Top Items:
Jeff Clavier / Jeff Clavier's Software Only:
AOL acquires Userplane to expand AIM network — A brief interruption of my holiday schedule to announce a great news: portfolio co Userplane has been acquired by AOL LLC a couple of weeks ago, and I just heard that the official press release is now up there.
RELATED ITEMS:
Black Voices:
AOL Acquires Userplane — Company's Industry-Leading Web-Based Chat & Instant Messaging Services Will Expand the AIM Network, Serve Social Networking Audiences and Emerging Online Communities — AOL LLC today announced that is has acquired Userplane (http://www.userplane.com) of Los Angeles …
Microsoft:
Microsoft Invites the World to Create Its Own Xbox 360 Console Games for the First Time — More than 10 esteemed universities to add XNA Game Studio Express and Xbox 360 game development into their curricula starting this fall. — In the 30 years of video game development …
RELATED ITEMS:
Todd Bishop / Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
Software Notebook: Xbox offers do-it-yourself games — ONE OF THE HOTTEST online trends is to get people to create and contribute their own material — things like reviews, photos and videos. — But will user-generated content work for video games? Microsoft plans to find out.
Ken Belson / New York Times:
Verizon Is Rewiring New York, Block by Block, in a Race for Survival — It's 9 in the morning, and a team from Verizon has been stringing fiber optic cable along a residential side street in the Bronx for three hours. In a basket about 20 feet in the air, James DeMattia guides the cable …
Discussion:
Techdirt, VoIP & Gadgets Blog, Mark Evans, CNNMoney.com, TechEffect and broadbandreports.com
Ouriel Ohayon / TechCrunch:
Netvibes secures a $15 million investment — NetVibes, a Paris/London based company, will announce a $15 million round of financing on Monday. Index Venture (which is a prior investor) and Accel ventures lead the investment operation which certainly is one of the largest in European internet this year …
RELATED ITEMS:
Matt Marshall / SiliconBeat:
NetVibes, the slick "homepage" company, raises $15 million — NetVibes, the Paris based company that lets you personalize your home page with cool little modules that you can drag across the screen, has raised $15 million in more financing. — If you go there and play …
Discussion:
paidContent.org
Damon Darlin / New York Times:
Dell Recalls Batteries Because of Fire Threat — Dell is recalling 4.1 million notebook computer batteries because they could erupt in flames, the company said today. This will be the largest safety recall in the history of the consumer electronics industry, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said.
Guy Kawasaki / Signum sine tinnitu:
Everything You Wanted to Know About Getting a Job in Silicon Valley But Didn't Know Who to Ask — Many people ask me for advice about getting a job in Silicon Valley, so here's the inside scoop. Not everyone will agree with this advice, and some will outright deny what I'm saying …
Discussion:
Chris Pirillo, Good Morning Silicon Valley, Search Engine Journal, Lifehacker, Andrew Lark, The Bb Gun, ben barren and digg
Caroline McCarthy / CNET News.com:
Microsoft blogging software available in beta — Microsoft has released a beta version of Windows Live Writer, a new blogging software designed for users with no HTML skills. — Most blog-authoring services—including Blogger, LiveJournal and WordPress—assume a bit of HTML knowledge on the part of users.
RELATED ITEMS:
Marshall Kirkpatrick / TechCrunch:
Browster 2.0 makes MySpace easier to use — Browser plug in Browster released version 2.0 of its product this weekend and is aiming to make MySpace profiles easier to view. A Windows download for IE and Firefox, Browster preloads pages from search results and provides a live minibrowser when inserted lightning bolts are hovered over.
USA Today:
HSN to offer point and shop by TV remote — See something you like on Home Shopping Network? Point your remote at the TV. Hit "select." And buy, buy, buy! — At least, that's what HSN (IACI) hopes its viewers will do. — On Monday, HSN is announcing the nation's first shop-by-remote system for digital TV customers.
Marguerite Reardon / ZDNet:
Verizon adds multiroom DVR — Verizon Communications plans to offer a digital video recorder that allows its TV customers to watch recorded programs on multiple TVs in any room in the house, the company said Monday. — The new multiroom DVR, made by Motorola, lets customers view recorded programs on up to three televisions at once.
Jeremy Toeman / LIVEdigitally:
10 Tips on Maximizing Laptop Battery Performance — I am on the planes a decent amount of the time (100,000 miles by late May) and tend to spend a chunk of my flights using my laptop. Most of the time it's productive, but it can also include a DVD or the occasional game …
Nicole Girard / CNET News.com:
Second Lifers get first look at new hotel chain — Avatars looking for a stylish place to mingle and get a cocktail will soon be able to check out a trendy new hotel—months before their fleshy counterparts. — Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, which oversees such well-known hotel brands as Sheraton …
John Naughton / Observer:
Websites that changed the world — Amazon used to be a large river in South America - but that was before the world wide web. This month the web is 15 years old and in that short time it has revolutionised the way we live, from shopping to booking flights, writing blogs to listening to music.
