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7:00 AM ET, February 18, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook Blog:
Update on Terms  —  A couple of weeks ago, we revised our terms of use hoping to clarify some parts for our users.  Over the past couple of days, we received a lot of questions and comments about the changes and what they mean for people and their information.
RELATED:
Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
Facebook reverts to old terms of service, working on new version that “everybody can understand”  —  Well, that was pretty fast.  Facebook has reverted to its prior terms of service — due to a backlash from some users, media outlets and privacy groups — while it works out a new version.
PC World:
Facebook Privacy Change Sparks Federal Complaint  —  JR Raphael, PC World  —  facebook faces privacy backlash over change in terms of use of network  —  The backlash against Facebook's updated privacy policies is about to expand.  The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) …
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
BoomTown Decodes the Zuckerberg Terms of Service My-Bad Memo (Now With 10 Percent More “So Very Sorrys!")  —  Under cover of darkness last night, Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on the social networking site's blog that it would “return to our previous terms of use while we resolve the issues that people have raised.”
Jessi Hempel / Fortune:
How Facebook is taking over our lives  —  President Obama used it to get elected.  Dell will recruit new hires with it.  Microsoft's new operating system borrows from it.  No question, Facebook has friends in high places.  Can CEO Mark Zuckerberg make those connections pay off?
Julian Sanchez / Ars Technica:
Stimulus-tracking Recovery.gov site goes live  —  Recovery.gov launches to track stimulus spending—but will it be a triumph of transparency or an exercise in spin?  —  President Obama signed The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 today, and while much of the $789 billion …
RELATED:
Saul Hansell / Bits:
Can Obama's Online Hotline Deliver?
Discussion: FlowingData and blogs.ft.com
Kevin Poulsen / Threat Level:
Anonymous Caller?  New Service Says, Not Any More  —  A new service set for launch Tuesday allows cellphone users to unmask the Caller ID on blocked incoming calls, obtaining the phone number, and in some cases the name and address, of the no-longer-anonymous caller.
Jesus Diaz / Gizmodo:
Android G2 Hands On: Close to Perfection  —  HTC and Google are getting closer to perfection with the new Android G2, the HTC Magic.  Nice finish, great form factor.  Check out our video, including the obligatory comparison with Apple's iPhone, and hands-on impressions:
Devin Coldewey / CrunchGear:
Canon releases 10 cameras in one night - thanks, Canon  —  Just when I thought it was safe to relax and read a little bit, my inbox lights up with a damn tidal wave of point-and-shoots.  If you're in the market, you'll be doing more in-depth research and of course the outliers of this batch …
Katie Marsal / AppleInsider:
Battery, RAM, and HD access on new 17-inch Macbook Pro  —  Apple's new unibody 17-inch MacBook Pro began shipping earlier this week and a new tear-down of the high-end notebook reveals the steps needed to access the system's internal memory, hard drive, and battery components.
Thom Holwerda / OSNews:
Freescale To Use Android, Aims for Half of Netbook Market  —  Earlier this year, Freescale announced it would enter the netbook market with its own set of chips based on the ARM architecture, claiming they would yield better battery life than the Atom-based netbooks of today.
Discussion: Reuters, Thanks:kevendones
Eric Goldman / Technology & Marketing Law Blog:
Google Street View Case Dismissed—Boring v. Google  —  Boring v. Google, Inc., 2:08-cv-00694-ARH (W.D. Pa. Feb. 17, 2009)  —  You may recall the Boring case from last Spring.  A Pennsylvania couple sued because Google's camera car drove up their private driveway and the resulting pictures were posted to Google's Street View.
Discussion: CNET News
Aaron Wall / Learn. Rank. Dominate.:
Mahalo Caught Spamming Google With PageRank Funneling Link Scheme  —  Jason “SEO is dead” Calacanas, founder of Mahalo, used “SEO is dead” as a publicity stunt to help launch his made for AdSense scraper website.  In the past we have noted how he was caught ranking pages without any original content …
Discussion: the Econsultancy blog, Thanks:atul
Jessica Vascellaro / Digits:
Startup Sues Google Using Microsoft's (Outside) Lawyers  —  By Jessica E. Vascellaro  —  TradeComet.com LLC, which operates a small search engine for industrial products, has sued Google, alleging that the search giant tried to put it out of business by increasing its advertising prices.
Eric Krangel / Silicon Alley Insider:
Anonybloggers, Be Gone!  Tumblr Boots Griefers  —  Last September, we noted the unfortunate reality that every social network has its troublemakers, and Tumblr — which was plagued by so-called “anonybloggers” —  is no exception.  —  No more.  In a post today on the official Tumblr blog …
Aidan Malley / AppleInsider:
Apple execs rethinking iPhone pricing strategy for 2009  —  While the likelihood of Apple releasing new iPhones this year is all but certain, a discussion between analysts and Apple's top brass has also dropped clues that the iPhone's pricing may not be static this year.
Discussion: Macsimum News
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
With a King's Ransom in Cash, Why Is There Still No Buying Spree in the Tech Space Yet?  —  Even in the midst of the economic meltdown, consider these mega-billion-dollar cash hoards of big tech companies:  —  Microsoft (MSFT): $20.7 billion  —  Cisco (CSCO): $29.5 billion  —  Apple (AAPL): $25.6 billion
James Rowley / Bloomberg:
Antitrust Pick Varney Saw Google as Next Microsoft  —  Feb. 17 (Bloomberg) — Christine A. Varney, nominated by President Barack Obama to be the U.S.'s next antitrust chief, has described Google Inc. as a monopolist that will dominate online computing services the way Microsoft Corp. ruled software.
Discussion: VentureBeat and TechFlash
Hiptop3.com:
The Sidekick 2009 in the wild  —  We knew it was coming.  We knew they were visiting and they answered the call.  Ladies and gentlemen, it's the photo we've all been waiting for.  May we present to you, the Sidekick 2009 aka the Sidekick Blade.
Ubergizmo:
Samsung SWD-M100 MID Hands-On (WiMax)  —  Now, there's a MID (mobile internet device) that we could use to blog on the go.  The Samsung SWD-M100D is a WiMax + WiFi device that has both a touch display and a sliding QWERTY keyboard.  The most important feature (for live blogging) …
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Did Hulu Just Pull The Plug On Its Deal With TV.com?  —  Something is up at TV.com, the CBS-owned site that recently relaunched as a competitor to Hulu.  Since last summer, when TV.com was owned by CNET and was still primarily a community hub, the site has featured content from NBC and News Corp through a partnership with Hulu.
Discussion: AdAge, MediaPost and CNET News, Thanks:kevendones
Sue Marek / FierceWireless:
Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson win Verizon LTE deal  —  At this morning's highly anticipated keynote address at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Verizon Communications' executive vice president and CTO Dick Lynch named the key vendors for the company's LTE network deployment.
Discussion: Wall Street Journal
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
Source: NYC to announce start-up workspace partnership  —  The city of New York is about to step up its efforts to help nascent businesses and laid-off professionals, CNET News has learned.  —  On Wednesday, the city's Economic Development Corporation (NYC EDC) plans to announce a new initiative …
Mike Snider / USA Today:
eGuiders cuts through clutter of a gazillion videos online  —  In the golden age of television, TV Guide arrived on newsstands to let viewers know what was being broadcast and when.  —  Whether this is the golden age of Web videos is debatable.  But a new Hollywood-based site, eGuiders.com …
Discussion: NewTeeVee
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
WeddingBook Marries Search Aggregation With Wedding Vendor Listings  —  With upwards of 200,000 wedding vendors in the U.S. alone, the wedding industry can be both fiercely competitive and highly profitable for businesses.  A new website, WeddingBook, is attempting to become …
Discussion: Kelsey Group Blogs
Nina Kang / Google LatLong:
1000 is the new 10  —  Ever wish you could see more than just ten local search results at once?  Us too.  —  So we've added a search layer for local search results that activates when there are more relevant results than we can show on one page.  Instead of just plotting the first page …
Discussion: Search Engine Land and Google Maps Mania, Thanks:atul
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
For all the “open” talk, Android Market sure has a lot of rules  —  Paid applications in the Android Market, the app store for Google's mobile platform, are now live.  This should boost development for the platform and in turn create new, interesting applications for consumers.
Discussion: Gizmodo and AndroidGuys
Latest Adrian's Rojak Pot Updates:
Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0 RTM Details  —  Although Microsoft has consistently asserted in public that Windows 7 will probably only be launched in 2010, the truth is they are rushing for a December 2009 release.  How close are they?  Well, one of Windows 7's key components, Internet Explorer 8 is almost ready for launch!
Mike Hendrickson / O'Reilly Radar:
State of the Computer Book Market 2008, Part 1: The Market  —  As described in Computer Book Sales as a Technology Trend Indicator, and our other posts on the State of the Computer Book Market we have an updated series of posts that show the whole market's final 2008 numbers.
Thanks:atul
 
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 More Items: 
Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
Confusion reigns on Time's best blogs list
Discussion: Daggle, Time and Mashable!, Thanks:robinwauters
Radhika Lakshmanan / Docs Blog:
Data Validation gives you more control over your spreadsheets
Discussion: Webware.com
Glassdoor.com:
Mobile Company Employees Report What It's Like on the Inside
Discussion: GigaOM
Claire Cain Miller / Bits:
Still No Royalty Deal for Streaming Music Sites
Monica Hesse / Washington Post:
A Virtual Unknown  —  So, the Internet walks into a bar.
Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab
 Earlier Items: 
Adrian Covert / Gizmodo:
Linksys Routers Now Have Built-In Internet Security
Discussion: Ars Technica and Yankee Group Blog
InfoWorld:
Spammers break Live Hotmail's CAPTCHA yet again
Discussion: Ars Technica and Between the Lines
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
SynthaSite Gets A $20 Million Boost For Simple Website Creation Software
Brian Caulfield / Forbes:
How HP Mastered The Pain Game
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
MySpace's Google Gravy Train Set to Stop Next Year
 

 
From Mediagazer:

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”

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

Todd Spangler / Variety:
YouTuber MrBeast announces a deal with Prime Video for Beast Games, a reality-competition show with 1,000 contestants, promising the winner a $5M cash prize

 
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