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12:55 PM ET, August 6, 2010

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Not a Joke: An Apple App Patent (Pic) That Looks Like an Actual App Selling on the App Store  —  Updated at 8.15::  Apple apparently has started filing patents for certain applications.  And one of them looks exactly like an actual app — Where To — that has been available on the iTunes app store for a long time.
RELATED:
Ortwin Gentz / The FutureBlog:
The patent case we haven't called
Mark Gurman / 9 to 5 Mac:
Apple opens “Try Before You Buy” section in App Store, Step to fight app piracy  —  Apple seems to be adding to and changing up their App Store's featured sections quite frequently.  Today Apple added a new section dedicated to promoting free applications on the App Store.
RELATED:
Gizmodo:
Apple Should Enable 24-Hour Trials for All Paid Apps
Discussion: TUAW
Dean Goodman / Reuters:
Beatles and iTunes deal still at impasse: Yoko Ono  —  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Don't hold your breath waiting for Beatles songs to go on sale at iTunes or other online retailers, Yoko Ono said on Thursday.  —  The Fab Four have long resisted the allure of digital downloads …
Oleoleolson / AlterNet Blogs:
Massive Censorship Of Digg Uncovered  —  A group of influential conservative members of the behemoth social media site Digg.com have just been caught red-handed in a widespread campaign of censorship, having multiple accounts, upvote padding, and deliberately trying to ban progressives.
RELATED:
Josh Halliday / Guardian:
Digg investigates claims of conservative ‘censorship’
Discussion: The Huffington Post
Brandon Miniman / pocketnow.com:
New ASUS Windows Phone 7 Device Appears in Pakistan  —  We don't have much information on this (yet) but it looks like an ASUS device running on Windows Phone 7 has been spotted in Pakistan.  Unlike the LG Panther and Samsung Taylor devices that are only intended to be development devices …
Kelvin Soh / Reuters:
Apple in talks to buy China's Handseeing  —  (Reuters) - Apple Inc is in takeover talks with Chinese software maker Handseeing, an executive of the Chinese company said on Friday.  —  The deal would be the iPhone maker's first major acquisition in the country.
Jack Purcher / Patently Apple:
Apple Introduces us to the Smart Bike  —  On August 5, 2010, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals various concepts behind a newly advanced Smart Bicycle System in development.  The premise is rather like Apple's Nike + iPod system for runners except for cyclists.
Kevin Michaluk / CrackBerry.com blogs:
BlackBerry Torch 9800 Teardown Photos and Video of Slider Mechanism in Action!  —  Tear down posts of a new smartphone don't normally happen until the new device is available for commercial purchase and somebody is crazy enough to sacrifice it to the tech gods.
David Glazer / The Official Google Blog:
Google and Slide: building a more social web  —  We're excited to announce we've acquired Slide, a social technology company with an extensive history of building new ways for people to connect with others across numerous platforms online.  —  For Google, the web is about people …
Discussion: TechCrunch, Erictric and Black Web 2.0
Arn / MacRumors:
New Images of 4th Generation iPod Touch LCD with FaceTime Camera  —  An iPhone parts supplier sent us these photos of what are claimed to be the front LCD and bezel of the upcoming 4th generation iPod Touch.  The new part clearly shows a front-sided hole that would leave room for a front-facing FaceTime camera.
Dan Goodin / The Register:
Private browsing modes in four biggest browsers often fail  —  You've been warned  —  Features in the four major browsers designed to cloak users' browser history often don't work as billed, according to a research paper that warns that users may get a false sense of security when using the built-in privacy settings.
Discussion: Inquirer, BBC, CrunchGear and V3.co.uk
Bangkokpost.com:
Saudis block BlackBerry messaging  —  Saudi Arabia suspended BlackBerry messaging services on Friday, users said as concerns spread across the Middle East and parts of Asia over security issues with the popular smartphones.  —  BlackBerry subscribers in the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom …
RELATED:
Computerworld:
RIM holds talks with UAE and Saudi Arabia
Discussion: PC World
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Let's Celebrate Google's Biggest Failures!  —  “We celebrate our failures,” Google CEO Eric Schmidt said yesterday when speaking at the Techonomy confernce, in response to the surprise closure of his company's Google Wave product.  When it comes to failures, Google's celebrating more than you might realize.
John Siracusa / Ars Technica:
Can you buy me now?  Apple and the war for the mobile market  —  The short history of the computer industry is dominated by two well-known stories of business triumph and defeat.  The first is the story of how mainframe makers failed to take the personal computer seriously until it was too late.
Discussion: Daring Fireball and MacDailyNews
Paul Carr / TechCrunch:
Rdio Gaga: How Spotify's Inferior Rival Is Playing America Like A Violin  —  Poor old Spotify.  Less than a week after Billboard magazine reported that the music-on-demand service had “rebooted” its negotiations with US labels, rival service Rdio has just opened its doors in both the US and Canada …
Discussion: Newsome.Org
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft begins adding single-sign on support to its Azure cloud  —  Microsoft is adding federated-identity support for providers including Google, Facebook, LiveID and OpenID to its Azure cloud platform via a new update to its Windows Azure AppFabric component.
Discussion: Softpedia News, Thanks:rawmeet
Nick O'Neill / All Facebook:
Quora Opens Up To Search Engines As Facebook Looms  —  Quora is pushing forward with the continued opening of their service as Facebook Questions continues through a relatively rocky start.  Given that it has become relatively obvious that Facebook Questions is nothing short of a direct attack against Quora …
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Twitter's Social Graph Is About To Get Pumped Up.  “Who To Follow” Is Social Steroids  —  Last week, Twitter started testing out a “Who to follow” feature.  Basically, it's a recommendation engine for who you should follow, similar to ones that Facebook and others use.
Discussion: Stowe Boyd, broadstuff and Fast Company
Edward Wyatt / New York Times:
F.C.C. Chief Opposes Fees for Internet Priority  —  WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission said Thursday that he believed it was “unacceptable” for Internet service providers to offer faster Internet transmission to content providers willing to pay higher fees.
 
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 More Items: 
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
PayPal on Android Lets You Bump Phones to Send Money
Discussion: Teens in Tech
Marina Zaliznyak / TechCrunch Europe:
C2Call closes a $2m series A round for its browser-based VoIP phone
Discussion: VentureBeat, VatorNews, Xconomy and mocoNews
Jonathan Zittrain / Technology Review:
Technology Lessons from the Wikileaks Saga
Thanks:atul
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Zynga Confirms Unoh Acquisition
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Foursquare Cleans Up Profile Pages, Hints At Key New Metrics?
Discussion: Mobile Marketing Watch, Thanks:bobcaswell
 Earlier Items: 
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Perhaps Not Fondly, Google's Schmidt Remembers Dodgeball “Quite Well”
Sarah Lacy / TechCrunch:
Here's What Everybody Made From The Slide Sale