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1:55 PM ET, April 8, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Siobhan Gorman / Wall Street Journal:
Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated by Spies  —  Robert Moran monitors an electric grid in Dallas.  Such infrastructure grids across the country are vulnerable to cyberattacks.  —  WASHINGTON — Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs …
Jonathan Adams / New York Times:
Apple Sued Over Touch-Screen Rights  —  TAIPEI — The Taiwanese company Elan Microelectronics has sued Apple Computer, alleging infringement of two of its touch screen patents, a company spokesman said Wednesday.  —  The suit was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco …
Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook Blog:
200 Million Strong  —  We will welcome our 200 millionth user to Facebook some time today, and I want to take this opportunity to describe what this means to us and what we hope it can mean for everyone using Facebook.  —  When we built Facebook in 2004, our goal was to create a richer …
New York Times:
They Pay for Cable, Music and Extra Bags.  How About News?  —  Just a year ago, most media companies believed the formula for Internet success was to offer free content, build an audience and rake in advertising dollars.  Now, with the recession battering advertising online …
Discussion: Beet.TV
RELATED:
Miguel Helft / New York Times:
Google Insists It's a Friend to Newspapers  —  SAN DIEGO — It had the makings of a high-tension face-off: Eric E. Schmidt, Google's chief executive, spoke Tuesday at a convention of newspaper executives at a time when a growing chorus in the struggling industry is accusing Google of succeeding, in part, at their expense.
Darren Waters / BBC:
Spam overwhelms e-mail messages  —  More than 97% of all e-mails sent over the net are unwanted, according to a Microsoft security report.  —  The e-mails are dominated by spam adverts for drugs, and general product pitches and often have malicious attachments.
Discussion: Softpedia News and Gizmodo
Cisco Cheng / PC Magazine:
Massive Acer Launch Includes New Timeline Laptop Line  —  It's rare when a company can launch over twenty new products on a single night.  Acer did just that Tuesday night at an event held in New Jersey, unleashing a bevy of new systems that include a new line of laptops, two netbooks …
Kelly Hodgkins / Boy Genius Report:
RIM spokesman confirms BlackBerry Storm 2 launch in 2009 and novel input method  —  Alain Segond von Banchet, Channel Sales manger for RIM in the Netherlands, reportedly spoke freely about the BlackBerry Storm 2 during the TeleVisie 2009 Expo in the Netherlands yesterday.
RELATED:
Brad Stone / New York Times:
Lost in the Real World, Found via Cyberspace  —  Rhonda Surman and her husband were hiking around some Bronze Age ruins in western Scotland last year when they glimpsed sunlight reflecting off burnished metal.  It was an Olympus digital camera, lying on the ground.
Discussion: Gawker
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Mobile Socializing: Limbo Merges With Brightkite And Announces $9 Million Funding Round  —  In the nascent world of mobile social networking, there are the big dogs (Facebook and MySpace) and everyone who wants to be a big dog.  Two of the puppies just got bigger.
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Video: Bumptop gives Windows 7 touchscreen PCs purpose  —  Bumptop has been around as a video concept for a few years.  Now this amazing desktop organizer with a physics engine underpinning the UI is available for download (PC only).  The software allows you to bump and toss weighted objects across …
Discussion: Download Squad and Obsessable
RELATED:
Marguerite Reardon / CNET News:
Acer execs downplay Android, hint at Verizon Netbook deal  —  Acer executives said that Google's Android still has a long way to go before it can be used as the operating system for the hot new category of laptops known as Netbooks.  And the CEO of the Taiwanese company hinted that its Netbooks …
Aidan Malley / AppleInsider:
Apple delaying web standard with patent royalty claim  —  Often touting web standards itself, Apple is being accused of holding back an important web specification by demanding royalty payments on a patent for updates.  —  The World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C, has notified members …
Discussion: Apple iPhone Apps and My Opera
RELATED:
Tom Krazit / CNET News:
Apple refusing royalty-free license to widget patent
Discussion: MacNN
Cecilia Kang / Washington Post:
FCC's Broadband Plan May Miss Out on Stimulus  —  FCC's Broadband Plan May Miss Out  —  The commission embarks on a nearly year-long project aimed at bringing high-speed Internet to every home, but by the time it's completed, it's likely that Internet service providers will have claimed much of the $7.2 billion in stimulus funds.
RELATED:
Karl Bode / DSLreports:
2009: The FCC Finally Makes A Broadband Plan …
Discussion: CNET News
Matt Marshall / VentureBeat:
Yet another Googler leaves: Singh Cassidy joins Accel Partners  —  The exodus from Google continues at a torrid pace.  —  Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, Google's president for Asia-Pacific (APAC) & Latin American Operations, has left the company to join Accel Partners, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm …
David Chartier / Ars Technica:
Variable pricing spreads to Amazon, Lala, Rhapsody, Wal-Mart  —  At Macworld Expo in January 2009, Apple announced that it had negotiated a deal that would allow it to join the rest of the digital music distribution industry by removing DRM from all 10 million songs in its download catalog.
Nick Wingfield / Digits:
Microsoft Faces Branding Problem In Effort to Top Google  —  A stark sign of the challenge Yusuf Mehdi faces as a point man for Microsoft in the company's battle with Google comes from the company's own research into the habits of consumers online.  —  Yusuf Mehdi
Matthew Dolan / Wall Street Journal:
Ford Takes Online Gamble With New Fiesta  —  Auto Maker to Loan 100 Young People a Car; They'll Post Videos Over Which Ford Has No Control  —  Auto makers must boost fuel economy under new government regulations, and a sure way to do that is promote small cars.
Discussion: Off On A Tangent, Thanks:blissfork
Claire Cain Miller / New York Times:
Start-Up Gets Course in Survival  —  In October, when Wall Street was already wallowing in the financial crisis, many in the technology industry still thought they might be insulated from the worst of it.  —  Sequoia Capital, the venture capital firm that backed Google, Yahoo and YouTube …
Discussion: Enterprise 2.0 Blog, Thanks:turoczy
Google App Engine Blog:
Seriously this time, the new language on App Engine: Java™  —  Today, we're very excited to announce the availability of a new programming language for Google App Engine.  Please welcome the Java runtime!  —  When the two of us first heard the promise of Google App Engine …
Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:
Poll reveals user love for Windows 7  —  44% ‘very satisfied’ with beta, says research firm; just 10% of early Vista users said the same  —  Computerworld) Beta testers of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows 7 are four times more likely to be happy with what they're seeing than were early users of Windows Vista …
Intel:
Intel Developer Forum: 1-Year Intel® Atom™ Processor Anniversary Brings New Chips, Demonstration of Next-Generation Device  —  Intel Executives Share Vision, Updates at Beijing Tech Event  —  Celebrating the 1-year anniversary of Intel Corporation's introduction …
Royal Pingdom:
40% still use old Google Analytics script  —  We have performed a survey of the top 10,000 websites on the Internet to find out not just how many of them are using Google Analytics, but also the division between the legacy urchin.js script and the new ga.js script.  —  We found out two very interesting things:
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
This Machine Eats Tweets: The System Behind @Comcast and Others  —  This morning my home wifi was having trouble and I posted a message to Twitter saying, “My wife has decided to start the day with a call to Comcast customer service, I should have offered to poke her in the eye with a spoon.
Justin Pearse / nma.co.uk:
Twitter backs first UK ad partner  —  Universal Pictures, Virgin Media and Gorillaz are among the first brands to launch commercial services on Twitter through a new company backed by the blogging site to manage demand from brands.  —  Twitter Partners has signed up a range of European media clients …
Discussion: MediaPost and paidContent, Thanks:atul
 
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 More Items: 
Kenneth Corbin:
Berman planning international fight against piracy
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Hot Rods: Top Car Social Networks CarDomain And StreetFire Merge
Discussion: TechFlash and NewTeeVee
MacDailyNews:
Apple debuts 3 new iPhone ads: ‘Itchy,’ ‘Office,’ and ‘Student’ (with videos)
Discussion: TUAW
Erica Ogg / Crave: The gadget blog:
The new TV remote: Your bare hand?
Discussion: Coolest Gadgets
Riva Richmond / Gadgetwise:
Macs Aren't Safer, Just a Smaller Target
Discussion: MacDailyNews
Farhad Manjoo / Slate:
YouTube for Artistes  —  The Web video site Vimeo goes …
Nicholas Kolakowski / eWeek:
Former Microsoft Executive Charles Simonyi Returns to Earth
Discussion: CNET News
 Earlier Items: 
Mary Kathleen Flynn / Dealscape:
Headhunter Jon Holman on VC job market
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch Europe:
Gone in 140 characters …
Discussion: Technologizer and nerdgirl, Thanks:atul
Austin Modine / The Register:
Microsoft killing free XP support next week
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Dictionary.com Launches Free iPhone App
Discussion: iPhone Buzz and Mashable
Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
Google Image Search Color Filter
Discussion: Search Engine Land and Mashable!
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Jennifer Schuessler / New York Times:
PEN America cancels its 2024 literary awards ceremony, set for April 29, after months of protests over the organization's response to the war in Gaza

Elle Griffin / The Elysian:
Penguin vs. DOJ transcripts: top publishing houses spend most of their money on book advances for big celebrities like Britney Spears and franchise authors

Adam B. Vary / Variety:
The Blair Witch Project cast requests retroactive residuals and “meaningful consultation” on future projects, after Lionsgate and Blumhouse announced a reboot

 
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