Saul Hansell, the veteran technology reporter and columnist for The York Times has left the paper to join AOL's new "Seed" unit, a mostly automated news site. 

The site been getting some mixed notices lately from some media watchers.

Saul is the first "live" journalist to join the new venture.  He shares the news on his personal blog.

He created and edited Bits, the technology blog of The New York Times. I interviewed him when the site launched two years ago.

Great catch for AOL, but big loss for The Times.

We first heard Saul leaving the Times on the Silicon Alley Insider and about his new gig from Ken Li's Tweet.

Andy Plesser, Executive Producer