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1:45 PM ET, December 18, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Justin Smith / Inside Facebook:
Facebook Now Growing by Over 600,000 Users a Day - And New Engagement Stats  —  It was just at the beginning of December when Facebook crossed the 130 million monthly active user mark.  Today, that number is up to 140 million.  —  While Facebook has been growing at around 300,000 …
RELATED:
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
Facebook Growth Explodes, Site Reaches 140 Million Active Users
Discussion: Homotron.net and Open Sources
Prince McLean / AppleInsider:
Apple finally outed as mysterious PowerVR licensee  —  New evidence that Apple is the mysterious licensee of Imagination Technologies Group's PowerVR mobile graphics technology broke today, when the company publicly announced that Apple has subscribed to 8 million new shares of IMG, giving the iPhone maker a 3% stake in the firm.
Discussion: CNET News and Macsimum News
RELATED:
Jonny / Distorted-Loop.com:
Apple takes an iPhone slice of Imagination
Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac and SlashGear
Om Malik / GigaOM:
What Is Steve Jobs Worth to Apple?  About $20 Billion  —  Jeff Segal of BreakingViews tries to calculate the value of Steve Jobs to Apple.  — Apple Mac Line at twice the industry average multiple (1.3 times revenue) is worth about $19 billion.  — iPod business at five times EBITDA is worth about $14 billion.
RELATED:
Rob Beschizza / Boing Boing Gadgets:
Mac OS X Netbook Compatibility Chart (updated)  —  Who needs Psystar?  —  Apple says it's had “pretty interesting ideas” for a Mac netbook, but it's everyday users who've already taken action.  Due to their similar technical underpinnings, most of the popular netbooks can run OS X …
Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:
The iPhone is Apple's Netbook: Almost Half of All Traffic from WiFi Networks  —  According to the latest report from AdMob, 42% of all requests from iPhones to Admob's partners worldwide are coming in over WiFi instead of through the networks of mobile operators.
RELATED:
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Wi-Fi, a Big Hit on Mobile Phones
Discussion: InformationWeek
Zach Epstein / Boy Genius Report:
2009 is the year of the Moto for Verizon; more upcoming handsets revealed  —  When our ninjas get going they don't stop until the job is done.  Yesterday your pals here at BGR gave you an exclusive preview of four tasty upcoming Motorola handsets - codenamed FLASH, RUSH 2, CALGARY and INFERNO.
PR Newswire:
Toshiba Launches Industry's First 512GB Solid State Drive and Next-Generation SSD Family Using 43nm MLC NAND  —  New SSD Family Achieves High Levels of Performance, Endurance, Capacity and Reliability to Meet Market Requirements for Notebook Computers, Gaming and Home Entertainment Systems
Google Earth Blog:
New York City in Photo-Realistic 3D Now in Google Earth  —  Google has updated the 3D buildings in Google Earth for New York City!  This is a HUGE update with at least hundreds (if not thousands) of new 3D buildings with photo textures applied.  Basically, Google has completed nearly every building …
David / TmoNews:
No more upgrade fees...no more no, no more upgrade fees  —  Ah yes, going old school with Ruff Endz “No More” musical theme but that's not what you are here to read about.  Word coming out of the forums is that T-mobile has gone and done a great justice to the wireless world and removed the despised upgrade fees.
Discussion: IntoMobile
RELATED:
Marc Flores / Boy Genius Report:
T-Mobile ditches handset upgrade fees
Discussion: Crave, Electronista, Gearlog and Gizmodo
James Falconer / IntoMobile:
SlingPlayer Mobile for BlackBerry Coming December 30th  —  Sling Media has been working on bringing TV viewing to BlackBerry via their Slingbox home console for at least a year or so, and now their public beta will be available real soon!  —  SlingPlayer Mobile for BlackBerry has been announced …
RELATED:
Walter Dawkins / Newsweek:
Broadcast News  —  Remember when you had to be home at 8 p.m. to watch a favorite TV show?
Discussion: MobileDevicesToday
Darryl K. Taft / eWeek:
Red Hat Launches New Maintenance Service  —  Resource Library:  —  Red Hat has announced a new software maintenance service for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), known as Extended Update Support (EUS).  This allows customers to standardize on one RHEL environment for up to 18 months.
Discussion: LinuxWorld.com and Red Hat
RELATED:
InfoWorld:   Will Capgemini convince enterprises to trust the cloud?
AppleInsider:
Wal-Mart stores already advertising iPhone 3G availability  —  Adding a bit more confirmation to what is widely presumed, a few Wal-Malt stores have jumped the gun and are starting to advertise availability of Apple's iPhone 3G ahead of an official roll-out planned for later this month.
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
BlackBerry Storm Buyers Returning Phones En Masse?  (RIMM)  —  RIM's new BlackBerry Storm — the phone Verizon Wireless is hoping will keep people away from rival AT&T (T) and the iPhone this Christmas — is still back ordered.  But is it a real hit?  Or are people rushing to return the phone?
wmpoweruser.com:
Asus Glaxy 7 gets a first look  —  We have written about this mysterious device before, but Mobile-review.com has ripped away the veils and have given us our first good look at the device.  —  The report the device, has about the same dimensions as the HTC Max 4G and iPhone …
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
SimCity for the iPhone is here — but there are some bugs  —  The wait is over — SimCity, EA's hit city-building franchise, has been released for the iPhone and iPod touch.  Since for many of you, that's all you need to hear, I'll just say that it's $9.99 and you can download it here.
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Ask.com Plays The Google AdWords Arbitrage Game  —  Ah, Ask.com.  Since I wrote their obituary in March, not much has got me thinking they'll make a comeback.  Sure, there was the gimmick of kind of bringing back Jeeves himself.  But the spate of “hotels.ask.com” ads I see them running …
Guardian:
100 top sites for the year ahead  —  Two years after we last picked the web's cream of the crop, our latest selection finds that location-based services, work-anywhere collaboration and video are prominent  —  The online world has changed dramatically even since we last drew up a list of 100 useful sites in December 2006.
 
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 More Items: 
Brett Terpstra / TUAW:
iPhone thief thwarted by MobileMe sync
Discussion: The iPhone Blog
Erica Naone / Technology Review:
Can't We All Just Get Along?
Michael Alison Chandler / Washington Post:
In Their Search for Help, Fairfax Schools Find Google
Aidan Malley / AppleInsider:
Apple seen with new iMacs, Chinese iPhone soon into 2009
Discussion: Infinite Loop and digg.com
Marguerite Reardon / CNET News:
Cable to temporarily pause digital switch
Discussion: DSLreports
James Lewin / Podcasting News:
Free iPhone Audio Recorder
Discussion: VentureBeat and LIVEdigitally
 Earlier Items: 
Cameron Stewart / The Australian:
Chinese spy fears on broadband frontrunner
Discussion: CNET News
Andrew / Domain Name Wire:
Go Daddy To Shut Down Standard Tactics, LLC
Discussion: TechCrunch
Rory Cellan-Jones / BBC:
Sky moves towards 3D broadcasts
Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
Are bloggers & social networks killing the big shows?
 

 
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”

Sam Wolfson / The Guardian:
A look at the rise of celebrity-hosted interview podcasts, whose long running times mean guests delve into deep and personal topics, resembling therapy sessions

 
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