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7:50 PM ET, August 25, 2010

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Robin Schriebman / Gmail Blog:
Call phones from Gmail  —  Gmail voice and video chat makes it easy to stay in touch with friends and family using your computer's microphone and speakers.  But until now, this required both people to be at their computers, signed into Gmail at the same time.
RELATED:
Sean Hollister / Engadget:
Google introduces Call from Gmail, free calls to US and Canada (update: impressions)  —  Rumors have been buzzing about since June, but Google just made it official — the company's baking Google Voice calls right into Gmail today.  Like the Google Chat text, voice and video chat integrated …
Brad McCarty / The Next Web:
Google calls: Not a Skype-killer, but still a viable option.
Discussion: GigaOM
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft Blog:
Is this Microsoft's new Internet Explorer 9 interface?  —  Microsoft has delivered four developer previews of Internet Explorer (IE) 9 so far, but has yet to show off the new interface for its next-generation browser.  That is expected to happen on September 15, during Microsoft's beta launch event in San Francisco.
Kevin Rose / Digg Blog:
Digg Version 4  —  I'm excited to announce that today we opened up the newest version of our Digg platform.  We've been working hard on this next evolution of Digg (what we've been calling “v4") and everyone here is really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the changes we've made.
RELATED:
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
New Version of Digg Goes Live For Everyone This Morning
Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:   Hey, Digg — This 17-Year-Old Knows What You Are Thinking
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Apple Issues Invitation For September 1 “Special Event”  —  Apple (AAPL) has e-mailed invitations to the media for a “special event” to be held September 1 at 10 a.m. at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco.  Previous reports suggested that Apple would be holding an event on September 7 …
RELATED:
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Is Apple Really Going To Announce A TV Gadget At An Event …
Discussion: Fortune and AppleInsider
David Pogue / New York Times:
New Kindle Leaves Rivals Farther Back  —  Too bad there's not a reality TV show called “America's Most Freaked-Out Tech-Company Meetings,” where you watch classic panicked board meetings.  For example, when the Apple employee left an iPhone 4 prototype in a bar.
RELATED:
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Amazon: New Kindles Selling At Record Rates, U.S. Store Now Has Over 670,000 Books
Peter Burrows / BusinessWeek:
Apple's New Video Strategy Coming Into Focus  —  The blogosphere has been buzzing with talk of a radically updated version of the Apple TV set-top box.  It turns out Apple plans to unveil the $99 device at an event on Sept. 7, my Bloomberg colleagues and I reported today .
RELATED:
Quora:
Why does the Facebook Places icon so obviously contain a “four” in a “square”?  —  I've seen many people point this out on Twitter/etc, and all of them have had a (predictably) disparaging tone.  Facebook must have been aware of the allusion to Foursquare in their new icon - how do they benefit by this?
Discussion: TechCrunch
Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg / Wall Street Journal:
Amazon Loses E-Book Deal  —  A month after jolting the book industry with a deal to give Amazon.com Inc. exclusive digital access to some of the country's best-known literary works, literary agent Andrew Wylie is largely abandoning the agreement.  —  The Amazon deal was struck after Mr. Wylie failed …
Mike Luttrell / TG Daily:
Digital Chocolate sues Facebook game giant Zynga over Mafia Wars  —  Casual gaming company Digital Chocolate has just filed suit against Zynga, the leader in social gaming, because it says it owns the exclusive rights to the name “Mafia Wars.”  —  Zynga's Facebook game Mafia Wars has become …
Emily Glazer / WSJ Blogs - WSJ:
It's Still Too Early to Value Location Services, Businesses Say  —  Are location-based services going to be the next social-networking step for businesses?  —  The big debate lately has been whether Facebook's new location-sharing service, Places, will overwhelm pioneers like Foursquare.
Discussion: SiliconANGLE
Adam Vaughan / Guardian:
Apple blocks iPhones from green ranking scheme  —  Scheme rates handsets on factors such as ecological impact of raw materials, manufacturing process and energy efficiency  —  • iPhone app pitches climate change science against scepticism  —  Apple has refused to allow its iPhones …
Graeme Wearden / Guardian:
Shareholder trading values Facebook at more than $33bn  —  With shares selling for up to $76, investors are calculating social networking site is worth nearly twice as much as Yahoo!  —  Facebook is now being valued at more than $33bn (£21.3bn) as investors try to secure a stake …
Discussion: The Social, broadstuff and DealBook
Ian Sherr / Wall Street Journal:
Online Coupons Get Smarter  —  Groupon, Rivals Add Personalized Bargains, Staff as Some Merchants Gripe  —  When Jennifer London cut a deal with Groupon Inc. to promote her smoothie shop in an email, she wasn't sure how many people would show up for discounted drinks.
Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post:
Defense official discloses cyberattack  —  Now it is official: The most significant breach of U.S. military computers was caused by a flash drive inserted into a U.S. military laptop on a post in the Middle East in 2008.  —  In an article to be published Wednesday discussing the Pentagon's cyberstrategy …
Jenna Wortham / Bits:
CollegeOnly, a Social Network Just for the University Set  —  When Facebook arrived at my university near the end of my fourth year, I remember feeling a huge wave of relief.  —  Not because I had an easy way to keep in touch with my friends after college but because the site arrived …
Mark Hachman / PC Magazine:
IBM Describes Fastest Microprocessor Ever  —  PALO ALTO—IBM revealed more details of its 5.2-GHz chip on Tuesday, the fastest microprocessor ever announced.  Don't bet that you'll ever be able to buy it, though.  —  At the Hot Chips 2010 conference here, IBM executives described the z196 …
Discussion: Obsessable, Electronista and SlashGear
Kevin Poulsen / Threat Level:
WikiLeaks Airs Classified CIA Memo, But Real Message Is No Secret  —  WikiLeaks dug into its trove of unpublished leaks Wednesday to release a six-month-old classified CIA memo about foreign perception of the United States, underscoring that the secret-spilling website won't be cowed by Pentagon threats …
Discussion: The Register and Geek.com
Matt McGee / Search Engine Land:
Bing's Market Share Up 51% In Past 12 Months  —  Bing's search engine market share has risen 51% in the U.S. over the past 12 months according to Nielsen stats announced today.  —  According to Nielsen, Bing's market share in July 2010 was up to 13.6%, a 51% jump from its 9% market share in July 2009 …
Discussion: Nielsen Wire and WebProNews
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Encrypted and obfuscated?  Your P2P protocol can still be IDed  —  Typical Web traffic is easy enough to spot: it uses TCP port 80.  But plenty of protocols prefer to remain in the shadows and purposely make themselves difficult to identify—including Skype, BitTorrent, and eMule.
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Qualcomm Services Labs unveils four cool mobile services startups  —  Qualcomm has formed a new incubator to launch next-generation mobile services and applications.  Today, it unveil four such startups at a press event in Palo Alto, Calif.  —  Isaac Babbs (pictured right) …
Discussion: VatorNews, Mashable! and TechCrunch
Mark Milian / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Podcaster Leo Laporte, the everywhere man  —  Leo Laporte arrived Thursday at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank.  —  On Friday morning he arrived at the office of KFI AM 640, the radio station that airs his syndicated “The Tech Guy” program.  At 3:42 p.m., he was back at the airport, ready to fly home to Petaluma, Calif.
Tom Simonite / Technology Review:
A Search Service that Can Peer into the Future  —  A Yahoo Research tool mines news archives for meaning—illuminating past, present, and even future events.  —  Showing news stories on a timeline has been tried before.  But Time Explorer, a prototype news search engine created …
 
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 More Items: 
Joab Jackson / PC World:
Red Hat Offers Its Cloud APIs as Industry Standard
Discussion: Datamation and eWeek
Danah Boyd / Technology Review:
Why Privacy Is Not Dead
Thanks:rawmeet
Evan Selleck / SlashGear:
Sharper Image Literati eReader Unveiled, Features Color LCD and $159 Price Tag
Jon Stokes / Ars Technica:
Evolution, not revolution: a look at AMD's Bulldozer
 Earlier Items: 
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Why Motorola Bought 280 North
Discussion: PC World and Computerworld
Jay Baer / Convince and Convert Blog:
Is Starbucks the Most Dangerous Competitor to Facebook?
Marc Graser / Variety:
‘Angry Birds’ flies with Hollywood
Andrew Kippen / Boxee Blog:
Boxee Gets a Movie Library, Actually A Few Of Them
Discussion: NewTeeVee, WebProNews and CrunchGear
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Why We Never Talk Anymore
Discussion: CNN, Black Web 2.0 and IntoMobile, Thanks:atul
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
GameCrush Is Crushing It. Investors Agree.
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Murray Stassen / Music Business Worldwide:
Warner Music Group sells Uproxx, HipHopDX, and other assets to a new company, Uproxx Studios, formed by Jarret Myer, Rich Antoniello, and will.i.am

New York Times:
Sources detail NPR's struggles with declining audiences, falling sponsorship revenue, internal conflicts over turning things around, and a diversity push

Winston Cho / The Hollywood Reporter:
The FTC bans noncompete clauses that restrict job switching, potentially complicating hiring in Hollywood as firms try to protect trade secrets and other info

 
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