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12:15 PM ET, November 3, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Jesus Diaz / Gizmodo:
This Is a Next-Generation iPhone 4 Part, China Ontrade Claims  —  China Ontrade calls this the iPhone 4 Generation Midboard.  Not very exciting, but the last time they announced a next-generation iPhone part, they were right.  A month later, the iPhone 3GS appeared with exactly those parts.
Venture Capital Dispatch:
The First Mobile Device Dedicated Exclusively To Twitter  —  When the team at Twitter Inc. hatched the idea of producing a mobile device dedicated to “tweeting” they contacted Jonathan Kaplan, founder of a gadget company that experienced one of the most successful exits for venture investors in 2009.
Rebecca Lefort / Telegraph:
Mystery of Argleton the ‘Google’ town that only exists online  —  Argleton, a ‘phantom town’ in Lancashire that appears on Google Maps and online directories but doesn't actually exist, has puzzled internet experts.  —  The town appears on Google Maps in the middle of fields close to the M58 motorway, just south of Ormskirk.
Chris Foresman / Ars Technica:
Dutch hacker holds jailbroken iPhones “hostage” for €5  —  Though jailbreaking an iPhone certainly opens up opportunities to add functionality that Apple doesn't approve of, it can also make an iPhone less secure.  Several Dutch iPhone users found that out the hard way after a hacker attacked …
Vladislav Savov / Engadget:
Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 announced, we go hands-on  —  The first Android device from Sony Ericsson may have undergone an upgrade in the naming department, jumping from X3 all the way to XPERIA X10 (probably to avoid confusion with Nokia's X3 handset), but what lies under the hood is reassuringly in line with what we've been hearing.
Google Chrome Blog:
Bookmark sync and more speed in the latest beta release  —  Fresh from a Halloween weekend, we're excited to introduce a brand new beta for Google Chrome, which includes a few new treats and cool tricks for our users.  —  For those of you who use several computers — for example …
RELATED:
Steve Lohr / Bits:
Best Buy Prepares for the Post-DVD Era  —  Best Buy sells a lot of DVDs, but it is taking another step to get ready for the day when that business shifts online.  —  The giant electronics retailer on Tuesday is announcing a partnership with Sonic Solutions' Roxio CinemaNow service to deliver …
Business Wire:
Spring Design Files Lawsuit against Barnes & Noble: Nook Violates Alex Intellectual Property  —  CUPERTINO, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Spring Design today filed a lawsuit to protect its Alex™ e-book intellectual property.  The lawsuit asserts Barnes & Noble misappropriated trade secrets …
John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
Was the iPhone's Launch in China Really a Bust?  —  Apple's internationally coveted iPhone finally arrived at market in China last week and by most accounts, it's debut was uncharacteristically muted.  —  There is “no sign of the sort of sellout reception that greeted the smart phone …
RELATED:
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch Europe:
Turkish government claims Google owes €32 million in taxes  —  [Turkey] Following an investigation that lasted over a year, Turkish authorities are fining Internet giant Google a total of 71 million Turkish Lira (approx. €32 million or USD $47 million) for supposedly dodging the national tax system.
Marguerite Reardon / CNET News:
Cisco, EMC, and VMWare make alliance official  —  Cisco Systems, EMC, and VMware announced Tuesday a joint venture to sell a new integrated data center product.  —  The venture will sell and provide maintenance and service support for the product, which is called V-Block.
Discussion: The Register
Gavin Clarke / The Register:
Early adopters bloodied by Ubuntu's Karmic Koala  —  Smooth Windows upgrade it ain't  —  Ubuntu 9.10 is causing outrage and frustration, with early adopters wishing they'd stuck with previous versions of the Linux distro.  —  Blank and flickering screens, failure to recognize hard drives …
Mark / dive into mark:
Why do we have an IMG element?  —  On February 25, 1993, Marc Andreessen wrote: … Xbm and Xpm were popular graphics formats on Unix systems.  They are still supported in modern browsers.  (I tested in Internet Explorer 8 and Google Chrome.)  —  “X Mosaic” was one of the earliest web browsers.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
RockYou Joins The No Scams Parade.  But What's Facebook Up To?  —  Zynga changed their lead gen scam policy this morning (the whole Scamville background is here, see updates at bottom as well).  And now RockYou is taking steps to clean up their act to, according to an email we've been forwarded.
Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
Sprint touts Palm Pixi's nonexistent WiFi  —  Sprint has a time-honored tradition of screwing up its ads.  Remember the Palm OS-powered (yes, Palm OS, not webOS) Motorola Q2?  How about the Pre's mythical tethering capability?  Here's a new one to add to the history books: the “WiFi capable” …
Kevin Poulsen / Threat Level:
Feds Charge Cable Modem Modder With ‘Aiding Computer Intrusion’  —  An Oregon hardware hacker and author has been hit with federal criminal charges arising from his longstanding business of selling unlocked cable modems that can be used to steal extra speed from a broadband provider, or obtain free service.
Discussion: DSLreports, Macworld and Softpedia News
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Pinching and the Droid  —  Joshua Topolsky, writing for Engadget, gives the Droid a very positive review overall.  But regarding something I'd been wondering about, here's what he writes about multi-touch: … I, alas, don't have a Droid in hand, but my understanding of the multi-touch situation is as follows.
Discussion: Gearlog and The iPhone Blog, Thanks:atul
Erica Naone / Technology Review:
An App so You'll Never Forget  —  Adaptive-learning algorithms calculate how often people need to see information to remember it.  —  A language-learning application that's already big in Japan is coming to the U.S. in the form of a new iPhone app.  Smart.fm, based in Tokyo …
Discussion: VentureBeat
Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
Preview Google's Search Results  —  Google added a new option to the web search toolbelt: page previews.  If you click on “Show options” and select “Page previews” after performing a search, Google will show a longer snippet and a thumbnail for each search result.
Google Wave Developer Blog:
WaveSandbox.com: Federate This  —  When we first unveiled Google Wave a few months ago, one of the fundamental concepts we discussed was the vision for wave as an open communications protocol.  We are happy to announce that the developer instance of Google Wave is now available …
Jonny Evans / 9 to 5 Mac:
Unlimited-limited fail: Orange UK iPhone deal may ban Facebook, Spotify  —  Hopes that moving into a multi-carrier strategy in the UK would generate a price war have been dashed by Orange's announcement of price tariffs matching those of O2.  Now the story takes a tragic turn …
Dave Rosenberg / CNET News:
Turning Twitter into an application server  —  As much as Twitter is a powerful communication and social application, it's a relatively simple Web app.  As part of a new contest sponsored by Engine Yard, Ruby on Rails developers are going to turn Twitter into their own application server.
Thanks:enauzer
Jenna Wortham / Bits:
Friendsourcing the Quest for iPhone Apps  —  Recently, I asked a friend to show me his favorite new iPhone apps.  He shrugged and said he didn't have any.  He said it was too hard to find ones he wanted, and he didn't want to pay for anything he might not like.
Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:
Ribbit Launches Google Voice Challenger  —  Ribbit just announced the launch of Ribbit Mobile.  Ribbit Mobile is a cloud-based VoIP telephony service that brings together web-based calling, smart call routing and voicemail transcriptions.  —  It is hard to look at Ribbit Mobile without comparing it to Google Voice.
Thanks:kevinmarks
Rachael King / Business Week:
Augmented Reality Goes Mobile  —  The technology for meshing digital data with actual images, or augmented reality, makes a jump to smartphones, and the market is taking off  —  It was the shake heard 'round the world.  On Aug. 27, 2009, überblogger Robert Scoble uncovered …
Discussion: TUAW
Newsdesk / Tower Ticker:
Tribune Co. papers rewiring for experimental week without AP  —  The Chicago Tribune and other Tribune Co. newspapers plan to utilize as little content from the Associated Press as practical during the week of Nov. 8.  —  The goal, as the papers review costs and needs …
Discussion: Techdirt
 
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 More Items: 
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Wildfire Launches A Legitimate, Easy To Use Sweepstakes Platform For Twitter
Ethan / ...My heart's in Accra:
Hossein Derakhshan, now detained for over a year
Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:
Marvell Syncs With E Ink On New E-Reader Tech Aimed At Mass Market
Discussion: Technologizer and CNET News
Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:
Psystar begs judge to rule it's legit
Jeff Jarvis / BuzzMachine:
The future of news is entrepreneurial.
Thanks:atul
Thomas Ricker / Engadget Mobile:
Sprint launches Samsung Moment, Android empire expands by one
 Earlier Items: 
Betina Chan-Martin / Hulu Blog:
Coming Soon: Your Resource for Good Things to Come
Discussion: CNET News
Cade Metz / The Register:
Yahoo! open sources uber web server
Discussion: CNET News and TechCrunch
Claudine Beaumont / Telegraph:
Web could run out of addresses next year warn web experts
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
60 Minutes Puts Forth Laughable, Factually Incorrect MPAA Propaganda On Movie Piracy
Discussion: TorrentFreak
Galen Gruman / InfoWorld:
Want a Droid for work e-mail? It'll cost you extra