Top Items:
Richard MacManus / Read/WriteWeb:
Windows Live Contacts Beta Launched — Today George Moore, GM of Windows Live, announced the Windows Live Contacts Gadget beta at the Microsoft TechEd 2006 conference, in Auckland New Zealand (I'm here at the conference courtesy of Microsoft NZ). Live Contacts provides programmatic access …
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Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
Is Microsoft really the largest blog vendor? — Microsofties take it on face value that they host the most blogs. They even love shoving it in your face. Yesterday someone who works on the Windows Live team was taunting me with "influentials don't matter, we got to be #1 and we don't care …
Discussion:
Guardian Unlimited, Labnotes, UMBC eBiquity, duncanriley.com and The Blogging Journalist
Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
Scoble says half of all Live Spaces aren't blogs* — Update: Mike, in my comments, thinks my headline is sensationalistic and says he didn't say they aren't blogs. We disagree on what a blog is, which is what this whole post is about so I changed it to say that I said that half of all Live Spaces aren't blogs.
Dthorpe / Momentary Gouts of Reason:
Windows Live Contacts Gadget Beta Release — I'm pleased to announced the beta release of a new kind of web component: the Windows Live Contacts Gadget! — What's it for? — The contacts gadget is client-side JavaScript that enables end users to use their Windows Live contacts …
Windows Live Dev:
New! Windows Live Contacts Gadget (beta) — Learn how, with nothing more than a little JavaScript, you can allow customers to use their Windows Live Contacts (Hotmail/Windows Live Mail and Messenger contacts) directly from your Web site. — To get started check out all of our developer info …
Discussion:
TechBlog
Marshall Kirkpatrick / TechCrunch:
FeedCrier, another way to act fast with RSS and IM — Adam Kalsey, a founder and former CTO of RSS vendor Pheedo, released a new service last night called FeedCrier that makes it easy to receive rapid notification of new items in an RSS feed by IM. The service currently supports only AIM but Kalsey says that will change soon.
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Frank Ahrens / Washington Post:
Pausing The Panic — DVRs Were Expected to Turn TV Upside Down, But We've Stayed Tuned — Prime-time television and its mighty 30-second commercial were supposed to be in trouble when a new, cutting-edge technology arrived on the scene several years ago, giving viewers a tool to zip past the traditional, on-screen ads.
Olga Kharif / Business Week:
A Quantum Leap for Cell Phones — A new no-buttons handset by Pilotfish and Synaptics signals that mobiles as we know them may soon be a thing of the past — It's likely to evoke the children's song inquiring, "Where's the button?" On Aug. 21, designer Pilotfish and sensor maker Synaptics …
Donna Bogatin / Digital Micro-Markets:
Google CEO wants $74 billion TV ad market — Google CEO Eric Schmidt believes television viewers should not have to stand for tv commercials that are "a waste of your time." — Schmidt is frustrated that "When you watch the television you see ads that are clearly not targeted for you."
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Liz Gannes / GigaOM:
Google's $7.4 Billion Booty — Top Google executives have sold $7.4 billion in stock in the last 18 months, says Bloomberg. That might have played a role in the stock's recent decline, suggests Mark Gilbert, especially considering no insider has bought a single share of the company in the same period.
Liz Gannes / GigaOM:
Farecast Goes Coast to Coast — Farecast, the plane ticket price predictor site, is now live in 55 U.S. cities, including New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Chicago, and Atlanta. — The company is building a direct competitor to travel-oriented vertical search engines Kayak …
Tim / O'Reilly Radar:
Round 2: The Internet As Network of Networks — The other day, I was explaining to a reporter how I could be lumping in cellphones and the next generation of sensor networks into Web 2.0. "Well, Web 2.0 is really not just about the web. It's really about the next generation of internet applications …
Evan Blass / Engadget:
Archos officially announces all five Generation 4 devices — Not too many surprises here — after all, we've already seen a full review of one of these new models — but now PMP pioneer Archos has officially taken the wraps off of all the so-called Generation 4 devices we initially spotted over two months ago.
Discussion:
Anything But iPod
David N. Goodman / Associated Press:
Recycled cell phones help drive Third World wireless boom — DEXTER, Mich. - With the number of cell phones in use worldwide hitting 2 billion and rising, recycled phones are playing a crucial role in the spread of wireless communications across the developing world, where land lines can be costly or unavailable.
Wagner James Au / GigaOM:
Adidas, Toyota come to Second Life — The biggest business news from the Second Life Community Convention here in San Francisco this weekend comes in the form of two reputed brands entering the 3D online world as immersive, interactive objects. — First out the gate was an announcement …
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Evan / Popgadget:
MP3 toilet — Boy, this just shows how far we are behind the Japanese. — For years now they've had toilets that raise automatically; the seats are heated and I don't even need to mention that they come with bidets.... So it's no surprise to discover that the Japanese manufacturer Toto …
