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8:30 PM ET, August 21, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Skype To Acquire Year-old Group Messaging Service GroupMe  —  Skype will acquire group messaging service GroupMe, a service that was born at a hackathon at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York in 2010.  GroupMe was founded by Jared Hecht and Steve Martocci.  —  The terms of the deal, including price, aren't being disclosed.
RELATED:
Ben Popper / Betabeat:
GroupMe Acquired by Skype for More than $50 Million  —  GroupMe just celebrated their one year anniversary, and founders Steve Martocci and Jared Hetch certainly had something to smile about.  A deal in the works for months was just completed, with global VOIP giant Skype acquiring GroupMe for a price we hear is north of $50 million.
Thanks:betabeat
Tricia Duryee / AllThingsD:
Skype Pays Around $85 Million For GroupMe  —  Skype has agreed to acquire GroupMe, a company that has developed a way to for a group of people to send messages to each across various smartphone platforms.  Terms of the deal were not disclosed.  Skype is in the process of being acquired by Microsoft.
Discussion: PC Magazine and About Skype
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines Blog:
HP's TouchPad fire sale: The fallout  —  Summary: HP's TouchPad liquidation sale says a lot about the company, the tablet market and its ability to keep an e-commerce site running.  —  HP's TouchPad liquidation sale this weekend was telling on multiple fronts as techies drooled over a good deal …
RELATED:
BetaNews.com / @betanews:
Joe Wilcox / BetaNews:
‘It was like a stampede, and they went quick’  —  That's how a Best Buy employee described the line waiting to buy discounted HP TouchPads today outside the Mission Valley store in San Diego.  —  More than 100 people waited for the store to open, on a Sunday morning, to get one of about 30 TouchPads still in stock.
Discussion: CNET News and PC World
Bryna Corcoran / @brynaathp:
Just tuning in? #Touchpad on HP online stores in USA are sold out. More coming. Alert site server busy but keep trying: http://t.co/cQkzKCW
Discussion: Bits and PC Magazine
Dan Ramirez / webOSroundup:
BREAKING: HP Crediting Fire-Sale Difference to Current TouchPad Owners
Jean-Louis Gassee / Monday Note:
HP: What Léo Apotheker's Decisions Mean  —  Last Monday evening, hours after Google's $12.5B gamble on Motorola Mobile (MMI), I had an intriguing idea and began drafting a Monday Note to explore its ramifications.  It started like this: … Building and dismantling the business case …
RELATED:
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
A Simple Explanation for Why HP Abandoned Palm and Is Getting Out of the PC Business  —  HP acquired Palm at the end of April 2010, for $1.2 billion.  HP's CEO was Mark Hurd.  —  Three months later, in early August, Mark Hurd was forced to resign over that scandal with forged expenses and lies about his lady friend.
Discussion: DisplayBlog
Poornima Gupta / Reuters:
Analysis: HP - Dial “M” for mayhem  —  (Reuters) - Leo Apotheker's credibility as a CEO is falling along with Hewlett-Packard's stock price.  —  Apotheker, who gained a reputation for sharp business acumen when he headed up SAP, thoroughly flummoxed HP shareholders last week with what some analysts …
Discussion: AllThingsD, Pulse2 and Gizmodo
Arnold Kim / MacRumors:
Apple Testing LTE in iOS 5 and Hiring More LTE Engineers  —  Early last week, Boy Genius Report claimed that Apple has been testing a 4G LTE-enabled iPhone with carriers, and pointed to an “internal iOS test build” of one of Apple's major mobile partners.  In that build was a property list file (.plist) for LTE.
RELATED:
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Apple is field-testing LTE iOS 5 devices, could the next-gen iPad run on LTE?
Zee M Kane / The Next Web:
Twitter Just Got the Respect it Deserves  —  If you're one to check your analytics on a daily basis you may have noticed a pretty sharp increase in referrals from Twitter's “t.co” domains.  We noticed it almost immediately on Wednesday but naively didn't pay much attention.
Sean Portnoy / Home Theater Blog:
Best Buy's Samsung HDTV and Galaxy Tab combo offer: “Bundling two losing products together”?  —  Summary: Samsung is the biggest name in 3D TV, and its Galaxy Tab is the best-known Android tablet competitor to the iPad.  So when Best Buy decided to bundle a free Galaxy Tab …
Discussion: Digits
Kevin Marks / Epeus' epigone:
Google Plus must stop this Identity Theatre  —  Bruce Schneier in Beyond Fear coined a phrase: … The Common Names debâcle at Google Plus is a variant of this, where the supposed protections are manifestly not working.  Google's stated policy on this is that you should use your ‘common name’ …
Discussion: Chris Saad and TechCrunch
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 More Items: 
Kevin Murphy / Reuters:
Missouri teachers sue to block social media law
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Is “Jupiter” the Future of Windows...PC, Phone &Tablet?
Jaikumar Vijayan / Computerworld:
Microsoft disables ‘supercookies’ used on MSN.com visitors
Discussion: ITProPortal
Stephanie Bodoni / Bloomberg:
Google Given Chance to Settle Belgian Case Over Street View
 Earlier Items: 
Edward Moyer / CNET News:
SF subway sets public debate on cell shutdown
Peter Bright / Ars Technica:
Feature: “A sort of PC”: how Windows 8 will invade tablets (and why it might work)
Discussion: Slashdot and WinRumors
 

 
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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