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8:50 PM ET, August 4, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Microsoft Responds To Google's Response To Microsoft's Response  —  If you thought that Microsoft and Google, two massive public companies, would quickly and quietly retire behind the scenes to continue their fight after their very public back-and-forth over the past couple of days, you'd be wrong.
RELATED:
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Google Threw A Punch, Microsoft Fires Back With A Missile  —  Earlier today, Google came out swinging.  Seemingly sick of being continuously slapped in the face by the patent issue, Google's SVP and Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond, wrote a blog post calling out several of Google's rivals …
Jay Yarow / The Business Insider:
Google Fires Back At Microsoft, Both Companies Are Looking Lame Right Now  —  Google has fired back in its war of words with Microsoft.  —  If you missed it yesterday, Google accused Microsoft of participating in a hostile campaign against Android using bogus patents.
Mary Branscombe / TechRadar.com:
How Microsoft makes money from Android
Discussion: Electronista
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Google: Patently Absurd
Maciek Nowakowski / Gmail Blog:
New in Labs: Preview Pane  —  When I check my email, I often rely on the message snippets to figure out which messages to open first.  Sometimes, though, I want to see more than snippets, which is why I'm happy to announce that you can now preview messages in your inbox using a new feature in Gmail Labs called Preview Pane.
Seth Weintraub / 9to5Mac:
Jailbreak hotspot-ers: AT&T is moving you to a tiered data plan involuntarily  —  We've gotten word from some readers that AT&T is moving forward and removing unlimited plans for users who jailbreak iPhones to tether or hotspot off of AT&T's unlimited data plans (for those grandfathered):
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
LinkedIn Beats The Street In First Quarter As A Public Company; Revenue Up 120 Percent To $121M  —  For the first time as a public company, professional social network LinkedIn is reporting its first quarter results today.  LinkedIn's revenue for the quarter came in at $121 million …
RELATED:
Bing:
Mall Maps and Map Search come to Bing for Mobile  —  Today, we're happy to announce that we have added mall maps and map search to Bing for Mobile Browse.  You may recall that we initially announced mall maps for the desktop last December.  Since then we've been listening to your feedback …
Jack Purcher / Patently Apple:
Apple's Inductive Charging Patent Finally Surfaces  —  On August 4, 2011, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals two specific concepts of an “Inductive Charging System” for use with iOS devices.  The first concept involves an oddly designed charging tower.
Neil Hughes / AppleInsider:
Apple takes aim at copycat fake retail stores with new lawsuit  —  After a number of fake Apple retail stores in China gained publicity online, Apple appears to have taken legal action, undoubtedly looking to shut down the counterfeit locations designed to look like its own operations.
Julie M / Groublogpon:
We call it Grouptiva (Groupon Acquires Obtiva)  —  Today, Groupon is announcing that it is acquiring Obtiva (www.obtiva.com) the largest Ruby on Rails software development firm in Chicago.  —  We've been working side-by-side with our Obtiva colleagues since way back in 2009, when Groupon had a handful of engineers.
Discussion: AllThingsD and TechCrunch
Mark Douglas / The Big Blog:
Skype 2.1 for Android enables video on majority of Android devices  —  We promised to add support for additional handsets when we launched our new Skype for Android app with video a couple of weeks ago.  Today we are pleased to announce that with the release of Skype 2.1 for Android …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Security researchers hack Google's Chrome OS  —  When Google first started talking about its Google Chrome OS software a few years ago, one of the selling points was the promise that it would come with much better built-in security than other operating systems.
Discussion: BGR, Inquirer and ITProPortal
RELATED:
Andy Greenberg / The Firewall:
Researcher Announces N00ter, A Tool For Catching Net Neutrality Cheats
Discussion: TechCrunch, Thanks:jasonsknife
Seth Weintraub / 9to5Mac:
Lion USB sticks now available for $69 through AppleCare, free to some  —  Our good friends in Applecare alerted us to the fact that Lion USB keys were now available and in stock at Apple.  While officially they will cost a lofty $69, it appears, at least from the wording above …
Bloomberg:
Sony's Debut of PlayStation Vita Player in U.S., Europe to Miss Christmas  —  Sony Corp. (6758) plans to begin sales of the PlayStation Vita portable player in the U.S. and Europe next year, missing the key Christmas-holiday shopping season.  —  The product will initially launch in Japan …
Zephoria / danah boyd:
“Real Names” Policies Are an Abuse of Power  —  Everyone's abuzz with the “nymwars,” mostly in response to Google Plus' decision to enforce its “real names” policy.  At first, Google Plus went on a deleting spree, killing off accounts that violated its policy.
John Paczkowski / AllThingsD:
iPhone 5, “Simplified iPhone 4” Headed to China Telecom in October?  —  If Apple hasn't yet signed an agreement to bring the iPhone to China Telecom, it must be very close to doing so.  In July, Reuters reported that long-running discussions between the two companies were moving toward a deal …
Jim Dalrymple / The Loop:
Apple No. 1 in worldwide smartphone shipments  —  Market research firm IDC on Thursday released its worldwide smartphone market numbers for the second quarter of 2011 and Apple is in the lead.  —  “The smartphone market crowned a new leader in 2Q11, and its name is Apple,” said Ramon Llamas …
Kay Kremerskothen / Flickr Blog:
6,000,000,000  —  The beautiful Montbretia flower photo shown here is our 6 billionth photo!  It was uploaded Monday by eon60.  —  Over the last 5 years uploads have been increasing 20% year-over-year and we love hitting a milestone like this.  It's the ability to wander through the titles …
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Warner Bros. Pulls Back the Curtain on Flixster Collections, Its Ambitious Digital Video Bet  —  Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes spent a lot of yesterday's earnings call discussing the company's future in digital video.  Here's one of his focal points: Flixster Collections …
Ina Fried / AllThingsD:
New iPhone App Provides a Glimpse of the Moments Before a Photo is Taken  —  Though there are plenty of apps for sharing still pictures taken on an iPhone, a three-person start-up is hoping to carve a niche with a program that captures not only a still picture but the several seconds of video that preceded the picture's taking.
Discussion: Mashable!, TechCrunch and MacRumors
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Twitter to open source Hadoop-like tool  —  Attention webscale aficionados, Twitter says it is planning to open source Storm, its Hadoop-like real-time data processing tool.  In a blog post Thursday, the microblogging network said it plans to release the Storm code on Sept. 19 at the Strange Loop event in St. Louis, Mo.
Discussion: Twitter Engineering
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Will Apple discontinue the Magic Mouse in favor of the Magic Trackpad?  —  Cult of Mac claims that a previously reliable source told them that Magic Mouse inventory is not being replenished at Apple Stores.  From this, they say that the Magic Mouse will soon be discontinued.
Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:
Study: Android is least open of open source mobile platforms  —  Market research firm VisionMobile has published a report that evaluates the openness of eight major open source software projects.  The study—which was partly funded by the European Union—focuses largely on open governance …
Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:
Google News gets a new human touch, launching publisher-curated Editors' Picks as a standing section  —  When Google News launched in 2002, it did so with some declarations: “This page was generated entirely by computer algorithms without human editors.”  And: “No humans were harmed or even used in the creation of this page.”
 
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 More Items: 
Hiten Shah / The KISSmetrics Marketing Blog:
Official KISSmetrics Response to Data Collection Practices
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
comScore: Android Keeps Gobbling Up Smartphone Share, Now 40 Percent
Bloomberg:
Hacker ‘Armageddon’ Forces Symantec, McAfee to Seek Fixes
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Pirate Pays Up: Warner Music Cashes $12 Million LimeWire Check
Alex Sirota / Yahoo! Developer Network:
Introducing Yahoo! WebPlayer
 Earlier Items: 
Kevin Michaluk / CrackBerry.com blogs:
Do Not Panic PlayBook owners... Android App Player still looking to be on schedule
Discussion: Electronista
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Meltwater Acquires Mark Cuban-Backed Realtime Search Engine IceRocket
Eliot Van Buskirk / Evolver.fm:
Former Google Engineer Builds Turntable.fm Clone: Rolling.fm
Discussion: Techdirt, Geek.com and Pulse2
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
FYI Google, Facebook's Former CTO Says It Would Take Two Years For ~250 People To Build A Clone
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Jessica Toonkel / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Paramount Global's board is considering replacing CEO Bob Bakish with an “Office of the CEO” made up of division heads on an interim basis

Andrew Marchand / The Athletic:
Sources: Amazon Prime Video has a framework deal for NBA broadcast rights for at least a decade, starting in 2025-26; ESPN/ABC is expected to keep the finals

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
Memo: CNN's Poppy Harlow is leaving the network; she joined in 2008 and most recently co-hosted CNN This Morning, which was effectively canceled earlier in 2024

 
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