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6:30 PM ET, January 8, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Matt Richtel / New York Times:
Palm Unveils iPhone Competitor, the Pre  —  LAS VEGAS — Seeking to revive its sharply fallen fortunes and produce a successor to its aging Treo device, Palm on Thursday unveiled a new smartphone, the Pre, and an exclusive partnership with Sprint to distribute it.
RELATED:
Paul Miller / Engadget:
The Palm Pre  —  The new-ness is underway, and Palm just debuted its long(est) awaited all-new handset, the Palm Pre.  The curvy touchscreen handset has a 3.1-inch 320 x 480 multitouch display, with a rollerball down below and touch sensitivity all down the face — the lower part is for “gestures.”
Nilay Patel / Engadget:
Palm announces webOS platform  —  Palm just got official with its new webOS platform, running on the new Palm Pre.  According to the company, anyone who knows CSS, HTML and XML will be able to develop for the OS without having to learn any new languages — sounds kind of like it's a jacked …
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Palm Unveils Its iPhone Rival: The Pre.  Don't Expect to Buy One Cheap.  —  Palm used to own the smartphone market, but now it's barely hanging on amid competition from Research In Motion's (RIMM) BlackBerry line and Apple's iPhone.  Today the company unveils its long-awaited comeback plan …
Steve O'Hear / last100:
Have we just witnessed the second coming of Palm?  —  Ex-Engadget editor Ryan Block put it best when he said that Palm's much anticipated CES announcement “will either mark the beginning of the company's second coming — or the beginning of the end.”  Thankfully, for those like me who were rooting for Palm …
Adrian Covert / Gizmodo:
Live: Palm Keynote  —  In a few moments, we will see the fruits of the Palm team's many months of labor, and the Palm fan's answer to what the Post-Treo revolution looks like.  Updates.  —  It's a lot for them to live up to, but we're resetting our expectations and approaching the lagging company's new model line with an open mind.
Sam Diaz / Between the Lines:
Reasons to skip Microsoft's Windows 7 Beta download  —  As many of you know, I'm a hardcore Mac guy - but I wasn't always this way.  My experiences with Windows Vista sent me over the edge, prompting me to add the “hardcore” next to my “Mac guy” title.  Still, I was excited to hear …
RELATED:
Brandon LeBlanc / The Windows Blog:
Information on Downloading and Installing Windows 7 Beta  —  As of today, I am running the Windows 7 Beta on several different PCs including my laptop, my work PC, and my PC at home, which I upgraded recently to Windows 7 from Windows Vista SP1.  (I'll be outlining the PCs I'm using to test Windows 7 shortly.)
Microsoft:
Microsoft's Ballmer Announces Availability of Windows 7 Beta and Windows Live
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Microsoft Releases Tag, Its Second iPhone Application  —  At CES, Microsoft has introduced its second iPhone app after dipping its toe with the release of Seadragon Mobile last month.  The name of the application is Microsoft Tag, and it enables users to instantly access mobile content …
RELATED:
Long Zheng / istartedsomething:
Microsoft Tag: Microsoft's own 2D barcode  —  It just wouldn't be right if Microsoft didn't have its own barcode technology too, which is why today Microsoft Tag (Beta) was announced at CES 2009.  Much like other 2D barcode technologies including the popular but underwhelming QR Code …
Jeff Zeleny / New York Times:
Obama Digs In for His BlackBerry  —  WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama has yet to relent, but he conceded that he might be losing the battle to keep his independent lifeline to the outside world.  —  “I'm still clinging to my BlackBerry,” Mr. Obama said Wednesday.  “They're going to pry it out of my hands.”
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
Delete 10 Facebook friends, get a free Whopper  —  Facebook's developer platform has been used for a zillion marketing campaigns so far, but this one is actually dead-on hilarious.  —  Fast-food chain Burger King has created “Whopper Sacrifice,” a Facebook app that will give you a coupon …
Matt Buchanan / Gizmodo:
Sony Cybershot G3: World's First Camera You Can Surf the Web On  —  The Cybershot G3 is a camera so special Sony Sir Howard Stringer himself did the honors: It's the world's first Wi-Fi camera with a built-in browser.  —  GALLERY  —  END Besides stealing your neighbor's Wi-Fi …
Open:
Announcing the Congress API  —  On Tuesday, members of the 111th Congress convened in Washington.  Over the next two years, the 535 men and women of the House and Senate will introduce, consider and vote on a range of issues, from an economic stimulus package to confirmation of President-elect Barack Obama's cabinet nominees.
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Live blogging CES: Sony CEO Howard Stringer pals with Tom Hanks  —  Sir Howard did a good job showing off a combination of cool technology and Sony's clout in rounding up celebrities to appear on stage with him for his keynote speech at the CES show in Las Vegas today.
Dawn Kawamoto / CNET News:
Sources: Yahoo's Decker a strong contender for CEO  —  Despite Wall Street's wrath that ensued following the failed Microsoft buyout bid, people familiar with Yahoo's CEO search say don't count out the company's president, Sue Decker.  —  The executive has undergone two full rounds …
Discussion: Gawker
RELATED:
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
New Prospect for Yahoo CEO: Carol Bartz
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
Brian Prince / eWeek:
Microsoft Plans Small Patch Tuesday  —  Resource Library:  —  Microsoft has just one security bulletin on the menu for Patch Tuesday.  The bulletin will address a remote code execution situation affecting Microsoft Windows.  The bulletin is rated critical for Microsoft Windows 2000, XP and Windows Server 2003.
RELATED:
Microsoft:
Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification for January 2009
Discussion: CNET News and Computerworld
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
The Entire Internal Microsoft Memo on New Dell and Verizon Deal  —  BoomTown loves a good memo and here's one that two of Microsoft's top online execs, Yusuf Mehdi and Satya Nadella sent out about the deal the tech giant signed with Dell (DELL) and Verizon (VZ) to distribute its search and other products.
John Eggerton / Broadcasting & Cable:
Obama Asks Congress to Delay DTV Transition  —  President-elect Barack Obama has asked Congress to extend the Feb. 17 DTV transition date.  —  Citing problems with the DTV-to-analog converter box program and “inadequate funding” of government DTV education programs, John Podesta …
Discussion: Gizmodo
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
The Dangerous Trend Of Thinking That Ideas Can Be Owned, Sold Or Stolen  —  An anonymous reader called our attention to a comment reposting some fantastic thinking on the dangerous trend of believing we can own, sell or steal ideas.  The comment was in response to a post on Slashdot …
Harrison Hoffman / Webware.com:
Boxee plugs into Joost, MTV Music, Apple TV  —  Boxee, one of the more promising media applications out there today, is announcing the launch of a few new content sources today at the Consumer Electronics Show.  —  Boxee now has added support for content from Joost and MTV Music.
Discussion: TheNextWeb.com and MacBlogz
RELATED:
Nick Wingfield / Digits:
CES: Ballmer's Pregame Jitters  —  Steve Ballmer admits he's a little nervous.  Not about Google or Apple or the economy, at least not at this very moment.  It was a few hours before the Microsoft CEO was to give his first keynote speech Wednesday night at CES, a chore traditionally handled by Bill Gates, and he's a little antsy.
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
Taxing ISPs To Fund Newspapers?  —  In trying to explain why a music tax is a bad idea, I pointed out that if you start with music, you quickly have to start adding pretty much every industry disrupted by the internet.  The obvious one is movies, but what about newspapers?
Discussion: DSLreports
Wolfgang Gruener / TG Daily:
CES 2009: iPhone may get GPGPU acceleration  —  Las Vegas (NV) - Imagination Technologies will announce a new version of its graphics chip IP tomorrow.  The PowerVR SGX543 is the firm's first multi-core capable GPU technology which scales to, in theory, an unlimited number of cores and offer support for GPGPU acceleration.
Nokia:
Messaging made simple - the Nokia E63 heads to the United States  —  This affordable QWERTY smartphone to be made available with US 3G optimization  —  Las Vegas, NV, USA - At the Consumer Electronics Show today, Nokia announced it will bring a US optimized version of the Nokia E63 to the North American market.
Dan Rayburn / The Business Of Online Video:
Verizon Cuts Transport Costs To CDNs: The Real Story Is More Than Price  —  Yesterday, Verizon announced a new program dubbed the “Verizon Partner Port Program” which gives content owners and CDNs the benefit of a direct connection from their content storage devices to the Verizon Internet backbone network.
 
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 More Items: 
John Timmer / Ars Technica:
IT group: stimulus money needed for broadband, smart grid
Discussion: CNET News
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Product Group ReOrg At AOL: The Memo
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
David Chartier / Infinite Loop:
Macworld.Ars: Town Hall Meeting says community is the future
Discussion: MacRumors
Saul Hansell / Bits:
C.E.S. Interview: A.M.D.'s Dirk Meyer on the $100 PC
Discussion: TechCrunch and Tech Trader Daily
Tameka Kee / paidContent.org:
@ CES: Norwest's Chang: Things Could Get Scary For Facebook, Slide in '09
Discussion: The Social Times
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Dutch Startup eFresh.com Raises $5.4 Million From Rabobank
Discussion: TheNextWeb.com
Dave Moyer / Ars Technica:
New Freescale processors target Linux netbooks
John Murray Brown / Financial Times:
Ireland to lose 1,900 jobs as Dell moves to Poland
Discussion: Reuters and Digital Daily
 Earlier Items: 
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
CES: Consumer Electronics Sales Seen Off 0.6% In '09
Discussion: Digital Daily and paidContent.org
Jessica Dolcourt / Download.com editors:
Googlepedia for Firefox brings Wikipedia to you
Rob_sheridan / forum.nin.com:
Lights In The Sky HD Footage Downloads!
Discussion: Techdirt and TECH.BLORGE.com
Kelly Fiveash / The Register:
Google quietly ices contractors
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Corkd Gets Hackd
Discussion: Podcasting News
BBC:
Hard drive destruction ‘crucial’
Discussion: Which? News and TECH.BLORGE.com