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Exclusive Interview With Steve Ballmer: Products, Competition, The Road Ahead — Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer visited Silicon Valley on Thursday for his annual meeting with top venture capitalists to talk about Microsoft product strategy. This was his first visit to Silicon Valley since announcing …
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Ballmer re poor execution in Windows Mobile: “We've pumped in some new talent” “This will not happen again” — Microsoft is hosting a Venture Capital Summit today at Mountain View, being attended by around 200 Venture Capitalists. Like everything else these days, the event is live on Twitter …
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Ars Technica, MobileTechWorld, WMExperts, Techgeist, Gizmodo, InformationWeek, Pocket-lint.com, Electronista and Engadget

New Twitter Funding — There's a lot of talk today about our financing. A few hours ago we closed a significant round of funding with a group of investment firms that we're excited to publicly thank: Insight Venture Partners, T. Rowe Price, Institutional Venture Partners, Spark Capital and Benchmark Capital.
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Twitter Appears Set to Raise $100 Million, Valuing It at $1 Billion — SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter has trained people to compress their thoughts into 140 characters and given a public stage to both dissidents in Iran and voluble stars like Shaquille O'Neal. — Now the start-up appears to have chalked up another achievement.
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Hitwise Intelligence, Rough Type, BloggingStocks, Wall Street Journal, FierceMobileContent, Nerd World, Guardian, TechFlash and MarketingVOX


Analyst: Reports that Verizon Snubbed Palm “Off Base” — Analysts who follow Palm (PALM) are already rolling their eyes over TheStreet.com's claim that Verizon (VZ) has balked at adding the company's new Pre handset to its lineup. In a research note this morning, Deutsche Bank's Jonathan Goldberg dismissed it as “off base.”
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Palm Repeats Plans After Report Verizon May Snub Pre — Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) — Palm Inc., maker of the Pre smart phone, reiterated its plan to work with additional wireless carriers in the second half of fiscal 2010. — The announcement came after TheStreet.com reported …

Exclusive: Palm Pre's Arrival at Verizon Shelved
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DSLreports, BetaNews, Tech Trader Daily, Digital Daily, Palm WebOS, Gadgetell, SlashGear, FierceWireless, MobileCrunch, Marco.org, MobileContentToday, I4U News, Gear Diary, jkOnTheRun, Computerworld, Seeking Alpha, PhoneDog.com, TechSpot, Gearlog, PreCentral.net, EverythingPre, Techgeist, Phone Arena, Electronista, Silicon Alley Insider, MacDailyNews and Crave

Intel to Ship New Pineview Netbook Chips in Q4 — Intel will ship a new line of Atom processors for netbooks and nettops during the fourth quarter of this year, a company official said late on Wednesday. — Processors codenamed Pineview will succeed the Atom chips that currently go into most netbooks …
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AT&T Activates MMS Functionality for U.S. iPhone Users — As previously scheduled, AT&T has activated MMS for iPhone 3G and 3GS users in the United States, bringing to an end months of speculation and waiting since software support for the feature was introduced in iPhone OS 3.0 in mid-June.
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How Could IPhone MMS Crash AT&T's Network? — All the hand wringing over the Friday launch of MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) on AT&T iPhones may be misplaced for a service that hasn't been a huge success on most other phones. — Apple let down iPhone watchers and owners when it announced …

37SIGNALS VALUATION TOPS $100 BILLION AFTER BOLD VC INVESTMENT — CHICAGO—September 24, 2009—37signals is now a $100 billion dollar company, according to a group of investors who have agreed to purchase 0.000000001% of the company in exchange for $1. — Founder Jason Fried informed …
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Microsoft: Google Chrome Frame makes IE less secure — Microsoft does not recommend that Internet Explorer users install Google Chrome Frame, in order to avoid having more security issues. — The release of Google Chrome Frame, a new open source plugin that injects Chrome's renderer …
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fiercecio.comwatch, WebProNews, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, 901am, Web Browsers, AppScout, AppleInsider, Computerworld and jimray


In San Francisco, Plans to Start News Web Site — A wealthy investor, a university journalism school and a public radio station have joined forces to create a nonprofit local news Web site for the San Francisco area, in what may be the largest and most ambitious of dozens of similar local news operations …
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Windows 7 PCs to go on sale early — Windows 7, which is scheduled to launch on October 22, will be available nine days early via PC purchases from system builders, also called small custom PC makers. — If you've been putting off buying a new PC because you're waiting for Windows 7 to ship, you're in luck.


Place Pages for Google Maps: There are places we remember! — Google Maps is a great tool for exploring places — you can pan around the map, zoom in and see nearby places, look around in Street View and search for whatever you want. But what I always wanted to do is be able to get a clear understanding of what a place is all about.


Palm Pre price drops to $99 on Amazon — I just noticed the Palm Pre has finally made it's way down from $199 to $149 and now $99 on Amazon.com. You can avoid the hassle of visiting a retail store by ordering online. There's no need to fill in any rebate forms either as Amazon is selling …
Discussion:
Engadget, EverythingPre, PreCentral.net, Gadgetell, SlashGear, I4U News, Gearlog and PalmAddicts


Google hits Android ROM modder with a cease-and-desist letter — So this is interesting: apparently Google's hit the developer of the Cyanogen modded Android ROM with a cease-and-desist letter, asking him to stop distributing the closed-source Google apps like Gmail, Maps, and YouTube.
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GigaOM, TweakTown News, Android Phone Fans, Android and Me, TmoNews, MobileCrunch, Android Central and Gizmodo, Thanks:atul

Judge Orders Google To Deactivate User's Gmail Account — In a highly unusual move, a federal judge has ordered Google to deactivate the email account of a user who was mistakenly sent confidential financial information by a bank. — The order, issued Wednesday by U.S. District Court Judge James Ware …
Discussion:
Daring Fireball, Techdirt, Lockergnome Blog Network, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim and CloudAve

Report: Apple to unveil new iMacs by mid-October — Analysts agree the iMac needs a facelift, unsure whether now's the right time — Computerworld - Apple will refresh its iMac desktop computer within a matter of weeks and will unveil the first revamp of the all-in-one's exterior since mid-2007 …


It Took A Year, But Fitness Gadget Fitbit Will Finally Launch — Fitness gadget Fitbit was a hit at last year's TechCrunch50, where it created a ton of buzz and was a runner-up for the top prize. Of course, we all know that it takes hardware companies longer to launch than software startups …
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MobileContentToday


Chinese iPhones to start at $300, $18.45/mos. — iPhones in China will be relatively expensive, but monthly charges will be among the lowest in the world. — So says the Xinhua News Agency, the official press service of the Chinese Communist government, quoting an unnamed “insider” at China Unicom (CHU).

Google Books Settlement Delayed Indefinitely — As currently written, the controversial settlement between Google and groups representing publishers and authors is officially dead. On Thursday, a federal judge gave the parties time to negotiate a new deal that would address some of the many objections filed by various groups.
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