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2:50 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
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 …
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 …
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
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
Marc Flores / Boy Genius Report:
T-Mobile ditches handset upgrade fees  —  Your phone is beaten down and the battery doesn't last more than a few minutes - or there is a pretty new gadget and it has everything you could possibly want, even though your current phone is perfectly fine.  In either of these situations …
RELATED:
David / TmoNews:   No more upgrade fees...no more no, no more upgrade fees
Ed Felten / Freedom to Tinker:
Three Flavors of Net Neutrality  —  When the Wall Street Journal claimed on Monday that Google was secretly backtracking on its net neutrality position, commentators were properly skeptical.  Tim Lee (among others) argued that the Journal misunderstood what net neutrality means …
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.
David Kaplan / paidContent.org:
Sirius Shareholders Approve Reverse Stock Split To Ease Debt  —  Sirius (NSDQ: SIRI) Satellite Radio shareholders have approved the issuance of up to 3.5 billion more shares for a reverse stock split, as the company tries to gain to flexibility to pay down its crushing debt, according to a report that aired on CNBC (see the clip here).
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 …
Jesse Johnson / The Bivings Report:
The Use of the Internet by America's Largest Newspapers (2008 Edition)  —  Every year, The Bivings Group conducts a study of the web features of America's largest newspapers as a way to gauge how papers are dealing with the threat and opportunity presented by the rise of the Internet as a news source.
Discussion: Romenesko
JKK / jkkmobile:
Dell Mini 9's shipping with smaller batteries than they should  —  Quality control problem or margin seeking?  Click here to see more Peter has been testing his Dell Minis and noted that one of his Mini 9's had smaller 24Wh battery than on the other one.  Marking on the both states it should be 32Wh.
Marguerite Reardon / CNET News:
Cable to temporarily pause digital switch  —  The cable TV industry is pausing its transition to digital TV to reduce consumer confusion over the broadcasters own transition to digital happening early in 2009, according to letters sent to members of Congress Wednesday by the industry's trade association.
Discussion: DSLreports and TECH.BLORGE.com
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?
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 …
James Lewin / Podcasting News:
Free iPhone Audio Recorder  —  Rockifone's Easy Recorder (App Store link) is a free iPhone app that turns your iPhone into a dictaphone-style audio recorder.  —  Easy Recorder doesn't have a lot of features, but it lets you record audio at three quality levels and the price is hard to beat.
Discussion: VentureBeat and LIVEdigitally
 
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 More Items: 
Jim Goldman / Tech Check with Jim Goldman:
Oracle Earnings Preview: ‘Good’ News Might be Too Good
David Kravets / Threat Level:
MPAA Reining In Illicit Movie Sites, Downloading Unabated
Discussion: Ars Technica
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
“Can I resell my MP3s?”: the post-sale life of digital goods
Discussion: digg.com
James Falconer / IntoMobile:
Parrot and Philippe Starck Create ‘Zikmu’ Couture Stereo Speakers
Discussion: Phone Arena and Engadget Mobile
Brett Terpstra / TUAW:
iPhone thief thwarted by MobileMe sync
Discussion: The iPhone Blog
 Earlier Items: 
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
InfoWorld:
Will Capgemini convince enterprises to trust the cloud?
Discussion: Red Hat and eWeek
Andrew / Domain Name Wire:
Go Daddy To Shut Down Standard Tactics, LLC
Discussion: TechCrunch
Rory Cellan-Jones / BBC:
Sky moves towards 3D broadcasts
Discussion: Guardian and Neowin.net
 

 
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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