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12:50 PM ET, September 21, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Andrew Nusca / Between the Lines:
Dell to buy Perot Systems for $3.9 billion  —  Dell says it has agreed to buy the IT services company Perot Systems for about $3.9 billion as it looks to expand beyond the PC business.  —  The Round Rock, Texas-based Dell said Monday that it will offer $30 per share in cash for Perot, which is based in Plano, Texas, 200 miles away.
RELATED:
content.dell.com:
Dell to Acquire Perot Systems for $3.9 Billion, Creating Comprehensive, Customer-Focused IT-Solutions Company  —  Dell and Perot Systems have entered a definitive agreement for Dell to acquire Perot Systems in a transaction valued at approximately $3.9 billion.
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Yahoo Adds Zimbra to the Garage Sale as It Tries to Shed What Isn't “You!”  —  According to numerous sources, Yahoo has also been shopping around Zimbra, the open-source email company it bought in late 2007 for $350 million.  —  Zimbra is only one of the many assets of Yahoo (YHOO) …
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
RELATED:
Suzanne Vranica / Digits:
Yahoo's New Ad Pitch: 'It's You!'  —  and Jessica E. Vascellaro  —  Yahoo is planning to reintroduce its battered brand to the public Tuesday with a massive global marketing campaign, according to people familiar with the effort. … The Internet company's new tagline, according to one of those people: “It's You!”
Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
AT&T's 3G MicroCell does unlimited calling, but it ain't cheap  —  How much would you expect to pay to cover AT&T's dead zone using your own internet bandwidth?  We appreciate that these guys can't blanket every nook and cranny with HSPA, but carriers need to understand that femtocells …
RELATED:
Prince McLean / AppleInsider:   AT&T 3G MicroCell to offer unlimited iPhone calling for $20 extra
Rene Ritchie / The iPhone Blog:
Apple Seeking More Info From iPhone 3.1 Users Reporting Poor Battery Life  —  An undisclosed number of users who have posted on Apple's discussion boards about poor battery life following the iPhone 3.1 software update are being contacted by AppleCare helpdesk with a hefty list of 11 follow-up questions.
RELATED:
Sam Oliver / AppleInsider:
Apple inquires with users about iPhone OS 3.1 battery life
Discussion: DailyTech, Electricpig, I4U News and iLounge
Matthew Moore / Telegraph:
Gay men ‘can be identified by their Facebook friends’  —  Homosexual men can be identified just by looking at their Facebook friends, according to unpublished research by two students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  —  The study found that it was possible to predict men's sexual orientation …
Chairman Julius Genachowski / OpenInternet.gov:
Preserving a Free and Open Internet: A Platform for Innovation, Opportunity, and Prosperity  —  “Preserving a Free and Open Internet: A Platform for Innovation, Opportunity, and Prosperity”  —  Prepared Remarks of  —  The Brookings Institution, Washington DC
RELATED:
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Pink and Microsoft Tablet (Take 2): A couple of updates  —  Project Pink and the rumored remake of a Microsoft Tablet are back on the rumor treadmill this weekend.  —  It's been quiet out there lately on both fronts.  Here's a recap — plus a couple of small updates — that I've heard recently about these two skunk-works efforts.
Andrew Yoon / Joystiq:
Square Enix head predicts new Wii in 2011, says motion ‘impact’ for Xbox, PlayStation will be ‘small’  —  The new motion controllers for both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are likely to make big appearances at this year's Tokyo Game Show.  While both Microsoft and Sony are attempting to take away …
Discussion: Gizmodo and I4U News
RELATED:
Micheal Lopez / The Official Google Blog:
A mysterious series for H.G. Wells  —  You might have noticed an unexplained set of doodles on the Google homepage and a couple tweets from our official Twitter stream, @google, over the last two weeks.  On September 5th, we posted a doodle with the abduction of our second ‘o’ and a coded tweet …
RELATED:
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:
Google's Flying Saucer Logos Lead To H.G. Wells, Father of Science Fiction
Discussion: Google Watch and AppScout
Steve Lohr / Bits:
Netflix Awards $1 Million Prize and Starts a New Contest  —  Netflix, the movie rental company, has decided its million-dollar-prize competition was such a good investment that it is planning another one.  —  The company's challenge, begun in October 2006, was both geeky and formidable …
Discussion: Fast Company and Brainstorm Tech
Jon Healey / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Netgear offers a networked hard drive for the masses, with a caveat  —  The tech industry is gradually persuading Americans to set up home networks, but it's had a tougher time selling consumers on the idea of storing all their data on a single device within their homes.
Liz Gannes / NewTeeVee:
Robo.to TV Turns Status Messages Into Art  —  You know the viral “Noah takes a photo of himself every day for 6 years”?  Well, what if Noah took a 4-second video of himself instead?  And what if everyone else did, too?  That's kind of the effect you get from the new Robo.to TV service …
Discussion: Bits and Mashable!
RELATED:
Jolie O'Dell / ReadWriteWeb:
Robo.to: They're Watching the Social Web in Real Time - But Will It Pay?
Discussion: Beet.TV
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Adobe Gets Into Widget Distribution And Advertising With Help From Gigya  —  Many of the widgets scattered across the Web are made in Flash, but Adobe doesn't participate in the widget economy.  Today, it is taking a first tentative step towards changing that with the release …
Brad Linder / Download Squad:
Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx coming next year  —  The folks at Canonical are putting the final touches on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala which should be available next month.  But in one of the first steps toward looking even further ahead, Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth has announced the alliterative codename …
Sharon Nguyen / MySpace Blog:
MySpace Syncs with Twitter  —  Today we're beginning the global beta rollout of a new functionality on MySpace that empowers our users to sync their MySpace status updates with their Twitter feed.  Any U.S. user can opt-in to sync their status so that any update created on MySpace will appear …
Discussion: TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, The Next Web and Mashable!, Thanks:atul
Phone Arena:
Exclusive new images of the LG Chocolate Touch VX8575  —  Published on: Today by PhoneArena Team  —  One of the more elusive phones to be released by Verizon later this year is the LG VX8575, known as the Chocolate Touch.  We first heard rumors this summer that Verizon was going to get a CDMA variant …
 
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 More Items: 
Clint Boulton / eWeek:
Google Chrome Is a Lock for 10% Share, but How Much More?
Stephen Lawson / PC World:
Netbook Flash Storage Gets a Standard Connector
Discussion: Liliputing and Softpedia News
Ellen Messmer / Network World:
Sticker shock over data-loss prevention products could be short-lived
Peter Glaskowsky / Technology News:
Investigating Intel's Lynnfield mysteries
Discussion: Softpedia News and EE Times
 Earlier Items: 
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
Brazilian Court Says It's Illegal To Distribute File Sharing Software …
DEMO.com:
Who's Benefited from a DEMO Launch
Discussion: Technology News
Sony Ericsson:
Sony Ericsson introduces a world first - the Motion Activated Headphones MH907
Martin Bryant / The Next Web:
Is Google giving Gmail back to the UK?
Thanks:drewhinde
Steve Lohr / New York Times:
Now, an Invention Inventors Will Like