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12:15 PM ET, November 15, 2010

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Microsoft:
Microsoft Launches New Casual Games Hub  —  The company today rolled out the Microsoft Game Hub, which helps fans of casual games like Bejeweled play and interact socially across MSN Games, Bing Games and Windows Live Messenger.  —  Solitaire doesn't have to be so solitary anymore.
RELATED:
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Not So Casual: Microsoft To Revitalize MSN Games, Live Messenger And Bing Games  —  Microsoft this morning announced several new efforts to gain some ground in the booming social/casual gaming market.  The company will be debuting an all-new version of MSN Games (see preview here) …
Brian Womack / Bloomberg:
Facebook Passes EBay in Value, Becoming No. 3 U.S. Web Company  —  Nov. 15 (Bloomberg) — Facebook Inc.'s estimated worth is now bigger than EBay Inc.'s valuation, making it the third- largest U.S. Internet business and underscoring the growing allure of social media for investors.
RELATED:
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
Facebook Worth $41 Billion (Report)
Discussion: All Facebook
Liz Gannes / NetworkEffect:
Path: The Social App That's Not Viral (By Design)  —  Silicon Valley is in the midst of a mini photo-sharing app boomlet.  We have Instagram (which started adding 100,000 users per week as soon as it launched last month), Picplz (which beat out Instagram to get a Series A round with their shared investor …
RELATED:
Path:
Introducing The Personal Network  —  Today we are proud to launch The Personal Network.  Practically all of us carry a camera phone, and our photos tell the stories of our lives.  Starting today, we hope that Path is the place you will always feel comfortable being yourself and sharing …
Federico Viticci / MacStories:
“Exciting Announcement from iTunes” Coming Tomorrow, What Is It?  —  Oh, look what we have here.  Apple just updated its homepage on apple.com to include this banner, which states an “exciting announcement” from iTunes is coming tomorrow at 7 AM PST.  “Tomorrow is just another day.
Sameer Samat / The Official Google Blog:
Improvements to Product Search for this holiday season  —  Every year retailers start the holiday shopping season earlier and earlier—and still I procrastinate until late December before getting started.  This year I've already made my list and I'm ready to go.
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Raid The MiniBar: Meebo Gets Into The Site Check-In Game.  But Don't Call It A Game.  —  With the rise of Foursquare, the “check-in” has become fairly commonplace.  With the launch of Places, Facebook will only make it more so.  It shouldn't be surprising that we're seeing dozens …
Claire Cain Miller / New York Times:
Pulse, Popular App, Moves to Attract More Users  —  PALO ALTO, Calif. — Publishers' offices at print newspapers and magazines are tension-filled places these days, as executives watch readers and advertisers flock to the Web and cellphone screens.  —  Contrast that to the atmosphere …
Ed Bott / Ed Bott's Microsoft Report Blog:
Microsoft vs. McAfee: How free antivirus outperformed paid  —  How effective is free antivirus software?  I had a chance to see a real, in-the-wild example just this month, and the results were, to put it mildly, unexpected.  The bottom line?  Microsoft's free antivirus solution found …
Discussion: Hardware 2.0 Blog, Thanks:edbott
Devin Coldewey / CrunchGear:
More Kinect Craziness: Mind-Blowing 3D Video Effect  —  The Kinect may be divisive as a gaming peripheral, but I think we can all agree that a $150 off-the-shelf depth-aware camera system is a good thing.  And just in the week since the device launched, people have already come up with some crazy applications for it.
Nick Saint / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:
Tune In At 1PM ET For LIVE Coverage Of Facebook's Email Announcement  —  In just over two hours, Facebook is having another big event, reportedly to announce a new web-based email client its employees call their “Gmail killer.”  —  A solid email offering from Facebook could be a huge deal.
Discussion: TUAW, Lifehacker and Black Web 2.0
Riva Richmond / New York Times:
Attacker That Sharpened Facebook's Defenses  —  A friend on Facebook suggests that you watch an amazing or funny or sexy video.  The link may seem innocuous enough.  But with a few simple clicks, you could end up infecting your PC with the Koobface worm.  —  Koobface, whose name is an anagram …
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Let a Zillion Users Blab: Yahoo Debuts “Contributor Network”  —  Yahoo is debuting a new offering for its hundreds of million of users, which takes the Demand Media model and notches up the volume by presumably allowing a thousand flowers to bloom.  —  Or, more to the point, blab.
Discussion: Yahoo!, AdAge and Yodel Anecdotal
Leena Rao / TechCrunchIT:
EMC Buys Enterprise Data Storage Company Isilon For $2.25 Billion In Cash  —  Enterprise software giant EMC has just acquired Isilon Systems for $2.25 billion in cash or appoximately $33.85 per share.  The deal was rumored to be in the works but now it's official.
Kat Hannaford / Gizmodo:
Rumor: Google Taking On eBay With Boutiques.com Site Launch  —  Fashion bloggers are squealing that Google's going into the fashion business, following an invitation for a swanky NYC launch event this Wednesday, where “high tech fuses with high fashion.”  Supposedly, they'll …
Discussion: frockwriter, TechCrunch, Go Rumors and BuzzFeed, Thanks:gizmodo
Zach Epstein / BGR:
Motorola MOTOPAD to usher in Android 3.0  —  Just as Motorola helped Google usher in Android 2.0 with the DROID, the reborn gadgeteer is now seemingly charged with a similar task for Android 3.0.  Details for the time being are remarkably slim, but Mobile-Review.com — home …
Kevin J. O'Brien / New York Times:
Smartphone Sales Taking Toll on G.P.S. Devices  —  BERLIN — The auto navigation device, a fixture of dashboards around the world for the past seven years, may soon begin to disappear, industry experts say, as satellite-tracking technology is absorbed into smartphones and automobiles.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:
Mark Papermaster should be happier at Cisco than he was at Apple  —  In many ways, the networking giant is a better fit for the 26-year IBM veteran  —  Papermaster.  Photo: Apple Inc.  —  Last week wasn't a total disaster for Cisco (CSCO) — which got a $29 billion market cap haircut Tuesday …
Jon Evans / TechCrunch:
Dear Foursquare, Gowalla: Please Let's Stop Pretending This Is Fun  —  It's a bad month to be Foursquare or Gowalla.  Ten days ago, 900-pound gorilla Facebook announced Facebook Deals for Facebook Places (i,e., location-based coupons) and check-ins for third-party apps.
Peter Pae / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
The future of writing on tablets: A Q&A with Information Architects  —  They say they are organizing the Web so you don't have to.  To them, every serif means something.  —  Founded by Oliver Reichenstein in 2005, Information Architects is a design strategy group focused on how information …
Discussion: MacStories
 
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 Earlier Items: 
Krishna Sankar / My missives:
Google - A Study In Scalability And A Little Systems Horse Sense
Discussion: AdExchanger.com
Ron Lieber / New York Times:
Zagat Survey Aims to Regain Its Online Balance
Discussion: Beet.TV
Jean-Louis Gassée / Monday Note:
The iPadification of OS X - Part II
Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac
Nick Bilton / Bits:
One on One: Tim Wu, Author of ‘The Master Switch’
Discussion: Computerworld, TechEye and Slate
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
The Phone Call Is Dead