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6:45 AM ET, March 31, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
The Official Google Blog:
Google's newest venture  —  Today we're excited to announce Google Ventures, Google's new venture capital fund.  This is Google's effort to take advantage of our resources to support innovation and encourage promising new technology companies.  By borrowing the best practices of top-tier …
RELATED:
Miguel Helft / New York Times:
Google to Announce Venture Fund  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Google, which has invested in many startups over the years, will announce on Tuesday that it is creating a venture capital arm whose main objective will be to turn a profit.  —  The group, called Google Ventures, is expected to invest up to $100 million over the next 12 months.
Seth Weintraub / 9 to 5 Mac:
Skype works on AT&T's 3G on iPhone 3.0  —  We just found something very interesting.  When you install Skype on a 3.0 iPhone, you can use AT&T's connection to make and receive calls.  Skype treats the 3G line like any other internet connection.  The video is uploading now to youtube and will be posted as soon as it is there.
RELATED:
Arn / MacRumors:
Official Skype App is Now Available in the App Store  —  Skype, Inc. has just released their official Skype application for the iPhone and iPod touch.  —  Skype is a very popular voice-over-IP (VOIP) and instant messaging application that allows you to make phone calls over the internet.
Brian X. Chen / Gadget Lab:
Pirates Board Apple's iPhone App Store  —  The iPhone's App Store is becoming an increasingly juicy target for pirates, who have illegally cracked 20 percent of paid applications for free distribution.  —  Apple's App Store offers about 25,000 paid apps, and iPhone analytics company Medialets estimates …
Thanks:atul
David Chartier / Ars Technica:
Interview: Gmail's product manager on Labs, beta, the future  —  Gmail is turning five soon, and it was given an experimental feature playground called Gmail Labs nearly a year ago.  For the anniversary, Ars Technica spoke with Gmail Product Manager Todd Jackson about the evolution of communication …
Thanks:atul
RELATED:
Stephen Shankland / CNET News:
Gmail Labs spreads beyond U.S.
Discussion: Gmail Blog
Spencer Ante / Creative Capital:
It's Official: Twitter Hires Ex-Google Designer Douglas Bowman  —  Turns out the Web rumors were true for once.  In a meeting last Friday afternoon in Twitter's San Francisco office, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone told me that the company had hired ex-Google Visual Design Lead Douglas Bowman to be the company's new creative director.
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Is a Shorter Web Address Worth Big Money? bit.ly Raises $2 Million  —  Here's another Web 2.0 riddle that seems particularly hard to solve post-Lehman: What's the value of a service that takes a long Web address and makes it shorter?  —  One answer: Several million dollars.
RELATED:
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
If bit.ly Is Worth $8 Million, TinyURL Is Worth At Least $46 Million
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Status.net Could Point to the Future of Business Intelligence  —  Few companies have captured the world's attention online in recent years as much as Twitter has.  Rapid, structured, public communication between groups of people is not only a personal paradigm changer for many who have seriously explored …
RELATED:
Mark Bockenstedt / Microblink:
Status.net: Hosted Laconica Installations
Discussion: Control Yourself
Biz / Twitter Blog:
Replies Are Now Mentions  —  We're updating the Replies feature and referring to it instead as Mentions.  In your Twitter sidebar you'll now see your own @username tab.  When you click that tab, you'll see a list of all tweets referencing your account with the @username convention anywhere in the tweet …
Emil Protalinski / Ars Technica:
Microsoft to kill Encarta later this year  —  Microsoft has announced that it is discontinuing its Encarta line of products.  The software products will be gone by June 2009 and the website will go down October 31, 2009.  —  When I first saw this, I had to do a double take.
Saul Hansell / Bits:
What's the Password?  Only Your iPhone Knows  —  A few weeks ago, I wondered if people would start to use their cellphones to verify their identities when logging on to Internet sites.  I imagined a phone application similar to RSA's SecurID, the small gizmo many corporations issue to employees …
Discussion: textually.org
Matt Cutts / Gadgets, Google, and SEO:
Hacking Google: Retro Links Revives Old Google Feature  —  Google sometimes turns off features.  One such feature that I remember fondly is that at the bottom of Google's search results, we offered nine other search engine suggestions.  The idea was if you didn't find what you were searching for on Google …
Justin Smith / Inside Facebook:
Facebook, Adobe Partner to Create Facebook Platform Libraries in Flash  —  Since the Facebook Platform launched, many top Facebook app and game developers have built their products in Flash.  A few innovative Facebook Connect implementations have been built in Flash too.
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Time Inc. and Getty Images Go Back to the Future With Life.com  —  Here's refreshingly retro take for a Web site launching in 2009: One that only features photos.  Lots and lots of really interesting photos.  —  Meet the new Life.com, a joint venture between Time Warner's Time Inc (TWX) and Getty Images that launches today.
Discussion: paidContent.org
Kontra / counternotions:
What will the next iPhone be called?  —  Naming any Apple product — much less the iPhone, the most iconic of them all — is no easy task.  —  Remember all the mindless chatter when Apple risked legal entanglement with Cisco for the right to use the name “iPhone”?  Gizmodo:
Discussion: ParisLemon, Thanks:atul
RELATED:
Katie Marsal / AppleInsider:   RBC says iPhone 3G ‘Pro’ won't boost iPhone momentum
IAB:
Internet Advertising Revenues Surpass $23 Billion in '08, Reaching Record High  —  Q4 '08 Revenues Total $6.1 Billion; Growth Continues Despite Difficult Economy  —  Internet advertising revenues in the U.S. remain strong, topping $23 billion, according to the 2008 Internet Advertising Revenue Report …
Phone Arena:
Verizon's MiFi 2200 is your own personal Hotspot  —  We've received information that Verizon is preparing to launch a device known as the MiFi 2200.  Based on the info and pictures, it appears that the device is a personal Hotspot with built-in rechargeable battery.
Elizabeth Holmes / Digits:
EHarmony's Same-Sex Dating Site Launches  —  In response to discrimination litigation, online dating site eHarmony will launch Tuesday the gay version of its heterosexual match-making service.  The site, Compatible Partners, was developed as part of a settlement last fall with the New Jersey attorney general.
Thanks:atul
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Tinker Gives Twitter Its Long Awaited Events Firehose  —  Over a year ago Fred Wilson wrote about the need for a Twitter events firehose - a place where users could input a handful of keywords collectively referred to as an ‘event’, which could be used to monitor current news as it happens in near real-time.
Discussion: TechCrunchIT
Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
Microsoft announces Windows Marketplace partners, tweaked policies, designer WinMo 6.5 themes  —  Details are starting to come into focus on some of the finer points of Windows Mobile 6.5's launch later this year after February's announcement at MWC, and if you had to boil the news down to just two words …
Ben Parr / Mashable!:
MySpace and Microsoft Team Up: What Does it Mean for Facebook and Google?  —  The world's second largest social network, MySpace, has found a new partner that may make the relationship between MySpace and Google a little more rocky: Microsoft.  —  Specifically, MySpace and Microsoft announced today …
Wikileaks:
Western internet censorship: The beginning of the end or the end of the beginning? … Shortly after 9pm on Tuesday March 24, Wikileaks related buildings in Dresden and Jena, were raided by 11 plain clothes German police.  —  Why?  —  Over the last two years, Wikileaks …
Alana Semuels / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
In-flight wireless Internet to expand to hundreds of American Airlines planes  —  The future of air travel?  Credit: Bekathwia via Flickr.  —  Flights are getting canceled and you have to pay to check a bag.  But, hey, at least you can now obsessively check your Gmail on more planes than ever.
Discussion: Wi-Fi Networking News
Patrik / F-Secure Antivirus Research Weblog:
Conficker Hype Used by Rogue Gangs  —  Oh the irony.  —  As you're all aware Conficker has been in the news a lot lately, especially with regards to if anything will happen on April 1st or not.  We found out that rogue security software folks have picked up on this.
Discussion: The Register
Chandramouli Mahadevan / The Official Google Blog:
Email in Indian languages  —  It's hard for me to imagine going without email for a day.  It's such an easy and convenient way to communicate with my friends and family.  However, there was one limitation that bothered me: my family members and friends who prefer to communicate in Hindi …
Thanks:atul
 
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 More Items: 
Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:
Couple sues Acer over sluggish Vista performance
Discussion: TG Daily and Pulse2
Yinka Adegoke / Reuters:
Cable operators, networks brace for an online world
Saul Hansell / Bits:
Trolling for Patents to Fight Patent Trolls
Discussion: ZDNet Government, Thanks:atul
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
March of the Diggs: Trent Reznor to be on Digg Dialogg
Discussion: Digg the Blog, Thanks:nickgon
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Can Stickers Drive Mobile Payments?
Discussion: PR Newswire and mocoNews
John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
Sun Sacks 1,500 … Looks like Sun is “aligning its business …
Discussion: PC World
 Earlier Items: 
John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
Microsoft Acquires Yahoo...VP of Ops
Discussion: CNET News and TechFlash
Harry McCracken / Technologizer:
Macworld Expo Moves, Accepts Its Nickname