —  A recent phishing scam targeting users of Apple Inc.'s .Mac and MobileMe online services has successfully duped hundreds into divulging credit card and other personal information, a security company said Thursday.
RELATED:
Dan Goodin / The Register:
Apple faithful snared in phishing scam targeting Mac.com users
Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac
Markus Jakobsson / Markus Jakobsson's blog:
What is worse than reusing passwords?  —  9 I like it!  —  Do you use the same password all over the place?  Yes, you probably do - whether you know it or not.  —  The fact is, while some people still casually use the same password for many sites, almost all of us reuse what we may think of as …
Christopher Price / PhoneNews.com:
MacBook Air Revision Imminent, Penryn, More Power  —  PhoneNews.com can confirm that Apple is preparing to release an new revision of the MacBook Air.  While that in and of itself is not a surprise to many, we can confirm some of the specifications of the unit.  —  Much of the MacBook Air's external design will not change.
Emil Protalinski / One Microsoft Way:
A closer look at the technology behind the Microsoft Sphere  —  Back in March when we first got a whiff of the Microsoft Sphere, we were intrigued that the software giant had managed to take the technology used in the Microsoft Surface, and put it to use in a sphere.
Discussion: Engadget
John Timmer / Ars Technica:
CAPTCHAs work—for digitizing old, damaged texts, manuscripts  —  Over the course of history, humanity has suffered some horrifying damage to our collective cultural legacy in the form of books and other text lost to accident or neglect.  The digitalization of text holds out the promise …
Discussion: TeleRead
Saul Hansell / Bits:
AT&T Mulls Watching You Surf  —  AT&T is “carefully considering” monitoring the Web-surfing activities of customers who use its Internet service, the company said in a letter in response to an inquiry from the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.  —  While the company said it hadn't tested …
Paul McDougall / InformationWeek:
Psystar ‘Definitely Still Shipping’ Mac Clones  —  In further defiance of Apple, Psystar also this week said it is making Leopard OS restore disks available to its customers.  —  In the latest sign that it has no intention of backing down in its copyright dispute with computing giant Apple …
Sarah Lacy:
Stop Whining UK; Twitter Is Building a Business  —  In case you don't start your day with a way-too-early alarm, way-too-strong coffee, way-too-much on-camera makeup, interspersed with a quick doses of TechMeme, let me fill you in that the talk of the tech blogosphere today is that people …
RELATED:
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Twitter kills SMS service in some countries over costs. …
Matthaus Krzykowski / VentureBeat:
Sources: HTC's Google Android phone is “weeks away” from launching  —  Over the past few days, we've gotten multiple confirmations from reliable sources that the first phone built on Google's Android platform will launch in the next several weeks.  It will be an HTC phone, likely the HTC Dream …
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of Techmeme at 4:45 PM ET, August 14, 2008.

View the current page or another snapshot:


 
 Techmeme Sponsor Posts: 
Tribe AI:
Build AI that works  —  Tribe builds tech for top AI companies.  Get in touch to learn how our bench of 500+ engineers and researchers can accelerate your roadmap.
Kulkan Security:
Hire Kulkan as your penetration testing partner  —  Kulkan prioritizes deep-dive manual security reviews, dissecting your software and infrastructure to find issues that once remediated can truly reduce security risk.
Zoho:
Case studies: The marketing goldmine you've been underutilizing  —  If you are a product reseller or a channel partner, a case study is one of the better marketing tools you can use to draw attention towards your business and what you offer.
Mastodon:
Donate to Mastodon  —  Mastodon gGmbH, the non-profit behind the open-source software powering the social web, relies entirely on support from users like you.  Donate directly with a credit card or through Patreon.
Sponsor Techmeme
 
 See Also: 
Techmeme: site main
Techmeme River: reverse chronological Techmeme
Techmeme Mobile: for phones
Techmeme Leaderboard: Techmeme's top sources
 
 Subscribe: 
Techmeme RSS feed
Techmeme on X
Techmeme on Mastodon
 
 
 More Items: 
Ed Bott / Ed Bott's Microsoft Report:
Sinofsky dishes on Windows 7
Steve / Netflix Community Blog:
Thursday Morning Shipping Update
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Q&A: an interview with Sega's Simon Jeffery on monkeying around …
Discussion: Destructoid
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Beware The Strengthening Dollar
Sam Oliver / AppleInsider:
Mac OS X 10.5.5 bug fix list grows with build 9F13 seed
Discussion: TUAW
Danielle Belopotosky / Bits:
Samsung Puts a Little Corn Into Its Cellphones
Chris Foresman / Infinite Loop:
Now Playing, formerly Box Office, is back on the App Store
Jon / p2pnet:
RIAA pays Tanyan Andersen $107,951
Discussion: DailyTech
 Earlier Items: 
Vancouver Sun:
Radical layoffs at Radical Entertainment
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Here's An Idea: Stream Sirius Radio On Your iPhone
Alex Davis / Courier-Journal:
Courier-Journal to lay off about 15, leave other jobs vacant
Mary A. C. Fallon / DEMO.com:
JAJAH calls wake up computers powered by new Intel boards
Chris Morrison / VentureBeat:
Twitter joins the Olympics, as a Chinese journalist cries out for help
Declan McCullagh / The Iconoclast:
Wanted: Writers for D.C. tech lobby group, secrecy mandatory
Tony Smith / The Register:
Intel releases USB 3.0 controller interface spec
Discussion: PC World, Gizmodo and Computerworld
John Markoff / New York Times:
Ruling Is a Victory for Supporters of Free Software
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Jessica Toonkel / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Paramount Global's board is considering replacing CEO Bob Bakish with an “Office of the CEO” made up of division heads on an interim basis

Jeff Jarvis / BuzzMachine:
The New York Times is broken, shown by its entitled, petulant reaction to Politico's report on its tense relationship with Biden

Andrew Marchand / The Athletic:
Sources: Amazon Prime Video has a framework deal for NBA broadcast rights for at least a decade, starting in 2025-26; ESPN/ABC is expected to keep the finals

 
Sister Sites:

Mediagazer
 Top news and commentary for media professionals from all around the web
memeorandum
 What US political commentators are discussing online right now
WeSmirch
 The top celebrity news from all around the web on a single page