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4:25 PM ET, January 15, 2010

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Sky Canaves / China Real Time Report:
Clearing Up Confusion on Google and China  —  From Silicon Valley to Zhongguancun, Google's surprise announcement that it may pull out of China has fueled an enormous amount of discussion in recent days, not all of it 100% accurate.  Below are some misstatements and misunderstandings we've seen:
RELATED:
Bloomberg:
Google Said to Have Tried to Enlist Companies as Allies After Cyber Attack  —  Jan. 15 (Bloomberg) — Google Inc. approached other companies to seek their help drawing attention to a cyber attack from China last month and was frustrated by their reluctance to come forward, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
Agence France Presse:
US to formally ask China for explanation on cyber-attacks  —  WASHINGTON — The United States said Friday that it will formally ask the Chinese government in “the coming days” for an explanation of China-based cyberattacks on the Internet giant Google.  —  “We will be issuing a formal demarche …
Discussion: VentureBeat and Associated Press
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Twitter's Answer To Facebook Connect  —  Twitter is preparing to launch a new set of tools that will let third party websites easily integrate Twitter features directly into their web sites and services, multiple sources have confirmed.  In a nutshell, this is their response to the massively popular Facebook Connect.
RELATED:
Peter Burrows / Business Week:
Is Apple Ready for Merger Mania?  —  The company has hired a banker from Goldman Sachs and looks to be in a more acquisitive mode  —  Historically, Steve Jobs has not been the acquisitive type.  Since he returned to Apple (AAPL) as chief executive in 1997, the company has bought only 11 small companies …
RELATED:
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Verizon Wireless revamps calling plans; Goes for customer grab ahead of 4G  —  Verizon Wireless is going on offense as it tweaks pricing plans, pares its device portfolio and markets heavily with its “there's a map for that” ad campaign.  The grand plan for Verizon Wireless: Grab customers …
RELATED:
Katie Marsal / AppleInsider:
Verizon undercuts AT&T, reduces monthly voice plan by $29  —  Competition in the mobile landscape became more intense Friday, when Verizon Wireless announced it has cut its basic voice plan by $29 per month, to $69.99 for unlimited calling.  —  Verizon also has an unlimited voice and text plan …
Matthew Moore / Telegraph:
Sarcasm punctuation mark aims to put an end to email confusion  —  Expressing sarcasm in the written word can be a dangerous business, as anyone forced to apologise for sending a tongue-in-cheek email will confirm.  —  The SarcMark costs $1.99 to download  —  Now a US firm has come …
Jack Purcher / Patently Apple:
Apple's Media Players will One Day be Both Portable TV & DVR  —  On January 14, 2010, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals one of the next chapters coming to Apple's Media Players.  In Q4 2010, Apple introduced their fifth generation iPod nano …
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
The Original Tablet  —  I enjoyed Paul Thurrott's daily coverage of CES last week.  A big trade show is a hard thing to capture in prose, and Thurrott got it.  —  But I chuckled at this piece starting his CES coverage, “Exclusive!  Microsoft to Announce Tablet PC Before Apple!”:
Discussion: Technologizer, Thanks:atul
John Eggerton / Broadcasting & Cable:
FCC Votes to Prohibit Distribution and Sale of Wireless Mics Using 700 mHz  —  Current users have until June 12 to get off band  —  Wireless microphones using the 700 mHz band will be following the stand-alone analog TV set into the sunset.  —  The FCC has voted to prohibit the distribution …
RELATED:
Todd Shields / Bloomberg:   Broadway Must Vacate Airwaves to Make Room for Verizon, AT&T
Phil Wainewright / Software as Services:
Why freemium is bad for business  —  I've never been comfortable with free products for business use, even though it's difficult to avoid using them if you're a small or one-person business (web analytics, for example, has been all but wiped out as a low-end paid service by Google's free offering).
Chris Davies / SlashGear:
Nokia 2010 Symbian UI update detailed: built on Qt  —  Remember the concept mockups of what Nokia envisaged its Symbian S^4 UI might look like after it's reworked in 2010?  The company showed off a brief video demo back in early December 2009, and now they're opening up the floodgates …
Gagan Biyani / MobileCrunch:
Patent Reveals Possible Groundbreaking Multi-Touch Features for Apple's iSlate  —  Now that everyone knows the iSlate is real, the question is: what the hell is this thing going to be like?  How will it work?  What will wow us about the iSlate that we never really expected?
Sajid Farooq / NBC Bay Area:
Apple Cofounder Confesses: He Loves the Google Phone  —  Steve Wozniak admits he's jumped to Google's ship  —  Steve Wozniak may have once cut in line to get an iPhone.  But now he's moved on to a hotter gadget.  —  The cofounder of Apple — the company that made him millions — told NBC Bay Area a dirty little secret.
Dan Fletcher / Time:
Foursquare's Twist on Facebook: A Reward for Checking In  —  Tweeting was the breakout web term for 2009.  The early favorite for 2010?  “Checking in.”  —  That's the basis of the Foursquare, the gorilla in a new wave of location-based social networking sites.
Taylor Wimberly / Android and Me:
Google changes pricing options for Nexus One: 100 new reasons to purchase the N1  —  Customers who recently paid $379 for the Nexus One will soon be receiving a $100 refund from Google.  The refund does not apply to any other customers who purchased the Nexus One.
RELATED:
BBC:
Music file-sharer ‘Oink’ cleared of fraud  —  A man who ran a music-sharing website with almost 200,000 members has been found not guilty of conspiracy to defraud at Teesside Crown Court.  —  Alan Ellis, 26, was the first person in the UK to be prosecuted for illegal file-sharing.
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
OneRiot's Realtime Ad Network RiotWise Now Open To The Masses  —  OneRiot's recently ventured into the advertising world with RiotWise, an ad format which places content in an emphasized position in their realtime feed.  A few weeks ago, the realtime search engine launched a pilot program …
Clint Boulton / eWeek:
Microsoft Exchange Team Fires Back at IBM Ahead of Lotusphere  —  Microsoft Jan. 15 offered training vouchers to the first 500 Lotus Notes professionals who want to learn to use Microsoft's Office productivity suite, Exchange e-mail server, SharePoint collaboration software, and Office Communications Server platform.
Marisa Taylor / Digits:
FTC Not Sure How to Enforce Blogger Disclosure Rules  —  The Federal Trade Commission is still trying to define how it will enforce new disclosure guidelines for bloggers who may have received free products from the companies they cover, according to northeast regional director Leonard Gordon.
Discussion: Maximum PC
Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:
Mozilla dumps Firefox 3.7 from schedule, changes dev process  —  Plans to quicken development pace by adding some features via security updates  —  Computerworld - Mozilla has made major changes to how it develops Firefox, and plans to drop Firefox 3.7 from its schedule and instead roll …
Discussion: Download Squad and Mashable!
 
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 More Items: 
Phone Arena:
Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus to cost $150 and $100 respectively
Wayne Friedman / MediaPost:
Magna: DVRs In 44% By 2015  —  In five years, network programmers …
Grant Gross / Computerworld:
RIAA tells FCC: ISPs need to be copyright cops
Jeremy Kirk / PC World:
Romanian Faces Five Years in Prison for Phishing Scheme
Eric Pfanner / New York Times:
France, Grudgingly, Imagines Google as a Partner on Digital Media Projects
Discussion: paidContent
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Data Revenues Will Push Mobile Biz Past $1 Trillion
Discussion: Total Telecom and 9 to 5 Mac
Clint Boulton / eWeek:
Google, Bing Gain in U.S. Search While Yahoo's Slide Continues
Discussion: TechCrunch
 Earlier Items: 
Ryan Tate / Gawker:
Hack to Hacker: Rise of the Journalist-Programmer
Discussion: Guardian, Thanks:atul
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Authentic Brands licenses Sports Illustrated's publishing rights to The Players' Tribune owner Minute Media for 10 years, with plans to keep the print edition

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
Ofcom rules that five GB News programs presented by Conservative politicians have broken its due impartiality rules and puts the channel “on notice”

Todd Spangler / Variety:
YouTuber MrBeast announces a deal with Prime Video for Beast Games, a reality-competition show with 1,000 contestants, promising the winner a $5M cash prize

 
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