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11:30 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 …
RELATED:
Thorsten / RightScale Blog:
Why Amazon's Elastic Block Store Matters
Discussion: InfoWorld
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).
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
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.
Discussion: TeleRead and GottaBeMobile
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?
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.
David Chartier / Infinite Loop:
Microsoft demands Xbox LIVE iPhone app to be set free  —  People seem to really like this App Store thing we keep hearing about, and apps are selling for the iPhone and iPod touch like hot cakes.  One too-descriptively-named app, 1337pwn XBOX Live Friends Application (iTunes link) …
Discussion: WebProNews
Ryan Grove / wonko.com:
Yahoo! Search brings Search Assist, SearchMonkey, and more to the iPhone  —  In June, my boss came to me with a challenge: bring the full Yahoo! Search experience—including SearchMonkey, Search Assist, shortcuts, and other awesome Yahoo! Search features—to the iPhone with as few compromises as possible.
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
12seconds extends its 15 minutes of fame with an API  —  12seconds has a goal: It wants to be the go-to platform for video status updates.  In order to make a good platform, you need a good application programming interface (API).  Today, 12seconds is launching that API and announcing its first three partners.
Discussion: The Inquisitr, broadstuff and AppScout
Priya Ganapati / Gadget Lab:
iPhone of Home Phones Coming Next Year  —  It may look like an iPhone, but it's actually a home phone/information center that's meant to sit on your coffee table, phone table or kitchen counter.  —  IP telephony company OpenPeak's iPhone clone for homes is production ready, says Amy Mikolasy …
Discussion: OhGizmo!, SlashGear and Engadget
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.
Matt Buchanan / Gizmodo:
Video: BlackBerry Bold vs. iPhone Web Browser Showdown (It Gets Ugly)  —  We've seen the BlackBerry Bold and iPhone head-to-head before, as well as the Bold's greatly improved browsing powers over past BlackBerrys, but not side-by-side in a web browser race.  It actually gets pretty ugly, uglier than we thought it would.
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
 
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 More Items: 
Rafe Needleman / Webware.com:
Zoho launches document sharing service
Discussion: TechCrunch
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
LinkedIn launches an iPhone app, it's simple but it means business
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb and Cheezhead
Chrisbrogan Com / chrisbrogan.com:
Social Media Events Are Fragmenting
BBC:
Web browser to get ‘privacy mode’
Discussion: Technology Live and Slashdot
Stefanie Olsen / CNET News.com:
Widget makers get a makeover
Software Freedom Law Center:
A Practical Guide to GPL Compliance
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
Facebook developers to factor in age, location
Dana Blankenhorn / Open Source:
The new Intel gets open source mojo with SpikeSource
Discussion: Business Wire
 Earlier Items: 
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Dell bets on Salesforce.com's platform as a service
Abbey Klaassen / AdAge:
Quantcast Nabs Yahoo Exec for Its Chief Revenue Officer
Discussion: paidContent.org and Valleywag
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 …
Maggie Shiels / BBC:
Intel unites the internet with TV
Discussion: Webware.com and Engadget
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
If You're Looking To Learn Basic Economics, Here's A Free Textbook
Discussion: The Equity Kicker
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Verisign's Personal Identity Portal Is Half Way To Password Bliss
Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
Facebook's forthcoming iPhone app to be more like its web site …
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Liam Scott / Voice of America:
RSF says 23 journalists were jailed in Syria and 10 others were missing as of December 9; press freedom groups call for accountability for Assad's government

Katie Robertson / New York Times:
Sources: Patrick Soon-Shiong told LA Times opinion leaders not to publish an editorial critical of Trump's cabinet picks without publishing an opposing view

Katie Kilkenny / The Hollywood Reporter:
The WGA demands studios take “immediate legal action” against companies that used writers' work to train AI, in a letter to CEOs of Disney, Netflix, and others

 
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