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11:30 AM ET, December 4, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
The Boy Genius / Boy Genius Report:
Apple to sell a $99 4GB iPhone at Walmart?  —  We just got a tip that in addition to the iPhone 3G actually making its way to Walmart, as we exclusively told you, there will be a 4GB model priced at $99 with a 2-year agreement.  We're not putting our stamp of approval behind this one just yet …
RELATED:
Arn / MacRumors:
Wal-Mart to Sell $99 4GB iPhone?
Discussion: Switched
AT&T:
AT&T Announces Job Reductions  —  AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) today announced a planned reduction of approximately 12,000 jobs, or about 4 percent of the company's total workforce, citing economic pressures, a changing business mix and a more streamlined organizational structure.
RELATED:
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
AT&T cuts 12,000 jobs, will cut capital spending  —  AT&T said Thursday that it will cut about 12,000 jobs, or 4 percent of its workforce, due largely to “economic pressures.”  —  The layoffs are beginning to sound like a broken record (or MP3).  AT&T said it wants to streamline its operations …
Associated Press:   AT&T Plans to Cut 12,000 Jobs
Kerry E. Grace / Wall Street Journal:
AT&T to Slash Work Force
Discussion: NewTeeVee and Independent Street
William M. Bulkeley / Wall Street Journal:
IBM Offers ‘Microsoft-Free’ Desktop  —  Applications for Thin Clients Would Operate From Back-Office Server  —  International Business Machines Corp. is hoping to convince corporate customers that they no longer need Microsoft Corp.  —  IBM says it has created a “Microsoft-free” …
RELATED:
Paula Rooney / Open Source:
IBM launches first Linux-OpenOffice desktop with virtualization features  —  IBM has added a Linux desktop with new virtualization capabilities to its portfolio.  —  The Virtual Desktop, which bundles Canonical's Ubuntu Linux, Virtual Bridges' KVM-based desktop virtualization software …
Steven Musil / CNET News:   IBM offers a ‘Microsoft-free’ desktop
Chris Mellor / The Register:   IBM takes on VMware virtual desktop
Rick Turoczy / ReadWriteWeb:
Times Extra: The New York Times Opens Web Front Page to Outside Content  —  New York TimesAt a time when the online world is continually seen as a more trusted source of news, mainstream media outlets find themselves forced into the position of becoming more and more open to keep their readers coming back.
RELATED:
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
The New York Times Clutters Up Its Homepage With Links From Elsewhere (In Beta)  —  It used to be that when a newspaper put out an “Extra” edition, it was filled with stories written by its reporters who had toiled away the night to cover some breaking news or collection of stories.
Simon Sage / IntoMobile:
World's Second Android Phone Now on Presale … Kogan's Agora and Agora Pro hinted at last month is now ready to roll, costing AU$299 and AU$399, and shipping on January 29th.  The Agora Pro's specs are as follows:  — Operating System: Android™  — Google Mobile Functions …
RELATED:
Hamilton Nolan / Gawker:
The Dreaded Viacom Layoffs: 850 People  —  The long-feared Viacom pre-post holiday layoffs are here, and they're not pretty.  We heard earlier that as many as 300 layoffs might be coming at MTV today, but the total, Viacom-wide numbers are even worse: 850 people are being cut, about 7% of the company's global staff.
RELATED:
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Viacom Lays Off 850, Takes $450 Million Charge
Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Online auctions remain piracy problem for Microsoft  —  Attention, software buyers: there's no such thing as Microsoft Office “Blue Edition.”  —  That's the latest ruse making the rounds on online auctions.  It feigns to be some sort of technician version of Microsoft's software that happens …
Jeremy Kirk / LinuxWorld.com:
Firefox users targeted by rare piece of malware  —  Researchers at BitDefender have discovered a new type of malicious software that collects passwords for banking sites but targets only Firefox users.  —  The malware, which BitDefender dubbed “Trojan.PWS.ChromeInject.A” sits in Firefox's add-ons folder …
Discussion: BitDefender, Zero Day and Icrontic
Opera Community:
Peregrine takes flight... Opera 10.0 Alpha 1 is here!  —  It seems like yesterday we released Opera 9.6 and now you can all get your hands on Opera 10.0.  Rather than ramble on, here's a quick list of what's new:  — Presto 2.2 Engine  — Performance boost  — 100/100 and pixel-perfect on the Acid3 test
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:
Google Adds Search Box To YouTube Videos & Adds HD Embed  —  A week ago, YouTube changed the format of their videos to wide screen and HD format.  My main issue back then was that the embed options did not give people a way to embed the wide screen format, easily.  That has changed.
Arkansas IMC:
Forget Cyber Monday: COBY Plans “Moore's Law” MIDGET PC for $100 in March  —  Sales of 100 million, worldwide, in five years?  —  Coby Electronics, a leading international manufacturer and distributor of electronics consumer-packaged goods for discount stores, plans to introduce the first under-$100 laptop by March 2009.
Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:
Buy This Recession Winner: Amazon.com (AMZN)  —  Barclays analyst Douglas Anmuth makes a mildly contrarian call.  Deeming Amazon.com (AMZN) a long-term recession winner, even though it'll go through a rough Q4, he jacks his price target from $46 to $54.  —  We believe AMZN's business model …
Discussion: Tech Trader Daily
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Amazon Launches Public Data Sets To Ease Research  —  Amazon released its previously announced Public Data Sets web service this evening.  The project encourages developers, researchers, universities and businesses to upload large (non-confidential) data sets to Amazon - things like census data …
Discussion: Between the Lines
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Nokia Now Sees '09 Cell Phone Sales Down At Least 5%  —  Nokia (NOK), which is meeting with analysts today in Brooklyn, this morning once again cut its outlook for Q4 mobile phone sales.  The company also said it is reducing costs, with reductions in operating expense and capital spending.
Discussion: PC Magazine and Associated Press
Neal Santos / The Clog:
Zunegate  —  OK.  So let's get things straight.  —  I want to correct what I said yesterday about Obama using a Zune.  I claimed that it was his Zune.  I don't know for sure that it was his.  It could belong to one of the many Secret Service dudes that were at the gym, Michelle, or even one of his daughters.
Business Wire:
AMD Updates Fourth Quarter Outlook  —  SUNNYVALE, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—AMD (NYSE: AMD - News) today announced that it expects revenue from continuing operations for the fourth quarter ended December 27, 2008 to be approximately 25 percent lower than third quarter 2008 revenue of $1.585 billion …
Jose Fermoso / Gadget Lab:
Nintendo Thinking About Changing the Accelerometer in Wiimote  —  At the heart of the success of the Wii is the accelerometer chip inside the Wiimote that detects motion in three dimensional space.  —  Now, the company that provided that first chip, STMicroelectronics …
Discussion: Newlaunches.com and GoNintendo
Robert Andrews / paidContent.org:
Sony, Kindle E-Reader Sales Grow Before Christmas; But Still No ‘iPod Moment’  —  The twist in this plot?  “Turns out Sony (NYSE: SNE) E-Book Readers sell after all,” WSJ.com notes.  Indeed, it's sold about 300,000 of them and three million e-books worldwide since launching in October 2006.
Discussion: TeleRead, Business Technology and CNN
 
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 More Items: 
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Secret Builders goes live with educational game world for kids
Discussion: Virtual Worlds News
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Former Yahoo Tech Star Qi Lu Likely to Be Named Microsoft's Digital …
Discussion: CNET News
Ben Lorica / O'Reilly Radar:
Facebook Growth Regions and Gender Split
Discussion: The Open Road and WebProNews
Luke Plunkett / Kotaku:
Grand Theft Auto IV On PC Is A Little Broken
Discussion: TechSpot, Blue's News and bit-tech.net
PC World:
Yahoo Technology Will Offer Abstracts of Search Results (PC World)
Discussion: WebProNews
Royal Pingdom:
Google Apps SLA loophole allows for major downtime without consequences
Discussion: TechCrunch
 Earlier Items: 
Bobbie Johnson / Guardian:
Startups seek more dignified exit than a belly flop into the dead pool
John Mahoney / Gizmodo:
The KT Listening Room Shipping Container: My New Favorite Way to Travel
Discussion: Newlaunches.com, Dezeen and Born Rich
Nick O'Neill / The Social Times:
Google Makes a Hard Push With Friend Connect
Discussion: VentureBeat
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Tapulous Brings Weezer And World-Class DJs To Tap Tap Revenge