Thursday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Google’s Schmidt Explains Ranking Results To Publishers; Hint: Not The Answer They Wanted

Newspaper publishers eager to have their results show up as more authoritative than others got a lesson in ranking results from Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt, who told them Google News already does that.

- Google Insists It’s a Friend to Newspapers - NYTimes

Newspaper publishers do not want to cut off the traffic they get from Google’s search and news services and from other search engines. It is technologically simple for any newspaper Web site to keep content off Google and Google News, but few if any newspapers have chosen to do that.

Harris: Venture capitalists feeling less gloomy - SiliconValley.com

"On the one hand, it's like a Roach Motel: There's no exit market, so money comes in but it can't get out," Shomit Ghose of Onset Ventures told Cannice. "On the other hand, innovation and entrepreneurship continue to barrel along in sixth gear: There's a lot of disruptive investing opportunities out there."

Boston Globe Surprised by Size of Demand for Cuts - NYTimes.com

...employees reacted with a mix of resignation and anger Wednesday on learning of the pay and benefit cuts and the lost job security that The New York Times Company wants them to accept...

Applied Materials' $1.9 billion solar panel deal trimmed back to $250 million - SiliconValley.com

...believed to be one of the biggest such agreements ever signed — has been trimmed back to just $250 million because of the soured economy.

Why Facebook and Twitter are glad they're getting older | Technically Incorrect - CNET News

In just the last two months, the number of Facebook members over 35 has doubled. And the biggest demographic grouping isn't 12-18. It's 35 to 44.

Does AP know how its YouTube channel works? | Digital Media - CNET News

The AP recently sent a letter to WTNQ-FM in Tennessee--an affiliate of the Associated Press, by the way--accusing the country music radio station of copyright violation for embedding videos from the AP's official YouTube channel on its Web site...

- Google releases upgrade to its App Engine -MercuryNews.com

In the new platform, developers will be able to write their programs in Java and deploy them directly to the Web using the Google Web Toolkit. And they will be able to move those programs more easily to other application servers.

- O'Brien: Venture capital needs transparency, not regulations -Siliconvalley.com

Venture capital remains way too clubby and secretive. That's out of step with the times. We are living in the age of transparency, where businesses and governments of all stripes are going to be pushed to accept that sharing more information is crucial to building and maintaining trust. I'm not sure VCs get that.

- WiMax coming to the Valley -MercuryNews.com

WiMax has been partly bankrolled by Intel and Google. And in an effort to jumpstart WiMax in Silicon Valley, the Intel and Google corporate campuses will get access to a limited version of the system covering about 20 square miles beginning in late summer.

- Will Wright to leave Electronic Arts -AP

Wright, 49, co-founded Maxis Software in 1989, and Electronic Arts bought it eight years later. He is behind some of the game company's biggest hits, most notably "The Sims," hailed as the best-selling PC game of all time, with more than 100 million units sold around the world.

- Patent suit targets Apple's multi-touch technology - SFGate

Elan, known for providing touch-pads on Asustek Eee PCs, has been down this road with touch-pad maker Synaptics of Santa Clara. The two signed a cross licensing agreement last year after Elan reportedly won an early preliminary injunction.

- Lost in the Real World, Found via Cyberspace

The Internet may allow bad guys to stalk people or steal their identities. But it also makes it easier to give something back, because of sites and tools that can help people reunite strangers with lost valuables like wallets, cellphones and cameras.

- Time Warner Cable Profits Will Grow With Broadband Caps -NYTimes

...the question of what is “fair” is somewhat more abstract than just saying someone who uses more should pay more. After all, people who watch more hours of cable television don’t pay more than those who don’t.

- Cable's answer to online's ad success: targeting -AP

Cable TV operators are taking a page from online advertising behemoths like Google Inc. (GOOG) to bring these so-called "addressable" ads onto the television.

- Cal team uses puppets to demystify nanotech -SFGate

The arcane world of nanotechnology has a chance to become transparently clear to the uninitiated, thanks to a troupe of UC Berkeley science and engineering researchers who in song and puppetology explain it all in a video that has won a national award from the American Chemical Society.

- Era of personalised medicine awaits -BBC

Complete Genomics has published its first genome, in what is called a proof of concept trial, and now plans to scale up its sequencing programme.

- Dashboards meet the 21st century -msnbc.com

LCD displays that can show any image or information the car’s computer can conjure are beginning to appear in some new models, and the first car with a video-only instrument panel is due to debut later this year.

- YouTube's Fred is first online video star to break 1M subscribers =LATimes

YouTube's Fred Figglehorn, the screechy, chipmunk-voiced Internet star, has become the first person in the history of online video to amass 1 million subscribers.