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9:50 PM ET, April 17, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Hulu iPhone App Coming Soon, ‘Badass’  —  Hulu is in the process of developing an app for Apple's (AAPL) iPhone and iPod touch, we have learned from a plugged-in industry executive.  The app is coming soon (within a few months) and is “badass” — as excellent as Hulu's Web site.
Owen Thomas / Gawker:
Oprah Fails to Tweet on Her Big Twitter Show  —  How could one possibly make Twitter even more of an exercise in self-absorption?  How about by broadcasting yourself on national TV while using Twitter?  Oprah's big Twitter show is on right now and we're watching.  —  The show starts with Oprah excited about joining Twitter.
Discussion: Oprah.com, PC World, Mashable! and Digits
RELATED:
CNN:
Oprah, Ashton Kutcher mark Twitter ‘turning point’
Discussion: The Underwire and lalawag
Threat Level:
The Pirate Bay Guilty; Jail for File-Sharing Foursome  —  Oscar Swartz reports.  —  Four men connected to The Pirate Bay, the world's most notorious file sharing site, were convicted by a Swedish court Friday of contributory copyright infringement, and each sentenced to a year in prison.
RELATED:
Dan Costa / PC Magazine:
The Pirate Bay Verdict Won't Affect File Sharing
Discussion: Computerworld Blogs, Thanks:kmonson
Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
The Pirate Bay Trial: The Official Verdict - Guilty
Gmail Blog:
New in Labs: Suggest more recipients  —  Have you ever realized you mistakenly left someone important out of an email, or just spent too much time trying to decide who from your long list of contacts to include?  Well, some of us on the Gmail team feel your pain, so we wrote a new Gmail Labs feature called “Suggest more recipients.”
Andrew Hampp / AdAge:
Secret to Ashton Kutcher's Twitter Success?  Billboards  —  Should He Be Disqualified for Such Old-School Advertising?  —  OAAA gets Twitterpated  —  Here's how Ashton Kutcher really won the Twitter war with CNN: digital billboards.  —  Lamar Advertising, the third-largest billboard company …
Discussion: AppScout, Thanks:mrinaldesai
RELATED:
Paul Boutin / Gadgetwise:
Welcome to Our Site, Sorry You Can't Use It  —  There are plenty of upstart social networks besides Facebook and Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn.  But too many suffer from what I call Private Beta Disorder: Instead of letting you dive right in, they ask you to “sign up for our private beta program.”
Thanks:ilamont
RELATED:
Josh Lowensohn / CNET News:   TC50/DEMO revisited: What's alive, what's dead?
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Windows Mobile 6.5 launch: Pencil in May 11  —  The first Windows Mobile 6.5 phones aren't expected to be available until this fall, but it looks like that isn't stopping Microsoft from “launching” the next version of its mobile operating system on May 11.  —  May 11 is the opening …
Brad Stone / Bits:
Apple Tops PC Customer Service Rankings  —  When it comes to customer service, PC manufacturers aren't held with quite the same contempt as cable companies, health insurers and Internet service providers — but they don't have much to brag about, either.  —  Forrester Research's 2008 customer …
RELATED:
Gillian Reagan / New York Observer:
‘Twitter Sucks!’  The Backlash Begins  —  Twitter has been hyped, obsessively covered by “gee-whiz!” journalists (O.K., including us), and even studied by experts.  But now that the micro-blogging platform is the third most popular social network behind Facebook and MySpace …
Discussion: Industry Standard
Fred / A VC:
The Power Of Passed Links  —  Links are the currency of the web.  That's the reason that Google is the king of the web right now.  Google generates more click thrus to more websites than any other web service out there.  —  But I've been ruminating on a comment that was left on my earned media post a few weeks ago by Ben Straley.
Thanks:sampad
Ki Mae Heussner / ABCNEWS:
Hacking Their Way to a Job?  —  17-Year-Old Behind Recent Twitter Worm Offered Job After Claiming Responsibility  —  For the social networking darling Twitter, it was a headache and potential threat.  But for the young man behind the computer worm that attacked the micro-blogging site this week, it was a fast track to a job.
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
This iPhone App Helps You Make iPhone Apps  —  Do you have a great idea for an iPhone app but not the coding skills to actually build it?  Well, there's an app for that.  The AppIncubator iPhone App from MEDL Mobile lets you submit your ideas which the company's development team will then build into apps for you.
Paul Miller / Engadget:
Bridgestone's 13-inch color e-paper display handles pen input, has the future written all over it  —  While it'll always be difficult to accept innovative technology from a company that makes our tires, there's just no faulting Bridgestone's work in the e-paper space, or their latest color entry, above.
Dan Nystedt / PC World:
Google's CEO Predicts Strong Year for Android  —  Google CEO Eric Schmidt on Thursday predicted good times ahead for Android, the company's mobile phone OS and software.  —  “Overall, it looks like Android is going to have a very strong year,” he said during the company's first quarter investors' conference.
Kevin Poulsen / Threat Level:
Documents: FBI Spyware Has Been Snaring Extortionists, Hackers for Years  —  A sophisticated FBI-produced spyware program has played a crucial behind-the-scenes role in federal investigations into extortion plots, terrorist threats and hacker attacks in cases stretching back at least seven years, newly declassified documents show.
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Obama Spurns Silicon Valley Vets, Names Virginia's Secretary of Technology As CTO  —  President Obama will be naming Aneesh Paul Chopra as his choice for CTO during tomorrow's weekly address, according to a press release posted to the White House's official web site.
Discussion: White House and Virginia Politics
Eliot Van Buskirk / Epicenter:
Why File Sharing Will Save Hollywood, Music  —  To hear some tell it, file sharing gutted the music industry by encouraging people to gorge themselves on free, illegal content.  Indeed, unless Friday's landmark verdict against The Pirate Bay is overturned, four Swedes will spend a year in jail …
Discussion: MediaPost and Threat Level
Stephen Shankland / CNET News:
Chrome update offers tab micromanagement options  —  One of the features that set Chrome apart from rivals on its debut, the array of Web page thumbnails that greeted users when they launched the browser or opened a new browsing tab, is becoming optional.  —  In the Chrome 2..174. update …
Brian Krebs / Security Fix:
World's First Mac Botnet?  Not Quite.  —  This morning, as I scrolled down the list of security Web sites I normally check via my RSS reader, I noticed several items referencing news about the “world's first Mac botnet.”  As I read on, it became clear this was neither news nor a first.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Apple 2.0:
Why Apple's shares rose as its market share shrank  —  On Wednesday, Gartner Research reported that Apple's (AAPL) share of the U.S. computer market, which topped 9% in calendar Q3 last year, dropped to 7.4% in Q1 2009 — putting it in fourth place behind HP (HPQ), Dell (DELL) and Acer.
Discussion: eWeek
Pamela Samuelson / O'Reilly Radar:
Legally Speaking: The Dead Souls of the Google Booksearch Settlement  —  Guest blogger Pamela Samuelson is the Richard M. Sherman Distinguished Professor of Law and Information at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as a Director of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology …
Eric Engleman / TechFlash:
Amazon's Jeff Bezos on Kindle sales and The Karate Kid  —  Amazon.com released CEO Jeff Bezos' 2008 annual letter to shareholders today.  Among the highlights: Bezos says sales of the electronic Kindle reader “have exceeded our most optimistic expectations.”
Karen Gullo / Bloomberg:
Polaroid sells its assets for US$88-million  —  Polaroid Corp., the twice-bankrupt pioneer of instant photography, won bankruptcy court approval to sell itself for US$88-million to a joint venture led by two liquidation firms.  —  The partnership, led by Gordon Brothers Brands LLC …
 
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 More Items: 
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
A Better Calling Card: Twitter Challenges Facebook Connect
Discussion: TechCrunch and Hueniverse, Thanks:atul
Farhad Manjoo / Slate:
My Mythical Online Rental Service for Movies
Karl Bode / DSLreports:
Verizon Slowly Opens Its Wireless Network …
Discussion: Verizon and Engadget
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Another Contender Emerges: Posterous Takes On TwitPic With New API
Rupal Parekh / AdAge:
WPP Sues Spot Runner for Securities Fraud, Breach of Contract
Discussion: paidContent.org
 Earlier Items: 
Liz Gannes / NewTeeVee:
Review: YouTube's New Premium Shows Design
Discussion: Gawker, Download Squad and YouTube Blog
Kevin Bullis / Technology Review:
Netbook Chips Create a Low-Power Cloud
Thanks:atul
Sam Oliver / AppleInsider:
New discoveries turn up in betas of Apple's iPhone 3.0 software [u]
Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:
Kindle owners find out about DRM's ever-present threat
Discussion: TechFlash and Technologizer
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
NBC Universal Earnings Sliced In Half, but There's a Bright Side
Renai LeMay / CNET News:
Ubuntu 9.04's final test version released
Discussion: Ars Technica and Download Squad
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Jessica Toonkel / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Paramount Global's board is considering replacing CEO Bob Bakish with an “Office of the CEO” made up of division heads on an interim basis

Jeff Jarvis / BuzzMachine:
The New York Times is broken, shown by its entitled, petulant reaction to Politico's report on its tense relationship with Biden

Andrew Marchand / The Athletic:
Sources: Amazon Prime Video has a framework deal for NBA broadcast rights for at least a decade, starting in 2025-26; ESPN/ABC is expected to keep the finals

 
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