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1:50 PM ET, February 5, 2010

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Facebook's Project Titan: A Full Featured Webmail Product  —  Facebook is completely rewriting their messaging product and is preparing to launch a fully featured webmail product in its place, according to a source with knowledge of the product.  Internally it's known as Project Titan.
RELATED:
Eric Eldon / Inside Facebook:
Facebook Begins Rolling Out New Home Page Design  —  Facebook is now fully launching the long-planned redesign, with 80 million users getting it tonight — that's 80 million of the now-400 million people using the site, the company says.  The new design is basically what we've been examining …
Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook Blog:
Six Years of Making Connections  —  Today we're celebrating our sixth birthday, and this week there will be 400 million people on Facebook.  Just one year ago we served less than half as many people, and thanks to you we've made great progress over the last year towards making the world more open and connected.
Matt Buchanan / Gizmodo:
The $9.99 Ebook Is Dead: Third Major Publisher Hachette Dumps on Amazon  —  Amazon's ebook pricing structure has crumbled.  Hachette's the third major publisher to push for the agency model, following MacMillan and HarperCollins: They'll set the ebook prices (higher, natch) and the bookseller takes a cut.
RELATED:
Dpakman / Pakman's Blog:
Weighing in on Amazon/Macmillan Pricing Debate
Discussion: Music Ally, MediaMemo and TeleRead
Jason Boog / GalleyCat:
Breaking: Hachette Book Group to Transition to Agency Model
Jason Boog / GalleyCat:
Macmillan NYT Ad: “Available at booksellers everywhere except Amazon”
Discussion: Mashable!
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
An Apology To Our Readers  —  On Monday evening I received a phone call from someone I trust who told me that one of our interns had asked for compensation in exchange for a blog post.  Specifically, this intern had allegedly asked for a Macbook Air in exchange for a post about a startup.
Discussion: Loic Le Meur Blog and Gawker, Thanks:bobcaswell
RELATED:
Daniel Brusilovsky / Weblog of Daniel Brusilovsky:
The Line Was Crossed  —  In the nine months that I've worked at TechCrunch, I've enjoyed every single moment of it.  I couldn't be more thankful to Michael and Heather for giving me this opportunity to work with an amazing organization, and with an amazing group of individuals.
Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
Siri launches an iPhone personal assistant that actually works  —  The “personal assistant” label gets attached to a lot of websites and applications, but it's always an exaggeration.  Usually the service in question can only tackle a small slice of what a human assistant would do, such as organizing your emails.
RELATED:
MacNN:
Apple prohibits App Store devs from using location-based ads  —  Apple has notified App Store developers that they will be prohibited from using location-based information for mobile advertising.  The company claims the GPS data can only be used to provide “beneficial information.”
Chris Foresman / Ars Technica:
Sling: We didn't ‘work’ with AT&T for 3G streaming to iPhone  —  AT&T made headlines Thursday by announcing that it had decided to allow SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone to stream video from a Slingbox over its 3G network.  AT&T's CEO claimed in the announcement that Sling Media modified the app …
Dana Blankenhorn / Open Source:
Matt Asay's big break is a big one for open source  —  I have a confession to make.  —  I'm a huge Matt Asay fan (right).  Always have been.  —  Matt is the Anthony Bourdain (below) of open source.  By that I mean he cooks better than most cooks, writes better than most writers, and he has made himself a big time brand.
Discussion: Computerworld and WorksWithU
RELATED:
Xbox Press:
A Letter From Marc Whitten: Discontinuation Of Xbox Live For Original Xbox Games  —  On April 15 we will discontinue the Xbox LIVE service for original Xbox consoles and games, including Xbox v1 games playable on Xbox 360 and Xbox Originals.  I want to start by saying this isn't a decision we made lightly …
Larry Dignan / ZDNet:
Microsoft, Facebook expand search partnership; Facebook to sell own ads  —  Microsoft and Facebook have revised their search pact into a global deal where the social networking giant will sell its own ads and get all the features Bing has to offer.  —  In a blog post, Microsoft outlined the changes:
Mark Wilson / Gizmodo:
Full Details on the New Nook 1.2 Firmware Going Out Now  —  A B&N employee (who'd just updated their store's Nooks) sent us all the details of the new Nook firmware 1.2 update that, according to the date on this memo, should hit later today.  UPDATE  —  • Enhanced in-store seamless connectivity …
Amy-Mae Elliott / Pocket-lint:
iTablet launches from UK company  —  Like the iPad but with USB ports, Flash, multi-tasking, choice of OS, HDMI...  In its own words “hot on the heels of Apple's latest product launch”, UK company X2 Computing has launched the “iTablet” range of Windows- or Linux-based tablet PCs.
authorsguild.org:
To RIAA or Not to RIAA, That was the Question  —  February 5, 2010.  As you may be reading in today's paper, the Justice Department in its filing regarding our settlement with Google continues to see legal problems with the settlement, focusing on class action law but also continuing to raise some antitrust concerns.
RELATED:
David Sarno / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Department of Justice objects to revised Google Books settlement
Declan McCullagh / CNET News:
FBI wants records kept of Web sites visited  —  The FBI is pressing Internet service providers to record which Web sites customers visit and retain those logs for two years, a requirement that law enforcement believes could help it in investigations of child pornography and other serious crimes.
Emil Protalinski / Ars Technica:
Buy Office 2007, get 2010 free?  Microsoft posts, pulls deal  —  Microsoft has accidentally posted details about a promotion it will be running for those who buy Office 2007 a few months before and after the release of Office 2010 in June 2010.  It is called the “Microsoft Office 2010 …
Phil Nickinson / Android Central:
Motorola Droid gets pinch-to-zoom in Google Maps application  —  You guys wanted pinch-to-zoom on the Motorola Droid, and you're getting pinch-to-zoom on the Motorola Droid.  At least in Google Maps, thus far, which has been updated to Version 3.4.0 and lets you get your multitouch on.
Discussion: PC Magazine
Jenna Wortham / Bits:
New York City Names Winners of Apps Contest  —  The winners of the first NYC BigApps competition, which invited the public to develop applications using raw sets of municipal data, were announced at an event in New York on Thursday evening.  —  The competition, which the city's Economic …
Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:
Mozilla confirms infected Firefox add-ons slipped through security  —  Malware hidden in two extensions threatens Windows users  —  Computerworld - Mozilla confirmed late Thursday that it failed to detect malware in a pair of Firefox add-ons, which may have infected up to 4,600 users.
 
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 More Items: 
Maisie Ramsay / Wireless Week:
CTIA, Verizon, U.S. Cellular File Against Signal Boosters
Neil Hughes / AppleInsider:
Credit Suisse: 75% chance AT&T keeps iPhone exclusivity in 2010
Discussion: Macsimum News
AT&T:
AT&T FamilyMap App Launches on App Store
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
PayPal Halts Personal Payment Transactions From And To India
Discussion: pluGGd.in
Connie Loizos / PE Hub Blog:
A Glimpse Inside Ron Conway's Virtual Venture Firm
Mehul Srivastava / Business Week:
India's 3G Auctions: Why Companies Are Fearful
Discussion: dailywireless.org
Ryan Tate / Gawker:
Blogger Beware: AOL's Robo-Reporters Will Swarm You Like Locusts
Discussion: PSFK
 Earlier Items: 
Jesse Stay / Stay N' Alive:
Twitter Testing “OAuth Delegation” With Select Partners - Genius
Discussion: the.HackerConundrum
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
MySpace Chief Product Officer Jason Hirschhorn On His Way Out …
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
Jack Purcher / Patently Apple:
Location Based Social Networking & Video Calling Coming to iPhone
Discussion: Go Rumors, SlashGear and iPhone Buzz
 

 
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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