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3:40 AM ET, November 18, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
The Official Google Blog:
Explore images with Google Image Swirl, now in Labs  —  Back in 2001, to give people a new, quicker way to find images, we launched Image Search.  When you do a search for [eiffel tower] you'll find an array of images of the tower in the daytime, in black and white, at sunset and more.
Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
Microsoft's Ray Ozzie: Apps don't make your phone special  —  Microsoft's chief software architect Ray Ozzie weighed in at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference today on the battle between different smartphone platforms (including Windows Mobile).  It's not the applications available …
Discussion: Gizmodo, TechFlash, MSDN and Daring Fireball, Thanks:ilamont
RELATED:
Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
Ray Ozzie is wrong about smartphone apps  —  Microsoft exec Ray Ozzie, at a lunchtime session with bloggers at its PDC conference told the bloggers that apps won't be a differentiating factor on smart phones.  —  He is wrong.  Totally wrong.  —  Why is Mike Arrington so passionate about his Droid …
Thanks:atul
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Google Holding Chrome OS Event Thursday.  Complete Overview And Launch Plans To Be Revealed.  —  Google is planning to hold a special Chrome OS event at its headquarters in Mountain View, CA this Thursday morning, we've just been notified.  The plan is to give some technical background information …
Greg Sandoval / CNET News:
Feds: Top e-tailers profitting from billion-dollar Web scam  —  Note 1:09 p.m. PT: This post is being updated as the Senate hearing takes place Tuesday afternoon.  —  Three companies have generated more than $1.4 billion by “misleading” Web shoppers into signing up for so-called loyalty program memberships …
RELATED:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
The Post Transaction Marketing Wall Of Shame: Hundreds Of Well Known Ecommerce Sites Rip Off Customers  —  Later today Senator Rockefeller is holding a U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation full committee hearing on Aggressive Sales Tactics on the Internet and their Impact on American Consumers.
BBC:
T-Mobile staff sold personal data  —  Staff at mobile phone company T-Mobile passed on millions of records from thousands of customers to third party brokers, the firm has confirmed.  —  Details emerged after the firm alerted the information commissioner, who said his office was preparing a prosecution.
Brian X. Chen / Gadget Lab:
How Microsoft Blew It With Windows Mobile  —  Microsoft Windows continues to dominate the PC market with a 90 percent market-share stronghold, but when it comes to smartphones, Microsoft is getting beat up worse than a mustachioed villain in a Jackie Chan movie.
Om Malik / GigaOM:
How Much Money Did Joyent Really Raise?  —  Intel today said it had invested an undisclosed amount in Joyent, the six year old Sausalito, Calif.-based start-up that started out as a web hosting company but eventually evolved into a cloud service provide.  Neither Intel, nor Joyent disclosed …
RELATED:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
The Google Phone Is Very Real.  And It's Coming Soon  —  The debate over Droid v. iPhone rages on, but lots more Android surprises are on the way.  Get ready for the Google Phone.  It's no longer a myth, it's real.  —  The next “super” Android device will almost certainly be a HTC phone that's …
Thanks:atul
Ina Fried / CNET News:
Internet Explorer 9 not coming at PDC  —  LOS ANGELES—Although Microsoft intends to talk a bit about its plans for the future of Internet Explorer this week, the company won't offer preview code of its next browser, CNET has learned.  —  The software maker is also not planning to announce …
RELATED:
Venture Capital Dispatch:
Digg CEO: Profitability Is Not A Problem Anymore  —  Digg.com launched as experiment in 2004 to let people post articles from various news sources, which are then either selected by other users for inclusion on the main page or passed over.  Now with about 40 million users …
Discussion: TechCrunch and ReadWriteWeb
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Norwest Closes $1.2 Billion Venture Fund  —  Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), one of the most respected funds in Silicon Valley, says that it has closed NVP XI, a $1.2 Billion fund that would invest in diverse sectors and geographies.  NVP, which recently recorded a major hit with the $405 million sale …
Discussion: VentureBeat, New York Times and PE Hub Blog, Thanks:atul
Anurag Acharya / The Official Google Blog:
Finding the laws that govern us  —  As many of us recall from our civics lessons in school, the United States is a common law country.  That means when judges issue opinions in legal cases, they often establish precedents that will guide the rulings of other judges in similar cases and jurisdictions.
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Yahoo Go Is A No Go  —  Before there was an iPhone, Android and App Store, there was Yahoo! Go.  Launched in 2006, Yahoo! Go was an application offered news, mail, weather, traffic, and Yahoo! search from a mobile device.  Today, Yahoo is announcing that Yahoo! Go will be shutdown on January 12, 2010.
Elinor Mills / CNET News:
Report: Countries prepping for cyberwar  —  Major countries and nation-states are engaged in a “Cyber Cold War,” amassing cyberweapons, conducting espionage, and testing networks in preparation for using the Internet to conduct war, according to a new report to be released on Tuesday by McAfee.
Discussion: BBC, Associated Press and eWeek
Michael Richter / Facebook Blog:
New Privacy Policy Adopted  —  On Nov. 5, we wrapped up a week-long notice and comment period for a proposed revision to our privacy policy.  This was a continuation of our ongoing effort to run Facebook in an open and transparent way.  The goals of the revised policy were to make it more accessible and easier to understand.
Brad Stone / Bits:
Hulu Steps Into Music With EMI and Norah Jones  —  Hulu, the joint online venture between NBC, Fox and ABC that mostly offers free TV shows and movies, is about to start singing a different tune: music videos.  —  On Wednesday the company plans to announce a somewhat limited deal with EMI …
Discussion: paidContent
Electronista:
ASUS best, HP worst for notebook reliability  —  A new study published by SquareTrade revealed that the smaller name brand notebook manufacturers are usually more reliable than their larger rivals.  Of the top nine, ASUS has the lowest tracked breakdown rate with fewer than 10 percent of its notebooks failing in the past two years.
Elizabeth Armstrong Moore / Crave:
A stethoscope app?  Be still my beating heart  —  If you're the kind of person who likes to take scissors to old gadgets, this one's for you.  Start-up RidRx is now selling an adapter to connect old stethoscopes to an iPhone or iPod Touch, along with a phone dock/holder and an app that translates …
Discussion: Medgadget
Dave Parrack / TECH.BLORGE.com:
Stephen Fry talks Twitter - “human shaped, not business shaped”  —  Twitter is a massively popular social networking and micro-blogging site that has gained an inordinate amount of headlines and copy over the past year or so.  But what is the nature of Twitter?
Discussion: Telegraph
Joe Wilcox / BetaNews:
Windows Azure opens for business on Jan. 1, 2010  —  This morning, Microsoft kicked off its 2009 Professional Developer Conference in Los Angeles.  Typically, Microsoft times PDC around new operating systems that are testing and launching in the near future.  Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 launched less than a month ago.
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Microsoft Store employees perform dance of the cringe (video)  —  Why is it that whenever Microsoft tries to have a little “fun” it comes across as creepy or overly controlled?  This time it's Microsoft's Mission Viejo Store employees engaged in a fit of awkward boogie that some would call the Electric Slide.
Don Reisinger / CNET News:
Report: Twitter still ‘missed opportunity’ for Fortune 100s  —  A new report from global public relations firm Weber Shandwick has found that when it comes to Fortune 100 companies, they just don't get Twitter...not yet anyway.  —  According to the study (PDF), which looked …
Discussion: WebProNews
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Over A Year After Android Launch, ShopSavvy Finally Comes To The iPhone  —  ShopSavvy was one of the best early Android applications.  It launched in October of last year after winning one of the initial Android Developer Challenge top prizes (when it was still known as GoCart).
Joseph Tartakoff / paidContent:
ThePlatform Rolls Out New Service For ‘TV Everywhere’  —  A key idea behind ‘TV Everywhere’ is that subscribers will be able to watch shows not only from the websites of their cable providers but also elsewhere online, including the sites of the various networks in their cable packages, whether it's the History Channel or Lifetime.
David Kaplan / paidContent:
PalTalk Buys Virtual Phone-Number Provider Vumber  —  Video-based chat service Paltalk has acquired Vumber, a service that provides “disposable” phone numbers.  Terms weren't disclosed.  New York-based PalTalk began working with Vumber last February.  Vumber's service promises privacy …
Discussion: GigaOM
Ben Stocking / Associated Press:
Vietnam Internet users fear Facebook blackout  —  HANOI, Vietnam — Vietnam's growing legions of Facebook users fear that the country's communist government might be blocking the popular social networking Web site, which has become difficult to access over the past few weeks.
Priya Ganapati / Gadget Lab:
Android's Rapid Growth Has Some Developers Worried  —  A year after its release, Google's open source Android operating system has become a sensation.  After a slow start, it is now available on at least 12 phones, with more devices waiting in the wings.  —  Good news for Android fans, right?
 
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 More Items: 
Craig Settles / Daily Yonder:
Rewiring an Old Fund for Rural Broadband
Discussion: TELEPHONY Magazine
Bill Ray / The Register:
EU sweeps up dodgy ringtone companies
Discussion: BBC and mocoNews
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Online Subscription Billing Is A Pain. Recurly Wants To Alleviate It.
Thanks:recurly
 Earlier Items: 
David Needle / internetnews.com:
IBM Offers Lotus Symphony to Go
James Kendrick / jkOnTheRun:
eReader for Android Available
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Betaworks, Cuban Invest in Real-Time Transformer Superfeedr
Discussion: Superfeedr Blog and paidContent
DeWitt Clinton / Open Web Foundation:
Introducing the Open Web Foundation Agreement
 

 
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

Jeff Jarvis / BuzzMachine:
The New York Times is broken, shown by its entitled, petulant reaction to Politico's report on its tense relationship with Biden

Andrew Marchand / The Athletic:
Sources: Amazon Prime Video has a framework deal for NBA broadcast rights for at least a decade, starting in 2025-26; ESPN/ABC is expected to keep the finals

 
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