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9:10 PM ET, June 20, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Dropbox Security Bug Made Passwords Optional For Four Hours  —  This morning a post on Pastebin outlined a serious security issue that was spotted at Dropbox: for a brief period of time, the service allowed users to log into accounts using any password.  In other words, you could log …
Discussion: Geek.com and Pastebin
RELATED:
Arash Ferdowsi / The Dropbox Blog:
Yesterday's Authentication Bug  —  Yesterday we made a code update at 1:54pm Pacific time that introduced a bug affecting our authentication mechanism.  We discovered this at 5:41pm and a fix was live at 5:46pm.  A very small number of users (much less than 1 percent) logged in during that period …
Fred Oliveira / @f:   the fact that @dropbox only mentioned their authentication incident (affecting everyone) after the press picked up on it is disappointing.
Kellex / Droid Life:
Exclusive: Tiered Data Plans Headed to Verizon July 7, Packages Start at $30 for 2GB  —  We knew that July 7 was going to mark the beginning of something after Verizon extended out the free 4G hotspot promo one more time to the 6th, but what we weren't 100% sure of was if it would have to do with tiered data.
Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:
Caterina Fake Raising $2M for New Social Start-Up  —  Caterina Fake, co-founder of Flickr and Hunch and an investor in companies like Etsy, has a new start-up that she says will be consumer-facing and social.  —  She's raising what looks like a $2 million round, according to an SEC filing …
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb
RELATED:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Why We Often Blindside Companies
Omar Shahine / The Windows Blog:
Introducing SkyDrive for the modern web, built using HTML5  —  We're committed to making SkyDrive the best place to get access to your content from anywhere, collaborate on Office docs, and share photos.  Mike recently talked about how we're delivering access to your information seamlessly across devices - starting with Windows Phone.
Foursquare Blog:
Wow!  The foursquare community has over 10,000,000 members!  —  And, to commemorate this pretty crazy occasion, we put together a little infographic.  Be sure to click through to see it bigger; if you're anything like us, watching the full-size animated map puts butterflies in your tummy.
RELATED:
Frederic Lardinois / @fredericl:   good for 4sq that they managed to register 10 million accounts. But that number is meaningless. How many are active? http://shrty.us/kgTwTp
John Paczkowski / AllThingsD:
Consumers Don't Want Tablets, They Want iPads  —  A theory: Though consumers desire the iPad for the functions it performs, they want it more for what it is.  Just as many preferred the iPod to the generic MP3 player, so too do they prefer the iPad to the generic “tablet.”
Kashmir Hill / The Not-So Private Parts:
Now Your Embarrassing/Job-Threatening Facebook Photos Could Haunt You For Seven Years  —  These privacy sunglasses are seeming like more of a necessity  —  Last week, the Federal Trade Commission gave a stamp of approval to a background check company that screens job applicants based on their Internet photos and postings.
CircleID:
New Top-Level Domains Approved by ICANN  —  The Board of ICANN today gave final approval to the most dramatic change to the Internet in four decades — allowing the expansion of new Top-Level Domains (TLDs).  This monumental decision will allow companies and organizations to turn their own brands …
RELATED:
Jordan Golson / MacRumors:
If You Use All Your iCloud Storage, Apple Sends You This Email  —  A reader sent us this email he received from the “MobileMe Quota Service”, informing that he was using 4.2GB of his 5GB of free iCloud storage.  —  The email notes that once the storage is full, iOS devices will no longer …
Discussion: The Next Web and TUAW
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Revealed: Facebook's music plans involve Spotify, others  —  For the past few months, I have been hearing about Facebook and Spotify getting a lot closer as companies, with a much tighter integration between the two services.  However, Facebook's musical ambitions go beyond Spotify and include other music services and applications.
Joanna Stern / This is my next:
Android Honeycomb 3.2 coming this summer, will support 7-inch screens, Qualcomm processors  —  This morning Huawei announced its new 7-inch MediaPad, claiming it was the world's first Android 3.2 tablet.  The slab has a nice array of specs to be sure — an IPS display, dual-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm processor …
RELATED:
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Hulu Plays Along With Apple's New Rules.  Who's Next?  —  Apple's new subscription rules could have posed a problem for services like Hulu.  But when Steve Jobs changed his mind earlier this month, life got a lot easier.  —  Here's the old version of the Hulu Plus subscription app for the iPad:
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
‘Reminder: Call Dad’ Is Another Notch In Google's Belt Of Social Fail  —  Google, Google, Google ... I don't know if it's that you just don't understand the intricacies of interpersonal relationships or if getting the social stuff right is just extremely difficult ...
Matt Rosoff / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:
THEY STILL EXIST: Startups That Survived The Dot-Com Bust And Are Ready To Cash In On The New Boom  —  Pandora's recent IPO is a good reminder that the tech industry is sometimes a game of attrition.  —  The company was founded in 1999 and struggled for years — founder Tim Westergren went through …
Charles Newark-French / Flurry:
Mobile Apps Put the Web in Their Rear-view Mirror  —  Although the Internet entered the mainstream a mere 15 years ago, life without it today is nearly incomprehensible.  And our use of the web has rapidly changed as well.  In simple terms, it has evolved from online directories (Yahoo!) …
Jonathan S. Geller / BGR:
RIM is black-burying carriers with half-baked BlackBerrys  —  Launching new products is always difficult.  Launching new products with hundreds of different carriers is exponentially more difficult.  Apparently there is an easy way and a hard way to do things, however, and RIM has been making carriers offers they can't refuse.
Thea / Groublogpon:
The Groupon Guide to the “Quiet Period”  —  At the bottom of each Daily Groupon feature, users can find Groupon the Cat, slouching majestically across a cloud of pure wisdom.  Groupon dispenses ancient truisms that still have relevance to our modern lives, as evidenced by today's entry:
Jack Purcher / Patently Apple:
Apple Officially Acquires “AirDrop” & Files for “Photo Stream” Trademark in Canada  —  On June 17, 2011, the US Patent & Trademark Office published documentation relating to the legal transfer of the “Airdrop” trademark from Urban Airship to Apple.  Urban Airship was only granted their certificate …
Rick Osterloh / The Big Blog:
Skype Gets More Social with Deeper Facebook Integration  —  We are excited to announce the new Skype 5.5 Beta version for Windows, which enhances the user experience and features new updates to Skype based on user feedback.  Skype is also continuing to bring people together whenever …
David Kocieniewski / New York Times:
Companies Push for Tax Break on Foreign Cash  —  Some of the nation's largest corporations have amassed vast profits outside the country and are pressing Congress and the Obama administration for a tax break to bring the money home.  —  Apple has $12 billion waiting offshore, Google has $17 billion and Microsoft, $29 billion.
Discussion: The Microsoft Blog
Jesus Diaz / Gizmodo:
Lulzsec and Anonymous Declare Open War Against All Governments and Fat Cats  —  Lulzsec and Anonymous have just declared full open war against all governments, banks and big corporations in the world.  They are calling all hackers in the world to unite.  Their objective is to fully expose all corruption and dark secrets:
Kevin C. Tofel / GigaOM:
Seesmic dumps BlackBerry: Start of a stampede?  —  Seesmic, a popular third-party Twitter client for desktop and mobile devices, today announced it would end support for BlackBerry handsets at the end of June.  In a blog post today, the company shared the news, saying the reason for the decision is …
Dieter Bohn / This is my next:
Nokia N9 Lankku leaks out in images and renders  —  If you're among those waiting for Nokia to lay down a proper MeeGo powered phone, take a good long look at the two images above.  On the left, one of two renders Pocketnow identifies as press images of the Nokia N9, a replacement for the likely-canceled N9-00.
 
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 More Items: 
Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:
What's Really Going on With Facebook's Mobile Plans? An Explainer for the Rest of Us.
Discussion: digiday:DAILY and Tech and China
Gautham Nagesh / Hillicon Valley:
FCC to fight ‘cramming’ on phone bills
Thanks:stiffjab
Fred / A VC:
Financing Options: Customers
Brian / Uber Blog:
Uber Drops Fares 50% For SF Taxi Strike
Discussion: TechCrunch and @marshallk
David Kravets / Threat Level:
Righthaven Loss: Judge Rules Reposting Entire Article Is Fair Use
Erica Ogg / CNET News:
Hackers claim 177K e-mails from Sony Pictures France
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Google To FCC: Stop Letting The Voice Network Tail Wag The Internet Dog
Paul Thurrott / Windows Phone Secrets:
Microsoft is porting Zune HD apps to Windows Phone
 Earlier Items: 
Dana Wollman / Engadget:
HP TouchPad goes up for pre-order starting at $500, will be available July 1
Discussion: ZDNet
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Meet The First Indie Publisher To Sell A Million Kindle Books
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:
The Android Market: 'It's a loud, obnoxious baby'
Discussion: The Next Web, Electronista and Gizmodo
Miguel Bustillo / Wall Street Journal:
Best Buy Battles Over Use of ‘Geek’
Dave Zatz / Zatz Not Funny!:
TiVo iPhone & Android Apps Coming “Soon”
 

 
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

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
Warner Bros. Discovery has decided not to renew its deal for new episodes of Sesame Street, though it will continue licensing library episodes through 2027

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

 
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