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1:35 PM ET, December 18, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Justin Smith / Inside Facebook:
Facebook Now Growing by Over 600,000 Users a Day - And New Engagement Stats  —  It was just at the beginning of December when Facebook crossed the 130 million monthly active user mark.  Today, that number is up to 140 million.  —  While Facebook has been growing at around 300,000 …
RELATED:
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
Facebook Growth Explodes, Site Reaches 140 Million Active Users  —  If there's any doubt that Facebook is rapidly becoming the next big thing in social networks, you only need look at their recent statistics.  According to new reports, in recent weeks Facebook is growing at a rate of 600,000 users each day …
Discussion: Homotron.net and Open Sources
Prince McLean / AppleInsider:
Apple finally outed as mysterious PowerVR licensee  —  New evidence that Apple is the mysterious licensee of Imagination Technologies Group's PowerVR mobile graphics technology broke today, when the company publicly announced that Apple has subscribed to 8 million new shares of IMG, giving the iPhone maker a 3% stake in the firm.
Discussion: CNET News and Macsimum News
RELATED:
Jonny / Distorted-Loop.com:
Apple takes an iPhone slice of Imagination
Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac and SlashGear
Om Malik / GigaOM:
What Is Steve Jobs Worth to Apple?  About $20 Billion  —  Jeff Segal of BreakingViews tries to calculate the value of Steve Jobs to Apple.  — Apple Mac Line at twice the industry average multiple (1.3 times revenue) is worth about $19 billion.  — iPod business at five times EBITDA is worth about $14 billion.
RELATED:
Rob Beschizza / Boing Boing Gadgets:
Mac OS X Netbook Compatibility Chart (updated)  —  Who needs Psystar?  —  Apple says it's had “pretty interesting ideas” for a Mac netbook, but it's everyday users who've already taken action.  Due to their similar technical underpinnings, most of the popular netbooks can run OS X …
Zach Epstein / Boy Genius Report:
2009 is the year of the Moto for Verizon; more upcoming handsets revealed  —  When our ninjas get going they don't stop until the job is done.  Yesterday your pals here at BGR gave you an exclusive preview of four tasty upcoming Motorola handsets - codenamed FLASH, RUSH 2, CALGARY and INFERNO.
PR Newswire:
Toshiba Launches Industry's First 512GB Solid State Drive and Next-Generation SSD Family Using 43nm MLC NAND  —  New SSD Family Achieves High Levels of Performance, Endurance, Capacity and Reliability to Meet Market Requirements for Notebook Computers, Gaming and Home Entertainment Systems
Marc Flores / Boy Genius Report:
T-Mobile ditches handset upgrade fees  —  Your phone is beaten down and the battery doesn't last more than a few minutes - or there is a pretty new gadget and it has everything you could possibly want, even though your current phone is perfectly fine.  In either of these situations …
Discussion: Electronista, Gearlog and Gizmodo
RELATED:
David / TmoNews:
No more upgrade fees...no more no, no more upgrade fees
Discussion: IntoMobile
Google Earth Blog:
New York City in Photo-Realistic 3D Now in Google Earth  —  Google has updated the 3D buildings in Google Earth for New York City!  This is a HUGE update with at least hundreds (if not thousands) of new 3D buildings with photo textures applied.  Basically, Google has completed nearly every building …
Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:
The iPhone is Apple's Netbook: Almost Half of All Traffic from WiFi Networks  —  According to the latest report from AdMob, 42% of all requests from iPhones to Admob's partners worldwide are coming in over WiFi instead of through the networks of mobile operators.
AppleInsider:
Wal-Mart stores already advertising iPhone 3G availability  —  Adding a bit more confirmation to what is widely presumed, a few Wal-Malt stores have jumped the gun and are starting to advertise availability of Apple's iPhone 3G ahead of an official roll-out planned for later this month.
wmpoweruser.com:
Asus Glaxy 7 gets a first look  —  We have written about this mysterious device before, but Mobile-review.com has ripped away the veils and have given us our first good look at the device.  —  The report the device, has about the same dimensions as the HTC Max 4G and iPhone …
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Ask.com Plays The Google AdWords Arbitrage Game  —  Ah, Ask.com.  Since I wrote their obituary in March, not much has got me thinking they'll make a comeback.  Sure, there was the gimmick of kind of bringing back Jeeves himself.  But the spate of “hotels.ask.com” ads I see them running …
Guardian:
100 top sites for the year ahead  —  Two years after we last picked the web's cream of the crop, our latest selection finds that location-based services, work-anywhere collaboration and video are prominent  —  The online world has changed dramatically even since we last drew up a list of 100 useful sites in December 2006.
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
SimCity for the iPhone is here — but there are some bugs  —  The wait is over — SimCity, EA's hit city-building franchise, has been released for the iPhone and iPod touch.  Since for many of you, that's all you need to hear, I'll just say that it's $9.99 and you can download it here.
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
BlackBerry Storm Buyers Returning Phones En Masse?  (RIMM)  —  RIM's new BlackBerry Storm — the phone Verizon Wireless is hoping will keep people away from rival AT&T (T) and the iPhone this Christmas — is still back ordered.  But is it a real hit?  Or are people rushing to return the phone?
Chris Williams / The Register:
More execs quit Phorm  —  CFO and UK CEO out  —  When half of Phorm's board quit earlier this month, it was spun as a strategy disagreement between the US and UK operations.  But now, the firm's London-based UK chief executive has quit too, along with its chief beancounter.
James Lewin / Podcasting News:
Free iPhone Audio Recorder  —  Rockifone's Easy Recorder (App Store link) is a free iPhone app that turns your iPhone into a dictaphone-style audio recorder.  —  Easy Recorder doesn't have a lot of features, but it lets you record audio at three quality levels and the price is hard to beat.
Discussion: VentureBeat and LIVEdigitally
Marguerite Reardon / CNET News:
Cable to temporarily pause digital switch  —  The cable TV industry is pausing its transition to digital TV to reduce consumer confusion over the broadcasters own transition to digital happening early in 2009, according to letters sent to members of Congress Wednesday by the industry's trade association.
Discussion: DSLreports
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Joost Just Gives Up On P2P Altogether  —  Joost's two year old online video service was a pretty darned smart idea when it first launched.  —  Instead of streaming video through the Joost website, users would download a Mozilla-based client and watch it there instead.  The user experience could be more tightly controlled.
Brett Terpstra / TUAW:
iPhone thief thwarted by MobileMe sync  —  To say that MobileMe hasn't made everyone happy may be a bit of an understatement.  We don't generally hear from the satisfied customers, but we have received a fair amount of email from dissatisfied users of Apple's “cloud computing” solution.
Discussion: The iPhone Blog
 
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 More Items: 
Erica Naone / Technology Review:
Can't We All Just Get Along?
Michael Alison Chandler / Washington Post:
In Their Search for Help, Fairfax Schools Find Google
Aidan Malley / AppleInsider:
Apple seen with new iMacs, Chinese iPhone soon into 2009
Discussion: Infinite Loop and digg.com
Walter Dawkins / Newsweek:
Broadcast News  —  Remember when you had to be home at 8 p.m. to watch a favorite TV show?
Discussion: MobileDevicesToday
InfoWorld:
Will Capgemini convince enterprises to trust the cloud?
Discussion: eWeek and LinuxWorld.com
 Earlier Items: 
Cameron Stewart / The Australian:
Chinese spy fears on broadband frontrunner
Discussion: CNET News
Earl Zmijewski / Renesys Blog:
Rising to the Top: A Baker's Dozen
Andrew / Domain Name Wire:
Go Daddy To Shut Down Standard Tactics, LLC
Discussion: TechCrunch
Rory Cellan-Jones / BBC:
Sky moves towards 3D broadcasts
Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
Are bloggers & social networks killing the big shows?
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
SnapTell: One Of The Coolest iPhone Apps Gets Even Better
Discussion: digg.com
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Entrepreneurs: We Will Happily Respect Your Embargoes