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8:40 PM ET, December 1, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Jack Dorsey's Square Is (Almost) Open For Business  —  We've been tracking Twitter founder Jack Dorsey's Square since May when we first got the details on the new mobile phone payment service.  —  Today the company unveiled its website for the first time, and they continue to test the product in private beta.
RELATED:
Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:
Not All Of Square's “Advisors” Are Hollywood Sexpots  —  Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey today unveiled his new startup, Square, which lets any iPhone-owning merchant accept credit cards.  —  Square also announced its “advisors.”  Among them: Alyssa Milano, of “Who's The Boss?” fame.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Square Worth $40 Million Before Launch  —  Earlier today we wrote about Square, the new payment service cofounded by Jim McKelvey and Twitter creator Jack Dorsey.  We also interviewed Dorsey and used Square to buy a coffee.  —  We knew Square had closed a hyper-competitive venture round.
Chris Foresman / Ars Technica:
Steve Jobs intervenes, approves Knocking streaming video app  —  A persuasive e-mail from an iPhone developer to Steve Jobs helped Pointy Heads Software get its Knocking Live Video—the first official iPhone app capable of streaming live video over 3G and WiFi connections—approved for sale in the App Store.
John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
AT&T Ranked Last in Consumer Reports' Best Cellphone Service Survey  —  The annual survey of wireless customer satisfaction from Consumer Reports hits the streets this week and it doesn't have much good to say about AT&T. In a canvass of more than 50,000 readers spanning 26 U.S. cities …
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Is YouTube Ready for Primetime?  Google Wants to Stream TV, for a Fee.  —  YouTube, which is already trying out the movie rental business, wants to get into TV too.  —  Google's video site has been trying to convince the TV industry to let it stream individual shows for a fee, multiple sources tell me.
Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:
Apple, Psystar strike deal in copyright case  —  Mac clone maker to pay Apple unspecified damages, but may be able to keep selling systems  —  Computerworld - Apple and Mac clone maker Psystar agreed Monday to settle a 17-month lawsuit that will effectively stop Psystar from preinstalling Apple's Mac OS X …
RELATED:
Neil Hughes / AppleInsider:   Psystar agrees to pay Apple $2.7M in settlement
Joseph Tartakoff / paidContent:
Huffington To Murdoch: Stop ‘Pointing Fingers’  —  Arianna Huffington used her 25 minutes at the FTC's ‘How Will Journalism Survive The Internet Age?’ conference to take News Corp (NYSE: NWS).  CEO Rupert Murdoch and his executives to task for their remarks comparing news aggregators to …
RELATED:
David Faber / CNBC.com:
GE, Comcast Complete Deal Over NBC Universal: Source  —  The deal between General Electric and Comcast over a majority stake in NBC Universal is complete, and there is nothing left to do but process paper, a source close to the merger told CNBC Tuesday.  —  A deal is expected to be completed …
Boy Genius Report:
Apple's iDVD getting refreshed with iTunes LP creation support?  —  That's what one of our connects are telling us.  We've been informed that Apple plans to completely redo their iDVD application (in addition to others in iLife 2010), and besides iDVD not being refreshed in a pretty long time …
Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac
Sam Diaz / Between the Lines:
Comcast keeps promise, launches data usage meter  —  Nearly a year ago, Comcast first announced that it would establish a data usage tracking meter to help its broadband customers determine the amount of data being used on their accounts, especially since the company imposed a 250 GB cap on usage last year.
Marissa Mayer / The Official Google Blog:
Zeitgeist 2009: the collective consciousness  —  Curiosity — it's why we search the web.  Whether searching for the latest news, a popular holiday gift, a website you've heard about, the latest singing sensation, or the trailer to a blockbuster film, you come to Google with something on your mind.
Christopher Soghoian / slight paranoia:
8 Million Reasons for Real Surveillance Oversight  —  Disclaimer: The information presented here has been gathered and analyzed in my capacity as a graduate student at Indiana University.  This data was gathered and analyzed on my own time, without using federal government resources.
Nick Eaton / The Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft says black screens not caused by security updates  —  Updated 3:09 p.m.: Prevx posts response to Microsoft's statement.  —  Contrary to reports earlier this week, Microsoft said Tuesday the “black screens of death” some people have attributed to recent Windows security patches are not caused by those updates.
RELATED:
Zee / The Next Web:
Introducing twitter's first augmented reality iPhone app with geo-tagging built in.  —  Twitter 360 is an iPhone app that lets you visually see the flow of tweets from locations nearby, layered on top of your natural “real” environment.  —  Thanks to to the iPhone's video camera and Twitter's …
Todd Bishop / TechFlash:
Microsoft exec: Quitting Google as tough as stopping smoking  —  There were some great insights at last night's Xconomy Forum on the Future of Search and Information Discovery, and we'll get to those in a moment.  But first, the primary challenge facing any company thinking about getting …
Discussion: Xconomy
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Amazon Takes The Top Spot For Cyber Monday  —  Experian Hitwise just released its Cyber Monday stats, with Amazon reportedly topping the list as the most visited retail website yesterday, seeing a 44% increase in visits compared to 2008.  Amazon received 15.53% of the visits among the top 500 online retail sites.
RELATED:
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes / Hardware 2.0:
XP's usage share down, Win 7, Firefox & IE8 up  —  Data released by web metrics company Net Applications indicates that the release of Windows 7 to the general public has put a significant dent into Windows XP's usage share.  —  For the November period, web usage of XP dropped by 1.45%, while Vista's usage share only dropped by 0.2%.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Brainstorm Tech:
Charlie Wolf: How the Mac roared back  —  Needham & Co.'s senior analyst explains how Apple outgrew the PC market seven fold  —  Click to enlarge.  —  Needham's Charlie Wolf was as surprised as anyone when Apple (AAPL) reported that it had sold a record 3.05 million Macintosh computers …
Discussion: The Register
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Web-based toy maker Smith & Tinker lays off 30 percent of staff  —  Smith & Tinker had a high-profile launch of its Nanovor toy and accompanying game web site this fall.  It was billed as a marriage of toys and online games.  —  But yesterday the company laid off about 30 percent of its staff …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Heyzap makes Flash-based web games more social  —  Heyzap wants to create the same kind of monetization ecosystem for Flash games as exists with Facebook games and game consoles.  So today, it is launching a social platform that creates the equivalent of an Xbox Live for Flash games.
R. Scott Raynovich / Light Reading:
Luke Wilson's War  —  BOZEMAN, Mont. - I've been following with interest the AT&T and Verizon map wars.  From my own personal experience, it's a fascinating exercise in disingenuous marketing.  For AT&T, possibly more so, as I believe its map commercials are egregiously misleading.
Thanks:aschmitt
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Office Web Apps access comes to Windows Mobile, iPhone, BlackBerry and more (with some caveats)  —  For the past year, Microsoft officials have said repeatedly — without offering any specifics — that Office Web Apps will work on mobile phones.  But now that the public beta of Office Web Apps is available …
paidContent:
Ten Predictions For The E-Reader/E-Book Market In 2010  —  This has been a breakout year for e-readers and e-books—device sales will have more than tripled by the end of this year, and content sales are up 176% for the year.  But next year will be anything but boring.  Here are Forrester's predictions for 2010:
 
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 More Items: 
Tim Stevens / Engadget:
Dell facing massive E6400 and E6500 overheating and underclocking problem?
Discussion: Slashdot and Erictric
Jeffery Martin / Google LatLong:
Santa, Santa, when will you be here?  —  As I slowly emerge …
Discussion: CNET News and Search Engine Land
Nathania Johnson / Search Engine Watch:
Ask.com's Top Questions of 2009: Refreshing, Existential and Disturbing
Discussion: ask.mediaroom.com
Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:
Seeking Alpha Raises $7 Million Second Round
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
Chris Kanaracus / Computerworld:
SAP readying potential Google Wave rival
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb
Karl Bunyan / Inside Facebook:
Will Facebook Users Share Their Email Address with App Developers?
Discussion: All Facebook
 Earlier Items: 
Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:
AOL's Editorial Process — Revealed!
Lucas Mearian / Computerworld:
Harvard study: Computers don't save hospitals money
Discussion: Rough Type
Roi Carthy / TechCrunch:
Need Help Selecting a Payment Processor?  Look No Further Than Payments-R-Us
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Fring Brings Free Video Calling To The iPhone, Nokia Smartphones
Om Malik / GigaOM:
For Nokia's Ovi, the World (Minus the U.S.) Is Enough