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5:05 PM ET, July 29, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Xiaorui Gan / Google Mobile Blog:
New Google Search experience for tablets  —  (Cross-posted on the Inside Search blog)  —  As part of our effort to evolve the Google design and experience, we've improved the www.google.com search experience on tablets.  We've simplified the layout of search results pages and increased …
Around The World and Back Again:
Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight  —  Somewhere around 1:00 am yesterday, my Airbnb.com horror story was picked up by Hacker News; to say this story has gone viral in the past two days would be the understatement of my life.  I sit here now, taken aback and utterly astounded as I witness …
RELATED:
Hayley Tsukayama / Washington Post:
Airbnb burglary victim says company tried to quiet her  —  Blogger “EJ,” who wrote about her experience with Airbnb, updated her blog Thursday night saying that the company had asked her to remove the post, fearing bad press.  —  EJ wrote last month that renters she found through the site burgled and trashed her home.
Discussion: @paulcarr, Gawker, @dgelles and @jtemple
Horace Dediu / asymco:
Apple captured two thirds of available mobile phone profits in Q2  —  The major publicly traded phone vendors have all reported results for the second quarter.  Based on the data available so far we can begin putting together a picture of the market.  —  The first picture I'll draw is usually the last: profitability.
Jennifer Van Grove / Mashable!:
Foursquare & Groupon Hook Up for Real-Time Deals [EXCLUSIVE]  —  Foursquare users in the U.S. and Canada will start to see Groupon's daily deals in the Explore tab of the application and on Foursquare.com beginning Friday, Mashable has learned.  —  Groupon has become Foursquare's sixth and latest daily deals partner.
Seth Weintraub / 9to5Mac:
AT&T verifies data throttling for top 5% of users officially for October 1st  —  As we reported yesterday: October 1st, top 5% of AT&T users will see reduced speeds. … Today AT&T made it official.  Full statement below the fold:  —  An Update for Our Smartphone Customers With Unlimited Data Plans
Dan Frakes / Macworld:
Buy a new Mac, get iLife for all your Macs  —  As with every Mac in recent memory, Apple's latest hardware releases, the MacBook Air (Mid 2011) and Mac mini (Mid 2011), include the current versions of Mac OS X and iLife—in this case, Lion (OS X 10.7) and iLife '11.
Derek Thompson / The Atlantic Online:
Apple Now Has More Cash Than the U.S. Government  —  When Apple reported last week that it had $76 billion in cash, we speculated that it might be enough to buy Goldman Sachs or Facebook.  Today, Steve Jobs' reserves match up with the world's largest sovereign entity.  —  That's right.
RELATED:
Josh Ong / AppleInsider:
Apple's $76B in cash reserves surpasses US government operating balance
John Marzulli / NY Daily News:
Fugitive taunts cops on Facebook “catch me if you can” before they find him in Brooklyn apartment  —  A fugitive fool who taunted cops on his Facebook page, “Catch me if you can, I'm in Brooklyn” - has been captured by U.S. marshals.  —  And guess where.  —  Victor Burgos was sitting …
Zach Holman:
Steve Jobs Sometimes Lies to You  —  I love Apple.  I love Apple so much that if someone gave me a bulletproof vest made out of MacBook Airs, I'd strap it to my back and take a bullet to my chest to protect my precious aluminum friends.  —  But Steve's lying to us when it comes to FaceTime.
Discussion: The Business Insider and MacNN
Declan McCullagh / CNET News:
Microsoft's Web map exposes phone, PC locations  —  caption: Examples of HTC device locations that CNET extracted from Microsoft's Live.com location database.  —  Microsoft has collected the locations of millions of laptops, cell phones, and other Wi-Fi devices around the world and makes …
Patrick May / Mercury News:
Online marketers hit hard by California's new online-sales tax  —  It wasn't the Great Recession that killed Nick Loper's business.  It was a flick of Jerry Brown's wrist.  —  When the governor signed the state's new online-sales tax law last month, Seattle-based Amazon …
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
Apple Passes Nokia and Holds Off Samsung to Become World's Top Smartphone Vendor [Updated]  —  Just hours after research firm IDC released data showing Apple dramatically outpacing the overall mobile phone industry in year-over-year growth for the second quarter of 2011 …
RELATED:
Elinor Mills / CNET News:
Facebook launches bug bounty program  —  Facebook is set to announce today a bug bounty program in which researchers will be paid for reporting security holes on the popular social-networking Web site.  —  Compensation, which starts at $500 and has no maximum set, will be paid only to researchers …
Andy Greenberg / The Firewall:
Flying Drone Can Crack Wi-Fi Networks, Snoop On Cell Phones  —  Mike Tassey posing with the Wireless Aerial Surveillance Platform, WASP.  —  How do one ex-Air Force official and one former airplane hobby shop owner, both of whom happen to have decades of experience as network security contractors …
Discussion: Geek.com and Slashdot
Brian Womack / Bloomberg:
Google Buys Inventions From IBM as It Aims to Build Patent Hoard  —  Google Inc., facing a growing threat of intellectual-property lawsuits, acquired a batch of patents this month from International Business Machines Corp. to bolster its portfolio.  —  “Like many tech companies …
Tim Conneally / BetaNews:
Nortel completes patent liquidation to Apple, Microsoft, RIM, Sony: now what?  —  Bankrupt Canadian telecommunications company Nortel Networks Corp. announced on Friday that it has completed the sale of its 6,000 patents for $4.5 billion to the consortium of Apple, EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, Research in Motion, and Sony.
Martin Bryant / The Next Web:
Google starts to open up its cloud music service with user invites, still US only  —  We haven't heard much about Google Music, the company's cloud-based music locker service, since it launched back in May at the I/O developer conference.  Getting in to try it was tough …
Discussion: Electronista, Engadget and ReadWriteWeb
Mike Swift / SiliconValley.com:
Local business site challenges Google ranking  —  With federal regulators pursuing an antitrust probe over whether Google (GOOG) is abusing its dominance in search to favor its own online products, a company that owns several Bay Area websites promoting local small businesses is taking …
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Looking To Sink Their Teeth Into Some Tasty Northwest Startups, Google Takes A Bite Of PIE  —  If you haven't heard of PIE, it's probably because you don't live in the Pacific Northwest.  But the Portland Incubator Experiment has already amassed such an impressive roster of startups that everyone may know about them soon enough.
Discussion: GeekWire, Silicon Florist and Pulse2
Dante Cesa / Engadget:
‘Official-looking’ pic of white Galaxy S II leaks, unicorns right around the corner  —  Albino Nexus S, meet your better specced, bleached out, dual-core nemesis — the mythical white Samsung Galaxy S II.  The leaked snap is certainly timely, coming in only one day after a UK retailer promised …
Christopher Trout / Engadget:
Acer Iconia Tab A100 finally available in August for $300  —  It's been a long and twisted road for Acer's 7-inch Honeycomb tablet, but after all the starts and stops, we've finally got an ETA for the Iconia Tab A100.  According to an email sent out to Acer retail partners today …
Adam Holisky / Tecca:
Obama spams Republican Twitter handles to urge debt compromise  —  The President is urging the public to tweet legislators, one state at a time  —  With the debt ceiling looming and political tensions at an all time high, the President has been encouraging people to contact their representatives and express themselves.
Katharine Q. Seelye / New York Times:
Seattle Places Police Calls on Twitter  —  SEATTLE — A flurry of Twitter messages that began early Tuesday morning from the Seattle Police Department puzzled many Twitter users.  Was there a sudden crime wave in Seattle?  Was the city under attack?  Had a computer gone haywire?
Discussion: MediaPost and Gizmodo
Electronista:
Samsung's Galaxy S II teaser page for the US goes live  —  Phone expected to ship next month  —  Samsung has given a strong indication that the company's popular new smartphone, the Galaxy S II, will be hitting US shores soon.  Samsung has posted a new live webpage for the phone.
 
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 More Items: 
Mattias Holm / Sony Ericsson Product Blog:
Qriocity's video service puts films and TV shows at your fingertips
Discussion: TechCrunch, PhoneArena and Engadget
Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:
HTC Reports Record Profits In Q2, 12.1 Million Handsets Shipped
Discussion: Electronista
Phil Milford / Bloomberg:
Rovi Sues Hulu Over Patents for Interactive TV Functions
Discussion: Reuters and Concurrent Media
Sunny Ye / TechRice:
485 Million Netizens Strong: The Demographics of China's Internet Rise [CNNIC Report]
Olga Kharif / Bloomberg:
Verizon Wireless Approves $10 Billion Distribution to Co-Owners
Discussion: Wall Street Journal and Pulse2
 Earlier Items: 
New York Times:
In Baring Facts of Train Crash, Blogs Erode China Censorship
Jon Mitchell / ReadWriteWeb:
Cancer Survivors Build Social Network For Social Good
Thanks:thatdrew
Kim Zetter / Threat Level:
Document: FBI Surveillance Geeks Fear, Love New Gadgets
Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:
Why The Atlantic joined up with Pulse — and what the app's usage stats can tell data-hungry publishers
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Authentic Brands licenses Sports Illustrated's publishing rights to The Players' Tribune owner Minute Media for 10 years, with plans to keep the print edition

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
Ofcom rules that five GB News programs presented by Conservative politicians have broken its due impartiality rules and puts the channel “on notice”

Todd Spangler / Variety:
YouTuber MrBeast announces a deal with Prime Video for Beast Games, a reality-competition show with 1,000 contestants, promising the winner a $5M cash prize

 
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