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7:45 PM ET, February 4, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Yahoo! Search Blog:
Search Pad: Making Online Research Easier  —  If you've ever used a search engine as a tool to help plan a vacation, research a purchase, or find health information on an illness, you know how difficult it is to keep track of the relevant websites and notes you find.
RELATED:
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Google Asks Time Warner for a $250 Million AOL Refund-Or Something Else?  —  Here's another eye-poke delivered to Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes (pictured) from Google CEO Eric Schmidt: The search company has asked the media giant to refund the money it invested in AOL three years ago.
RELATED:
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
Google Demands Time Warner Buy Back AOL Stake (GOOG)
Discussion: Bits and paidContent.org
John Eggerton / Broadcasting & Cable:
Congress Changes DTV ‘Hard’ Date to June 12  —  Bill also allows households with expired coupons to reapply  —  After heated debate by legislators Wednesday and a year and a half of broadcasters, cable operators and the government drilling the Feb. 17 ‘hard’ date into the hearts and minds of viewers …
RELATED:
Alex Pham / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
House votes to delay digital TV transition to June 12
Discussion: Tech Beat and Computerworld
Ed Oswald / Technologizer:
AT&T Eyes Verizon Wireless Assets  —  On one hand, AT&T is fighting paying its employees more.  On the other, its hoping to snag up assets that Verizon Wireless must divest as part of its merger agreement with Alltel Wireless.  —  The Wall Street Journal is reporting that AT&T is likely …
Discussion: IntoMobile, Electronista, Crave and Gearlog
RELATED:
comScore:
U.S. Online Video Viewing Surges 13 Percent in Record-Setting December  —  Americans View 14.3 Billion Videos during the Month as YouTube Paces Growth  —  comScore (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released December 2008 data from the comScore Video Metrix service showing …
Vic Gundotra / The Official Google Blog:
See where your friends are with Google Latitude  —  How often do you find yourself wondering where your friends are and what they're up to?  It's a pretty central question to our daily social lives, and it's precisely the question you can now answer using Google Latitude.
Zach Epstein / Boy Genius Report:
Sprint EOL list reveals target Palm Pre launch, plenty more  —  Sprint customers, have you found yourself wondering what Hesse & Co. have in store for you this year beyond the illustrious Palm Pre?  Don't worry, you're not alone.  While we can't post the list itself, one of our ninjas came through …
Ashlee Vance / New York Times:
Wozniak Accepts Post at a Storage Systems Start-Up  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, could ignore the call of the motherboard no longer.  He is going back to work — this time at Fusion-io, a start-up company that tweaks computers to let them tap vast amounts of storage at very quick rates.
Brad Linder / Download Squad:
HP releases netbook interface for Ubuntu  —  Hewlett Packard has released a custom version of Ubuntu Linux designed for netbooks.  For the HP Mini 1000 Mi Edition, to be exact.  Under the hood, the operating system is based on Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron.  That means it can run pretty …
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Truce: Google and Microsoft join forces for an open white space spectrum  —  Google and Microsoft are perhaps the Internet's two most fierce rivals.  But that doesn't mean they can't work together from time to time.  That's what they're doing to make it possible for consumers to take advantage …
RELATED:
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Bill Gates Unleashes Mosquitoes On Rich TED Conference Crowd  —  Bill Gates seems to be enjoying his semi-retirement.  —  At the TED technology conference in California, Microsoft's (MSFT) Chairman just let a bunch of live mosquitoes go into the audience.  —  From Twitter, we gather …
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
The Pirate Bay Maps Out its Tracker Connections  —  In the past few weeks The Pirate Bay has been struggling with an increase in visitors, and a corresponding load on their servers.  Luckily, with a recent upgrade of the site's tracker servers, there is some room to breathe again.
Discussion: AppScout
Michael Calore / Epicenter:
Christians Bailing on GoDaddy Due to ‘Immoral’ Advertising  —  GoDaddy's famously risque Super Bowl ads always pull lots of eyeballs, but the company's latest spots may have resulted in a little too much attention of the wrong kind.  —  Entrepreneur Brian Harrell, who manages hosting services …
Derek Gottfrid / Open:
Announcing the Article Search API  —  Finally!  We are pleased to announce the initial release of the New York Times Article Search API.  Articles are the basic building blocks of The New York Times.  As a child, I was often reprimanded for (among other things) not sharing my blocks — well, today, I am happy to share.
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, Thanks:atul
Howard Lindzon:
Twitter Files for an IPO....'TWEET' as the Ticker Symbol?  —  I am starting this rumor if only for the reason to get some smart people talking about moving f**king forward with our public and private markets already.  —  Who cares that Twitter is not making money.  Now is the perfect time for their IPO.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Apple 2.0:
The great iPod migration  —  How will Apple (AAPL) persuade 100 million iPod users to trade up to an iPhone?  That's the problem Bernstein Research's Toni Sacconaghi tackles in a report to clients Wednesday.  —  His answer: Make an iPhone that comes without a data plan — currently $30 a month in the United States.
Sam Diaz / Between the Lines:
Cisco's Q2 sees weaker sales, profits; no widespread layoffs planned  —  updated: Despite the uncertain economic challenges in the future and a quarter that saw weaker sales and profits from a year ago, Cisco Systems remains optimistic about its ride through the downturn and is looking ahead …
Slash Lane / AppleInsider:
Apple says 17-inch MacBook Pros will see further delays  —  Apple said Wednesday that it's facing unexpected delays related to its new unibody 17-inch MacBook Pros and won't be capable of shipping orders for at least another two weeks.  —  “Wrapping up the new 17-inch MacBook Pro is taking …
Discussion: CNET News, Engadget and Macsimum News
Agence France Presse:
Norway drops complaint against Apple's iTunes  —  OSLO (AFP) - Norway's consumer watchdog said Wednesday it had dropped a complaint against Apple's iTunes after the company said songs sold via its music service would be compatible with all MP3 players, not just the iPod.
Stephen Shankland / Webware.com:
The ‘Twitter Effect’: Possibilities and limits  —  Is there a “Twitter Effect,” by which the rapid spread of information through the microblogging service can crush a Web site with traffic?  As I see it, the answer is yes, but it's not as simple as it might appear at first blush.
PC Magazine:
Want a 240-Gbyte iPod?  Here's How to Get It  — I'm a music junkie, I admit it.  But honestly, I thought that I would have appeased all of my pocket music library needs when I upgraded my iPod from 20 to 80GB.  It helped for a while, but every so often I find myself deleting yet another …
Discussion: Gearlog and Gizmodo
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
How Harvard Law threw down the gauntlet to the RIAA  —  Inside one Harvard Law professor's bid to turn his students into cyberactivists and to force the music industry to face the future in the process.  —  In retrospect, Harvard's eventual involvement was obvious.
Discussion: CrunchGear
Rafael / Within Windows:
Windows 7 auto-elevation mistake lets malware elevate freely, easily  —  As you probably know by now, Windows 7 introduces some new in-between modes for User Account Control (UAC).  By default, Windows 7 (beta thus far) ships with UAC configured at the “Notify me only when programs try to make changes to my computer.” level.
Brian Krebs / Security Fix:
Report: Most Spam Sites Tied to Just 10 Registrars  —  Nearly 83 percent of all Web sites advertised through spam can be traced back to just 10 domain name registrars, according to a study to be released this week.  —  The data come from millions of junk messages collected over the past year by Knujon …
Discussion: Domain Name News
Chris Snyder / Epicenter:
Pandora Sees iPhone Gold in the Palm Pre  —  Pandora founder Tim Westergren thinks being broad isn't necessarily the best strategy for development in the smartphone industry and that betting on a single (what he calls a “hero") platform could be the way to go.  Hint: it's not a Blackberry or Google's Android.
Greg Sandoval / CNET News:
Is Google's Eric Schmidt the next David Geffen?  —  Google's name is on the lips of music industry powerbrokers.  —  For several years, YouTube has been a disruptive force in film and television.  Now music poobahs are wondering what designs Google may have on their businesses.
Dave Caolo / TUAW:
App makes time lapse photography easy for iPhone  —  iPhone TimeLapse Test from digitalurban on Vimeo.  —  Here's a fun application.  TimeLapse [App Store link] uses your iPhone's camera to take photos at regular intervals.  You can have one photo snapped as infrequently as every 24 hours …
Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac and Digital Urban
Chris Pendleton / Virtual Earth, An Evangelist's Blog:
Virtual Earth Imagery Release, January 2009  —  The engine has been churning for a few months and we've finally pumped out another imagery release - a massive 37TB of data [100TB worth of data ](initial calculations have been corrected, but seriously who cares?  The coverage is expansive, regardless).
Discussion: WebProNews and LiveSide
Jack Loechner / MediaPost:
Job Search Online Fastest Growing Category  —  comScore, Inc., in a study of Americans' usage of the job search category, the fastest growing content site category in 2008, found that the category has seen the number of visitors grow 51% to 18.8 million visitors, as millions of Americans find themselves seeking new job opportunities.
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Facebook at 5: Remembering the Early Years, and Measuring Up Against Google  —  Happy Birthday, Facebook!  You're 5 years old today, and that's pretty cool.  But the party you're throwing yourself?  Not much fun.  —  How about this instead: Some brief reminiscing, via …
 
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 More Items: 
Tameka Kee / paidContent.org:
Search Glitches Highlight Chinks In Google's Armor
Declan McCullagh / CNET News:
David Kralik: Why feds should embrace the cloud
Heather Dougherty / Hitwise Intelligence:
Facebook Turns 5  —  Today is the fifth anniversary of the launch …
Discussion: VentureBeat and Computerworld
Greg Sandoval / CNET News:
TorrentSpy renews legal campaign against MPAA
Discussion: TorrentFreak
Agence France Presse:
Mobile phone sales down 12.6 pct in 4th qtr: IDC
Discussion: CNET News
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
NetworkedBlogs App on Facebook Adding 500 New Blogs a Day
Discussion: Webware.com
 Earlier Items: 
Scott Duke Harris / Mercury News:
Sons of migrant farmworkers co-found promising Silicon Valley tech startup
Thanks:wesmax27
DSLreports:
Time Warner Cable To Expand Metered Billing …
Discussion: Electronista and DVICE
Eric Krangel / Silicon Alley Insider:
Electronic Arts: We're Focusing On The Wii (ERTS)
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Did AOL Just Write Down Its Bebo Acquisition?
Discussion: Business Wire
Ryan Kairer / PalmInfocenter:
Donna Dubinsky Resigning from Palm's Board
David Chartier / Ars Technica:
iLife suite quietly going Intel-only, PowerPC owners cry
Discussion: TheAppleBlog and Technologizer
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Google & The Big Ideas
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Ben Sherwood and Joanna Coles take minority stakes in The Daily Beast; Sherwood will be CEO and publisher, and Coles will be chief creative and content officer

Sahil Patel / The Information:
Sources: Disney plans old-style TV channels within Disney+, with a continuous, scheduled stream of shows that are focused on certain genres like Star Wars

Winston Cho / Hollywood Reporter:
Rust movie armorer Hannah Gutierrez is sentenced to 18 months in prison in the 2021 accidental shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins

 
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