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10:00 AM ET, December 22, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Miguel Helft / Bits:
Who Walked, Google or Yelp?  —  One thing is certain about the Google-Yelp courtship: After turning hot as recently as Friday, a bitter chill has spread over the relationship, and for now, the mating dance is definitely off.  —  But why things fell apart after the two sides had virtually agreed …
RELATED:
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
As Microsoft Warily Eyes Google Buying Spree, Will It Jump in or Play the Regulatory Card?  —  Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.  —  With Google on the market for pretty much, well, everything in the Web 2. space of late-using its fat stock price and copious cash reserves …
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
Brian Garner / AppleInsider:
Apple's TV subscription plan gains potential partners in CBS, Disney  —  Both CBS Corp. and Walt Disney Co. have shown interest in offering content for Apple's TV subscription proposal slated for roll out sometime in 2010.  —  Walt Disney Co. and CBS Corp. are considering participating …
RELATED:
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Apple May Be On The Verge Of Kneecapping The Cable Industry.  Finally.  —  The cable companies suck.  All of them.  Some suck less than others.  But they all suck.  We need someone to whip them into shape.  And that someone may be Apple.  —  Apple may be on the verge of gaining …
Clive Thompson / Wired News:
Learn to Let Go: How Success Killed Duke Nukem  —  On the last day, they gathered for a group photo.  They were videogame programmers, artists, level builders, artificial-intelligence experts.  Their team was — finally — giving up, declaring defeat, and disbanding.
The Official Google Blog:
The meaning of open  —  Last week I sent an email to Googlers about the meaning of “open” as it relates to the Internet, Google, and our users.  In the spirit of openness, I thought it would be appropriate to share these thoughts with those outside of Google as well.  —  At Google we believe that open systems win.
Seth Weintraub / 9 to 5 Mac:
Hurry up and download an NES emulator that slipped into the App Store  —  Update: It has been pulled, you'll have to jailbreak to get an NES emulator now.  —  We're not sure how this one slipped through, but Nescaline, a Nintendo Entertainment System emulator is in the App Store as we speak.
Lars Backstrom / Facebook Blog:
Facebook Memology: Top Status Trends of 2009  —  Status updates on Facebook help people understand their friends and the people around them—how they're feeling, what they're doing and what they're thinking.  In the United States alone, people on Facebook are sharing hundreds of millions of words every day …
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Twitter Captures A Nexus One Unboxing And Another Video  —  A number of pictures have hit the web now showing the Nexus One, aka the Google Phone, in the flesh.  But there haven't been too many showing its packaging, and it getting unboxed.  Today, some Twitpics shared by one user show those.
David Diaz / TechCrunch:
Apple Not Liable For Plagued iMac Screens, Updates Firmware Anyway  —  Apple just dodged a bullet.  —  A New York federal judge dismissed a potential class action lawsuit which alleged that Apple propagated their popular iMac screens without disclosing certain manufacturing defects to its customers …
RELATED:
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
Apple Releases Firmware Update to Address Screen Flickering on 27-Inch iMacs
Jason Hiner / Between the Lines:
Backupify drops paywall; backs up your data from Twitter, Facebook, and Gmail  —  One of the best parts of keeping your data in the cloud is that you don't have to worry quite as much about doing your own backups.  If your computer crashes or your hard drive dies, you won't lose all of the messages …
Tricia Duryee / mocoNews:
The U.S. Can Look To Europe To See What The iPhone's Future Will Be Here  —  Fed up with only having AT&T (NYSE: T) to choose from if you want the iPhone in the U.S., many consumers can't wait until Verizon or another carrier gets a hold of the device.  But if you look at the UK …
Discussion: Macsimum News and Telegraph, Thanks:atul
Marc Flores / Boy Genius Report:
Israeli programmer hacks Kindle, breaks DRM protection  —  Nothing makes you feel like you truly own your media and content like being able to do almost whatever you want with it.  We're already used to DRM for our MP3s and the limitations it puts on device selection and sharing …
Wilson Rothman / Gizmodo:
Our 2009 12-City 3G Data Mega Test: AT&T Won  —  Given carrier reputation and our own iPhone call drops, we were pretty surprised to discover, through careful testing in 12 markets, that AT&T's has pretty consistently the fastest 3G network nationwide, followed closely—in downloads at least—by Verizon Wireless.
Roberto Mateu / Opera Labs:
Opera 10.5 pre-alpha for Labs  —  Today we are releasing Opera 10.5 pre-alpha for Labs.  This pre-alpha is based on the Evenes branch and includes Windows and Mac builds, with an UNIX/Linux version coming later.  —  As you may know, we don't typically open to user-testing this early in the development cycle.
RELATED:
Lee Mathews / Download Squad:
Opera 10.5's new Carakan Javascript engine is fast - Google Chrome fast.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Voice May Join Google's Enterprise Lineup  —  GrandCentral, which Google acquired in 2007, relaunched as Google Voice way back in March.  It's still technically in private beta, but invitations aren't all that hard to find.  —  From what we've heard, Google is very seriously planning to add …
Ed Bayley / Electronic Frontier Foundation:
An E-Book Buyer's Guide to Privacy  —  As we count down to end of 2009, the emerging star of this year's holiday shopping season is shaping up to be the electronic book reader (or e-reader).  From Amazon's Kindle to Barnes and Noble's forthcoming Nook, e-readers are starting to transform …
Discussion: TeleRead, Boing Boing and PC World
Mia / YouTube Blog:
Make Way for youtu.be Links  —  It's all the rage: link shorteners to ensure that those useful URLs you're sharing don't take up too much precious character count while also giving you an inkling of what you're about to click on.  Well, we've just launched youtu.be as a shortener for YouTube video links …
Jonny Evans / 9 to 5 Mac:
iPhone price wars begin - massive discounts hit France...  France is Europe's healthiest iPhone market because the device has been sold there by multiple carriers, driving sales higher - now carriers there are slashing prices on the product, applying steep discounts against the regular price.
Om Malik / GigaOM:
November 2009: State of The Location Apps  —  I have long been fascinated by the location-based applications, especially on the new mobile platforms, for they represent a different (and a new) way of consuming and interaction with information.  —  So perhaps that is why I found …
Softpedia News:
Windows Live Wave 4 Leaks: Mail, Photo Gallery, Writer Build 15.0.2403.826  —  Screenshots available  —  Microsoft continues to keep mum on the next iteration Windows Live, but silence should be in no way mistaken for inactivity.  The most recent Windows Live Wave 4 leaks come to confirm …
Discussion: GeekSmack and LiveSide
BBC:
BBC net TV plan gets green light  —  The BBC Trust, the corporation's governing body, has given a provisional go-ahead for a project which could kick-start demand for internet TV.  —  Project Canvas is a partnership between the BBC, ITV, BT, Five, Channel 4 and TalkTalk to develop a so-called Internet Protocol Television standard.
Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac, paidContent and T3.com News
David Sancho / TrendLabs:
Microsoft Virus Scanning Recommendations Bring Risks  —  We have recently received queries from customers about the official exclusion list recommendations from Microsoft.  It seems that they have published a Knowledge Base entry that lists down recommendations to improve performance in Windows when running antivirus scanners.
Jonathan Fildes / BBC:
Firefox for mobile ready to debut  —  The mobile browser has been in development for the last year and a half  —  The first mobile phone version of the popular web browser Firefox is “days away” from launch, the head of the project has told the BBC.  —  The browser, codenamed Fennec …
Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
80legs sets its web crawler free  —  When 80legs launched its web crawling service at DEMO (a conference co-produced by VentureBeat) last fall, chief executive Shion Deysarkar told me he wanted to place tools previously exclusive to web giants within the reach of smaller companies …
 
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 More Items: 
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Opera Reports Massive Growth For Mobile Web Usage, Particularly In Asia And Africa
Discussion: IntoMobile
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Flurry and Pinch Media to create mobile analytics powerhouse
Dennis Fisher:
Attackers Buying Own Data Centers for Botnets, Spam
Discussion: Fudzilla and Slashdot
Jarrod Krug / MapQuest Blog:
Over 700,000 New Business Listings Added To MapQuest.com
Michele Neylon / CircleID:
Berlin the Latest New TLD Battleground?
 Earlier Items: 
Miguel Helft / New York Times:
The Science of Managing Search Ads
Discussion: the Econsultancy blog, Thanks:atul
Steve Blank:
The Elves Leave Middle Earth - Sodas Are No Longer Free
Thanks:atul
Damon Darlin / Bits:
‘Nerd’ and ‘Geek’ Should Be Banned, Professor Says
Discussion: Maximum PC, AppScout and New York Times