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9:50 PM ET, May 12, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Dan Lyons / The Daily Beast:
Facebook Busted in Clumsy Smear on Google  —  THE DAILY BEAST ON:  —  The social network secretly hired a PR firm to plant negative stories about the search giant, The Daily Beast's Dan Lyons reveals—a caper that is blowing up in their face, and escalating their war.
RELATED:
Beth Krietsch / PRWeek US:   Burson-Marsteller and Facebook part ways
Tonya Garcia / PRNewser:
B-M Says Facebook Assignment “Should Have Been Declined”
Ben Popper / Betabeat:
Smear Story Source Speaks: Facebook Wanted to Stab Google in the Back
Wall Street Journal:
Google Near DOJ Settlement Over Online Drug Ads  —  Google Inc. is close to settling a U.S. criminal investigation into allegations it made hundreds of millions of dollars by accepting ads from online pharmacies that break U.S. laws, according to people familiar with the matter.
RELATED:
Pamela Parker / Search Engine Land:
Report: Google May Pay $500 Million To Settle Complaint Over Illegal Drug Ads
Discussion: The Tech Trade
Associated Press:
How bin Laden emailed without being detected by US  —  WASHINGTON - Despite having no Internet access in his hideout, Osama bin Laden was a prolific email writer who built a painstaking system that kept him one step ahead of the U.S. government's best eavesdroppers.
Reuters:
AT&T, T-Mobile USA break-up is $6 billion: sources  —  (Reuters) - AT&T Inc (T.N) has promised to give Deutsche Telekom (DTEGn.DE) $6 billion in assets, services and cash as a break-up fee if U.S. regulators reject its proposed $39 billion purchase of the German company's T-Mobile USA, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Donald Melanson / Engadget:
Netflix releases Android app for select HTC phones, Samsung Nexus S  —  Well, it looks like the LG Revolution won't be the first Android phone to get Netflix after all.  The app has just hit the Android Market and is apparently available for HTC Incredible, Nexus One, Evo 4G, and G2 …
Andrew Song / Facebook:
Introducing Login Approvals  —  Facebook has always been committed to both protecting our users' account and information, as well as giving them more control over their Facebook experience.  From our User Operations team, who work to re-secure compromised accounts, to the Engineering team …
Discussion: Geek.com, All Facebook and WebProNews
RELATED:
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Twitter Updates Mac Client With Multiple Timelines, Cleaner Design, Auto-Complete And More  —  Twitter for Mac, which launched earlier this year with the rollout of Apple's Mac App Store, is getting its first major update today.  —  Besides a design update, you can now see multiple timelines …
Nilay Patel / This is my next:
How Google controls Android: digging deep into the Skyhook filings  —  You might remember that a company called Skyhook Wireless sued Google back in September for business interference and patent infringement — the Skyhook XPS WiFi and cell tower positioning system was all set to ship …
Andy Greenberg / The Firewall:
Is Google's Chromebook The Death Knell For Antivirus?  —  Updated and corrected below.  —  The antivirus industry likely let out a collective groan when Google first made a familiar-sounding boast Wednesday: that the just-launched laptops it's calling Chromebooks have “security built …
Nielsen Wire:
Cue the Music: Driven by Digital, Music Sales up in 2011  —  Music sales in the U.S. are up 1.6 percent in 2011, according to The Nielsen Company, as digital album and track sales saw dramatic growth through May 8.  While physical albums saw a decline in year-over-year sales from the same period in 2010 …
Brooke Crothers / CNET News:
Intel working on new Atom chip architecture  —  Intel is working on a new Atom chip architecture that goes beyond the 3D transistors announced last week as the chip giant accelerates development of its most power-efficient chip design.  —  The new Atom-based “micro-architecture,” codenamed …
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
Remember that iPad Wi-Fi Bug?  It's Back...And Affecting iPhones, Too  —  A little over a year ago, some new iPad owners found they were having issues with the device's Wi-Fi connection.  Signals were weak, or worse, dropped altogether.  The only solution at the time, before Apple released a fix …
Liz Gannes / NetworkEffect:
Blogger Goes Down, Taking 30 Hours of Posts and Comments With It  —  Google's Blogger service has been offline or unreliable for much of the day, with Blogger-hosted blogs changed to read-only mode, and posts and comments made after 7:37 a.m. PDT on May 11, 2011, removed.
Jay Yarow / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:
RON CONWAY: The Scariest Man In Silicon Valley  —  Legendary Silicon Valley angel investor Ron Conway is raising a new fund for his investment firm SV Angel, according to an SEC filing.  —  So far, he's raised $12 million out of $40 million planned.  He should have no problem raising the remaining $28 million.
Discussion: @eghosao
Jack Purcher / Patently Apple:
Apple Introduces us to a Live Chameleon-Like Screen Saver Designed Specifically for iOS Devices & Fashion Accessories  —  Apple filed for the “Apple” trademark in China this week which we noted as carrying a twist.  We noticed that Apple had, for the first time, emphasized fashion accessories …
Peter Delevett / Mercury News:
Cloud computing pioneer Martin Odersky takes wraps off his new company Typesafe  —  Eight years ago, German programmer Martin Odersky developed a new computer language he hoped would be an alternative to the venerable Java — one that would let applications scale easily to handle huge workloads.
Discussion: typesafe's blog
RELATED:
Paul Reynolds / Consumer Reports News:
Will Amazon make a tablet?  ‘Stay tuned,’ says Jeff Bezos  —  Asked today about the possibility of Amazon launching a multipurpose tablet device, the company's president and CEO Jeff Bezos said to “stay tuned” on the company's plans.  In an interview at Consumer Reports' offices …
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
Comcast Offers Help to The Pirate Bay, Problems Fixed  —  Starting 24 hours ago, nearly all Comcast subscribers were unable to access The Pirate Bay.  Although Comcast is not the only ISP affected by the connectivity issue, the problems appear to be most widespread in their network.
Diane Bartz / Reuters:
ITC judge rules for Kodak in Apple lawsuit  —  (Reuters) - Eastman Kodak Co did not infringe Apple Inc's patented technology for digital cameras, a judge at the International Trade Commission ruled in the most recent round of the companies' patent war.  —  The full ITC will either uphold …
Discussion: AppleInsider
Jillian York / Aljazeera:
Africa's cascade of Internet censorship  —  As governments fear popular protest movements, filtering has been initiated in Ethiopia, Uganda, Ivory Coast and beyond.  —  Despite much attention paid to Egypt and Libya's Internet shutdowns, Tunisia's pervasive Internet filtering …
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft to accelerate its CRM release schedule  —  Microsoft is going to be accelerating its CRM release schedule, and is planning to deliver two minor updates and two more major ones to its online and on-premises CRM offerings in the next 12 months.  —  Microsoft officials shared the updated …
Discussion: MSDN Blogs and The Next Web
 
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 More Items: 
Dina Bass / Bloomberg:
Software Piracy Losses Jump to $59 Billion in 2010, Report Says
Discussion: eWeek, BGR and PC World
Don Reisinger / CNET News:
TomTom offering real-time traffic data to partners
Discussion: Engadget
Joe Mullin / paidContent:
MPAA v. Zediva Is Shaping Up To Be Quite The Legal Showdown
Discussion: TorrentFreak and Techland
Mikael Ricknäs / Network World:
35 percent use mobile apps before getting out of bed
Discussion: Ericsson News Center and TUAW
Dan Goodin / The Register:
FBI fights to protect ISPs that snoop on their customers
Discussion: @qthrul and Blog of Rights
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
Lime Wire to pay record labels $105 million, ends suit
 Earlier Items: 
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Could BitTorrent Be The Distributed Social Network People Have Been Clamoring For?
Discussion: GigaOM, @xamat and L.A. Times Tech Blog, Thanks:alliewag
Peter Delevett / Mercury News:
Wiretap: Google's Eric Schmidt chooses Palo Alto penthouse for his venture capital operation
Nat Ives / AdAge:
New York Times' Share of Newspaper Sites' Traffic Hits 12-Month Low
Discussion: Techland and Pulse2
Brad Stone / Business Week:
Why Facebook Needs Sheryl Sandberg
Discussion: Digital Trends and Pulse2