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PC Magazine – A bill introduced Friday by Democrats in Congress would require a federal framework for collecting sales tax from online retailers, essentially providing guidelines for the states.

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Appolicious – I don’t really feel like my Internet reading needs to be more social, but the team at Scribd, the web publishing company, feels a bit differently, as evidenced by its new social reading app Float Reader, for iPhones 3GS and 4 and third- and fourth-gen iPod Touch. I’ve hit my personal limit for social networks, so it’s a good thing that Float is more than a timeline aggregator. My immediate impression of Float was that, although it still needs work, the app offers a solid concept with striking design.

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Mashable – Nova Spivack has several ventures in production that focus on the real-time stream, including Bottlenose (for filtering the stream), StreamGlider (a new mobile stream delivery platform), Live Matrix (the schedule of the live web), and The Daily Dot (a new online daily newspaper about what’s trending online).
The social media landscape is changing quickly, but this change won’t be immediate, or for that matter, efficient. And that’s going to be a big problem for all of us.

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AFP – Indian police have arrested two top officials of Singapore-based online survey company Speak Asia in Mumbai for allegedly duping investors out of $294 million, reports said Saturday.

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Reuters – Cash-strapped states seeking to collect billions in taxes from online transactions gained an ally in Washington on Friday when a senator introduced a bill for a federal solution to the problem.

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AP – AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and four other telecom companies are offering a proposal to overhaul the $8 billion federal phone subsidy program to pay for high-speed Internet connections in rural and other underserved areas.

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Reuters – Yahoo Inc got short-changed — that’s the view of analysts picking apart the complex deal it announced on Friday with Alibaba Group and SoftBank Corp over Chinese e-payments unit Alipay.

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Reuters – Americans took to the phone lines and the Internet on Friday after President Barack Obama urged them again to call lawmakers and weigh in on a war over raising the U.S. debt limit that has sharply divided Congress.

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Reuters – Hackers with the loose-knit group Anonymous said on Friday they had broken into the network of U.S. government contractor Mantech International Corp and posted some NATO-related correspondence online.

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NewsFactor – A new study from AptiQuant suggests there may be a correlation between a web surfer’s browser selection and his or her cognitive abilities. The Vancouver-based psychometric consulting firm based its conclusions on the results of an IQ test it administered online to more than 100,000 English-speaking subjects.

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AP – Yahoo Inc. has settled a dispute tarnishing a key investment in China, but the truce didn’t bring much peace of mind to the embattled Internet company’s disillusioned shareholders.

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AFP – Google has bought more than 1,000 technology patents from IBM as the Internet giant seeks to build up its portfolio and head off potential intellectual property suits.

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AFP – A group of 25 ordinary citizens on Friday presented to Iceland’s parliamentary speaker a new constitution draft, which they compiled with the help of hundreds of others who chipped in online.

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AFP – Japan on Friday denied that a government project to monitor online news reports and Twitter posts about the Fukushima nuclear crisis was an attempt to censor negative information and views.

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Reuters – Rovi Corp sued Hulu, accusing the online video site of infringing patents that cover electronic program guides.

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Mashable – Icelanders on Friday delivered what may set the template for other governments: a crowdsourced constitution.
A group of 25 citizens presented a draft of the constitution to Iceland’s parliament. The group, which is made up of ordinary residents, compiled the document online with the help of hundreds of others. The constitution council posted the first draft in April on its website and then let citizens comment via a Facebook Page. The council members are also active on Twitter, post videos of themselves on YouTube and put pictures on Flickr.

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AFP – US Internet firm Yahoo! and Japan’s SoftBank said Friday they had reached agreement with their Chinese partners at Alibaba Group in a dispute over online payments platform Alipay.

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AP – At a weekend conference for online video, one might expect cute puppies or unlucky skateboarders to be in attendance. Perhaps a “Twilight” cast member or Rebecca Black would be there?

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Mashable – Google has optimized its search experience to better serve iPad and Android tablet users.
The new interface refinements align with some of the other changes Google has been making to its products like Gmail and Google+.

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Appolicious – Google is facing at least six lawsuits regarding its use of Java source code behind its Android OS, and while it faces Oracle in court, the search engine behemoth is bulking up its patent portfolio. So when a batch of patents from IBM became available, Google snapped them up. The deal came weeks after Google lost out on the Nortel patents, as its rivals came together to outbid Google’s efforts to add more patents to their books. …

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PC Magazine – A search engine optimization company is selling Google ‘plus one’ votes by the bundle.

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Mashable – A recent study links intelligence test results with browser usage — and the results don’t look good for users of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, especially its older versions.
The study, titled “Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and Browser Usage” by Canadian company AptiQuant, compiled IQ test scores of 101,326 individuals older than the age of 16 and divided them into groups according to the browser they use.

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Reuters – Hemlines are a little longer at this year’s annual online gaming fair in Shanghai, as companies take to heart a government directive against “vulgarity,” a Chinese newspaper reported on Friday.

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AP – The debt ceiling battle could produce an unlikely winner: smartphone users.

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NewsFactor – After rising like a rocket, is Google+ sinking like a stone? The Facebook-envying Google’s latest foray into social media had a good month since its June 28 launch, with an estimated 10 million users signing up in the first three weeks. But Experian Hitwise, which tracks Internet trends, believes visits to the site fell three percent to 1.79 million in the week ending July 23.

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Mashable – In response to user feedback, Google has launched a new section of the Google+ center dedicated to Google+ feature updates.
The “What’s new in Google+” section is essentially a list of release notes for the Google+ Project. The updates are smaller than Google’s traditional blog posts, but longer than most of its Help Center pages. It’s a centralized location for finding out what new features Google has added to its social network.

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Reuters – Online travel agency Expedia Inc said its quarterly net profit rose as bookings increased by 19 percent.

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NewsFactor – Sprint Nextel reported a loss in its second-quarter earnings Thursday, but the wireless carrier hopes investors will pay more attention to a new deal for wireless 4G broadband.

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Reuters – AMC on Thursday announced AMC Digital Studios, a new online division that will introduce Web shows from new and developing filmmakers.

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Reuters – Amazon.com unveiled its latest video streaming deal on Thursday as the world’s largest Internet retailer adds more digital content ahead of the expected launch of a new tablet computer later this year.

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Reuters – Major Hollywood studios won a test case against Britain’s largest internet provider in the High Court on Thursday in their fight against online piracy, the Press Association reported.

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Reuters – Alibaba Group launched its first self-developed mobile operating system and smartphone on Thursday in a bid to capture a slice of China’s rapidly growing mobile Internet market.

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AP – The personal information of about 35 million Internet users in South Korea was stolen in an alleged hacking attack that originated in China, officials said Thursday.

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AP – Sony Corp. sank to a 15.5 billion yen ($199 million) quarterly loss, hurt by the disasters in northeastern Japan, a massive online security breach and plunging TV prices.

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AFP – Hackers using an Internet address registered in China have gained access to major South Korean websites and may have stolen the private information of 35 million users, authorities said Thursday.

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Reuters – South Korea’ communications regulator said Thursday hackers from China had attacked an Internet portal and blogging site operated by SK Comms, accessing the personal information of up to 35 million users in what could be the country’s biggest cyber attack so far.

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Reuters – Google Inc said the Department of Justice has asked for more information regarding its acquisition of online advertising company AdMeld.

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AP – Federal regulators are seeking more information about Internet search leader Google’s proposed purchase of digital advertising company Admeld.

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Reuters – The Sundance Institute is moving aggressively to help its filmmakers with independent online distribution, expanding its Artist Services Initiative to include partnerships with iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu, Netflix, SundanceNOW and YouTube.

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Mashable – Nate Elliott is Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, where he helps interactive marketers around the world develop the strategies and tactics that make them successful, and then helps them measure the results. You can follow him on Twitter at @nate_elliott.
Last year, American consumers posted more than a billion opinions about products and services online, according to data collected by my company. With peer influence playing such a prominent role in consumers’ purchase decisions, it’s no surprise many interactive marketers are tapping into that influence via viral marketing programs and influencer outreach.

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Mashable – Nate Elliott is Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, where he helps interactive marketers around the world develop the strategies and tactics that make them successful, and then helps them measure the results. You can follow him on Twitter at @nate_elliott.
Last year, American consumers posted more than a billion opinions about products and services online, according to data collected by my company. With peer influence playing such a prominent role in consumers’ purchase decisions, it’s no surprise many interactive marketers are tapping into that influence via viral marketing programs and influencer outreach.

[Read more →]

NewsFactor – British police said Wednesday they arrested a suspected member of the cyberhacker groups LulzSec and Anonymous. The e-crime unit of the U.K.’s Metropolitan Police Service believes the young man now in Scotland Yard custody most recently served as the group spokesperson for LulzSec, using the online nickname Topiary.

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NewsFactor – British police said Wednesday they arrested a suspected member of the cyberhacker groups LulzSec and Anonymous. The e-crime unit of the U.K.’s Metropolitan Police Service believes the young man now in Scotland Yard custody most recently served as the group spokesperson for LulzSec, using the online nickname Topiary.

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AP – Are people really cancelling cable to watch TV and movies from the Internet instead?

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Reuters – Amazon.com Inc will use its surging revenue to boost growth and drive expansion into areas such as Web content and cloud computing rather than boost its margins.

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AP – An unemployed truck driver was charged Wednesday with hacking into an Australian broadband network provider in an alleged crime that police say could have caused significant damage to the national Internet infrastructure.

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PC Magazine – Future version of the Chrome Web browser will respect Mac OS X Lion’s multitouch gestures and more.

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Mashable – Scotland Yard says it has arrested a teenager accused of being the voice of LulzSec, the loose group of hackers behind some recent, notable site takedowns.
A 19-year-old who used the online name Topiary was arrested in Scotland, Scotland Yard said Wednesday. He faces charges for cybercrime, hacking and network intrusions, according to reports.

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Mashable – Scotland Yard says it has arrested a teenager accused of being the voice of LulzSec, the loose group of hackers behind some recent, notable site takedowns.
A 19-year-old who used the online name Topiary was arrested in Scotland, Scotland Yard said Wednesday. He faces charges for cybercrime, hacking and network intrusions, according to reports.

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Reuters – When 21-year-old Zhang, an average student in college, got set for the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) in Beijing this year, she felt so unprepared that she skipped the exam entirely.

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