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12:30 PM ET, February 20, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Adobe:
Buffer overflow issue in versions 9.0 and earlier of Adobe Reader and Acrobat  —  Vulnerability identifier: APSA09-01  —  A critical vulnerability has been identified in Adobe Reader 9 and Acrobat 9 and earlier versions.  This vulnerability would cause the application to crash …
RELATED:
Dawn Kawamoto / CNET News:
Adobe warns of critical, unpatched security flaw
Dan Goodin / The Register:
New in-the-wild attack targets fully-patched Adobe Reader
Discussion: Insecure Web
Sydney Morning Herald:
Look who leaked U2's new album  —  U2 and, inset, the cover of No Line On The Horizon.  —  Asher Moses  —  Full CD-quality copies of every song on U2's upcoming album, No Line On The Horizon, have been leaked on to the web after Universal Music Australia accidentally put it up for sale on its online music store two weeks early.
RELATED:
9 to 5 Mac:
Is the 5 USB Mac Mini a fake?  —  So, one of our readers, Dave - who happens to be an expert at PCB design, has spent some time looking at the Mac Mini image posted today and he believes it is a fake.  There have been many posts around the web on why.  —  Firstly, the dispersion of artifacts isn't consistant with an unedited image:
RELATED:
Harry McCracken / Technologizer:
Most. Boring. Apple. Rumor. Ever.
Discussion: Hardware 2.0 and Boy Genius Report
Brandon LeBlanc / The Windows Blog:
Test Updates for Windows 7 Beta Users  —  Starting February 24, we will be releasing up to 5 test updates to PCs running the Windows 7 Beta (Build 7000) via Windows Update.  These updates allow us to test and verify our ability to deliver and manage the updating of Windows 7.
RELATED:
Microsoft Update Product Team Blog:
Upcoming updates for Windows 7 testing  —  Starting on February 24th we will be offering some test updates to Windows 7 Beta (build 7000) computers.  We do typically verify update scenarios during a Beta, and releasing these test updates will help ensure that when we need to release real updates, the process will run smoothly.
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
A snow leopard on Live.com is causing some to lose their minds  —  I saw the story once and I thought: Oh, that's kind of funny.  I saw it twice and I thought: Hmm.  I saw it three times and saw it all over Twitter and thought: This is getting ridiculous.  There must be a shortage of stories …
BBC:
Hackers target Xbox Live players  —  Xbox Live is being targeted by malicious hackers selling services that kick players off the network.  —  The booting services are proving popular with players who want a way to get revenge on those who beat them in an Xbox Live game.
Discussion: CrunchGear, VG247, Gearlog and Joystiq
Ray C. He / Facebook Developers:
Commenting with Facebook Connect  —  Since Facebook Connect launched, we've seen over 6,000 developers make their sites more social using Facebook Connect.  One of the most common features we've seen sites add with Facebook Connect is the ability to allow users to log in with a single click …
Cyrus Farivar / PC World:
How Will the $7.2 Billion Allotted for Broadband Stimulus Be Spent?  —  Though a number of details are vague, many people in tech and telecom circles hope that the $7.2 billion allotment for broadband in the newly enacted federal economic stimulus package marks the beginning of a nationwide broadband strategy.
Discussion: GottaBeMobile.com
RELATED:
Peter Svensson / Associated Press:   Skepticism arises over rural broadband stimulus
Michael E. Driscoll / Data Evolution:
How Google and Facebook are using R  —  Last night, I moderated our Bay Area R Users Group kick-off event with a panel discussion entitled “The R and Science of Predictive Analytics”, co-located with the Predictive Analytics World conference here in SF.  —  The panel comprised of four recognized R users from industry:
Robert L. Mitchell / PC World:
Online Dating: Analyzing the Algorithms of Attraction  —  Just how do eHarmony, Plenty of Fish, True.com and PerfectMatch.com work under the hood?  —  Recommends  —  When Joe wanted to find love, he turned to science.  —  Rather than hang out in bars or hope that random dates worked out …
Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
Pirate Bay Trial Day 5: Peter's “Political Trial”  —  Friday, the fifth day of the trial and Peter Sunde, aka brokep, is being questioned by the Prosecution.  Håkan Roswall started off by asking Peter if he ever had dealings with The Pirate Bay's (TPB) computer systems - Peter said he did, but in a limited fashion.
Discussion: Gizmodo, p2pnet and digg.com
Stephanie Simon / Wall Street Journal:
Parents Give Up Facebook for Lent  —  They're a little too old to give up potato chips, Guitar Hero or Red Bull for Lent.  —  But as Christian parents ponder an appropriate sacrifice, they find themselves mulling a choice they'd have once seen as preposterous: A Facebook fast — not for their teens but for themselves.
Dina Bass / Bloomberg:
Microsoft, Intel Firings Stir Resentment Over Visas for Foreign Workers  —  Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) — Microsoft Corp.'s plan to eliminate U.S. workers after lobbying for more foreigner visas is stirring resentment among lawmakers and employees.  —  As many as 5,000 employees are being shown …
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Quicken Online Can't Believe Mint Is Doing So Well; Sends Threatening Letter  —  Intuit, the company behind the well-known Quicken suite of money management software that includes Quicken Online, can't believe how well its competitor Mint is doing.  In fact, they were so bewildered …
Discussion: AccMan Pro
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
Cable providers eye offering TV shows online: report  —  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Comcast Corp and Time Warner Cable Inc are talking with owners of major cable television networks about ways to give cable subscribers online access to much of the networks' programing, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the situation.
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch UK:
Mix Twitter and Digg, add jokes, get Popjam  —  Popjam is a new ‘social humour’ site which has launched using the Twitter ‘friend/follow’ model of social networking.  In fact - but for the images of LOLcats and videos - it is so similar to Twitter in appearance and operation that it could be mistaken for a pure Twitter clone.
Discussion: TheNextWeb.com, Thanks:dreamsketcher
Cyrus Farivar / PC World:
Microsoft CEO Ballmer Calls on Apple to Be More Open  —  In what only can possibly be the most recent of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's continuing series of pearls of wisdom, the Rambler from Redmond told a panel at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona earlier this week …
Discussion: The Open Road and TG Daily
Matthew Moore / Telegraph:
Google Ocean: Has Atlantis been found off Africa?  —  A “grid of streets” on the seabed at one of the proposed locations of the lost city of Atlantis has been spotted on Google Ocean.  —  The network of criss-cross lines is 620 miles off the coast of north west Africa near the Canary Islands on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.
Anick Jesdanun / Associated Press:
Delay expected in bids for new Internet addresses  —  NEW YORK (AP) — Bids for new Internet addresses to rival “.com” and other suffixes will likely be delayed until the end of the year as a key oversight agency grapples with trademark and security issues.  —  Draft guidelines …
Paul Meller / PC World:
Skype Calls' Immunity to Police Phone Tapping Threatened  —  Suspicious phone conversations on Skype could be targeted for tapping as part of a pan-European crackdown on what law authorities believe is a massive technical loophole in current wiretapping laws, allowing criminals …
Andrew LaVallee / Digits:
Yelp Disputes Extortion Story  —  Yelp is denying reports that its sales reps tried to get money out of local business owners in exchange for minimizing negative ratings on the popular site.  —  On Thursday, the East Bay Express, an alternative weekly in Emeryville, Calif. …
Discussion: CNET News, PR 2.0 and The Register
Lalitesh Katragadda / Google LatLong:
Map Making in your language on your website  —  Over the last 7 months, map makers around the world have been busy mapping their locales using Google Map Maker.  From Chile to Vietnam Google Map Makers added cities, villages, lakes, roads and businesses to the map.
Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Microsoft aims to build a better thesaurus  —  A team of researchers at Microsoft is looking to beat Roget at his own game.  —  Aiming to build a better thesaurus, the Writing Assistance project within Microsoft's research unit is tapping techniques developed to translate from one language to another.
Marlon A. Walker / Associated Press:
Facebook has removed 5,500 sex offenders since May  —  RALEIGH, N.C. - Facebook has removed more than 5,500 convicted sex offenders from its social networking Web site since May, Connecticut's attorney general said Thursday.  —  Richard Blumenthal said the world's largest social networking site …
Discussion: The Social and TECH.BLORGE.com
 
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 More Items: 
Sascha Segan / PC Magazine:
Acer Promises Free Smartphones (With Contract)
Discussion: Phone Arena and Unwired View
Kablenet / The Register:
Hounslow tries STD test result texts
Discussion: Gizmodo and PSFK
Blog on Fire:
Fire Eagle Location Streams
Discussion: VentureBeat, Thanks:factoryjoe
 Earlier Items: 
Timothy Prickett Morgan / The Register:
IBM lands 25 teraflop iDataplex cluster in Bluegrass State
Emil Protalinski / Ars Technica:
Windows 7 boot animation customization will not be supported
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
The TechCrunch 2008 Year in Review
Thanks:sampad