Check out Mini-Techmeme for simple mobiles or Techmeme Mobile for modern smartphones.
8:45 AM ET, December 30, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Farhad Manjoo / Slate:
What does the “netbook” craze tell us about the future of laptops.  —  There isn't much mystery to why a little-marketed computer known as the Eee PC has lately seized the top spot on Amazon's laptop best-seller list.  The machine, a three-pound ugly duckling made by the Taiwanese company Asus …
Arn / MacRumors:
Vaja Also Hints at iPhone Nano?  —  Relatively well-known iPhone case manufacturer Vaja has curiously added an “iPhone Nano” listing to their website.  The link simply directs you to a form asking you to sign up for information about “the upcoming release of our iPhone nano cases.”
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
CES preview: what to expect at the big, not-so-gloomy tech trade show  —  THE BIGGEST U.S. TECH TRADE SHOW WILL FEATURE EMERGING MARKET TECHNOLOGY, 3-D GLASSES, AND DIGITAL CONTENT, ACCORDING TO SHOW CHIEF GARY SHAPIRO  —  The International Consumer Electronics Show coming up next week promises to be a sober extravaganza.
RELATED:
Stephen Shankland / CNET News:
High hopes at Yahoo, Intel for Internet-enabled TV
Discussion: NewTeeVee and DailyTech
Steve O'Hear / last100:
Deja vu: Internet ‘widgets’ coming to the TV in 2009
Discussion: Electronista
tera.ca:
PHOTO PAGE 6  —  This page is dedicated to breastfeeding women everywhere.  They provide a superior and inimitable start to life for their children, among much else!  —  Here we present photos banned from the social utility Facebook, as well as photos that it would probably remove.
RELATED:
Michael Santo / Alice Hill's Real Tech News:
Facebook's War Against Lactivists
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Content Sites Bracing For 50% Revenue Slowdown  —  The U.S. economy has likely been in recession for a year, and tech companies have been bracing for a big slowdown in growth.  But the fact is that revenues for most Internet-based companies haven't dropped yet.
Daniel Lyons / Washington Post:
The iPhone's Golden Touch  —  Ge Wang never dreamed of becoming a high-tech Silicon Valley entrepreneur.  He's an assistant professor at Stanford, a specialist in computer science and music whose biggest passion has been organizing nerdy “laptop orchestras” composed of 20 people each “playing” a notebook computer.
Discussion: textually.org
Emil Protalinski / One Microsoft Way:
The Windows 7 build 7000 leak and Microsoft's reaction  —  This past weekend, Windows 7 build 7000 leaked to torrent sites.  It's not the first build of Windows 7 to leak, but it definitely is the most important one so far.  You see, the first 7xxx build marks the entrance of Windows 7 into beta phase …
Rick Merritt / EE Times:
Server makers get Goooogled  —  Elements of Google's most secretive product—its unique PC server design—is beginning to ripple throughout the rest of the industry.  —  Like many companies with giant Internet data centers, Google uses big clusters of commodity x86 servers.
Discussion: GigaOM and SmoothSpan Blog
iSuppli:
Second-Generation PlayStation 3 Features Cost Reduction, Supplier Shifts  —  Sony Corp.'s new-generation PlayStation 3 (PS3) features a cost-reduced design due to integration and some key changes in components from the previous-generation model, according to a teardown conducted by iSuppli Corp.
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
InfoWorld:
What future is in store for Microsoft?  —  It's been six months since Bill Gates retired from Microsoft, though he remains an adviser, and the Redmond giant is chugging away as if business were usual.  Work continues on Windows 7, Internet Explorer 8, Windows Mobile 6.5, the Azure cloud development platform, and so on.
Discussion: Beyond Search, PalmAddicts and Slashdot
Matthew Lasar / Ars Technica:
Martin drops porn filtering from FCC free wireless broadband plan  —  Kevin Martin, the Chair of the Federal Communications Commission, called Ars Technica today to let us know that he has revised his proposal to roll out a free (and smut-free) wireless broadband service.
Discussion: The Register
TOP 20 MSI News:
The World's First Hybrid Storage Netbook- MSI U115 Hybrid  —  Taipeiã€' MSI today announces U115 Hybrid.  The very first notebook computer in the world that is capable of operating both SSD and HDD hard drives simultaneously, combining all the features of SSD and HDD in the U115 Hybrid for your enjoyment.
Discussion: SlashGear and Engadget
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
It's Time For An Apple Tablet: Where's My iPod Touch HD?  (AAPL)  —  Apple's (AAPL) iPod touch is a hit, and PC makers like Dell (DELL) and Asus are doing good business selling cheap, small “netbook” laptops.  It's time for Steve Jobs to smash them together into a killer multi-touch tablet.
Jason Chen / Gizmodo:
Apple's Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter Has Periodic Distortion Issues  —  We've been waiting a few months for the Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI adapter in order to hook up our 30-inch Dell 3007WFP monitor, but when it got here, it was periodically unusable.
Discussion: bit-tech.net and Infinite Loop
Justin Berka / Infinite Loop:
Contract-free iPhones now available in France  —  The iPhone 3G is available without a contract in a handful of countries, but iPhone owners in France have been tied to Orange under Apple's current exclusivity contract.  Until now, that is.  MacNN has pointed out that French store FNAC is now selling the iPhone 3G without a contract.
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Cisco's Misguided Foray Into the Living Room  —  Cisco Systems, a company best known for selling mundane (albeit very lucrative) routers, switches and other networking gear, has designs on the consumer electronics market.  To that end, at the upcoming CES trade show, the company plans to launch …
Discussion: Digital Media Wire and Gizmodo
Andrew Chen / Futuristic Play:
Freemium business model case study: AdultFriendFinder ARPU, churn, and conversion rates  —  A case study for the Freemium business model  —  There's been a lot written about the Freemium model over the years, particularly from Fred Wilson at AVC.  Here'a couple articles I'll recommend on the topic:
Wall Street Journal:
Internet Providers Join Broadband Push  —  President-elect Barack Obama's call to improve the nation's broadband infrastructure has cable and phone company lobbyists maneuvering to get a leg up.  —  Lawmakers in Congress want a plan that will create jobs over the next two to three years …
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
It's Not How Many Followers You Have That Counts, It's How Many Times You Get Retweeted  —  Over the weekend a lot of tech bloggers got into a tizzy over a suggestion that Twitter search should rank Tweets by authority, with Tweets from people who have the most followers coming up first.
Cleve Nettles / 9 to 5 Mac:
HP MediaSmart Home Server may get some competition from Apple  —  HP this week updated its MediaSmart home server, which has many services Mac users would love to take advantage of.  Centralized iTunes music database for the home, picture sharing, even file sharing over the Internet.
RELATED:
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of Techmeme at 8:45 AM ET, December 30, 2008.

View the current page or another snapshot:


 
 Techmeme Sponsor Posts: 
Tribe AI:
Is AI just hype?  —  Find out how top enterprises use Tribe to get real business results.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Zoho:
Authy killed their desktop apps.  Time to switch to a reliable authenticator.  Time to switch to Zoho OneAuth.  —  Twilio's Authy recently announced end of life (EOL) for their desktop apps on March 19, 2024—five months ahead of schedule.
Comprehensive.io:
Browse salary data from 3,000 startups for free  —  Click for FREE, immediate access to real-time compensation benchmarking data.  Paid version helps HR automate comp reviews and communicate total compensation to employees.
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: 
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Samsung Snubs Qualcomm, Builds 4G Chips
Ian King / Bloomberg:
AMD to Trim About 600 Jobs, 100 More Than Planned
Joel Hruska / Ars Technica:
Microsoft wants to patent “pay-as-you-use” computer leasing
Discussion: VentureBeat, Electronista and CNN
Marguerite Reardon / CNET News:
RIAA loses mistrial appeal
Discussion: DSLreports
Justin Smith / Inside Facebook:
Not Coming Soon: Facebook Indefinitely Scraps Plans for Platform Payment System
David Gonzales / Unwired View:
Dual-SIM Philips Xenium X710 unveiled
 Earlier Items: 
Mary Jane Irwin / Forbes:
‘Gears Of War’ Creator On Gaming's Future
Martha C. White / New York Times:
Give Us More Bandwidth
Shira Ovide / Digits:
How Long Can Wikipedia Sustain its Ambitions?
Discussion: Profy
Nick O'Neill / All Facebook:
The Facebook Inbox Has Reliability Issues
internetnews.com:
Work Ethic 2.0: Attention Control
Discussion: The Noisy Channel
Claire Cain Miller / Bits:
Florida, the Next Hotbed of Venture Capital?
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
Semantic Tagging Service Zigtag (Finally!) Launches
Discussion: RotorBlog.com and Webware.com
 

 
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

 
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