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9:55 AM ET, August 21, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Wall Street Journal:
Microsoft Enlists Jerry Seinfeld In Its Ad Battle Against Apple  —  Microsoft Corp., weary of being cast as a stodgy oldster by Apple Inc.'s advertising, is turning for help to Jerry Seinfeld.  —  The software giant's new $300 million advertising campaign, devised by a newly hired ad agency, has been closely guarded.
RELATED:
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Microsoft enlists Seinfeld, Gates to battle “Get a Mac” ads  —  Those Apple “Get a Mac” ads have long been an annoyance to Microsoft and to Bill Gates in particular.  No surprise as an emboldened Apple with rising market share has continued to ratchet up the venom with quips like …
Sam Diaz / Between the Lines:
Seinfeld to host the Microsoft Makeover
Discussion: MacUser
Josh Lowensohn / Webware.com:
Microsoft launches 3D wonder Photosynth for consumers  —  On Wednesday night, Photosynth, a technology demo from Microsoft Live Labs, is graduating from its “ooh, that's pretty” status to being a viable Web service for consumers.  —  The technology, which takes a grouping of photographs …
RELATED:
Brady Forrest / O'Reilly Radar:
Photosynth is Released and Moves to Virtual Earth  —  Live Labs has released Photosynth, the 3D-esque photo collection viewer that it first tech-previewed in 2006 (Radar post).  With this release any Vista or XP user running FireFox or IE can create, view, and share Synths (Mac support is planned).
David Kravets / Threat Level:
Judge: Copyright Owners Must Consider ‘Fair Use’ Before Sending Takedown Notice  —  In the nation's first such ruling, a federal judge on Wednesday said copyright owners must consider “fair use” of their works before sending takedown notices to online video-sharing sites.
RELATED:
Jon Healey / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
A victory for fair use?
Discussion: Guardian Unlimited and Web Scout
Caroline McCarthy / CNET News.com:
Age and location restriction now available to Facebook developers  —  Facebook has announced modifications to its developer application program interface (API) so that the creators of third-party apps can restrict their reach by demographic—more specifically, by age or location.
Discussion: Inside Facebook
RELATED:
Nick Gianos / Facebook Developers:
Delivering the Right Content to the Right Audience
Discussion: Inside Facebook and All Facebook
Fred / A VC:
Ten Things I Want On My Mobile Phone  —  1) Shazam for places - I blogged about this when I was in Scotland earlier this month.  I met a company at TechStars yesterday that might be able to build it.  I hope they do.  —  2) Shazam for people - same idea. even more possibilities for this one.
Discussion: Mobile Industry News
Richard MacManus / ReadWriteWeb:
10 Promising Web Platforms  —  In this post we review 10 promising developer platforms for the Web.  We're not talking about the obvious ones either, like Facebook, iPhone, OpenSocial or even Twitter.  Those have been covered extensively already.  The list below features some of our favorite ‘lesser known’ web developer platforms.
Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:
Apple hit with class-action lawsuit over iPhone 3G flakiness  —  We all knew it was coming, it was just a matter of time.  A lawsuit has been filed against Apple over what the plaintiff is referring to as the “Defective iPhone 3G,” which she hopes will become a class-action complaint.
Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
Facebook's forthcoming iPhone app to be more like its web site; that site redesign was no coincidence  —  Facebook is planning to launch a new version of its iPhone application in September that will make the app more like the newly-redesigned web site.  So, the deeper rationale for the web site redesign …
RELATED:
Matt Buchanan / Gizmodo:
Preview of Facebook for iPhone 2.0: More Like Real Facebook
Jonathan D. Glater / New York Times:
Welcome, Freshmen.  Have an iPod.  —  Taking a step that professors may view as a bit counterproductive, some universities are doling out Apple iPhones and Internet-capable iPods to students.  —  The always-on Internet devices raise some novel possibilities, like tracking where students congregate.
Dana Blankenhorn / Open Source:
The new Intel gets open source mojo with SpikeSource  —  The biggest business story of the year may be the transformation of Intel from a tech-driven chipmaker to a marketing-driven products-and-services company.  —  I have talked about this with regard to health care but the transformation is more far-ranging than that.
Discussion: Business Wire and TechCrunchIT
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
If You're Looking To Learn Basic Economics, Here's A Free Textbook  —  Against Monopoly points us to an LA Times story about an economics professor from Caltech, R. Preston McAfee, who has written what he calls an “open source” economics textbook.  You can download the textbook for free …
Discussion: The Equity Kicker
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Dell bets on Salesforce.com's platform as a service  —  Amid a quarter that Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff called “spectacular,” but spooked analysts worried about future growth was an interesting nugget: Dell has jumped on the platform as a service bandwagon.
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Spotted: FriendFeed Beta — coming soon  —  A new version of FriendFeed, which may or may not be called “FriendFeed Beta” is in the works, FriendFeed co-founder Bret Taylor just confirmed to me.  —  Earlier tonight I was going through my Flickr traffic logs of all things when I noticed the mysterious beta.friendfeed.com domain.
Discussion: WinExtra and The Blog Herald
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Verisign's Personal Identity Portal Is Half Way To Password Bliss  —  Verisign's new Personal Identity Portal (PIP from now on) isn't the sexiest application out there to help you manage passwords.  But it has Verisign's strong reputation for security behind it, and it is a surprisingly easy way to manage website credentials.
 
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 More Items: 
Daniel Terdiman / Geek Gestalt:
Will Wright on the origins of ‘Spore’
Discussion: Technology Live
Jott.com:
There are new Jott Plans  —  There's something for everyone!
Ryan Grove / wonko.com:
Yahoo! Search brings Search Assist, SearchMonkey, and more to the iPhone
Abbey Klaassen / AdAge:
Quantcast Nabs Yahoo Exec for Its Chief Revenue Officer
Discussion: paidContent.org
GamesIndustry.biz:
PC manufacturers view piracy as “hidden benefit” for consumers - Hollenshead
Discussion: Destructoid and Blue's News
InfoWorld:
Asustek turns to Celerons amid Atom shortage
Discussion: PC World and Liliputing
Robert Andrews / paidContent.org:
Microsoft Rejigs For Commercial Search, Multimap Leads The Way
Discussion: Search Engine Land
Dave Rubert / NaviGadget:
tomtom PRO 4000 and 8000  —  TomTom just introduced what they call …
Discussion: Gizmodo, Gadgetell and CrunchGear
 Earlier Items: 
Maggie Shiels / BBC:
Intel unites the internet with TV
Eileen Sullivan / Associated Press:
FEMA phones hacked; calls made to Mideast, Asia
Discussion: Zero Day
Bill Ray / The Register:
Nokia admits major Series 40 security problems
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch UK:
TechCrunch UK named best Web 2.0 and business blog
Discussion: broadstuff and BlogMS
Eliot Van Buskirk / Listening Post:
SoundExchange Head Likes Pandora But Says It Needs Audio Ads
Discussion: Technovia and WinExtra
Katie Marsal / AppleInsider:
Retail sources say its closing time for current iPod line
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
OpenSocial Now Reaches 350 Million Users, And Growing