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9:00 AM ET, August 6, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Andrew Clark / Guardian:
Murdoch plans charge for all news websites by next summer  —  Times and Sun readers to pay as loss-making Murdoch declares end to free-for-all  —  The billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch suffered the indignity of seeing his global empire make a huge financial loss yesterday and promptly pledged …
RELATED:
Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:
Murdoch on Leading The Charging Charge  —  Rupert Murdoch really, really, really wants to charge for online news.  Really.  At least, he keeps saying so even though by far the bulk of News Corp.'s online news content continues to be ad supported.  Wednesday, finally setting even the most vague …
Kevin Purdy / Lifehacker:
Firefox Director Talks Firefox 3.6, Tasks, and Competing with Chrome  —  We were eager to know what's happening with Firefox.  Mike Beltzner, the open-source browser's director, was glad to tell us.  Here's what he had to say about future features, competition with Chrome, and keeping all of Firefox contributors in sync.
Thanks:atul
RELATED:
Min Li Chan / Google Chrome Blog:
A New Beta: Why slow down when you can speed up?  —  There's a brand new beta for you to try out today.  As always, we continue to focus on speed, and this beta release shows over 30% improvement on both the V8 and SunSpider benchmarks over our current stable channel release.
Clint Boulton / eWeek:
Google Chrome Gets 30% Speed Bump, HTML5 Functionality
Darren Murph / Engadget:
Sony's Party-shot dock snaps incriminating Facebook photos while you drink  —  As if your Facebook profile doesn't have enough hard evidence that you're completely unfit for any job you might strike up the courage to apply for, here's a thoughtful accessory for producing even more regret-inducing snapshots.
Erica Alini / Wall Street Journal:
Coffee Shops Pull the Plug on Laptops  —  They Sit for Hours and Don't Spend Much; Getting the Bum's Rush in the Big Apple  —  A sign at Naidre's, a small neighborhood coffee shop in Brooklyn, N.Y., begins warmly: “Dear customers, we are absolutely thrilled that you like us so much that you want to spend the day...”
Apple:
About the Mac OS X v10.5.8 Update  —  The Mac OS X v10.5.8 Update is recommended for Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard users and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility and security of your Mac.  For detailed information about the security content of this update, please visit this website.
RELATED:
Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:
Mac OS X 10.5.8 chock full of security, reliability fixes
Discussion: Softpedia News and Macworld
Boy Genius Report:
Apple launching iPhone 3GS 8GB soon?  —  We've had a number of unconfirmed tips over the last few days about this so we figured we'd post it... apparently it seems that Rogers in Canada is in the process of shipping iPhone 3GS 8GB flavor handsets to stores.  Again, unconfirmed, no idea on pricing …
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch Europe:
London is the capital of Twitter, says founder @ev  —  Twitter was featured on the BBC's Newsnight programme last night.  There weren't any great revelations about the service, however the confirmation from the CEO that London remains the top Twitter-using city in the world is pretty interesting.
Discussion: Pocket-lint.com
Jeff Atwood / Coding Horror:
Software Pricing: Are We Doing It Wrong?  —  One of the side effects of using the iPhone App store so much is that it's started to fundamentally alter my perception of software pricing.  So many excellent iPhone applications are either free, or no more than a few bucks at most.
Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land:
Google Brings Community To iGoogle With “Social Gadgets”  —  This morning Google is rolling out a program in Australia enabling developers to create “social gadgets” that permit sharing, collaboration and groups on the iGoogle homepage.  The social gadgets will come to the US and other markets in the future …
Discussion: Google Operating System, Thanks:atul
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Bing Has Succeeded... In Finding The Worst Jingle Ever  —  A few weeks ago, we wrote about the contest Microsoft's new search engine Bing was holding to find a catchy jingle for the product.  Today, they have announced the winner.  “Catchy” is one word for it.  Another is “awful.”
John C. Dvorak / PC Magazine:
What is Happening to Windows 7?  —  Blame the tricky upgrade process—and, by extension, the Registry—for the backlash against Windows 7.  —  Why has Windows 7 suddenly fallen off the track with negative publicity?  What happened?  What changed?  —  This is one of the strangest developments …
Discussion: Technovia, Mossblog and digg.com
Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
You are SO unfollowed!  —  Whew, it's been a while since I've done a good old fashioned blog.  I've been busy, though.  Posting tons of videos, both on my personal site on Blip.tv as well as professional videos over on building43.com.  Last night I put up a live video of USA's new CTO speaking to a bunch of Silicon Valley geeks, too.
Sascha Segan / AppScout:
Opera Mobile for Android in the Works  —  Opera Mobile 9.7 is a great alternative browser for Windows Mobile and Symbian, but so far it hasn't been available on other smart phone platforms.  In an interview with PCMag.com today, Opera Software CEO Jon von Tetzchner said the browser might come …
Ed Bott / Ed Bott's Microsoft Report:
A killer Windows 7 bug?  Sorry, no  —  The blogosphere is abuzz over a newly publicized bug in Windows 7.  I read about it yesterday on Chris123NT's blog, where it was described as a “critical bug in Windows 7 RTM.”  The story picked up momentum today when InfoWorld's Randall Kennedy …
TechCrunch:
Spotify and the Great Leaps of Faith  —  Last month at The Europas - TechCrunch Europe's version of the Crunchies - a lot of impressive start-ups were honored.  But one was clearly cleaning up: Spotify, the sexy online music app that has music lovers in Europe swooning.
Sysomos:
Inside Twitter  —  An In-Depth Look at the 5% of Most Active Users  —  When Sysomos published its initial “Inside Twitter” report last month that looked at the people on Twitter and how it was being used, we discovered that 5% of users accounted for 75% of all activity.
Dan Goodin / The Register:
XML flaws threaten ‘enormous’ array of apps  —  Java, Python, and Apache - for starters  —  Free whitepaper - Avoiding 7 common mistakes of IT security compliance  —  Security researchers have uncovered critical flaws in open-source software that implements the Extensible Markup Language …
Discussion: Softpedia News and eWeek
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
ShoeMoney Reaches Settlement With Google Employee Over AdWords Violations  —  Over the last few months we've been tracking a lawsuit between online marketing guru Jeremy Schoemaker and a Google employee named Keyen Farrell.  This week comes news that Schoemaker has settled the case with Farrell, though details are scant.
Discussion: Softpedia News
Inside Edge:
TomTom iPhone pricing leaked  —  Please support our Hardware and Software advertiser: Programming Forums  —  How much for an iPhone-powered TomTom satnav?  That's the question that has been on the lips of many an iPhone user ever since TomTom announced it was developing a version …
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Arrington's CrunchPad Will Be ‘A Real Hit’, Says Best Buy Marketing Boss  —  Best Buy (BBY) chief marketing officer Barry Judge just met with the “chief blogger” at TechCrunch.  Presumably, that's Michael Arrington.  —  Judge also took a peek at the CrunchPad, Arrington's Web-only tablet PC project.
Dan Rayburn / The Business Of Online Video:
Debunking Some Myths Of The Google/On2 Deal, Questioning VP8's Quality  —  Following up on my earlier post today entitled “Google's Acquisition Of On2 Not A Big Deal, Here's Why”, here's some more thoughts on the subject.  While clearly no one, including me, truly knows what Google plans to do with On2 …
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Comcast adopts DNS hijacking, imposes irritating opt-out  —  Despite knowing the ways in which DNS hijacking can cause problems for non-Web clients, Comcast has rolled it out in an attempt to make money off misspelled URLs.  To make matters worse, opting out is a hassle.
Rosa Golijan / Lifehacker:
Massacre Gmail Ads with These Two Sentences (and Some Tragic Words)  —  Those “Sponsored Ads” in e-mails are an annoyance to both sender and recipient and they seem to escape blocking.  Until now.  These two (so far) fail-proof sentences at the end of an email will let you enjoy e-mailed rants, ad-free.
Discussion: Download Squad and Gizmodo
Peter Svensson / Associated Press:
Iowa 911 call center becomes first to accept texts  —  An emergency call center in the basement of the county jail in Waterloo, Iowa, became the first in the country to accept text messages sent to “911,” starting Wednesday.  —  Call centers around the country are looking at following in its footsteps …
W. David Gardner / InformationWeek:
WiMax Versus WiMax In Texas Towns  —  The battle is likely a harbinger of the wireless future in which different high speed wireless technologies will compete against each other on a wide scale.  —  Mobile WiMax is still in its deployment infancy, but two providers are already competing …
Martin Langeveld / Nieman Journalism Lab:
NAA/Nielsen stats show newspapers own less than 1 percent of U.S. online audience page views, time spent  —  The NAA has issued another of its regular updates on the state of the U.S. daily newspaper Web audience.  As usual, the numbers, sourced from Nielsen Online, sound impressive:
Discussion: Newspaper Association … and MediaFile, Thanks:atul
 
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 More Items: 
Roy Mark / eWeek:
Lawmakers Back Permanent U.S. Involvement with ICANN
Discussion: Domain Name Wire
Greg Kumparak / MobileCrunch:
Qik for Android gets video editing, “Speed sharing”
Bill Rigby / Reuters:
Publicis front-runner to buy Razorfish: report
Discussion: Wall Street Journal
Matt Marshall / VentureBeat:
Symantec helps pump $20M into identity theft protection company Lifelock
Discussion: WebWire
Paul Carr:
An open letter to Sam Sethi, on the occasion of him completely losing his mind
Discussion: Robin Wauters
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Brainstorm Tech:
iPhone triggers boom in flash memory
Discussion: Electronista
Oliver J. Chiang / Forbes:
The Challenge Of User-Generated Porn
Preston Gralla / Computerworld:
Report: Microsoft Bing benefits from illegal pharmaceutical sales
Discussion: LiveSide, Ars Technica and eWeek
 Earlier Items: 
Nick O'Neill / All Facebook:
Facebook Removes Ability To Search Based On Relationship Status
Discussion: blogs.ft.com and Gawker
Jane Macartney / Times of London:
Chinese teenager beaten to death in internet addiction clinic
Discussion: TECH.BLORGE.com, Thanks:mikeharvey
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Authentic Brands licenses Sports Illustrated's publishing rights to The Players' Tribune owner Minute Media for 10 years, with plans to keep the print edition

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
Ofcom rules that five GB News programs presented by Conservative politicians have broken its due impartiality rules and puts the channel “on notice”

Todd Spangler / Variety:
YouTuber MrBeast announces a deal with Prime Video for Beast Games, a reality-competition show with 1,000 contestants, promising the winner a $5M cash prize

 
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