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9:45 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 …
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.
RELATED:
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.
Gavriella Schuster / The Windows Blog:
Guidance on Windows Deployments for Business Customers  —  Hi, I'm Gavriella; welcome to the new Windows for your Business Blog.  —  Let me introduce myself: I'm a member of the Windows Product Management team and have been at Microsoft for 13 years.  For the last two and a half …
RELATED:
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 …
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.
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: 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 …
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 …
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.
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 and OSNews
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 …
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: BBC and Guardian
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.
Christopher Wren / Social Web Blog:
A social bar for your site  —  Labels: Google Friend Connect, new features  —  While it's easy to add social features to your site with Google Friend Connect, you may have been wondering where to put all of the great gadgets.  You need your users to sign in, to interact with your site …
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.
Ed Burnette / Ed Burnette's Dev Connection:
Java gets a mobile makeover with JavaFX Mobile  —  BN] e.g. searchapi.php?brand=TR&mode= document  —  Sun Microsystems announced today the release of the JavaFX Mobile platform.  Built on top of the existing Java ME platform, JavaFX Mobile allows developers to create immersive mobile content …
Discussion: eWeek, MacDailyNews and InfoWorld
Associated Press:
Free music download service signs last major label  —  LOS ANGELES - Qtrax, an Internet company that promises the first free music download service paid for by advertisements, said Wednesday it had signed up the last of the four major recording companies and plans to relaunch next month.
Discussion: last100
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
Tweet. Meet. Give.:
Tweet.  Meet.  Give.  —  On 12 February 2009 175+ cities around the world will be hosting Twestivals which bring together Twitter communities for an evening of fun and to raise money and awareness for charity: water.  —  Join us by:  — Attending one of the events detailed on the city sites listed on this page.
RELATED:
Jenna Wortham / Bits:   Twitterers Worldwide Gather for Twestival
Bill Harwood / CNET News:
U.S. and Russian satellites collide  —  In an unprecedented space collision, a commercial Iridium communications satellite and a defunct Russian satellite ran into each other Tuesday above northern Siberia, creating a cloud of wreckage, officials said today.
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
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 …
Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:
Texas judge orders site to identify anonymous trolls, flamers  —  The right to flame someone online has typically been protected by the courts, but a Texas judge has decided enough is enough when it comes to 178 anonymous commenters on Topix.com.  The site has less than a month to hand …
Discussion: DailyTech
William Maher / PC Authority:
Australia's tubes, some are about to be filtered  —  Well, if you're using one of six ISPs.  The first “phase” of the government's controversial ISP filtering scheme is set to begin.  —  The big news?  Telstra, Optus, iiNet, and any other major ISP you care to mention (except Primus) …
Discussion: Slashdot
The Mozilla Blog:
Q&A on Mozilla and the European Commission  —  In response to questions that have been asked about Mozilla's involvement with the recent European Commission (EC) conclusion regarding Microsoft's tying of Internet Explorer to the Windows operating system, we've prepared this brief set of questions and answers.
 
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 More Items: 
Prince McLean / AppleInsider:
iPhone Push Notification Server tied to Snow Leopard Server
Discussion: The iPhone Blog
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Acer's DX650 and X960 smartphones leaked: we waited for this?
Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
Pirate Bay Trial Audio Will Be Streamed Online
Discussion: p2pnet and Techdirt
Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
Download and Buy Videos from YouTube
Thanks:labnol
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
If Newspapers Went Offline For A Week... People Might Realize …
The Inudian:
Never Share Your Twitter Password Again
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb
 Earlier Items: 
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Pierre Omidyar's New Ginx Looks Like a Dud
Discussion: TechCrunch and VentureBeat
Dina Bass / Bloomberg:
Microsoft to Hire Yahoo Vice President Larry Heck to Bolster Search Engine
Paul McIntyre / Sydney Morning Herald:
MySpace founder concedes social network defeat
Daily Mail:
Faithless on Facebook: One in five under-30s dump partners through …
Discussion: Technically Incorrect
Philipp Lenssen / Google Blogoscoped:
Google Penalizing Google  —  It looks like Google penalized one of its own websites.
Discussion: Search Engine Land, Thanks:atul