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11:15 AM ET, February 12, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Michael Liedtke / Associated Press:
Facebook appraisal pegs company's value at $3.7B  —  Facebook Inc. quickly concluded it wasn't worth anywhere near the $15 billion market value implied in a 2007 investment made by Microsoft Corp., according to confidential information obtained Wednesday from court documents.
RELATED:
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
The AP Reveals Details of Facebook/ConnectU Settlement With Greatest Hack Ever  —  This is almost too good to be true.  The Associated Press has uncovered the details of the Facebook/ConnectU settlement using, of all things, copy and paste.  After taking drastic preventative measures to keep …
Wilson Rothman / Gizmodo:
Garmin-Asus Nuvifone M20: A Surprisingly Cute WinMo 6.1 GPS Phone  —  Garmin-Asus will launch the M20, a Windows Mobile 6.1 phone, sometime this year.  True to the name, this cute touchscreen handset comes with car dock and a full set of GPS maps for deep-country use.
RELATED:
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Garmin and Asus to show off nuvifones; Will anyone buy them?  —  Garmin and Asus next week will show off two nuvifones, a smartphone with a GPS twist, but the larger question is whether proconsumers will buy it.  —  Garmin-Asus is a co-branded partnership with Garmin and Asus parent ASUSTek Computer.
Tarmo Virki / Reuters:
Google plans data centre at old Finnish paper mill  —  * Stora sells old paper plant to Google  —  * Google says plans to open data centre at site (Releads, adds Google comments)  —  Google (GOOG.O) said on Thursday it aimed to build a data centre at an old paper mill in southeastern Finland …
RELATED:
Nokia Beta Labs blog:
Contacts on Ovi beta database failed - my deepest and most sincere apologies  —  Written by: Kristian Luoma, Product Manager, Contacts on Ovi.  —  Hey,  —  Something bad happened yesterday.  A cooler broke down in the hosting center that we run the Chat service in.
Wall Street Journal:
Facebook, Nokia Discuss Alliance  —  Battle Over Social-Networking Users Extends Into Cellphone Market  —  Facebook Inc. is stepping up its efforts to integrate its social network into an array of mobile phones, including those made by Nokia Corp., the world's largest handset maker.
Reuters:
Sirius XM in talks with DirecTV, Liberty: reports  —  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sirius XM Radio Inc's Chief Executive Mel Karmazin has approached DirecTV Group Inc and Liberty Media in an effort to fend off bankruptcy as well as a bid by EchoStar Corp's Charlie Ergen, media reports said on Wednesday.
RELATED:
New York Times:
DirecTV Owner Said to Seek Deal for Sirius XM
Discussion: BetaNews and DailyTech
Benjamin Grol / Gmail Blog:
Four changes to Gmail contacts  —  Over the past few days we've made a lot of small changes to Gmail's contact manager which, combined, should make it easier to organize the contacts you want and get rid of some of the cruft.  Here's a quick summary:  —  1. Contact merge (and an important caveat about auto-complete)
Discussion: WebProNews and Google Operating System, Thanks:sinkercat
Richard Wray / Guardian:
Samsung delays launch of Android phone  —  Samsung has delayed the release of its first mobile phone based on Google's Android operating system until the second half of this year.  —  There had been speculation that Samsung, which recently leapfrogged Nokia to become market leader in the UK …
Latest Adrian's Rojak Pot Updates:
The Microsoft Windows 7 Upgrade Program Rev. 2.1  —  The Microsoft Windows 7 Upgrade Program  —  Microsoft issued a draft of the Windows 7 Technical Guarantee Program to their OEM partners on December 10, giving them exactly one month to provide their feedback before Microsoft finalizes the program details.
RELATED:
Eric Lai / Computerworld:
Report: Free Windows 7 upgrades to run until January 2010
Tarmo Virki / Reuters:
Qualcomm, HP, MySpace to join Symbian camp  —  HELSINKI (Reuters) - Qualcomm (QCOM.O), MySpace (NWSA.O) and 12 more companies joined the Symbian camp on Thursday, giving the mobile operating system larger scale than Google's (GOOG.O) Android in the handset software battleground.
Discussion: Unwired View and Phone Scoop, Thanks:s_constantine
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
New Tweetdeck Out Tomorrow, Here's What It Will Include  —  We got our hands on the new version of popular Twitter desktop app Tweetdeck that will be delivered to all users tomorrow and we're pretty excited about what's been added.  —  If you've never used Tweetdeck, it's …
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Apple “Confident” On Q2 Guidance, Bernstein Says  —  Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi asserted in a research note this morning that Apple (AAPL) officials in a briefing this week “appeared confident” about its guidance for the fiscal second quarter ending in March.
Discussion: Ars Technica
Telegraph:
The Royal Website: The Queen's new website SEO review  —  The British Royal Family's new official website is reviewed for Search Engine Optimisation.  —  By Julian Sambles, Head of Audience, Telegraph.co.uk  —  I was honoured to be asked by colleagues to review the British Royal Family's …
Discussion: Network World, Guardian and BBC
Esteban Israel / Reuters:
Cuba launches own Linux variant to counter U.S.  —  HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba launched its own variant of the Linux computer operating system this week in the latest front of the communist island's battle against what it views as U.S. hegemony.  —  The Cuban variant, called Nova …
Discussion: DailyTech, OSNews and Slashdot
Nick / Rough Type:
Another little IBM deal  —  On August 12, 1981, 28 long years ago, IBM introduced its personal computer, the IBM PC.  Hidden inside was an operating system called MS-DOS which the computing giant had licensed from a pipsqueak company named Microsoft.  IBM didn't realize it at the time …
Duncan Graham-Rowe / Technology Review:
Sniffing Out Illicit BitTorrent Files  —  A new tool promises to detect illegal files without slowing network traffic.  —  A new technique has been developed for detecting and tracking illegal content transferred using the BitTorrent file-trading protocol.
PC World:
Skype Growing by 380,000 Users a Day  —  Ross O. Storey, CIO Asia  —  The number of its users is growing by the population of Singapore (more than four million) every 12 days and nearly a third of its registered subscribers now use it for business purposes.
Discussion: Pulse2
Dan Goodin / The Register:
New Windows virus attacks PHP, HTML, and ASP scripts  —  Virut gets around  —  Researchers have identified a new strain of malware that can spread rapidly from machine to machine using a variety of infection techniques, including the poisoning of webservers, which then go on to contaminate visitors.
Robin Goad / Hitwise Intelligence:
The Telegraph: how to pick up traffic from Digg  —  The Telegraph recently ran an excellent story that included our recent Twitter data.  While reading the article I noticed the Digg widget illustrated in the picture below on the newspaper's homepage.  Launched last October it lists …
Discussion: WebProNews
Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
Download and Buy Videos from YouTube  —  YouTube includes a new section for “My Videos”: a list of purchased videos.  A YouTube help page has more details about the new feature: … Videos are available to download in the MP4 format and some of them can be downloaded for free and they're …
Discussion: Lifehacker and Obsessable, Thanks:labnol
Darren Murph / Engadget:
Verizon Wireless adopts Alltel's My Circle as ‘Friends & Family’  —  It was the number one concern of about-to-be-swallowed Alltel customers going into this merger deal, and now it's finally time for those individuals to breathe a huge sigh of relief.  In a prime example of great decision making …
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Epson's tiny GPS receiver will make everything location aware  —  Small, right?  That's Epson's Infineon XPOSYS chip, its next generation Assisted-GPS device set for mass production in late 2009.  The chip measures just 2.8 x 2.9-mm making it 25% smaller than other A-GPS chips on the market …
Discussion: Electronista and Gizmodo
Lewis Page / The Register:
NSA offering ‘billions’ for Skype eavesdrop solution  —  Business model for P2P firm at last?  —  Counter Terror Expo News of a possible viable business model for P2P VoIP network Skype emerged today, at the Counter Terror Expo in London.  An industry source disclosed that America's …
Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
Diddit launches surprisingly addictive activity guide  —  The development team behind search company Inktomi is launching a new service tonight called Diddit, which functions as both an activity guide and a way to share stories and accomplishments.  —  Diddit is a bit like business-rating services …
Martin Arnold / Financial Times:
Venture capital groups make lifeline plea  —  Hundreds of promising UK technology companies are expected to fail this year because of a lack of funding, venture capitalists are warning, as they press the government to finance a £1bn ($1.4bn) fund of funds to support the sector.
Discussion: Dealscape
 
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 More Items: 
Wall Street Journal:
More Tech Start-Ups Call It Quits
Discussion: GigaOM and BoomTown
Associated Press:
Free music download service signs last major label
Discussion: last100
Prince McLean / AppleInsider:
iPhone Push Notification Server tied to Snow Leopard Server
Discussion: The iPhone Blog
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
If Newspapers Went Offline For A Week... People Might Realize …
Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:
Texas judge orders site to identify anonymous trolls, flamers
Discussion: DailyTech
 Earlier Items: 
The Inudian:
Never Share Your Twitter Password Again
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb
Dina Bass / Bloomberg:
Microsoft to Hire Yahoo Vice President Larry Heck to Bolster Search Engine
Christopher Wren / Social Web Blog:
A social bar for your site
 

 
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

Jesse Whittock / Deadline:
Wondery UK hires ex-head of studios for Spotify UK and Ireland as its head of podcasts, and launches its paid, ad-free subscription service Wondery+ in the UK

 
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