Check out Mini-Techmeme for simple mobiles or Techmeme Mobile for modern smartphones.
4:00 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
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: Macsimum News
RELATED:
Tom Krazit / CNET News:
Apple buys stake in mobile graphics chip designer  —  Future versions of Imagination Technologies' graphics cores could mean iPhone games far more sophisticated than ‘Super Monkey Ball.’  —  Apple has taken a small stake in a British chip designer, revealing how the company plans to power …
Discussion: Tech Trader Daily
Chris Foresman / Infinite Loop:   Further details surface on plan for next-gen iPhone graphics
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:
David Bunnell / San Francisco Chronicle:
Steve Jobs didn't make the first Macworld, either
Discussion: PC World
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
RELATED:
Kevin C. Tofel / jkOnTheRun:
Toshiba Offers “Industry's First” 512GB SSD Flash Drive  —  Each year I that attend CES, I can't help but swing by the huge HDTVs and see the new “world's biggest” set.  It's a status symbol of course, but this year might be the first time I focus more on the “world's biggest” Solid State Disk capacity.
Discussion: Technologizer
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 …
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.
Ashlee Vance / Bits:
Dell's Mystery ‘Adamo’ Could Be Thinner Than Air  —  When Apple released the MacBook Air, someone viewed the sleek notebook as an opportunity to make fun of clunky, old Dell on YouTube with a parody ad.  But what if Dell is about to have the last laugh in the ultra-light laptop race?
Discussion: CrunchGear
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.
David Kaplan / paidContent.org:
Sirius Shareholders Approve Reverse Stock Split To Ease Debt  —  Sirius (NSDQ: SIRI) Satellite Radio shareholders have approved the issuance of up to 3.5 billion more shares for a reverse stock split, as the company tries to gain flexibility to pay down its crushing debt, according to a report that aired on CNBC (see the clip here).
BBC:
BBC iPlayer now available on Mac  —  The BBC has created a version of the iPlayer that works with both Mac and Linux computers.  —  The two systems, which have been able to stream BBC programmes via the iPlayer for a year, will now be able to handle downloads.
Discussion: Guardian and MacDailyNews
David Chartier / Ars Technica:
Number of landline-free households up 10% in US  —  It's that time of year again, when the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) publishes its biannual study of US consumers' new penchant for cutting landlines in favor of cell phone service.  The latest news echoes the trend we've seen …
Ed Felten / Freedom to Tinker:
Three Flavors of Net Neutrality  —  When the Wall Street Journal claimed on Monday that Google was secretly backtracking on its net neutrality position, commentators were properly skeptical.  Tim Lee (among others) argued that the Journal misunderstood what net neutrality means …
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.
Jesse Johnson / The Bivings Report:
The Use of the Internet by America's Largest Newspapers (2008 Edition)  —  Every year, The Bivings Group conducts a study of the web features of America's largest newspapers as a way to gauge how papers are dealing with the threat and opportunity presented by the rise of the Internet as a news source.
Discussion: Romenesko
Ashlee Vance / Bits:
Can a Deflated Adobe Remain Independent?  —  Shares of Adobe performed so well over the past ten years that the company's value soared to the point of putting off many potential suitors.  But a recession, troubled financial markets and slowing economic growth have helped erase more than half …
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.
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.
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 …
JKK / jkkmobile:
Dell Mini 9's shipping with smaller batteries than they should  —  Quality control problem or margin seeking?  Click here to see more Peter has been testing his Dell Minis and noted that one of his Mini 9's had smaller 24Wh battery than on the other one.  Marking on the both states it should be 32Wh.
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.
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of Techmeme at 4:00 PM ET, December 18, 2008.

View the current page or another snapshot:


 
 Techmeme Sponsor Posts: 
Airtable:
What's the ROI on AI?  That's the trillion dollar question.  —  Learn why Airtable's the enterprise operating system for the AI era, delivering enterprise-grade security, privacy and governance.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Zoho:
Zoho Sign supports Saudi Arabia's digital transformation with legally-compliant digital signatures  —  As-salamu alaykum!  The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is on a journey to become a modern, economically vibrant nation …
Notion:
Get up to 6 months free of Notion with unlimited AI  —  Notion is trusted and loved by thousands of startups as their connected workspace—from building product roadmaps to tracking fundraising.  Build and scale your company with one tool!
Sponsor Techmeme
 
 See Also: 
Techmeme: site main
Techmeme River: reverse chronological Techmeme
Techmeme Mobile: for phones
Techmeme Leaderboard: Techmeme's top sources
 
 Subscribe: 
Techmeme RSS feed
Techmeme on X
Techmeme on Mastodon
 
 
 More Items: 
Eliot Van Buskirk / Epicenter:
TV Studio in a Box Enables Long-Tail Television
Dina Bass / Bloomberg:
IBM, Sun Face ‘Reckoning’ in 2009 as Budgets Shrink
Jim Goldman / Tech Check with Jim Goldman:
Oracle Earnings Preview: ‘Good’ News Might be Too Good
David Kravets / Threat Level:
MPAA Reining In Illicit Movie Sites, Downloading Unabated
Discussion: Ars Technica
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
“Can I resell my MP3s?”: the post-sale life of digital goods
James Falconer / IntoMobile:
Parrot and Philippe Starck Create ‘Zikmu’ Couture Stereo Speakers
Discussion: Phone Arena and Engadget Mobile
 Earlier Items: 
Brett Terpstra / TUAW:
iPhone thief thwarted by MobileMe sync
Discussion: The iPhone Blog
Michael Alison Chandler / Washington Post:
In Their Search for Help, Fairfax Schools Find Google
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Ask.com Plays The Google AdWords Arbitrage Game