Check out Mini-Techmeme for simple mobiles or Techmeme Mobile for modern smartphones.
10:15 PM ET, October 14, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
The Anti LumberJack / Gizmodo:
Barnes and Noble's E-Reader Like a Kindle/iPhone Chimera: First Photos and Details  —  Barnes and Noble's late to e-books.  But the company's new gadget—first seen here—should address the weaknesses of all other readers with multiple screens, each playing to tech strengths.
Olga Kharif / Business Week:
Wi-Fi Is About to Get a Whole Lot Easier  —  A consortium that includes Intel, Cisco, and Apple is set to release new technology called Wi-Fi Direct that will turn a slew of gadgets into hotspots  —  Going Wi-Fi is about to get a lot easier.  For many consumers, setting up an in-home Wi-Fi connection point is something of a hassle.
RELATED:
Ben Sillis / Electricpig.co.uk:
Acer Android smartphone hands-on!  —  UPDATE: The Acer Android smartphone is the A1, and it comes with Android version 1.6 - AKA Donut.  Acer's talking about it right now at its London prezzer, so more details to come.  —  UPDATE 2: Acer's dancing to two different tunes here.
RELATED:
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Want That Early Chrome OS Build?  You Got It.  —  The hits keep on coming from Jonathan Frederickson, the TechCrunch reader who turned our initial revelation of a “chromeos” folder on the Chromium build site into a full-on walk through.  Today, he's doing what Google won't: Making the early Chrome OS build available for download.
New York Times:
BlackBerry, Upgraded, Aims to Suit Every User  —  The Storm was supposed to be the smartphone that would keep Verizon Wireless customers from deserting to Apple's iPhone, which runs on AT&T's network.  —  Research In Motion, the company that created the BlackBerry phones that business users find …
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Applause For Finland: First Country To Make Broadband Access A Legal Right  —  Kudos to the Finnish government, which has just introduced laws guaranteeing broadband access to every person living in Finland (5.5 million people, give or take).  —  This is reportedly a first worldwide.
Jenna Wortham / Bits:
UrbanSpoon Makes It Easier to ‘Scope’ Out Restaurants  —  Most people using the UrbanSpoon iPhone application give their phones a vigorous shake to serve up a list of restaurants in the immediate vicinity.  —  But now they have a new way to find a place to get a bite: Aim the iPhone …
AppleInsider:
Mac sales grow 11.8% as Apple takes 9.4% U.S. market share  —  Mac sales saw double-digit growth in the third quarter of 2009, maintaining Apple's position as the fourth-largest U.S. PC manufacturer, according to new data released Wednesday from IDC.  —  Overall, Apple came in fourth for U.S. vendors …
Mark Wilson / Gizmodo:
Walmart Offering $45 Unlimited Cellphone Plan Nationwide  —  Walmart has been beta testing their exclusive Straight Talk no-contract wireless service for months, but now the retailer will offer two low-cost wireless plans nationwide starting October 18th, including an unlimited plan for just $45.
Laura June / Engadget:
Acer: we'll overtake Dell as world's number two PC maker... soon  —  Acer's President Gianfranco Lanci is talking some big talk these days, but not completely without reason.  The Taiwan-based computer manufacturer says it does not expect to see a decline in revenue this year over last …
Juan Carlos Perez / Computerworld:
Bugs hit Google Docs after recent upgrade  —  IDG News Service - Google Docs users are having problems printing, exporting and uploading certain files, the company acknowledged, as it is rolling out a set of upgrades to the hosted office productivity suite.  —  In two separate postings …
Blogger / Dial-a-Phone:
Motorola Comeback Plan Revealed  —  With all that talk about the Motorola Sholes, Tao, A855 going on, we decided it was time for a little bit of digging.  And look what we've stumbled across, only Motorola's Q4 2009 and Q1 2010 Roadmap!  —  The Roadmap shows Motorola's Medium and Higher Tier Social Smartphones.
Owen Van Natta / MySpace:
MySpace Adds Top Talent to Executive Ranks  —  Today MySpace is pleased to announce several new executive appointments that support our technology and partnership goals.  First, Nada Stirratt has joined MySpace in the role of Chief Revenue Officer, effective immediately.
Discussion: paidContent and TechCrunch
Cade Metz / The Register:
Michael Dell: Netbooks go sour after 36 hours  —  You'll be happier if you give me more money  —  According to Michael Dell, a netbook is a dream purchase - until it's about 36 hours.  —  “If you take a user who's used to a 14- or 15-inch notebook and you say 'Here's a 10-inch netbook,' they're gonna say 'Hey, this is so fantastic.
Ellen McGirt / Fast Company:
Intel Risks It All (Again)  —  How Sean Maloney and brand guru Deborah Conrad are helping Intel's first carpet-dweller CEO reengineer the company once known as Chipzilla — and free the bong.  —  When Paul Otellini, Intel's famously reserved CEO first heard the news, he got quiet.
Gina Trapani / Lifehacker:
Google Wave's Best Use Cases  —  Last week we asked a simple question: How will you use Google Wave?  Over 600 responses later, we're sending Wave nominations to the people who had the best use cases.  Here are a few.  —  Education: Increasing Interactivity and Collaborative Learning
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Brainstorm Tech:
Is Steve Jobs more popular than Jesus?  —  Apple's CEO tops two polls in one week.  Will no one rid us of these meddlesome lists?  —  Photo: Apple Inc.  —  Last Thursday, Oct. 8, an Agenda Setters panel named Steve Jobs the most influential individual in the global technology industry …
Discussion: Geek.com, Time and Inc.com
Dan Nosowitz / Gizmodo:
Next-Generation Flip MinoHD: Sleeker Design, Double the Memory  —  The newest Flip MinoHD was just announced, and it's a lot like the first-gen, but with upgrades all around.  You've got double the memory, a much sleeker aluminum design, bigger screen and HDMI port.  Sweet!
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
What 5% Drop?  ComScore Says Bing Search Share Stayed Steady In September  —  Earlier this month, a couple reports came out suggesting that Bing's search market share took a hit in September.  Hitwise reported that Bing's share of U.S. searches was down 5 percent (in absolute terms, it was a half-point drop to 8.9 percent share).
Kim-Mai Cutler / VentureBeat:
TheFind launches “buying engine,” product search from 500,000 stores  —  TheFind, a Mountain View, Calif-based startup that applies machine learning and semantic search to shopping, says comparison buying sites only skim the surface of all the millions of products out there on the web.
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
AT&T Attacks Google Voice Again — This Time With Nuns  —  Is this nun praying for Google Voice?  —  AT&T today countered Google's claims that it's blocking Google Voice calls to rural areas because they're directed to free conference call lines and sex hotlines engaged in the dubious practice …
Discussion: TechCrunch and Post Tech
Chris O'Brien / Mercury News:
After 32 years, Ellison just getting started  —  I could trot out all sorts of metrics to make the case that Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has reached a new pinnacle of power and influence.  —  But in truth, there's no better testament to Ellison's ascent than the 37,000 people …
Theo Valich / Bright Side Of News:
nVidia Tegra wins contract for next-gen Nintendo DS  —  When Jen-Hsun Huang, co-founder and CEO of nVidia announced that he expects to see Tegra capturing 50% of nVidia's revenue within the next couple of years, a lot of people thought that this is a smoke screen to sway the attention from its battles against AMD and Intel.
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
Recent Cloud Outages May Give Opera Unite a Second Chance  —  Back in June of this year, Opera revealed their ambitious plan to “reinvent the web” with the release of Opera Unite, a new feature of their desktop web browser that effectively turns your computer into a server.
Discussion: Technologizer and PC Magazine
Ina Fried / CNET News:
Lawsuits filed over Sidekick outages  —  It was only a matter of time, but the T-Mobile Sidekick issue has now spilled over to the courthouse.  —  A number of lawsuits have been filed, including two filed in federal court in Northern California on Wednesday that allege both negligence …
Roger Thompson / AVG Blogs:
Hacked Facebook applications reach out to exploit sites in Russia  —  All the social networking sites have issues with calling out to exploit pages.  Usually what happens is that someone's website gets hacked, and because they link to it from their MySpace or Facebook page …
Discussion: Computerworld
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Layar Brings Augmented Reality Browser To The iPhone (Screenshots)  —  Half an hour ago, I just had an iPhone 3GS.  Now, I have an iPhone 3GS with Layar installed.  —  It was one of the main questions I had for the Dutch company, which markets an augmented reality browser …
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of Techmeme at 10:15 PM ET, October 14, 2009.

View the current page or another snapshot:


 
 Techmeme Sponsor Posts: 
Tribe AI:
Is AI just hype?  —  Find out how top enterprises use Tribe to get real business results.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Zoho:
Authy killed their desktop apps.  Time to switch to a reliable authenticator.  Time to switch to Zoho OneAuth.  —  Twilio's Authy recently announced end of life (EOL) for their desktop apps on March 19, 2024—five months ahead of schedule.
Comprehensive.io:
Browse salary data from 3,000 startups for free  —  Click for FREE, immediate access to real-time compensation benchmarking data.  Paid version helps HR automate comp reviews and communicate total compensation to employees.
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: 
Richard Perez-Pena / New York Times:
New York Times Decides Not to Sell Boston Globe
Discussion: Boston Globe and 24/7 Wall St., Thanks:atul
Jessica Ghastin / Facebook Blog:
Responding to Abuse Reports More Effectively
Discussion: AppScout and Search Engine Watch
Seth Weintraub / 9 to 5 Mac:
AT&T: Tethering is probably going to be a 2010 thing
Discussion: TUAW
Jonathan Goldman / The Official Google Blog:
One-stop shop: Buy Promoted Videos in AdWords
Discussion: TechCrunch, Search Engine Land and AppScout, Thanks:atul
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Dropbox Acquires The Domain Everyone Thought It Had: Dropbox.com
 Earlier Items: 
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Virtual goods sales to hit $1 billion in 2009 as social games pay off big
Max Colchester / Wall Street Journal:
The French Get Lost in the Clouds Over a New Term in the Internet Age
Jenna Wortham / Bits:
Digg's Vote-for-Ads Experiment Is Raising Revenue
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
The Internet is about to die. Literally die!
Jeff Atwood / Coding Horror:
The State of Solid State Hard Drives
 

 
From Mediagazer:

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”

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

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

 
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