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5:00 PM ET, April 28, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Brier Dudley / Seattle Times:
Microsoft debuts Vine in Seattle: Twitter+Facebook on steroids  —  It's been awhile since Microsoft introduced a game-changing social Web application, but Vine — a service that's debuting today with a beta test in Seattle — could be a contender.  —  Vine is a hyperlocal, personalized message and alert system.
RELATED:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Microsoft Vine To Connect Family, Friends When Crisis Hits  —  Microsoft is launching a new product into private beta on Tuesday morning with the aim of keeping friends and family in touch during emergencies.  The idea for product, called Microsoft Vine, came to Microsoft GM Public Safety …
Zach Epstein / Boy Genius Report:
Microsoft and Verizon reportedly cooking up an iPhone competitor  —  Just what the world needs... Another iPhone killer.  If the Wall Street Journal's report is to be believed, it looks like that USA Today story may have omitted a relatively important detail regarding Verizon's “iPhone” offering — it might not be an iPhone at all.
RELATED:
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Microsoft Planning iPhone Rival  —  Microsoft (MSFT) can finally stop denying its plans to get into the cellphone business.  The company is working with Verizon Wireless to launch an iPhone rival early next year, the WSJ reports.  —  There's a good chance this will flop …
Ola Rosling / The Official Google Blog:
Adding search power to public data  —  Earthquakes are not the only thing that can shake Silicon Valley.  After the dot-com bubble burst back in 2000 the unemployment rate of Santa Clara county went up to 9.1%.  During the last couple of months, it has gone up again:
RELATED:
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:
Google Launches Structured Data Search During Wolfram|Alpha Demo  —  During the Wolfram|Alpha demonstration today the Google Blog announced the launch of their own structured data search feature that allows you to find and compare public data.  —  Searches such as [unemployment rate new york] …
Microsoft:
Office Service Pack 2 A Significant Stability, Performance and Interoperability Upgrade  —  Q&A: Group Program Manager Jane Liles talks about the enhancements now available through Service Pack 2 for the 2007 Microsoft Office system.  —  As part of its efforts to continually improve …
Jenna Wortham / Bits:
Apple iPhone Owners Favor Personal Uses, Not Business  —  Do you treat your iPhone as a guilty pleasure?  You're not alone.  —  A new report from Compete surveying the behavior of 600 smartphone users found that 73 percent of iPhone owners used their mobile devices primarily for personal reasons, such as entertainment.
RELATED:
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:   iPhone Owners Don't Use Their Devices For Work? Yeah, Right.
Rajen Sheth / Google Enterprise Blog:
What we talk about when we talk about cloud computing  —  Recently, McKinsey & Company published a study on cloud computing as part of a symposium for The Uptime Institute, an organization dedicated to supporting the enterprise data center industry.  We share McKinsey's interest in helping …
VentureBeat:
Verizon flirts with Apple, but Android is already girlfriend material  —  There's been lots of speculation that Verizon, the largest U.S. phone network, is flirting with Apple, with the idea of introducing an iPhone on Verizon's network next year.  —  Verizon is building out a new fourth …
RELATED:
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Why We Don't Believe Rumors of an Apple/Verizon Love Child
Discussion: DailyTech and CNET News
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Mint Turns Personal Finance Into A Game.  It's Better Than It Sounds  —  Mint, the popular personal finance site that won 2007's TechCrunch40, is launching a new feature called “Financial Fitness” which, strange as it may sound, adds an element of gaming to the service.
comScore:
Hulu Continues Ascent in U.S. Online Video Market, Breaking Into Top 3 Properties by Videos Viewed for First Time in March  —  Average U.S. Viewer Watched 5.5 Hours of Online Video During the Month,  —  According to comScore Video Metrix  —  comScore (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring …
Discussion: TechCrunch, BetaNews and CenterNetworks
RELATED:
Liz Gannes / NewTeeVee:
As Hulu Gets More Mainstream, Long Viewing Sessions Wane
Discussion: Contentinople
Chris Davies / SlashGear:
Upcoming Averatec 10-inch netbook may use Android  —  Averatec are developing a new netbook that is “a merger of cellphone and PC technology”, prompting speculation that the company will use Android as the budget ultraportable's OS.  Company CEO Tae-Hyun “Tiger” Cho has described the OS as …
RELATED:
The Boy Genius / Boy Genius Report:
BlackBerry Tour hitting Verizon Wireless in July?  —  BlackBerry Tour?  Oh yeah.  Now that that's been confirmed, we're on to bigger and better things — release dates!  The latest information we've heard is that the BlackBerry Tour is shaping up to be released on Verizon in the month of July.
Discussion: Gizmodo, Electronista and SlashGear
Raju Vegesna / Zoho Blogs:
Introducing Zoho Mobile  —  Over the past year or two we have had some initiatives on mobile capabilities for selected Zoho applications.  With Zoho Mobile, we are aggregating all our previous initiatives with consistent user interface and extending it to multiple applications and mobile platforms.
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
The Pirate Bay verdict goes English, and we dish the dirt  —  The Pirate Bay ruling has been translated into English, and it's full of little surprises.  Ars dives in to answer the big questions: who possessed those Klomifen tablets, how much did the state pay to defend The Pirate Bay admins …
Discussion: AppScout
Robert / Wakoopa blog:
The State of Apps - Q1 2009  —  I'm happy to announce the release of the inaugural edition of our quarterly software trends report, named The State of Apps.  —  Since we started with Wakoopa, we've acquired over 525 million hours of software usage data from 75,000 members.
Discussion: TechCrunch, GigaOM and VentureBeat
Security Research & Defense:
AutoRun changes in Windows 7  —  As some of our readers are well aware, Conficker and other malware is taking advantage of the AutoRun functionality as a spreading mechanism.  Furthermore, over the last couple of months, there has been a significant increase of this threat, as more malware is abusing this functionality.
Matt Buchanan / Gizmodo:
Dell Studio 19 Multitouch All-in-One Arrives in US of A for $699, No Signs of Swine Flu  —  Six weeks after Dell's multitouch Studio 19 all-in-one hit Japan, it's finally coming to the US.  Despite my penchant for mocking Dell's designers, if you're looking for a non-iMac all-in-one, it's worth a shot.
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Socialthing Starts Spreading Across 75 AOL Sites  —  A couple weeks ago, I spotted the reincarnation of Socialthing on AOL's country-music Website TheBoot and speculated that it would potentially be rolled out across AOL's other MediaGlow properties as well.
Camille Ricketts / VentureBeat:
Coming soon: A new, smarter Google News?  —  Google may be working on a new, intelligent news distribution system, according to Sharon Waxman, a reporter for Hollywood newsblog TheWrap.  She approached chief executive Eric Schmidt at a soiree thrown by Arianna Huffington last week …
Amol Sharma / Digits:
Report: iPhone Users Spend 9.6 Minutes per App  —  Greystripe, an ad network for mobile applications and games, has a new report showing how consumers are using free iPhone applications.  —  Associated Press  —  A Macworld poster touting iPhone apps  —  Among the interesting findings:
Thanks:atul
Darren Waters / BBC:
Home Office ‘colluded with Phorm’  —  The Home Office has been accused of colluding with online ad firm Phorm on “informal guidance” to the public on whether the company's service is legal.  —  E-mails between the ministry and Phorm show the department asking if the firm would be “comforted” by its position.
Nicole Loux / The Mozilla Blog:
Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 now available for download!  —  Editor's note: Mozilla released Firefox 3.5 beta 4 on Monday, April 27, 2009 at 5:22 pm PT. Check out the Mozilla Developer News announcement reposted below for more details.  —  Please note: Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 is a public preview release intended …
Emel Mutlu / Inside AdWords:
New “Google for Advertisers” site has launched  —  We're excited to announce the launch of Google for Advertisers.  Google for Advertisers is a place where we've brought together information about the broad range of our marketing solutions — and where you can explore and discover the combination …
 
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 More Items: 
Jason Chen / Gizmodo:
Palm's Casting a Pre Viral Video Right Now, Hints At Pre Release Date
Discussion: Palm WebOS and PreCentral.net
Reuters:
IBM raises dividend, to buy back more shares
Mike Schramm / TUAW:
Dept. of deja vu: MacBookMini found in Adium stats
Sarah Rabil / Bloomberg:
Time Warner May Say It's Nearing AOL Resolution, Unwinding Failed Merger
John Leyden / The Register:
Loudmouth workers leaking data through social networking sites
Discussion: Donna's SecurityFlash
Electronista:
Nokia to shrink online services, cut 450 jobs
Discussion: Agence France Presse and BetaNews
New York Times:
U.S. Steps Up Effort on Digital Defenses
 Earlier Items: 
David Barboza / New York Times:
In China, Knockoff Cellphones Are a Hit
Discussion: mocoNews, Gizmodo and TG Daily
Damaster / LiveSide:
Windows Live Profile (April) update is here!
Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:
RapidShare hands over user info in Germany, users panic
Discussion: p2pnet, Music Ally and Pulse2
Emily Chung / CBC News:
Who will cash in on Canada's love for online video?
Discussion: HipMojo.com
Randall C. Kennedy / Randall C. Kennedy's blog:
Windows 7's ‘XP mode’: Right idea, wrong technology
Discussion: Hardware 2.0
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Quub: A Micromessaging Service That Asks “What Are You Doing?”  And Means It
Jason Scott / ASCII:
Geocities: Lessons So Far
Discussion: hughstimson.org