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2:00 AM ET, February 17, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Jesus Diaz / Gizmodo:
Windows Mobile 6.5 Hands On: The New Interface Rocks  —  I like the new Windows Mobile 6.5 interface, specially the new home screen, which is brilliantly executed.  Running on the new HTC Touch Diamond 2, everything looked smoother, cleaner, and matched the iPhone's lick factor.
RELATED:
Microsoft:
Microsoft Reveals New Windows® Phones With Marketplace and My Phone Services  —  Microsoft mobile partners fly the Windows flag: HTC, LG and Orange preview first Windows® phones.  —  Today at Mobile World Congress 2009, Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer along with key mobile partners …
Matt Rosoff / Digital Noise:
Microsoft still has no iPhone answer
Discussion: TechFlash, iLounge and TweakTown News, Thanks:sampad
Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook Blog:
On Facebook, People Own and Control Their Information  —  A couple of weeks ago, we updated our terms of use to clarify a few points for our users.  A number of people have raised questions about our changes, so I'd like to address those here.  I'll also take the opportunity to explain how we think about people's information.
RELATED:
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
Facebook: Relax, we won't sell your photos  —  On an otherwise placid holiday weekend, one blog's commentary on a change to Facebook's terms of service created a firestorm of banter on the Web: does the social network claim ownership to any user content on the site, even if the user deletes it?
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Zuckerberg On Who Owns User Data On Facebook: It's Complicated
Discussion: Forbes and DailyTech
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
The Pirate Bay Trial - First Day in Court  —  The day started this morning at 08:30, with Pirate Bay founders Gottfrid Svartholm Warg (aka Anakata), Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi (aka Brokep) and Fredrik Neij (TiAMO) arriving at the court with the S23K bus.  The bus will operate as their press-center in the weeks to come.
RELATED:
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Labels want $13 million from Pirate Bay as trial starts  —  The trial of The Pirate Bay's backers kicked off Monday in Sweden as the prosecutor laid out an opening statement and the labels asked for $13 million in fines.  Meanwhile, the defendants were tweeting from the dock.
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:   Court Tweets, Pirate Flags and Free Candy
Rory Cellan-Jones / dot.life blog:
Game-changers - Google or Apple?  —  Two years ago all the talk at the Mobile World Congress was of the imminent arrival of the Apple iPhone, and how it was going to change the industry.  One year ago, all the talk was of Google's open-source Android operating system, and what a radical impact that might have.
Discussion: Reuters, TECH.BLORGE.com and broadstuff
RELATED:
Eric Zeman / InformationWeek:
MWC 2009: Android Forgets To Join The Party  —  We're only halfway through the first day at Mobile World Congress and already things are looking bleak for Android.  Many of the major manufacturers have already announced their new products at the show, and not one Android handset has been seen.
RELATED:
Ross Miller / Engadget:
Acer unveils Tempo smartphone series, forgets Windows Mobile 6.5  —  Not long after we spotted four new Acer phones in Barcelona has the company officially unveiled the Tempo X960, F900, M900, and DX900 smartphones, albeit with a few typo-laden spec sheets.  Interestingly, all of them are …
RELATED:
Harry McCracken / Technologizer:
Mobile World Congress: One Day, Sixteen New Phones
Discussion: CNET News and infoSync World
Ben Worthen / Wall Street Journal:
Oracle Goes on a Recession Buying Spree  —  While most American corporations pinch pennies, Oracle Corp. is quietly going on a shopping spree.  —  The software giant completed 10 acquisitions in the past year, ranging from a maker of insurance-policy-writing tools, to a designer of …
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Justin.tv Is Redirecting Porn Queries Into Cash  —  In the down economy, startups are trying everything they can think of to keep a steady flow of revenue coming in.  For popular live-streaming video site Justin.tv, it looks like one of these measures is to try to capitalize …
Charles Hudson / Charles Hudson's Weblog:
THE DATABASE OF INTENTIONS IS MORE VALUABLE THAN THE DATABASE OF MUSINGS FOR NOW (GOOGLE AND TWITTER)  —  I've been very curious to read this weekend's stream of people commenting on Twitter's business model and what it will look like.  I read this one in Forbes - it talks about how being able …
Thanks:atul
Mark Hendrickson / TechCrunch:
TechStars Fills Void Left By Y Combinator With New Incubator In Boston  —  Boulder, Colorado-based startup incubator TechStars has decided to open a second office in Boston where it will run a concurrent mentorship program starting this summer.  —  The Boston program …
Paul Carr:
Can you guess what my column's going to be about this week?  —  Backstory: I decided to email Andrew Orlowski from The Register to make sure he knew that his hatchet job on Twestival was misleading.  The following is the email thread.  Normally I wouldn't re-publish emails sent …
Discussion: The Register
Cade Metz / The Register:
Apple's Mac OS X update breaks Perl  —  Never trust a vendor  —  Apple's latest Mac OS X security update has a knack for breaking Perl, according to Mac users from across the web.  —  “I've just done the update using Software update and just about everything I look at is working …
Discussion: perl.org lists
Richard Waters / Financial Times:
Cash injection lifts fledgling technologies  —  High hopes in the technology industry that the Obama administration would bring a new, more technocratic approach to policymaking have already been met.  —  The US stimulus package contains incentives for a range of new technologies …
Michael Bettiol / Boy Genius Report:
Meet the HTC Magic, the Android-powered Vodafone exclusive formerly known as the G2  —  Y'all might know the next Android phone from HTC as the G2, but around these here parts we know it as the HTC Magic.  An exclusive to Vodafone in Europe, the Magic is of debatable sexyness when compared to the T-Mobile G1 …
Chris Messina / FactoryCity:
What really happened at Ma.gnolia and lessons learned  —  Larry (@lhalff) and I have been recording a podcast for the past year called Citizen Garden that covers various topics related to the web, technology, and social networking.  —  Well, given Ma.gnolia's recent catastrophe …
Datamation:
Bruce Perens: How Many Open Source Licenses Do You Need?  —  About the Author: Bruce Perens is the creator of the Open Source Definition, the manifesto of Open Source and the criterion for Open Source software licensing.  Perens represented Open Source at the United Nations World Summit …
Financial Times:
Malone comes to aid of Sirius  —  John Malone's Liberty Media is expected to offer about $250m in a senior secured loan on Tuesday as the first step in a “multi-stage” deal to rescue Sirius XM ahead of an imminent debt deadline, one person familiar with the satellite radio group's discussions said.
Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
Social Atoms and the Twitter Ecosystem  —  When Twitter first hit my radar screen sometime back in 2007, I (like many others) immediately dismissed it as a gimmicky little time-waster with no real value.  I mean, a message limit of 140 characters?  Lame.  And what was it for?  Nothing, apparently.
Monica Chen / DigiTimes:
Lenovo to launch 12-inch Atom netbook  —  Lenovo reportedly plans to launch an Atom N280-based IdeaPad S20 netbook featuring a 12-inch panel.  The specification would break Intel's restrictions for netbook products that state devices cannot offer panel sizes larger than the 10-inch category, according to sources at notebook makers.
 
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 More Items: 
Jon Healey / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
NAB reaches webcasting deal with SoundExchange
Discussion: nab.org
Joel Hruska / Ars Technica:
EU commissioner calls for unified mobile cable standard
Paulo Winterstein / Bloomberg:
Positivo Jumps on Speculation Lenovo Boosted Offer
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
Venture Capitalist Explains How Patents Can Be A Tax On Innovation
Thanks:atul
Colleen Barry / Associated Press:
Product launches are muted at wireless show
Tina Kelleher / adCenter Blog for Advertisers:
Now Available for Qualified Advertisers: Microsoft adCenter Desktop (Beta)
Discussion: Search Engine Watch
Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:
Sun targets Flash, brings JavaFX to mobile devices
Discussion: Obsessable
Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:
Twe2: Free Twitter SMS Updates For Europe and the Rest of the World
Discussion: TheNextWeb.com, Thanks:atul
 Earlier Items: 
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
What Went Wrong with Fennec, a.k.a. Firefox Mobile?
Thanks:blogfisher
Jay Yarow / Silicon Alley Insider:
Bloomberg And Reuters Clobbered
Thanks:sampad
Ed Felten / Freedom to Tinker blogs:
New Internet?  No Thanks.  —  Yesterday's New York Times ran a piece …
John Cook / TechFlash:
I Can Has Cheezburger buys Twittypic, plans Digg-like service
Discussion: Mashable! and Pulse2
Prince McLean / AppleInsider:
Netbooks killing off sickly Windows PC sales
 

 
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

Laurence Peter / BBC:
Russia's Ministry of Justice labels BBC Russian correspondent Ilya Barabanov and science reporter Asya Kazantseva as “foreign agents”; both now live abroad

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

 
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