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Polisi terus mengusut kasus dugaan korupsi pengadaan minyak mentah jenis Zatapi. Kini langkah yang dilakukan terfokus pada pencarian data kerugian negara.

Jebolnya tanggul penahan lumpur Lapindo di titik 42 Desa Renokenongo menyebabkan rumah warga di Dusun Risen tergenang. Jebolnya tanggul itu disebabkan oleh blokade warga yang menghalangi peninggian tanggul di desa tersebut.

Setelah diperiksa Kejaksaan Agung (Kejagung) selama 12 jam sejak pukul 09.50 WIB, akhirnya Yusril Ihza Mahendra keluar pukul 21.45. Yusril dicecar 45 pertanyaan tertulis.

Polisi masih memeriksa Erick Ardiansyah sebagai tersangka untuk kasus penyebaran isu likuiditas perbankan. Tapi ada sinyal kuat bahwa pengembangan kasus akan berhenti hanya sampai pada pegawai PT Bahana Securites tersebut.

Pengacara PT Vista Bella Pratama, Rahman Andit, memenuhi panggilan KPK terkait diperiksanya Dirut perusahaan tersebut. Pemeriksaan itu terkait pembelian PT Timor Putra Nasional (TPN) oleh Vista Bella.

Ribuan penonton memadati stadion Lampung Mangkurat, Banjarmasin, Kalimantan Selatan untuk menyaksikan konser ST12 dan Aura Kasih. Konser tersebut diwarnai aksi penusukan.

Ketegangan terjadi di lokasi tanggul penahan lumpur Lapindo di titik 42 Desa Renokenongo, Selasa (18/11/2008) malam. Ratusan warga korban lumpur saling bersitegang saat BPLS hendak menutup 3 titik tanggul yang jebol.

Sejak GSMA Asia Mobile Congress resmi dibuka hari ini di Macau, China, seluruh operator dan pabrikan dari Asia bakal beradu pandang soal masa depan telekomunikasi.

Relion mengumumkan Adrena3G, sebuah komputer jinjing berbasis Intel Atom. Meski mungil bagaikan Netbook, Relion tak mau produknya ini disebut Netbook.

Sekitar 1.000 demonstran menyerang sebuah markas Partai Komunis lokal di China barat laut.

Beberapa tank Israel menerobos wilayah selatan Jalur Gaza Selasa (18/11) dan disambut oleh tembakan mortir dari milisi Palestina

Konga XXIII-B/UNIFIL merayakan HUT Marinir di di Lapangan Parade Soekarno Base, Markas Konga XXIII-B di UN Posn 7-1 Adshit Al Qusayr, Lebanon.

Aktris Charlize Theron secara resmi melaksanakan tugasnya pada Senin (17/11) sebagai Pembawa Pesan Perdamaian PBB dan bersumpah perangi kekerasan

Kelompok bajak laut menyerang dan menguasai kapal minyak Arab Saudi yang berukuran besar, Sirius Star di Somalia.

Banyak mantan tahanan yang dibebaskan dari pusat tahanan AS di Teluk Guantanamo, Kuba, secara fisik dan kejiwaan mengalami trauma.

Pengadilan Tinggi Perancis membatalkan keputusan yang mengabulkan gugatan pembatalan pernikahan dari seorang pria karena si wanita tidak perawan.

Sosok Raja Arab Saudi Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud selama ini dikenal cukup aktif mendorong penyelesaian damai masalah di Timur Tengah.

Obama dan McCain sepakat untuk mengakhiri pertentangan dan bekerja sama mengatasi persoalan yang dihadapai pemerintahan baru ke depan.

Menlu Irak Hoshiyar Zebari dan Duta Besar AS Ryan Crocker menandatangani perjanjian pertahanan yang mengharuskan AS menarik semua pasukannya dari Irak dalam waktu tiga tahun.

Ribuan penonton memadati stadion Lampung Mangkurat, Banjarmasin, Kalimantan Selatan untuk menyaksikan konser ST12 dan Aura Kasih. Konser tersebut diwarnai aksi penusukan.

Ketika sang istri, Anggraini Kadiman, menggugat cerai dirinya, Tora Sudiro ternyata kerap mengunjungi kompleks perumahan Mieke Amalia. Tora diketahui mengunjungi perumahan tempat Mieke tinggal setiap sebulan sekali.

Presenter Hughes dan suaminya Roy akan dituntut keluarga almarhum Duta. Duta adalah pria yang menagih utang pada pasangan itu. Belum lagi utang dilunasi, Duta meninggal 12 November lalu.

Bergaya saat hamil bukan hal yang sulit. Jangan jadikan perut buncit menjadi penghalang dalam berpenampilan modis. Gaya-gaya seleb ini bisa Anda jadikan inspirasi.

Tak kunjung melahirkan anak pertamanya, penyanyi Ashlee Simpson siap menjalani induksi. Prosedur medis tersebut terpaksa dijalani Ashlee karena sang jabang bayi tak kunjung ingin keluar ke dunia.

Bintang film 'Ku Tunggu Jandamu' Dewi Persik tak terlalu gusar meski diancam akan dituntut Rp 1 triliun mantan orang kepercayaannya. Malah Dewi mengaku siap memberi maaf pada orang yang menuntutnya itu.

Malas berolahraga saat hamil? Sebaiknya tinggalkan kemalasan itu. Sebuah penelitian membuktikan, ternyata olahraga justru membuat perempuan hamil lebih sehat lho.

Amazon has acquired twelve year old Canadian company Abebooks (formerly the Advanced Book Exchange), the companies just announced. AbeBooks is an online marketplace for books focusing on used, rare and out of print titles for sale by independent booksellers - it currently has 110 million books for sale from 13,500 sellers.

The company has been around since 1996 and fills a niche for Amazon in hard-to-find or out-of-print books. Rather than hold its own inventory, it acts as a digital marketplace for established booksellers.

AbeBooks also owns 40 percent of LibraryThing (a social app for keeping track of your books and finding other like-minded book lovers). Whereas Amazon is an investor in Shelfari. Now Amazon will own a piece of both of those competing startups.

AbeBooks CEO Dr. Hannes Blum sent an email out to its booksellers today talking about the acquisition, saying the company would continue to operate as a stand-alone business. The email is below; the press release is here.

Dear Booksellers,

AbeBooks has reached an agreement to be acquired by Amazon.com, Inc. This is a major landmark in the 12-year history of AbeBooks.

AbeBooks will continue to operate as a stand-alone business with all aspects of AbeBooks’ bookseller and customer experience remaining intact. AbeBooks’ headquarters will remain in Victoria, BC, Canada, and our European offices will remain in Dusseldorf, Germany. We will continue to support both our international marketplaces and our domestic marketplace here in Canada. I will continue to lead AbeBooks.

We expect this change to allow AbeBooks to expand its offerings and introduce new features and services to enhance the book buying and selling experience. Amazon is committed to further developing the AbeBooks brand and building upon the success of the past 12 years. This is not the first time AbeBooks has changed hands since being launched in 1996. Hubert Burda Media, a German media company, took a majority shareholding in 2003.

The bookselling community has been a vital component in our success, and we are grateful for your continuing support. We will be happy to answer questions about our new ownership and what the future holds. A bookseller Roundtable will be held on Thursday August 7th at 2:30pm PDT/9:30pm GMT/7:30am AU where I and the Director of Sales & Account Management, Shaun Jamieson, will answer any questions you might have. In addition, the ‘Ask AbeBooks a question’ folder will continue to be available for ongoing questions from the seller community.

We realize this is important news for our community, and we are confident that this acquisition will greatly benefit AbeBooks’ sellers and provide us with many opportunities for future growth.

For more details please see the official release posted today.

Regards,

Dr. Hannes Blum
President and CEO
AbeBooks

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Sascha at PCMag writes a charming little piece on the death of Usenet as a method of discourse and its eventual rebirth as a repository for porn, spam, and pirated warez. He recalls the days of “serious conversations” on 8-bit Atari architecture and the rise and fall of net.manners as more and more n00bs came on to mess up in-depth threads on symbolism in Bob Dylan’s Street Legal.

Is Usenet dead, as Sascha posits? I don’t think so. As long as there are folks who thing a command line is better than a mouse, the original text-only social network will live on. Sure, ISPs will shut down access out of mislaid kiddie porn fears but the real pros know where to go to get their angst-filled, nit-picking, obsessive fix.

In a way inconceivable in today’s Web-fragmented marketplace, Usenet was where you went to talk. Conceived back in the idealistic, non-profit days of the Internet, it was?well, it is, but it mostly was?a series of bulletin boards called “newsgroups” shared by thousands of computers, which traded new messages several times a day.

Read more…

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Throw out that WAP browser on your cell phone. We are quickly approaching a point where a full browser experience is available on our mobile devices. And it is not just the iPhone. A startup called Skyfire is in some respect even further along than Apple in bringing the entire Web to your phone. Its mobile browser lets you slide Web pages around and zoom in like with the mobile version of Safari. But it also supports Flash and Ajax sites. (It does this by offloading most of the heavy lifting to its servers rather than the mobile client). That means you can watch Youtube videos and go to Google Maps right in the mobile browser instead of having to download separate apps. In contrast, the iPhone’s Safari browser still does not support Flash and so to watch a a video you have to launch the separate Youtube app.

As it becomes possible to do more and more inside the mobile browser itself, it raises the question of whether that indeed is the killer app for mobile Web phones. For the most part, you still get a richer experience by downloading a separate single-purpose app to your phone. But efforts like Skyfire’s point to a future where that may no longer be necessary for all but the most sophisticated apps and games.

Skyfire launched on Windows Mobile, but as of today it is also available in a private beta for Nokia phones running Symbian’s S60 operating system. The first 200 TechCrunch readers to sign up for the beta here will get invites (enter invite code: Tcrunch).

I just tried it on a Nokia N95, and watching video in the browser looks great as long as you are connected via WiFi. As 3G networks become a reality, that should change (although I am supposedly on AT&T’s 3G network in New York City, and videos take so long to load that they are basically unwatchable at this point). And I still prefer the speed of the Safari browser overall in terms of responsiveness. But for other mobile platforms, Skyfire is going to give mobile browsers like Opera’s a run for their money. And if Apple ever actually allows another browser on the iPhone, it could add some much needed competition there as well.

The company recently raised $13 million in a series B round from Lightspeed, Matrix, and Trinity. Below is a video demo of Skyfire on Windows Mobile:

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Yahoo is making a number of changes to its default search experience tonight to add more structured data to results. Yelp, Yahoo Local and LinkedIn SearchMonkey widgets are being added to search results automatically, eliminating the need for users to go into the search gallery and add them manually.

SearchMonkey is a key part of Yahoo’s attempts to embrace the semantic web and open standards in general.

With SearchMonkey, site owners create ?applications? for Yahoo search that can be installed by users in the same sense that Facebook applications can be installed. Each application modifies results for a certain URL specification (for example, all reference pages on Wikipedia or product pages on Amazon). Modifications include both changes to the basic elements of a search result (the title and description) and additions such as an image, deep links, and key/value pairs.

Users can also add additional widgets via the Yahoo Search Gallery.

Here?s the Yelp search result example we used in our first post about SearchMonkey:

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Macrumors reports that Apple’s App Store was selling a tethering app compatible with the iPhone (both 3G and EDGE) for a brief period earlier this evening. The $10 application, called NetShare, was developed by Nullriver software, and would be a godsend for many iPhone owners. After going up around 8PM EST to the elation of a lucky few, the application was pulled down around 20 minutes later.

Phone tethering allows users to access the internet from their laptop computers wherever they get service on their cellphone carrier’s data network. The feature is common on many phones with high speed (namely 3G) data access, and has been noticeably absent from iPhones. While 3G is typically slower than most Wi-Fi access points, having internet connectivity on the go is a huge plus for many people - enough so that many carriers charge on the order of $30 a month to enable it.

Users with jailbroken (hacked) iPhones have been able to enable tethering to their phones through a complicated process for some time, but such tethering is prohibited by AT&T’s terms of service. The release of NetShare seemed to indicate (albeit briefly) that AT&T had changed its mind on the matter.

Now, users who try to download the application are told that it is no longer available in their country. So what happened? The app may have snuck past Apple’s approval process - but with reported wait times of weeks (or months) it seems unlikely that anything appears there accidentally. Then again, Apple has been dealing with a massive influx of new applications - they may simply be overwhelmed and are getting sloppy.

It is also possible that the app was supposed to be limited to a few select countries, and was accidentally posted on the US store. Finally, AT&T may have really changed its mind, but it seems unlikely that they’d pass up the chance to tack one more fee on our data plans.

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Tapulous, the company behind Tap Tap Revenge, has announced that the popular iPhone app will hit 1 million installs some time this weekend. The app is the second we’ve heard from to hit the milestone (Facebook reached it last week), and is another testament to the extremely rapid growth some applications have seen on Apple’s newly launched App Store.

Tapulous CEO Bart Decrem says that the application has been downloaded about 900 thousand times since its launch, and expects to hit the 1 million user milestone over the weekend. Tapulous’s iPhone Twitter client Twinkle is significantly less popular, with around 80,000 installs, but it was released after Tap Tap Revenge. Decrem notes that there is a total install base of about 5-6 million iPhones and iPod Touches running the 2.0 firmware (which is compatible with the App Store). With about 1 million downloads, this puts Tapulous applications on around 20% of all devices - a very impressive feat.

One of best features in the original version of the game (which was only available on hacked iPhones) was that users could create tab sheets and play the game with any song in their iPhone’s library. Unfortunately, Apple prohibits any developer from accessing the iPhone’s library with a native application, so Tapulous has been forced to come up with a different way to introduce new content to the game. For the time being they’re offering free downloads of new songs directly through the app, but these songs have all been submitted to the company by indie artists (impressively, 2.5 million songs have been downloaded so far).

As it turns out, a number of record labels have taken notice of Tap Tap Revenge’s quickly growing install base, and are eager to use it as a means of exposing users to new music. Decrem says that the company is in talks with both indie and more well known artists to create a premium package of songs, which will likely be released in the App Store as a separate game for a small fee. Subsequent packages will also likely be released as their own independent games, as Apple does not currently offer a way for developers to sell new content from within an application.

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NBC has launched its online video hub for the 2008 Olympics, which features free on-demand video for over 20 sports. In order to maximize quality, the videos are available as downloads (you can start watching before the download finishes) and will be in “up to HD” quality. Unfortunately, the video downloads will only be available on Windows machines running Windows Media Center - once again Mac users are left in the cold, likely because of DRM issues (and the fact that Lenovo and Microsoft are sponsors).

While the Olympic ceremonies don’t kick off until August 8, NBC has already posted footage of Olympic trials. Once the games begin, NBC expects to have the footage available around 12 hours after each competition (which shouldn’t be too annoying given the time difference).

Microsoft is participating in the partnership, so access to the videos will be integrated into Media Center’s main panel. Users can also visit this TVTonic page, and the content will be available directly from NBCOlympics.com beginning next week. You can read more about the service at the TVTonic blog post here.

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Recently, there’s been a growing wave of startups and products appearing that are bringing 3-D virtual worlds to the browser. These include Vivaty, Google’s Lively project, and the Electric Sheep Co.’s WebFlock. And I’ve seen a few stealth companies working the same vein.

None of these are as fully featured or immersive as Second Life, which requires a separate desktop client download. But it may not matter because a good-enough experience available via standard browsers may eventually qwn Second Life. Linden Lab, which operates Second Life, is working with IBM and others to make virtual worlds interoperable with each other. Still, for the most part, they don’t play nicely with the Web.

Last week I caught Linden Lab founder Philip Rosedale on video at Fortune’s Brainstorm conference in Half Moon Bay, and asked him if Second Life is threatened by browser-based virtual worlds. In the video above, he argues that the browser is not yet ready to deliver the type of experience that you can get in Second Life. He does acknowledge that virtual worlds need to be opened up and standardized. But he doesn’t see the browser as a viable alternative to client-based virtual worlds any time soon.

Is he right, or is he in denial?

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Music and movies may grab the most headlines when it comes to piracy, but many content providers on the web are also having trouble managing their images, which are easy to crop, resize, and copy. Some services, like Attributor, try to monitor and track offending images, but the ultimate solution may well lie in removing the temptation in the first place by offering cheap and easy to find legal images.

Earlier this year, GumGum launched an image licensing platform that was designed to help publishers quickly locate and license images. The site served as a content hub, offering a searchable database of images that could be licensed on a CPM basis or for free alongside an ad.

Unfortunately, every one of GumGum’s images was served as an embeddable Flash widget, which made them both clunky and annoying for publishers, as the images couldn’t be resized or modified. The use of Flash allowed GumGum to include their ads with the images, and also made it harder for people to rip them off (though you could always just take a screenshot). PicApp, a similar image search and licensing platform, uses Flash as well and suffers from the same issues.

Today GumGum has announced a new approach to their licensing platform, and this time, there won’t be any Flash involved. To use the system, users need only include a single line of JavaScript on their page. From there, they can include any image they want using a standard HTML tag. The pricing models will be the same: publishers can either pay a fee based on image impressions, or they can include ads on top of their images. GumGum’s new platform can detect licensed images and overlays the ad on top of it, so there’s no need to use a special widget.

Another key shift in GumGum’s new approach is its decision to stop acting as an image hub - you’ll no longer be able to search through content catalogs to find an image. Instead, GumGum says that it will connect you directly with the content providers, who typically offer their own databases. By taking this approach, GumGum is turning away from the typical consumer and is becoming more of a B2B solution for blogs and sites that frequently rely on licensed images.

GumGum isn’t going to be able to stop image piracy - there’s simply no way to get around the “Print Screen” function without including an annoying watermark. But businesses who can’t afford to be caught up with illegal content may well appreciate GumGum’s new more flexible system, provided the company can make good on its arrangements with content providers. The service has already landed some big customers, including MTV Europe.

In conjunction with the launch of the new platform, GumGum has annouced a Series A funding round of a reported $1.2 million.

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One month after launching its new recommendation system, Digg is already reporting positive results. Digg recommends stories based on other members with similar voting patterns and interests. Chief scientist Anton Kast writes on the Digg Blog:

- Digging activity is up significantly: the total number of Diggs increased 40% after launch.

- The Recommendation Engine is running strong: at any given point in time, the system is generating over 54 Million Recommendations, with the average Digger having nearly 200 Recommendations from an average of 34 ?Diggers like you?.

- Friend activity/friends added is up 24%.

- Commenting is up 11% since launch.

Digg’s recommendation engine takes a Last.fm approach to finding people’s whose tastes overlap with yours and then suggesting stories they’ve Dugg up but that you’ve missed. It is collaborative filtering for news.

As Digg becomes more mainstream, it needs technologies such as this to bring it back to its glory days when everybody was interested in the same niche categories. Social recommendations work best when they are extracted from niche communities who are obsessive about one or two topics. Digg started out as a haven for hardcore techies, but has branched out.

The recommendation system is designed to, in effect, help Diggers carve out their own niche communities again. If you happen to like tech industry news, you will see stories from other like-minded Diggers. If you prefer politics or sports, you’ll get those stories. And if you like a combination, the system will grab recommendations from each appropriate bucket.

At least, that is how it is supposed to work in theory. The recommendations seem decent. But I personally haven’t noticed anything that really strikes home. Over time, it should get better.

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Cinta Laura tak mau setengah-setengah mendalami profesinya sebagai seorang entertainment.

Setelah UU Pornografi di sahkan, maka para pekerja hiburan pun mulai khawatir. Begitu juga dengan Pinkan Mambo terhadap klip terbarunya.

Setelah mengalami kecelakaan Travis Barker dapat dikatakan berhenti menggebuk drum. Namun kini, mantan drumer Blink 182 itu kembali ke studio.

Film bergenre komedi tak selamanya berjalan tanpa tantangan. Buktinya, bagi Adellia Rasya, film terbarunya harus membuat tubuhnya elastis.

Setelah sukses sebagai penyanyi rupanya Beyonce Knowles ngebet untuk bermain film. Kali ini saja ia dambakan peran sebagai gadis Bond.

Club 80’s seperti bukan saja jago dalam bermusik, tetapi mereka juga pandai berakting. Kali ini saja giliran Ytonk yang bermain dalam film layar lebar.

Belakangan ini wajah aktor Lukman Sardi kerap tampil di layar lebar. Seringnya ia tampil, Lukman dikabarkan sedang kejar setoran buat nikah.

Setelah beberapa waktu menggelar pesta pernikahannya dengan gembira. Kini dikabarkan Bunga Cintra Lestari kesal kepada suaminya.

Perasaan Grogi dialami aktris Thalita Latief ketika bermain di film ‘Kawin Kontrak Lagi’. Pasalnya, di film itu ia harus beradegan melepas tali bra.

Sidang kasus dugaan pemakai shabu-shabu yang melibatkan Sheila Marcia memasuki tahap pembacaan tuntutan.