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1:45 PM ET, January 3, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
Spotify, An Alternative to Music Piracy  —  Spotify is a music service that gives users access to a huge library of music, through a lightweight application that looks like a mashup of the best parts of iTunes and Last.fm.  Music is streamed, partly supported by P2P technology, but it plays instantly, like we've never seen before.
Discussion: digg.com
Jesus Diaz / Gizmodo:
The Alternative to the iPhone Pro  —  Knowing that it is very hard that Apple would ever release an iPhone Pro with physical keyboard, Mat Brady from planetmat has sent me another image of a potential accessory.  It looks great.  —  Mat says that he created the accessory answering readers' feedback on sliding keyboards.
Harry McCracken / Technologizer:
The Secret Origins of Clippy: Microsoft's Bizarre Animated Character Patents  —  Of all the peculiar ideas that Microsoft has pursued over its almost 34 years in business, I can't think of many that are more inexplicable than its long-standing interest in using animated characters to provide help …
Discussion: Slashdot
Matthaus Krzykowski / VentureBeat:
An FAQ about those Android netbooks  —  Since our post yesterday about Google's Android platform running on netbooks, we've been asked a lot of questions.  Here are the most frequent questions, along with our answers.  —  Do you think Android could run on laptops or PCs?
Chippy / UMPCPortal:
New Sony UMPC info includes specs and a sub $1000 price.  —  Our podcast partner, Sascha, from EeePCNews.de (which has just relaunched as netbooknews.de) reports that he's secured some new info on the Sony UMPC. … The Sony Vaio P will run on an Atom Z250 (1.33 as we've tested on the WiBrain i1 …
Louis Gray:
What FriendFeed Needs to Do To Grow and Keep New Users  —  That I like FriendFeed and so does Robert Scoble and so do a few thousand other Web-addicted Silicon Valley-centric people doesn't matter very much.  That thousands more have signed up to the service and imported their data doesn't matter very much either.
Discussion: /Message and SarahLacy.com
Chris Ziegler / Engadget Mobile:
Fun rumor du jour: BlackBerry Bold coming to Sprint this quarter  —  We're hearing from a source — a source who's pegged big stuff before, we'd like to add — that Sprint will be replacing its BlackBerry 8830 this quarter with a CDMA version of the Bold.  The move would certainly make sense …
Discussion: IntoMobile and Boy Genius Report
Eric Engleman / TechFlash:
Will economy dent Amazon's hiring spree?  —  Will Amazon.com prove immune to the layoffs gripping the rest of the tech industry?  A lot of the speculation at the moment is focused on the Seattle area's other tech giant, Microsoft, which is rumored to be planning layoffs this month …
Chris Walters / Consumerist:
Fisher-Price Kiddie Camera Comes With Fun And A Computer Virus  —  Jeff says his kid's new toy, a working camera from Fisher-Price, tried to give his computer a virus when he plugged it in! … Well you wouldn't take the leaded paint or the melamine, Jeff.  China has to export something...
Andy Merrett / The Blog Herald:
JournalSpace blogging platform dies: why you must keep your own backups  —  It may not have been the largest free blogging platform available, but for anyone who used JournalSpace for their blog the events of the last week were catastrophically significant.  —  Three days ago, JournalSpace lost all of its data.
Iljitsch van Beijnum / Ars Technica:
The year in IPv4 addresses: almost 200 million served  —  One of the first things I do every year on the first of January is have a look at what happened with the IP address stockpile during the previous year.  We started 2008 with 1,122.85 million unused addresses left and we ended it with 925.58 million.
Discussion: Slashdot and digg.com
Julian Sanchez / Ars Technica:
Reinventing conservatism, one tweet at a time  —  Since the humbling results of the November election came in, the conservative movement has been scrambling to assess what happened—and to figure out how to prevent it from happening again.  Much of this effort, in light of the Obama campaign's …
Discussion: TomsTechBlog.com
 
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 More Items: 
Lucas Mearian / Computerworld:
Back to the future: Vinyl record sales double in '08, CDs down
Jose Fermoso / Gadget Lab:
Tech Pundits Put Their 2009 Predictions On the Line
comScore:
Despite Weak Season, Online Spending Trends Outperform Brick …
Discussion: Tech-Ex and Voices
Jon / p2pnet:
Has the RIAA terminated MediaSentry?
Nick O'Neill / All Facebook:
The Facebook Breastfeeding Debate Continues
Discussion: Bits
 Earlier Items: 
Marshall Krantz / CFO.com:
An Open Secret  —  Open-source software is quietly gaining ground …
Discussion: The Open Road
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
iPhone, MySpace, Facebook Race To Micropayments In 2009
John Cook / TechFlash:
EMC buys SourceLabs, operator of open source site Swik.net
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Ballmer's CES Keynote Promises To Be A Snoozer (Non-Announcements Revealed!)
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Indian streaming service JioCinema launches an ad-free subscription plan with the lowest tier costing $0.35/month for a single device, undercutting rivals

Murray Stassen / Music Business Worldwide:
Warner Music Group sells Uproxx, HipHopDX, and other assets to a new company, Uproxx Studios, formed by Jarret Myer, Rich Antoniello, and will.i.am

Georg Szalai / The Hollywood Reporter:
Comcast reports Q1 Peacock revenue rose 54% YoY to $1.1B, a $639M loss, down from $704M in Q1 2023, and paying subscribers up 55% YoY to 34M

 
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