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2:40 PM ET, October 31, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Sam Oliver / AppleInsider:
Microsoft parks “I'm a PC” recording booth outside Apple Store  —  Microsoft Corp., engrossed in multi-million dollar marketing blitz to counter anti-Vista propaganda from rival Apple, Inc., is now using a portion of its budget to fuel guerilla retail tactics near the Mac maker's stores.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Facebook May Be Growing Too Fast.  And Hitting The Capital Markets Again.  —  When Facebook raised $240 million from Microsoft in 2007, and another $235 million in debt and equity in 2008, everyone thought they had plenty of cash to get through their big growth phase.
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Is Google Playing Chicken With the Justice Department?  —  Are Google and Yahoo thinking of walking of away from their controversial search advertising deal, as reported in an amusingly hedged report in The Wall Street Journal last night?  —  How's this for covering your bases in a story …
RELATED:
Jessica E. Vascellaro / Wall Street Journal:
Talks Over Google-Yahoo Search Deal Fail to Progress
Reuters:
Yahoo, Google May Walk Away from Search Deal: Report
Discussion: InfoWorld and WebProNews
Monica Chen / DigiTimes:
Asustek expects to ship US$200 Eee PC in 2009, says president  —  Asustek Computer has announced consolidated revenues of NT$78.26 billion (US$2.39 billion) for the third quarter this year, while net profit after tax was NT$6.38 billion, an increase of 13% on quarter, but a drop of 14.2% on year.
Matt Buchanan / Gizmodo:
BlackBerry Curve 8900 First Impressions (Kills the Original)  —  RIM excels at many things, but keeping secrets ain't one of 'em, so we'd eyeballed the BlackBerry Curve 8900 (nee Javelin) quite a bit before this AT&T-branded one dropped in our laps.  It's a Bolder version of the current Curve …
Karl Bode / DSLreports:
Sprint, Cogent in Peering Feud - Sprint disconnects from Cogent network, impacting customers  —  Cogent is no stranger to peering disputes, fighting with Level3 back in 2005 and AOL back in 2002.  While most peering arrangements involve carriers trading equal amounts of bandwidth …
RELATED:
Joanna Stern / LAPTOP Magazine:
Eee PC 1000H Runs Windows 7 Well  —  Here is a confession: I am getting pretty tired of netbooks running Windows XP.  So when we got our Windows 7 Beta disc at PDC earlier this week, I couldn't wait to get it running on a netbook.  —  This morning we loaded Windows 7 Ultimate (Pre-Beta) on an ASUS Eee PC 1000H.
Live Mesh:
Update on installation of Live Mesh for Mobile - FIXED!  —  Thank you for using the Live Mesh for Mobile client!  For users who saw a failure to add their mobile phone to their mesh, we have deployed an updated build of Live Mesh for Mobile.  You will need to download the Mobile Installer from http …
RELATED:
Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:   Microsoft's other new platform: Live Framework
Amanda Kelly / Inside AdWords:
Improvements to Ads Quality  —  We're always working on improvements that will help us show the most relevant ads to our searchers, and we're excited to tell you that we'll soon introduce two changes designed to enhance how we calculate Quality Score and rank ads.
Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:
Yahoo! Video Streams Surge 56% in September to Claim Second Spot to YouTube which has broken 5 Billion Monthly Videos Serve, Nielsen Online  —  Video streams on Yahoo! dramatically increased in September to 265 million, up 56 percent from August's 169 million.
Discussion: CNET News and TechCrunch
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Would You Pay $162 a Year for All the Music You Can Eat?  —  That's the offer, sort of, being made by something called Datz Music Lounge.  —  The details, from MusicWeek (via Coolfer): You give the company 100 British pounds, and for the next year you can download all the music you want.
Discussion: p2pnet, Music Week and hypebot
Glenn Fleishman / Ars Technica:
WiFi thermostat puts power (and cooling) at your fingertips  —  In an age where we can put WiFi into a plastic bunny that wiggles its ears in response to commands over the Internet, why not stick the same wireless networking into a thermostat that allows remote monitoring and schedule changes?
Kirk / Medialoper:
Waiting for Google's Kindle Killer  —  During an onstage interview with Chris Anderson at this year's BEA, Jeff Bezos described his vision of a world where any book ever published would be available anywhere, at any time.  At the time it seemed like one of those distant fantasies that might be decades away.
RELATED:
Wade Roush / Xconomy:
In Google Book Search Settlement, Readers Lose
Discussion: Open Access News
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes / Hardware 2.0:
No Opera Mini for the iPhone  —  It seems that the engineers at Opera developed a version of Opera Mini that would run on the iPhone (and the iPod touch), but this browser will never see light of day because Apple rejected it from the App Store. … Well that sucks.
Michael Calore / webmonkey:
OMG!  Gmail Adds SMS Chat  —  Users of Google's Gmail service can now send text message chats to mobile phones using the webapp's built-in Chat feature.  —  Google is adding the experimental functionality through Gmail Labs.  To turn it on, go to the Labs tab within Gmail's settings.
Discussion: PC World, Webware.com, CostPerNews and Profy
RELATED:
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Gmail Labs Adds Text Messaging Feature. KTHXBAI.
Reuters:
Tesla sees new financing, founder offers support  —  Tesla Motors Inc expects to close a financing round of over $20 million from existing investors as soon as next week to bolster a cash balance now at $9 million, said Elon Musk, founder and chief executive of the electric car start-up.
Tom Krazit / CNET News:
Apple hires top IBM chip designer and blade server guru  —  Apple's decision to hire Mark Papermaster away from IBM could mean that its Xserve lineup is taking on a more prominent role.  —  (Credit: Apple)  —  Updated throughout at 4:55 p.m. PT with additional details and comment from IBM.
RELATED:
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:   IBM sues brainiac looking to leap to Apple; Download the docs
Maggie Shiels / BBC:
Trojan virus steals bank info  —  The details of around 500,000 online bank accounts and credit and debit cards have been stolen by a virus described as “one of the most advanced pieces of crimeware ever created”.  —  The Sinowal trojan has been tracked by RSA, which provides security solutions for Fortune 500 companies.
Discussion: MacDailyNews
Jack Schofield / Guardian:
Microsoft's Azure is not Hailstorm, but what's the point of it?  —  Microsoft has made its Azure cloud computing announcements at PDC, so now we know what it's doing: it is extending Windows 2008 Server into the online market so that programmers who develop applications in Visual Studio …
Peter Bright / One Microsoft Way:
Ars@PDC: Windows 7 Libraries under the microscope  —  After using the PDC Windows 7 build for a few days now, one feature I have already grown to appreciate is Libraries.  The Libraries provide a view of the filesystem that is tailored to specific content types.
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
Is There Still A Big Loophole For Software And Business Method Patents?  —  I've been talking to plenty of people (mostly lawyers) about the Bilski ruling on software and business method patents while also having more time to reread the discussion in detail, and I'm going to backtrack on my original assessment.
Discussion: eWeek, The Prior Art and Reuters
AppleInsider:
Apple's NVIDIA-based MacBook Airs arrive early, get unboxed  —  Apple Store online customers are reporting Friday that their NVIDIA-based MacBook Air notebooks have begun arriving almost a week early.  Included are some unboxing notes and photos.  —  Unboxing notes
Discussion: MacRumors
 
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 More Items: 
John Cook / TechFlash:
Paul Allen undergoes undisclosed medical procedure, misses award
Discussion: Valleywag and The Microsoft Blog
Dan Nystedt / PC World:
Acer Netbook Shipments to Beat Asus's Eee PC
Discussion: Liliputing and Engadget
Elinor Mills / CNET News:
Google's JotSpot exposes user data
Roger Grimes / Security Adviser:
China is not selling bugged hardware
 Earlier Items: 
Ashlee Vance / New York Times:
Sun Microsystems Reports $1.7 Billion Loss and Falling Sales
Discussion: Gadgetell and TechCrunch
Sramana Mitra / Forbes:
Bargains For Private Equity
Rick Turoczy / ReadWriteWeb:
Selling Ads on Your Twitter Background? You'll Love Magpie
Discussion: Mashable!
Brian X. Chen / Gadget Lab:
Hard Times? Not for iPhone Developers
Discussion: Listening Post
John Kennedy / Silicon Republic:
BlackBerry Storm price plans revealed