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9:50 AM ET, February 24, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
David Pogue / New York Times:
The Kindle: Good Before, Better Now  —  In the high-tech industry, you live for the day when your product name becomes a verb.  “I Googled him.”  “She's been Photo- shopped.”  —  Amazon, however, is hoping that its product name, a verb, becomes a noun.  “Have you bought the new Kindle?”
Discussion: USA Today and Electronic Pulp, Thanks:vindugoel
RELATED:
Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Designing the Kindle 2  —  SEATTLE—Amazon wanted to make the …
Discussion: WebProNews
Amazon.com:
Kindle 2 Ships Today
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Where were you during the great Gmail outage of February 2009?  —  If you live in the United States, chances are, you were asleep.  But for those in other parts of the world, and those of us who are nocturnal, Google's email service, Gmail, was down for several hours on Tuesday morning.
RELATED:
BBC:
Google users hit by mail blackout  —  Business and consumer users of Google's popular e-mail service were hit by a blackout on Tuesday.  —  The service went offline at 0930 GMT and began to return for many users after four hours, one of the longest downtimes ever suffered by Google.
Official google.org Blog:
The Next Chapter for Google.org  —  When Larry and Sergey laid out their vision for Google.org, they hoped that this “experiment in active philanthropy” would one day have an even greater impact on the world than Google itself.  They committed resources from Google's profits …
RELATED:
Apple:
Apple Announces Safari 4—The World's Fastest & Most Innovative Browser  —  New Nitro Engine Runs JavaScript More Than Four Times Faster  —  Apple® today announced the public beta of Safari® 4, the world's fastest and most innovative web browser for Mac® and Windows PCs.
Andy Sternberg / netZoo:
To 90,000 Twitter Followers in 30 Days  —  Last month Twitter quietly launched a new feature that generated a list of suggested users to follow.  Most likely as a result of this list, the followers to many Twitter accounts increased exponential over the course of the last month.
Clive Thompson / Wired News:
The Netbook Effect: How Cheap Little Laptops Hit the Big Time  —  Netbooks prove that we finally know what PCs are actually for.  Which is to say, not all that much.  —  Mary Lou Jepsen didn't set out to invent the netbook and turn the computer industry upside down.  She was just trying to create a supercheap laptop.
Discussion: Liliputing and digg.com, Thanks:atul
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Media Mogul Steve Rattner Goes To Washington, Where He Won't Be Car Czar  —  Steve Rattner (pictured here), once one of the the most prominent bankers in the media business, is going to Washington, after all.  Except that the Quandrangle Group founder won't be getting the “Car Czar” …
Discussion: paidContent.org
RELATED:
Stephanie Condon / CNET News:
White House names Internet team
Discussion: Search Engine Journal
Mark Rutherford / CNET News:
Borg-like cybots may patrol government networks  —  The Oak Ridge National Laboratory has created software that uses colonies of borg-like cyber-robots it says will help government agencies to detect and fend off attacks on the nation's computer network infrastructure.
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Ballmer: Office 14 not this year  —  During his annual “Strategic Update” briefing with Wall Street analysts on February 24, CEO Steve Ballmer said Office 14 won't be shipping in 2009.  —  “Office 14 will not be this year,” Ballmer told analysts.  —  Microsoft officials have been careful …
PR Newswire:
VISTO to Acquire Good Technology From Motorola  —  Acquisition will extend VISTO's mobility offerings and expand its base of  —  customers to include many of the Fortune 500  —  REDWOOD CITY, Calif. and SCHAUMBURG, Ill. /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — VISTO®, a leading mobile push …
RELATED:
Robert L. Mitchell / Computerworld:
When good browsers go bad — and they all do  —  Better browsers.  Better standards.  Better tools.  So why are Web pages still breaking?  —  Computerworld) Jeffrey Zeldman must have thought he'd never live to see the day.  Ten years after he co-founded the Web Standards Project …
Reuters:
Yahoo to offer tools to match users, ads- WSJ  —  Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O) is set to unveil several tools on Tuesday to help marketers better target their online adverts, as the Internet company tries to win back business during a recession, the Wall Street Journal said, citing senior company officials.
Arnold Kim / MacRumors:
New NVIDIA-based iMacs Imminent?  More Hints.  —  Over the past week, there have been an increasing number hints that the long-awaited iMac revisions are indeed imminent.  Resellers have had low stocks of iMacs and educational Apple sales reps have been authorized to give special pricing on the current iMacs.
Discussion: SlashGear and Engadget
Eric Krangel / Silicon Alley Insider:
LIVE COVERAGE: Microsoft's Strategic Update Meeting  —  Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer, CFO Chris Liddell, and Investor Relations GM Bill Koefoed are presenting a “Strategic Update Meeting” to financial analysts at 8am ET.  —  Listen in here, but refresh this page for LIVE coverage …
Discussion: Microsoft Pri0 and TechFlash
Cyril Kowaliski / The Tech Report:
Marvell unveils $99 wall-wart Linux PC  —  If you thought nettops were cheap, wait until you get a load of this: Marvell has announced the SheevaPlug, a $99 reference design based on the company's own “plug computer” concept.  In short, this system plugs directly into a power socket …
Patrick Wintour / Guardian:
Facebook risks ‘infantilising’ the mind  —  Social network sites risk infantilising the mid-21st century mind, leaving it characterised by short attention spans, sensationalism, inability to empathise and a shaky sense of identity, according to a leading neuroscientist.
Discussion: Basement.org and UMBC ebiquity
Andrew Chen / Futuristic Play:
Which startup's collapse will end the Web 2.0 era?  —  The Silicon Valley machine is still going, for now  —  Here in Palo Alto, the Silicon Valley machine is still going strong - entrepreneurs are still starting companies, angels and VCs are still investing, and engineers are still coding.
Thanks:atul
Darren Murph / Engadget:
VUDU first on-demand service to sell HD and HDX movies  —  VUDU made some pretty big waves with its Blu-ray-rivaling HDX downloadable format, and now it's pushing the envelope once again by becoming the first on-demand service to actually sell (as in, for keeps... on your box, anyway) HD and HDX movies.
Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:
Making sense of Mac market share figures  —  Apple's slice of the market share pie continues to grow, even during this economic downturn.  But the numbers from different sources tend to be all over the place.  What do they all mean, and what's the big picture for Apple's market share trajectory?
Discussion: OSNews
Chris Albrecht / NewTeeVee:
Online Video Viewing Up, Impact on TV “Negligible”  —  Television is still king, despite gains being made online.  That's according to two separate research reports released today.  Taken together, the studies from Nielsen and Leichtman Research Group (LRG) also help illustrate how newteeve is impacting oldteevee (hint: it isn't).
Chris Albrecht / NewTeeVee:
Where to Watch Obama's “State of the Union” Online  —  Technically, President Obama's speech tomorrow night isn't a State of the Union.  Give the guy a break, he only started the job a month ago.  Instead, his speech is considered a formal address to Congress.
Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Microsoft backtracks on severance issue  —  This story was updated at 3:45 p.m. PST with an official statement from Microsoft.  —  Amid a wave of criticism, Microsoft is backtracking on a decision to require laid off workers to pay back money that the software maker said was in excess of its planned severance, CNET News has learned.
Adrian Covert / Gizmodo:
‘I Am Richer’ App Pops Up in Android Marketplace for $200  —  Is it any huge surprise that someone is already charging the maximum Android Marketplace price for a nonsensical, paid app?  Or that the name makes reference to the $1000 “I Am Rich” iPhone app?  No.
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Apple launches a new iTunes Pass feature for groupies  —  Is there an artist you love?  I mean really love, as in you'll buy anything they do before you have any idea what it is?  A lot of people probably do, and for them, Apple has a new feature on iTunes called “iTunes Pass.”
Discussion: Music Ally
Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
The Engadget Interview: Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T Mobility  —  We had an opportunity to sit down with AT&T's Ralph de la Vega last week — one of the most influential individuals in the wireless world today — at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona for a nice little chat covering all the topics …
 
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 More Items: 
Soulxtc / Zeropaid File Sharing P2P Technology News:
OneSwarm Turns P2P into F2F
Discussion: Laurent Haug's blog
Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:
Researcher posts homemade patch for critical PDF bug
Discussion: VRT and Slashdot
Eliot Van Buskirk / Epicenter:
Major Label Acts Get Hip to Music Apps
Saul Hansell / Bits:
Does Cloud Computing Mean More Risks to Privacy?
Founders at Work:
A Note About Sabeer Bhatia's Interview
Discussion: TechCrunch, Thanks:venturehacks
 Earlier Items: 
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes / Hardware 2.0:
Do you really think Apple's going to take business advice …
Discussion: Tech Trader Daily
Steve O'Hear / last100:
Chumby bets on Internet-connected TVs
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
Pirate Bay Prosecution Hires Hypocrite Pirate Author for PR
Discussion: digg.com