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3:50 PM ET, March 4, 2010

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Wall Street Journal:
Sony Readies Gadgets to Rival Apple  —  Threatened by Apple Inc.'s growing stable of portable devices, Sony Corp. is developing a new lineup of handheld products, including a smart phone capable of downloading and playing PlayStation games, according to people familiar with the matter.
RELATED:
Tricia Duryee / mocoNews:   Sony's Comeback Plan Includes PlayStation Smartphone
John Herrman / Gizmodo:
Confirmed: Microsoft's Project Pink Lives, and It's Coming to Verizon  —  After the Windows Phone 7 launch passed without so much as a mention of Project Pink, Microsoft's other new phone project started to fade into memory.  Today, we can confirm: Pink is coming, and Verizon's the carrier.
John Kennedy / Silicon Republic:
In three years desktops will be irrelevant - Google sales chief  —  Google believes that in three or so years desktops will give way to mobile as the primary screen from which most people will consume information and entertainment.  That's according to Google Europe boss John Herlihy …
RELATED:
Don Dodge / Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing:   Platform shifts Mainframe to Mini to PC to Mobile. …
Bill Ray / The Register:
Apple yanks Wi-Fi detectors from iTunes  —  Pretends they were never there  —  Wi-Fi hotspot detecting applications are the latest on Apple's list of verboten apps, and even developers are being left in the dark as to why.  —  Wi-Fi detection is something of a niche …
RELATED:
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
YouTube Launches Auto-Captions For All Videos  —  I'm here at YouTube's office in San Bruno, where the company is holding a press conference to discuss the launch of auto-captions.  YouTube Director of Product Management Hunter Walk kicked off the event by discussing some of YouTube's goals through …
RELATED:
Mia / YouTube Blog:
The Future Will Be Captioned: Improving Accessibility on YouTube
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Facebook Will Be Worth $35 Billion To $40 Billion When It Goes Public Next Year, Investors Predict  —  As the WSJ reported in a big page one story today, Facebook will probably go public in 2011, once it's had a year of $1+ billion in sales behind it.  (The company expects to do between $1.2 billion and $2 billion in sales this year.)
RELATED:
Nick Bilton / Bits:
An Explosion of Mobile Patent Lawsuits  —  At first glance, it looks as if we're in the middle of a patent lawsuit Super Bowl party.  Nearly every large mobile phone player — with the exception of Microsoft, Palm and, so far, Google — has recently been involved in some sort of patent litigation regarding mobile technologies.
RELATED:
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Brainstorm Tech:
Steve Jobs: A man aggrieved  —  A new theory about why Apple decided to take HTC — and indirectly, Google — to court  —  Two thirds of the way through a 3,000-word essay on This Apple-HTC Patent Thing, Daring Fireball's John Gruber quotes a tweet by John Siracusa that gets to the heart of the matter:
Discussion: Daring Fireball, PC World, Techdirt and TUAW
Yang Li / Google Mobile Blog:
Search your Android phone with written gestures  —  As mobile phones become increasingly powerful and can store more data, we've introduced new methods of search to get you to your content faster, such as search suggestions or search by voice.  But sometimes, typing to get to the right search suggestion takes …
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Microsoft Launches Its First Android App.  Yes, Google's Platform.  —  In December 2008, Microsoft surprised a lot of people by releasing an iPhone app — Seadragon Mobile.  A month later, they ensured the move wasn't taken as a joke or gimmick by launching another app, Tag, into Apple's App Store.
RELATED:
Sam Diaz / Between the Lines:
Google adds free cloud “backup” to Apps, feature that reduces risk of data loss  —  Google, in its continued quest to lure enterprise customers to switch to the cloud-based Google Apps suite, is upping its offering with a free feature called synchronous replication.
TechCrunch:
In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever.  Deal With It.  —  Editor's note: Richard Wong is a venture capitalist with Accel Partners, an investor in AdMob, GetJar, and SunRun, and a former mobile industry executive.  In this guest post he argues that the fragmentation of mobile devices and platforms …
Discussion: SiliconANGLE
AndrewM / Yahoo! Mail Blog:
Facebook Friends: Meet Yahoo! Contacts  —  You might have heard that Yahoo! announced plans in December to integrate Facebook Connect across a variety of our popular sites and services.  While we're still early in the partnership, we wanted to let you know about one new thing you can do with Facebook today.
Discussion: All Facebook and TechCrunch
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
TiVo: Appeals Court Upholds Contempt Finding In DISH Case (Updated)  —  TiVo (TIVO) shares are rocketing higher after a federal appeals court upheld a lower court ruling which found found DISH Network (DISH) and Echostar (SATS) in contempt of a previous ruling which found infringement of TiVo's DVR patents.
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Huffington Post Still Growing Like a Weed  —  Another step in the Huffington Post's relentless march toward world domination: The company attracted a staggering 40 million unique visitors in the last month.  —  That's per Huffpo's own numbers, served up by Google Analytics (GOOG).
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
Bobbie Johnson / Guardian:
Lords copyright change ‘could block YouTube’  —  One of the most contentious parts of the controversial digital economy bill was voted down by the House of Lords last night - only to be replaced by a clause that campaigners say is even more draconian.  —  The Liberal Democrats forced through …
Joanna Stern / Engadget:
ASUS CEO talks tablets, smartbooks and Windows Phone 7 Series phones  —  Ever wonder about the man behind the insane amount of ASUS products we cover?  We do too, which is why we jumped at the chance to sit down with ASUS CEO Jerry Shen here at CeBIT.  Our lengthy discussion covered …
Lance Whitney / CNET News:
Intel expands Atom to home servers  —  Intel's Atom chip is moving up in the world, from Netbooks to home and small-office servers.  —  The chipmaker on Thursday launched its first Atom processor optimized for the SOHO (small office/home office) market.  Intel's new platform marries …
Joseph Tartakoff / paidContent:
Ballmer: Microsoft ‘Betting Our Company’ On The Cloud  —  Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is still most closely associated with its desktop software (Windows, Office etc.), but on Thursday CEO Steve Ballmer said Microsoft was “betting our company” on the cloud.  About 70 percent of Microsoft employees …
Tumblr Staff:
Now testing: Pages  —  You can now add static pages to your blog, with a few very useful options.  Head to your blog's Customize page and click the “Pages” menu to get started.  There are currently three types of Pages you can create:  — Standard Layout.  Create a simple page with a title and body using your current theme.
Brad Stone / New York Times:
Facebook Ads Strike Some as Off-Key  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook, the world's biggest social network, is selling more ad spots to big companies like Wal-Mart Stores, Procter & Gamble and PepsiCo.  —  But the site's pages are also home to countless ads from smaller companies that can be funny …
Eric Eldon / Inside Facebook:
Bing's Facebook Page Gets 400,000 New Fans in a Day Through Ad Offer in Farmville  —  In the latest example of brand advertising integrated into social games, Microsoft ran an advertising offer for Bing within Zynga's hit game FarmVille on Tuesday.  If users became a fan of Bing's Facebook Page …
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Joost Starts Second Life Under The Adconion Flag  —  Joost, the failed video venture started by Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, was put out of its misery in November 2009 when Adconion Media Group decided to pick up the remains of the company for an undisclosed sum.
 
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 More Items: 
Eric A. Taub / Gadgetwise:
Selling 3-D TVs Without 3-D Programming
Douglas MacMillan / Business Week:
VCs Push StartUp Visa Act
Ben Sillis / Electricpig.co.uk:
Ovi Store movie downloads in testing by Nokia
Discussion: Fonehome.co.uk
Jon Stokes / Ars Technica:
Obama admin declassifies major cybersecurity plans
Royal Pingdom:
How Facebook, Twitter and other big sites give back to Open Source
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
The AOL Executive Shuffle Continues: Entertainment Chief Mike Rich Departs
Market Wire:
TripIt Receives $7M Third Round of Funding
Discussion: VentureBeat, VatorNews, GigaOM and Bits
 Earlier Items: 
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Nearly 300M VoIP Subscribers Seen By 2013
Discussion: In-Stat
Jeremy Kirk / PC World:
Microsoft to Spend $9.5 Billion on Research in 2010
Declan McCullagh / CNET News:
Feds weigh expansion of Internet monitoring
Discussion: Hillicon Valley
Seth Weintraub / Computerworld:
Android marketshare growing, iPhone shrinking, says Quantcast
Discussion: Distorted-Loop.com and Internet2Go
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
How Nokia helped Iran “persecute and arrest” dissidents
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Liam Scott / Voice of America:
RSF says 23 journalists were jailed in Syria and 10 others were missing as of December 9; press freedom groups call for accountability for Assad's government

Aidan Ryan / The Boston Globe:
Boston NPR affiliate WBUR to cancel Radio Boston, its midday show that spent 15 years on air, and move its staff to a new production team focused on local news

Katie Kilkenny / The Hollywood Reporter:
The WGA demands studios take “immediate legal action” against companies that used writers' work to train AI, in a letter to CEOs of Disney, Netflix, and others

 
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