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9:25 PM ET, February 6, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Chris Ziegler / Engadget Mobile:
Microsoft's SkyBox site live, branded My Phone?  —  It appears that Microsoft may have its SkyBox beta sign-up site up and running in preparation for a Mobile World Congress unveiling — except that it's not called SkyBox, it's called “My Phone” (even though the domain is getskybox.com — go figure).
RELATED:
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
A Microsoft smartphone: No. A Microsoft phone chassis: Yes  —  Microsoft is not going to introduce a Microsoft-branded phone at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona later this month.  Not a Microsoft-branded Zune phone.  Not any kind of Microsoft-branded phone.  Period.
Nick O'Neill / All Facebook:
Facebook Opens Status API, Say Goodbye to Twitter  —  Tonight Facebook has made a number of updates to the Facebok platform one of which is the opening of status updates.  In order to get Facebook statuses, you no longer need to use a session ID to access statuses.
RELATED:
Chris Putnam / Facebook Developers:
Opening Up Core Facebook Application Features to Platform  —  We're launching several new features for Facebook Platform today.  These features open up access to the content and methods for sharing through several Facebook applications — including status, Notes, Links (what we used to call Posted Items) …
Discussion: VentureBeat, Thanks:biznickman
David Chartier / Ars Technica:
Facebook's “next steps in openness” raises questions
Discussion: eWeek and Marc's Voice
Miguel Helft / New York Times:
Google and Amazon to Put More Books on Cellphones  —  SAN FRANCISCO — More electronic books are coming to mobile phones.  —  In a move that could bolster the growing popularity of e-books, Google said Thursday that the 1.5 million public domain books it had scanned and made available free …
RELATED:
Fast Company:
Are Google Books a Threat to the Kindle?
Discussion: Open Sources
The Official Google Blog:
Eye-tracking studies: more than meets the eye  —  Imagine that you need a refresher on how to tie a tie.  So, you decide to type [how to tie a tie] into the Google search box.  Which of these results would you choose?  —  Where did your eyes go first when you saw the results page?
Matt Asay / The Open Road:
Marten Mickos to leave Sun in reorg  —  Marten Mickos, former MySQL chief executive and current senior vice president of Sun Microsystems' database group, is transitioning out of the company in a planned reorganization.  —  I reached Mickos this morning for confirmation: he is definitely leaving.
Kim Zetter / Epicenter:
TED: MIT Students Turn Internet Into a Sixth Human Sense — Video  —  LONG BEACH, California — Students at the MIT Media Lab have developed a wearable computing system that turns any surface into an interactive display screen.  The wearer can summon virtual gadgets and internet data at will …
Darryl K. Taft / eWeek:
Trouble at Salesforce.com?  —  Resource Library:  —  Steve Cakebread, president and chief strategy officer at Salesforce.com, has resigned, and reports say two top vice presidents have also left the company.  —  Is there trouble in the house that Benioff built?
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Job Losses: The Silicon Valley Perspective  —  Today's headlines trumpet the loss of 598,000 jobs last month — the worst in 34 years — but what does that mean for Silicon Valley, the home of technology?  In order to get a sense of what's happening with venture-backed startups …
Discussion: PE Hub Blog, Thanks:eldon
Microsoft On The Issues:
Steve Ballmer's Comments at Democratic Caucus Retreat  —  U.S. House of Representatives Democratic Caucus Retreat  —  Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer  —  STEVE BALLMER: Well, I want to thank Jay, I want to thank the speaker and all of you for the opportunity to be here today and chat with you.
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
StumbleUpon Hits 7 Million Users, Quietly 50% Bigger Than Twitter  —  What's got a button to push, knows how to make money while changing the world and is read all over?  StumbleUpon!  The social discovery network, like Pandora for webpages and videos, just passed 7 million users according to the site.
Discussion: Pulse2, Thanks:mrinaldesai
Eliot Van Buskirk / Epicenter:
ESPN to ISPs: Pay for Your Customers to Play Video  —  For some sports fans, ESPN360, the online version of ESPN's television channel, is a cornucopia of more than 3,500 sporting events each year, viewable from the convenience of a computer.  For others, it's a total bust.  The only difference: their ISP.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Apple 2.0:
Apple has NOT banned Facebook  —  How do these rumors get started?  Or, more to the point, how do they get perpetuated?  —  Late Thursday, a site called tinycomb ("Hand-Picked Tech News") reported that Facebook had been banned “for life” from every Apple (AAPL) store in the United States …
Nilay Patel / Engadget:
Official-looking Kindle 2 pictures and pricing leak out  —  We're not going to call it official yet, but a bunch of very real-looking Kindle 2 press images just hit the tubes, and we've got to say we're pretty convinced.  Although the device itself looks basically the same …
Discussion: Gizmodo
Mark Hachman / Gearlog:
Report: Pioneer Exiting TV Business, Spinning Off DVD  —  Tags:  —  HDTV, Pioneer  —  A report in the Nikkei Japanese business journal Friday claims that “Pioneer Corp. will pull the plug on its loss-ridden television business and shift its DVD player operations to a new venture with Sharp Corp …
Dean Jackson / Surfin' Safari:
CSS Animation  —  WebKit now supports explicit animations in CSS.  As a counterpart to transitions, animations provide a way to declare repeating animated effects, with keyframes, completely in CSS.  —  With a recent nightly build, you can see the above animation in action.
Benjamin J. Romano / Microsoft Pri0:
Microsoft digital ad shop Razorfish lays off 70 in Seattle, Portland, SF and LA  —  Razorfish, the digital advertising agency that Microsoft gained when it acquired aQuantive in 2007, is going through another round of layoffs.  A spokeswoman confirmed that the company laid off about 70 people …
Discussion: AdAge
Declan McCullagh / CNET News:
Obama names Doerr, Phillips to economic board  —  Two Silicon Valley leaders have been appointed by President Obama to a 16-person committee that's charged with offering economic advice during what has become an unusually sharp and deep recession.  —  John Doerr, the billionaire venture capitalist …
Discussion: eWeek, Jobwire and VentureBeat
Chris Albrecht / GigaOM:
Why Does Everyone Heart Boxee?  —  The buzz has been building for Boxee lately.  Mainstream news outlets like The New York Times, BusinessWeek and NPR are getting hip to the little open-source media center that could quite possibly change the way you experience TV.
Discussion: NewTeeVee and OStatic blogs
Reed Hastings / New York Times:
Please Raise My Taxes  —  I'M the chief executive of a publicly traded company and, like my peers, I'm very highly paid.  The difference between salaries like mine and those of average Americans creates a lot of tension, and I'd like to offer a suggestion.  President Obama should celebrate our success …
Discussion: Coop's Corner and SiliconBeat, Thanks:atul
Venture Capital Dispatch:
Vinod Khosla Moves Beyond Personal Wealth  —  It just might be official: Vinod Khosla isn't heading back to Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers after all.  —  When Khosla started up his own venture capital firm in 2004 to invest his personal wealth in information technology and clean technology companies …
Thanks:atul
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
News Corp: We Spent $2.8 Billion Too Much on Dow Jones  —  A little more detail, via a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, on the $8.4 billion write-down announced by News Corp. yesterday: $2.8 billion of that charge is getting assigned to the company's $5.7 billion purchase of Dow Jones …
dailymobile.se:
Pictures: Samsung M7600 - With Bang & Olufsen Powered Audio  —  As promised, Here are some pictures of the Samsung M7600 that haven't yet been announced.  —  Samsung M7600 Specifications: GSP, HDSPA, 3mpix camera, 2,8″ amoled screen, Bang olufsen amp, Divx, Full touch screen.
Discussion: Unwired View, Engadget and Cellpassion
Don Reisinger / Webware.com:
Webware Radar: Magnolia founder blames self  —  Social-bookmarking service Magnolia is in deep trouble.  Founder Larry Halff, who has been keeping users up-to-date on progress being made on restoring the company's database server, which suffered from file system corruption last week …
Discussion: TechCrunch and meeblog
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Seagate: Ex-CEO Watkins Gets $5 Million Severance Deal  —  Seagate (STX) disclosed in an SEC filing this afternoon that former CEO Bill Watkins has resigned as a director as of February 4.  The company also said it has reached a separation agreement with Watkins that will pay him $5,000,008 in cash …
Jeremy Laird / bit-tech.net:
The Dark Side of Overdrive  —  Faster is always better.  Thanks to that simple philosophy, LCD pixel response times have been driven down to puny proportions in recent years.  —  Today, even the slowest panels are rated at 16ms or better and deliver adequate response for all but the most fanatical PC gamers.
Discussion: Engadget, Thanks:sifter
Greg Sandoval / CNET News:
Why Microsoft, labels cling to music subscriptions  —  LOS ANGELES—For anybody wondering why Microsoft and the top music labels continue to promote subscription music services, the answer was revealed Thursday.  —  David Ring, executive vice president of business development …
Discussion: Technologizer and TomsTechBlog.com
 
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 More Items: 
Mark Hachman / PC Magazine:
Intel Cuts Notebook SSD Prices By a Third
Discussion: SlashGear and Engadget
Olga Kharif / Business Week:
Why Pay Match.com When Dating's Free Sites Beckon?
Sramana Mitra / Forbes:
Open Source Means Business
Discussion: Linux-Watch.com
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
The Pirate Bay Plans to Sue IFPI
Chris Duckett / ZDNET.com.au:
Is it Windows 7 or KDE 4? …
Discussion: Gizmodo, Download Squad and CrunchGear
James Sherwood / The Register:
HP UK pulls Linux from all new netbooks
Discussion: Electricpig.co.uk
 Earlier Items: 
DigiTimes:
Acer shipping 10.1-inch Aspire one netbooks
Discussion: Maximum PC all, TG Daily and I4U News, Thanks:dreamsketcher
Matthew Moore / Telegraph:
Police create wanted poster on Nintendo Wii
Discussion: Switched and Obsessable
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
New York Times Nuts Not To Charge Subscription Fee (NYT)
Discussion: Industry Standard
Paul Schwartzman / Washington Post:
Apple Store Design Hits a Glass Wall Again
 

 
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

 
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