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4:40 PM ET, December 19, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Google To Acquire DocVerse; Office War Heats Up  —  Google, which is currently on one heck of a spending spree, is closing an acquisition of San Francisco based DocVerse, a service that lets users collaborate around Microsoft Office documents, we've heard from a source with knowledge of the deal.
Discussion: TechFlash and The EtherPad Blog, Thanks:atul
Associated Press:
Stock windfall for Google employees  —  NEW YORK — Google's employees couldn't have timed the stock market's turn any better.  —  A day before stocks bottomed in March, Google let almost 16,000 of its workers exchange their stock options.  It turned out to be the deal of a lifetime.
Kevin Kelleher / GigaOM:
For Palm, Yet Another Wrenching Crisis  —  Palm is the Jack Bauer of the mobile industry.  Its story is one of high-tension drama in which it lurches from one crisis to another, saving itself from the jaws of despair only to face some new and more daunting threat, all while the clock ominously ticks away.
Chip Chick:
Re Accessory Transforms your iPhone into a Universal Remote Control  —  attaches to the base of your iPhone and using its accompanying app, the device transforms your iPhone into a fully functional universal remote control.  We're talking about an advanced remote control with an extensive built …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Google Experimenting With Browser Login For Chrome OS  —  Google has made a change to Chrome OS to move the user login from the machine to the browser.  Our guess is Google is, or will eventually use, Google Friend Connect to facilitate login.  —  The feature was first mentioned on October 13 …
WordPress:
WordPress 2.9, oh so fine  —  Filed under Releases.  —  I want to make you mine, all the time... oh wait.  Hello.  I'm here on behalf of the entire WordPress development team and community to announce the immediate availability of WordPress version 2.9 “Carmen” named in honor …
Louis Gray:
Growing Grumblings on Tech News Don't Address Incentives  —  If you are the subject of the news, people will judge your actions and how you react to being in the spotlight.  If you are the distributor of the news, how you message that news, and how accurately you report that news, will also be dissected.
Anil Dash:
The Twitter API is Finished.  Now What?  —  Update: We've got some results already!  Joseph Scott at Automattic mentions in the comments that he's added RSD support for the Twitter API to WordPress.com.  I should also make clear that I am very confident that we'll be building apps on top …
Discussion: Workbench and A VC, Thanks:atul
Eric Eldon / Inside Social Games:
With Hit Social Game Happy Farm, Chinese Developer 5 Minutes Raises $3.5 Million from DFJ  —  It's not just western social gaming companies that are raising money these days.  5 Minutes, the China-based developer of cross-platform sensation Happy Farm, has closed a $3.5 million first round …
Kim-Mai Cutler / VentureBeat:
MyWebWill prepares your final tweet, Facebook update upon death  —  One rather morbid consequence of sharing our lives online is the digital trail we leave behind when we die.  —  It's not an idea that comes readily to the Facebook generation, but managing the profiles and blog posts left behind upon death …
The Steve Rubel Lifestream:
Search the Live Web with Two Simple Bookmarklets  —  I have become addicted to Google's new real-time search feature.  It's an incredible window onto the world's psyche.  However, it's somewhat lacking in one small way.  —  By default, Google doesn't serve up real-time results for most searches.
Todd Bishop / TechFlash:
Microsoft patent: Sorry, fatso, no more hiding behind that avatar  —  For many people, half the fun of avatars is aspirational — the ability to make them look like you wish you did in real life.  But apparently that's not the case for some Microsoft researchers, who have applied for a patent …
Discussion: The Microsoft Blog, Thanks:loyals
Kdawson / Slashdot:
Yes, Google Does De-List Pages; But When?  —  from the how-offensive-is-too-offensive dept.  —  Frequent Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton writes  —  “Google finds itself inserting a disclaimer once again above some offensive search results.  But the disclaimer still leads many to believe …
 
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 Techmeme Sponsor Posts: 
Channel 9:
Inside NuGet for C++  —  NuGet support for C++ projects in Visual Studio has arrived in NuGet 2.5!  It's been around for about a month now so we figured we'd go talk to one of the developers who helped make it happen, Garrett Serack.
Cloud Foundry:
Static.com Adds Hadoop Support for Cloud Foundry  —  In this guest post, Jake Farrell, CTO for Static.com, explains how the major shift in the hosting industry towards platforms for high developer productivity …
Rackspace Blog:
An Army Is Forming To Battle Patent Trolls  —  For the past several months, we've exposed the flaws in the patent system and how they're being exploited by opportunistic patent trolls looking to extort a quick buck …
Hortonworks » Blog:
Hadoop, Hadoop, Hurrah!  HDP for Windows is Now GA!  —  Today we are very excited to announce that Hortonworks Data Platform for Windows (HDP for Windows) is now generally available and ready to support the most demanding production workloads.
Unison's blog:
“Yammer sucks”  —  Not to be mean to Yammer, or anything — it's a very good tool for some use cases — but that's what a customer told me recently (and others feel the same way).
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 More Items: 
Christine Chen / Google Public Policy Blog:
Google's approach to privacy
Discussion: BayNewser
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Quicktime Vets Bring Mobile Video And Photo Sharing With Thwapr (Beta Launch)
Philip Willan / PC World:
Italy contemplates Web restrictions after Berlusconi attack
Brian Wheeler / BBC:
Chinese plan to meter net traffic
Discussion: p2pnet
Brad Feld / Feld Thoughts:
Score Two Wins Against Software Patents
 Earlier Items: 
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Russian ISP Blocking Political Opposition Websites
Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:
Twitter's own account caused blackout, says DNS provider
Discussion: Security Fix
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Dana Milbank / Washington Post:
In AP, Rosen investigations, government makes criminals of reporters

Cody Brown / Medium:
The New York Times Told Me to Take This Down

Erik Maza / WWD:
Edward Felsenthal Helming Relaunch of Time.com

 
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