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6:30 PM ET, September 20, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Carolyn Y. Johnson / Boston Globe:
Project ‘Gaydar’  —  At MIT, an experiment identifies which students are gay, raising new questions about online privacy  —  It started as a simple term project for an MIT class on ethics and law on the electronic frontier.  —  Two students partnered up to take on the latest Internet fad …
Discussion: UMBC ebiquity and Slashdot
Eric Engleman / TechFlash:
Amazon creates own house brand of consumer electronics  —  Amazon.com has been quietly building a private label strategy for the last couple years, creating house brands around kitchen tools (Pinzon), outdoor furniture (Strathwood), bed and bath products (Pike Street) and power tools (Denali).
Discussion: Bits, TechSpot and Engadget
RELATED:
Brad Stone / New York Times:
Can Amazon Be Wal-Mart of the Web?  —  THE hum of 102 rooftop air conditioners and a chorus of beeping electric carts provide the acoustic backdrop in Amazon.com's 605,000-square-foot distribution facility on this city's west side.  But the center's employees can almost always hear Terry Jones.
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Eric Schmidt's Favorite Google Product?  Chrome!  —  What's Google CEO Eric Schmidt's favorite Google product at the moment?  When I asked him that this week, I expected a “I love all my children equally” answer.  Instead, Schmidt surprised me answering without hesitation: Google's Chrome browser.
Discussion: louisgray.com and Neowin.net
Vladimir Vukievi:
WebGL in Firefox Nightly Builds  —  Last night, I checked in some more work from Mark Steele (who's focusing on the Firefox WebGL implementation), and along with that, enabled WebGL in trunk nightlies.  (Finally!)  —  If you're not familiar with WebGL, it's the evolution of work …
Discussion: Download Squad and Raph's Website
Chris / Adventures in Capitalism:
VCs Are Useless?  That's Bulls**t.  —  Vivek Wadhwa has a guest post up on TechCrunch, “What Have VCs Really Done For Innovation?”  It's obviously meant to court controversy.  Mission accomplished.  —  This post is my refutation.  Wadhwa's post claims:
RELATED:
TechCrunch:
What Have VCs Really Done for Innovation?  —  This is a guest post by Vivek Wadhwa, an entrepreneur turned academic.  He is a Visiting Scholar at UC-Berkeley, Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School and Executive in Residence at Duke University.  Follow him on Twitter at @vwadhwa.
Thanks:atul
Lee Mathews / Download Squad:
At long last, GIMP v2.8 to finally implement single-window interface  —  The GIMP is one of those applications that people either seem to love or hate.  While it's always been a powerful and capable alternative to big commercial apps like Photoshop, GIMP's multiple floating window interface has been hard for some users to adapt to.
Charles Arthur / Guardian:
Phorm sheds directors, grumpy website and... money?  —  The webside adware company is getting low on directors, and possibly cash, as it prepares to announce its financial results.  What's the outlook?  —  Remember Phorm?  Of course you do - everyone's favourite (sometimes, or often …
Discussion: Telegraph
Darren Murph / Engadget:
GSM Palm Pre now looking at ‘autumn’ launch in Germany  —  You know, we admire Palm's patience.  We knew a GSM Pre was in the works about 8.43 minutes after its CES presser ended in January, and we've been waiting all this time for some carrier in some part of the New World to grab hold …
Joshua Auerbach / GigaOM:
New Media Demands a New Kind of Media Company  —  The media like nothing more than to cover the media.  For that reason, there has been near-endless coverage of the struggles of “old media” companies trying to succeed online.  Pundits debate the possible return of “pay walls” to the web …
Thanks:atul
Michael Bettiol / Boy Genius Report:
We've got the goods on some upcoming AT&T smartphones from HTC and Garmin-ASUS  —  While many of you spent last night watching grown men pummel one another into submission, we here at BGR put in some over time so we could get to the bottom of the pricing of some upcoming AT&T smartphones.
 
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 More Items: 
Nick Heath / CNET News:
Why virus writers are turning to open source
Discussion: digg.com
Tony Plohetski / Austin American-Statesman:
Police ready to ‘take on’ commenters, chief says
Kevin Walsh / GigaOM:
With Broadband, Quality Should Trump Penetration
Oliver J. Chiang / Forbes:
Creating A Hit IPhone Game
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols / Computerworld:
WiMax in 2010: Too little, too late?
Paul Carr / TechCrunch:
WITTC50?:  Will there be a TechCrunch50 next year?  What Jason wants, Jason Getz
Discussion: P2P Foundation
Cade Metz / The Register:
Google Apps sics crawlers on public docs and sheets
Discussion: Webware.com and digg.com
 Earlier Items: 
Justin Smith / Inside Facebook:
Josh Elman Leaving Facebook, Returning to More “Hands-On” Product Role
Discussion: All Facebook, Thanks:atul
Greg Sandoval / CNET News:
Jammie Thomas lawyers file suit against Scribd
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Once Again, Facebook Owns ‘Talk Like A Pirate Day’ On The Web
Todd Bishop / TechFlash:
Microsoft Reader, back from dead
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
The Importance Of Enthusiasm In Any Product
Discussion: Daring Fireball, Teds Take and digg.com, Thanks:atul