Check out Mini-Techmeme for simple mobiles or Techmeme Mobile for modern smartphones.
3:50 AM ET, October 2, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
Google Wave crashes on beach of overhype  —  I just got my Google Wave invite.  No, I'm already out, so I can't send one to you, sorry.  —  But this service is way overhyped and as people start to use it they will realize it brings the worst of email and IM together: unproductivity.
Neil Hughes / AppleInsider:
Evidence of Apple's tablet-like input interface reappears  —  In a new patent application revealed this week, Apple has again disclosed plans for a multi-touch surface that could accommodate two full hands and distinguish between palms and individual fingers for typing, gestures and more.
Discussion: Electronista, Mashable!, Gizmodo and Engadget, Thanks:mrinaldesai
Alexei Oreskovic / Reuters:
Russian investor buys more Facebook shares - sources  —  SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies has begun buying more shares in Facebook, seeking to expand its stake in the world's No. 1 social networking company, two sources told Reuters.
Discussion: Inside Facebook and Pulse2
Boy Genius Report:
Palm Pixi launching on October 20th?  —  We just got word that Palm's second webOS device, the Pixi, is set to launch on October 20th.  This includes Sprint corporate stores as well as Best Buy locations presumably.  —  This intel is from new source but it sounds right.
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
The $25 Million Demo.  Yext Scores A Big Round From IVP After TechCrunch50 Debut.  —  Howard Lerman can be a little intense.  After the CEO of Yext finished his demo at this year's Techcrunch50 (embedded below) he left one judge “speechless,” and during rehearsals Michael took him aside and asked him, “Are you on drugs?”
David Faber / CNBC:
GE Is in Talks to Spin Off NBC, Give Comcast 51% of New Unit  —  General Electric [GE Loading...  () ] and Comcast [CMCSA Loading...  () ] are in talks about a deal in which GE would spin off its NBC Universal unit into a new company that would be merged with the content assets of Comcast …
RELATED:
Todd Shields / Bloomberg:
Comcast Stake in NBC Said to Face Regulator Scrutiny on Competition Impact
Andy Chalk / The Escapist:
Jack Thompson Sues Facebook  —  Former lawyer Jack Thompson has sued Facebook for allowing anti-Thompson groups to post messages that have caused him “great harm and distress.”  —  Thompson was permanently disbarred in September 2008 but that didn't stop his vocal criticism of the videogame industry …
RELATED:
Austin Modine / The Register:   Game censorship crusader sues Facebook for $120m
Technology Review:
Wireless Network Modded to See Through Walls  —  The way signal strength varies in a wireless network can reveal what's going on behind closed doors.  —  It's every schoolboy's dream: an easy way of looking through walls to spy on neighbours, monitor siblings and keep tabs on the sweet jar.
The Official Google Blog:
Refine your search results with new Search Options  —  In May, we launched Search Options, a side panel that lets you filter, refine and generate different views of your search results.  We've received lots of positive feedback, and we're seeing more and more people using Search Options every day.
Tamar Lewin / New York Times:
M.I.T. Taking Student Blogs to Nth Degree  —  CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Cristen Chinea, a senior at M.I.T., made a confession in her blog on the college Web site.  —  “There've been several times when I felt like I didn't really fit in at M.I.T.,” she wrote.  “I nearly fell asleep during a Star Wars marathon.
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Google Has A Plan To Stop The Mass Exodus From Orkut: No Friend Exports For You!  —  Just yesterday, we wrote about how Facebook was quickly gaining on Google's social network, Orkut, in places like India where Orkut is still the big dog.  One reason for Facebook's gains is that they've …
Discussion: Softpedia News
Gavin O'Malley / MediaPost:
ComScore: Forget About Clicks  —  It's time for online marketers to forgo click-through rates for a better measure of success, according to new data from comScore in conjunction with media agency Starcom USA and behavioral targeting firm Tacoda.  —  TOP STORY  —  P&G Extends Sponsorship With Olympic Games
Discussion: internetnews.com
Economist:
Cleverly simple  —  As internet-capable handsets become more popular, they are also changing  —  IF THE recession is the cloud hanging over the mobile-phone business, “smart” phones are the silver lining.  Sales of mobile phones were 10% lower in the second quarter of this year …
Sam Oliver / AppleInsider:
Apple resellers advised of 2-3 week delay on Mac mini orders  —  As reports of a forthcoming hardware refreshes continue to mount, Apple has braced its certified resellers for unusually long shipping times of two to three weeks for both models of its minute Mac mini desktop systems.
Elinor Mills / CNET News:
Facebook shuts down malicious fake profiles  —  Facebook on Thursday fended off an attack in which multiple identical profiles were created to spread malware.  —  Antivirus provider AVG Technologies said users of its LinkScanner service detected numerous profiles that were identical except …
Discussion: Computerworld
RELATED:
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Confirmed: Twitter Has Begun Geolocation Rollout  —  As we first reported last night, Twitter appeared to have turned on at least part of its new Geolocation API.  Today, the company has confirmed the roll out on its API Announcement Google Group page.  —  As Twitter API team member Raffi …
Discussion: Softpedia News and TheAppleBlog
Christian Stefansen / The Official Google Blog:
Now in Google Toolbar for Firefox: advanced in-page translation  —  Last week was a big one for Google Toolbar: we released the new Google Toolbar with Sidewiki for Internet Explorer and Firefox allowing you to contribute helpful information next to any webpage.
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Microsoft releases XP Mode virtualization to manufacturing  —  Microsoft has released Windows XP Mode to manufacturing on October 1, company officials said, and it will be generally available on Microsoft.com on October 22, the launch day for Windows 7.  —  XP Mode is a Microsoft virtualization …
Randybias / Cloudscaling:
Amazon's EC2 Generating 220M+ Annually  —  Today I'm going to tell you how much revenue Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is generating.  After all, you, my regular readers, come to this blog for its insight, original thinking, and gems of wisdom.  Today I have something particularly juicy for you …
Discussion: Data Center Knowledge, Thanks:atul
Cleve Nettles / 9 to 5 Mac:
Cyclopedia mixes Wikipedia and augmented reality on the iPhone  —  Cyclopedia ($2 App store) is a new iPhone application that allows to to view geo-tagged Wikipedia articles in a augmented reality browser.  The browser uses the iPhone's camera to create a backdrop while the Wikipedia articles …
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
Tim Armstrong: The name of the game is (still) content  —  We get it, Tim Armstrong.  We know the still relatively new AOL CEO is all about reinventing the once-mighty online access company into a digital publishing powerhouse.  But that didn't stop him from really hammering the point home …
Discussion: Gadgetell
Michael Liedtke / Associated Press:
IBM undercuts Google with discount e-mail service  —  SAN FRANCISCO — IBM Corp. is trying to stymie Google Inc.'s expansion into the business software market.  —  IBM is now selling a bare-bones e-mail service to companies for $36 annually per worker, undercutting a more comprehensive package …
Greg Kumparak / TechCrunch:
Smule Sells 300k Copies Of I Am T-Pain, Celebrates With A New Song And A Huge Contest  —  The second we laid eyes on Smule's autotuning, pitch-changing iPhone app, I Am T-Pain, we knew it was going to be a huge hit - and it has been.  We just got some details from Smule's CEO, Jeff Smith, on how things are going so far.
Discussion: VentureBeat, Mashable! and Gizmodo
Lance Whitney / CNET News:
Fujitsu's hard-drive business now Toshiba's  —  Fujitsu and Toshiba announced on Thursday that they have completed the transfer of Fujitsu's hard-drive business to Toshiba.  —  First announced in February, the agreement moves Fujitsu's former hard-drive business into a new Toshiba subsidiary …
Discussion: eWeek
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Docs Want Their Own Airwaves and Other Gems From the FCC Wireless Probe  —  So far this week, more than 15 organizations have filed their comments addressing the Federal Communications Commission inquiry about competition and innovation in the wireless industry, and they're pretty much what one would expect.
Thanks:atul
Clint Boulton / eWeek:
Microsoft Bing U.S. Search Share Falls, Sparking Google's Gain  —  Microsoft Bing's U.S. September search share fell to 8.5 percent from 9.6 percent in August, StatCounter claimed.  Google's September share rose to 80 percent from 77.8 percent in July, reversing a trend of Bing gaining share at the expense of search engine rivals.
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of Techmeme at 3:50 AM ET, October 2, 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:
App spotlight: Devart ODBC for Zoho CRM  —  An efficient CRM tool helps sales teams maintain strong customer relationships.  However, for a business to leverage a CRM fully, it needs to be connected with other databases to ensure a smooth two-way data flow.
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: 
Robin Kwong / Financial Times:
AUO to kindle rivalry with half-price e-readers
Benny Evangelista / San Francisco Chronicle:
Friendster bets its future on Southeast Asia
Dong Ngo / Webware.com:
McAfee launches online backup service
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Fox Fires Back Against Redbox in Rental Row
Discussion: BoomTown and paidContent
 Earlier Items: 
Robert D. Hof / Business Week:
Can Google Stay on Top of the Web?
Discussion: Tech Beat, Thanks:atul
David Jackson / Associated Press:
Secret Service IDs kid for Facebook ‘assassination poll’ — no charges
Discussion: TPM LiveWire
Neil Hughes / AppleInsider:
Apple predicted to surprise with Oct. 19 earnings report
Discussion: MacDailyNews and LOOPRumors
Stephen Shankland / CNET News:
How Yahoo is betting its cloud will pay off
Discussion: The Register
 

 
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

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
Memo: CNN's Poppy Harlow is leaving the network; she joined in 2008 and most recently co-hosted CNN This Morning, which was effectively canceled earlier in 2024

Martin Pengelly / The Guardian:
Howard Stern of SiriusXM snags a surprise interview with President Biden, following reports of Biden's refusal so far to give The NYT a sit-down interview

 
Sister Sites:

Mediagazer
 Top news and commentary for media professionals from all around the web
memeorandum
 What US political commentators are discussing online right now
WeSmirch
 The top celebrity news from all around the web on a single page