Check out Mini-Techmeme for simple mobiles or Techmeme Mobile for modern smartphones.
9:50 AM ET, July 21, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Eliot Van Buskirk / Epicenter:
Apple Preparing iPod Touch With Camera, Microphone: Source  —  Rumors have swirled about Apple readying a new version of the iPod Touch with a camera and microphone, which, combined with a Skype account, would pretty much obviate the need for a home phone line once and for all.
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Yahoo Finally Rolls Out New Homepage to the Masses-and, Drum Roll, It's Good (Plus Screenshots)  —  Although it's not news that Yahoo has been readying a new version of its homepage and has spent a lot of time doing so-in fact, it's gone all Handy Manny with a whole lot of test renovations …
RELATED:
Maggie Shiels / BBC:
Yahoo's front page makeover  —  Yahoo has unveiled sweeping changes to its front page aimed at shoring up its position as the main portal to the web.  —  Consumers in the US are the first to benefit from a new, customisable format which lets them link to third parties like Google and Twitter.
Discussion: The Register
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
What's Up Next For Yahoo?  Better Search, Customizable Content (How Fluffy Do You Want Your News?)  —  Yahoo showed off a couple of new upcoming features during my briefing today on the new home page to launch tomorrow.  —  The first is a tool, called Customizable Content for now, to dial how “fun” or “serious” you like your news.
Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land:
Yahoo's New Homepage Gets Personal, Tests Search Filters  —  When I heard about the call with Yahoo yesterday, which was to feature a “a significant announcement,” I thought: “Bing, here it is.”  When it turned out the call was about a formal announcement of the new Yahoo homepage I was disappointed; it seemed anti-climactic.
Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
iPhone prototype goes missing; Chinese worker investigated, commits suicide  —  Last Thursday, 25 year-old Sun Danyong committed suicide after a fourth-generation iPhone prototype he was responsible for went missing.  It's a story, from what tech-industry friends in China tell me …
JBC / Nokia Conversations:
Nokia 6760 Slide unveiled  —  GLOBAL - Finger tappers everywhere will soon have new buttons to press as the Nokia 6760 slide messaging device is coming to Europe.  The Nokia 6760 slide shares many (but not all) traits with its US sibling, the Nokia Surge, announced in the US last week.
Discussion: SlashGear and Electricpig.co.uk
RELATED:
NokiaPressServices / Nokia Press Bulletin Board:
Don't miss a tweet, email or online update with the Nokia 6760 slide  —  Nokia today announced the Nokia 6760 slide, a messaging optimized device with a sliding QWERTY keypad.  Ideal for individuals who want to stay connected when they are out and about, the Nokia 6760 slide offers fast …
Fred Vogelstein / Wired News:
Why Is Obama's Top Antitrust Cop Gunning for Google?  —  “I think you are going to see a repeat of Microsoft.”  —  Christine Varney's blunt assessment sent a buzz through the audience at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.  Varney, a partner at Hogan & Hartson and one of the country's …
Discussion: Smalltalk Tidbits … and digg.com
John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
Barnes & Noble to Amazon: Mine is Bigger Than Yours  —  Six years after shuttering its first e-book effort, Barnes & Noble (BKS) has embarked on another one.  On Monday afternoon, the bookseller announced what it describes as “the world's largest eBookstore,” an online storefront that boasts 700,000 titles.
RELATED:
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Barnes & Noble partners with Plastic Logic; Opens up; Targets Kindle
Michael Learmonth / AdAge:
Conde Nast Says Goodbye to Men.Style.com, Hello to GQ.com, Details.com  —  Publisher Decides Magazine Brand Is Better Web Brand, Too  —  NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Conde Nast will shut down one of its web-only brands, Men.Style.com, when it gives two of its titles, GQ and Details, their own websites in October.
Discussion: TechCrunch, HipMojo.com and paidContent
RELATED:
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Adobe Unveils New Open Source Initiatives Targeted Towards Media Companies  —  Adobe has rolled out two new open source initiatives aimed specifically towards developers for media companies and publishers.  Adobe's Open Source Media Framework lets developers build more robust …
Vogue:
Machine Dreams  —  Before I meet Marissa Mayer, the 34-year-old megamillionaire, Oscar de la Renta-obsessed, computer-programming Google executive who lives in a penthouse atop the Four Seasons, San Francisco, I of course Google her.
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider and Gawker
Sarah Lacy / TechCrunch:
Wonga: How the Net Should Kill the Finance Industry  —  What's awesome about the Internet is how it breaks up monopolistic markets where middlemen unfairly gobble up outsized fees, leaving us little choice but to keep paying them.  It happened with software, it happened with music, and it's happening now with media.
Rebecca Buckman / Forbes:
Khosla Bucks VC Fundraising Drought  —  He's set to close $1 billion in new funds—though some new deals may pass through a “conflicts committee.”  —  BURLINGAME, Calif. — It's a tough time to raise a venture-capital fund.  But not if you're superstar investor Vinod Khosla …
Discussion: Beet.TV and PE Hub Blog
Douglas Quenqua / Wired News:
Hotseat: The Creator of Facebook's Most Annoying App Explains Himself  —  By now, you probably know your Facebook friends' five favorite albums, TV stars, and sodas.  Blame Tim O'Shaughnessy, creator of LivingSocial, the site's most-used and most-annoying application ever.  We asked him to explain himself.
Discussion: PC World and digg.com
Aaron / YouTube Biz Blog:
YouTube myth busting  —  One of our favorite shows at YouTube is MythBusters, the Discovery Channel's popular science program in which hosts Jamie and Adam bravely attempt to debunk urban legends.  For those of us who thought you could jump start a car with a defibrillator, we consider this show a public service.
Andrey / Inside BlackBerry:
BlackBerry Desktop Software: Coming Soon to a Mac Near You!  —  Many of you commented on my “Updating Your BlackBerry Device Software” post back in April saying “...this is great!  But what about Mac?”  I could not respond to those comments at the time, but I'm happy to say there's some exciting news we can share with you.
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
People Are Using Google Reader “Likes,” But Some Hate It.  And It's Flawed.  —  As we expected, the new “like” functionality in Google Reader seems like it's seeing some good usage.  Certainly, given that “likes” are fully public, we're seeing much more social activity on feed items …
Discussion: Shooting at Bubbles
David Simon / CJR:
Build the Wall  —  Most readers won't pay for news, but if we move quickly, maybe enough of them will.  One man's bold blueprint.  —  To all of the bystanders reading this, pardon us.  The true audience for this essay narrows necessarily to a pair of notables who have it in their power …
Discussion: Search Engine Watch
RELATED:
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Charging for Access to News Sites
Discussion: Technovia
Chris Ziegler / Engadget Mobile:
Verizon's HTC XV6975 turns out to be the Whitestone: 5 megapixels, no keyboard  —  Remember way back in March when HTC's 2009 lineup first started to come apart at the seams?  You might recall that there was a “Whitestone” in there, rumored to be packing a wide VGA display, 5 megapixel camera …
Andrew LaVallee / Digits:
The Gap Widens in Online Population  —  Asia's share of the world's online population will swell to 43% in four years, while North America will represent just 13% of Internet users, according to a new report by Forrester Research.  —  Associated Press  —  2.17 billion by 2013
Discussion: Between the Lines
John Markoff / New York Times:
New Technology to Make Digital Data Self-Destruct  —  A group of computer scientists at the University of Washington has developed a way to make electronic messages “self destruct” after a certain period of time, like messages in sand lost to the surf.  The researchers said they think the new software …
Discussion: Elias Bizannes
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
From Closed To Open: iPhone App Developer Skepticism Highlights Platform Trajectory  —  I've been getting into some interesting discussions with people lately concerning open vs. closed platforms — especially in light of the supposed “success” of Apple's iPhone app store, which is a very closed platform.
Patrick Thibodeau / Computerworld:
IBM tool allows virtual management from x86 servers to mainframes  —  Tools arrive in advance of Power7, which can support 1,000 virtual machines  —  Computerworld - If you go to IBM's Web site and search on the word heterogeneous, more than 22,000 results come back.
Discussion: The Register
Joe Sharkey / New York Times:
A Race to Provide Wi-Fi (but Not the Voice Part)  —  THOUGH it is not yet clear how extensive the market is for in-flight Wi-Fi service, the competition to provide it is heating up.  Row44, a California company whose in-flight Wi-Fi technology uses satellite connections …
Brad Reed / Network World:
Five technologies Iran is using to censor the Web  —  Government uses both blunt and surgical tools to stifle dissidents, hacker says  —  One month after a disputed presidential election sparked widespread unrest in Iran, the country's government has initiated a cyber-crackdown …
Discussion: ZDNet Government
Andrew Bednarz / TheAppleBlog:
27 Bluetooth-enabled Multiplayer iPhone Games  —  The iPhone/iPod 3.0 OS allows third-party applications to utilize the device's Bluetooth capabilities for two-player games.  The first (and only) application I had that supported this in an update was Flight Control, and since then …
Discussion: digg.com
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of Techmeme at 9:50 AM ET, July 21, 2009.

View the current page or another snapshot:


 
 Techmeme Sponsor Posts: 
Tribe AI:
Build AI that works  —  Tribe builds tech for top AI companies.  Get in touch to learn how our bench of 500+ engineers and researchers can accelerate your roadmap.
Kulkan Security:
Hire Kulkan as your penetration testing partner  —  Kulkan prioritizes deep-dive manual security reviews, dissecting your software and infrastructure to find issues that once remediated can truly reduce security risk.
Zoho:
Instant invoice insights with Zoho Cliq and Zoho Invoice  —  Timely communication is the cornerstone of successful invoicing management.  Picture this: your business diligently sends out invoices to customers …
Mastodon:
Donate to Mastodon  —  Mastodon gGmbH, the non-profit behind the open-source software powering the social web, relies entirely on support from users like you.  Donate directly with a credit card or through Patreon.
Sponsor Techmeme
 
 See Also: 
Techmeme: site main
Techmeme River: reverse chronological Techmeme
Techmeme Mobile: for phones
Techmeme Leaderboard: Techmeme's top sources
 
 Subscribe: 
Techmeme RSS feed
Techmeme on X
Techmeme on Mastodon
 
 
 More Items: 
Venture Capital Dispatch:
Draper Fisher Rounds Up $196M For Scaled-Down Fund
Adam Ostrow / Mashable!:
Sharing on Facebook Now More Popular than Sharing by Email
Discussion: Lifehacker
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Venture Capital Dollars Stabilize in Second Quarter at Mid-1990s Levels
Kristen Nicole / The Social Times:
3121 is LinkedIn, Just for Congress Members
Discussion: paidContent and SOMEWHAT FRANK
Ed Felten / Freedom to Tinker:
Lessons from Amazon's 1984 Moment
Brian Krebs / Security Fix:
The Growing Threat to Business Banking Online
 Earlier Items: 
Nick Thuesen / Open:
Announcing the NYT API Tool
Andy Greenberg / Forbes:
Obama's Unwilling Cyber Czars
BBC:
Pirate sites return in legal form
Discussion: GigaOM
Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
Facebook co-founder's Asana raises funding — from Facebook angels?