Top Items:
CNET News.com:
FBI taps cell phone mic as eavesdropping tool — update The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone's microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations.
Business Week:
The Google/YouTube Come-On — Google (GOOG ) and YouTube are dangling nine-figure sums in front of major programming and network players—that is, the Time Warners, News Corp (NWS )s, and NBC Universals of the world. Google calls these monies licensing fees, according to executives who've been involved in the discussions.
RELATED:
Mike / Techdirt:
Google Trying To Pay Off Big Entertainment Companies To Leave YouTube Alone — from the bad-ideas dept — Google is apparently looking to continue the practice of paying off entertainment companies to agree not to sue YouTube, apparently dangling fees of over $100 million to various well-known entertainment companies.
Michael Mahemoff / Ajaxian:
Death of Page View Metrics? — Steve Rubel says page view metrics have four years to live. … The question then becomes: What alternatives will be used? Ryan Stewart suggests more emphasis will be placed on how much time people spend with a website, and also an "interaction rate" …
Discussion:
The Blog Herald, Mad Techie Woman, MYBLOG by Ouriel, Web Strategy and The Ponderings of Woodrow
Timothy Burke / Terra Nova:
The History of Virtual Worlds — I'm going for a first-time event here: a triple cross-post at Easily Distracted, Cliopatria and Terra Nova. I'm at a meeting on law and virtual worlds at the New York Law School, and there's a really interesting panel discussion of methodologies in virtual worlds.
Natali Del Conte / TechCrunch:
Shawn Fanning's New Social Network Will Comply With WoW — A representative for Shawn Fanning called TechCrunch today to make it clear that the social networking site that the Napster founder plans to launch next year will indeed be compliant with World of Warcraft's (WoW) terms of use.
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Rafat Ali / PaidContent:
Yahoo's Deal With Current TV In Jeopardy, Two Months After Launch — This is a surprise, but not really, considering the troubles Yahoo is going through now: Current TV's distribution/joint venture deal with Yahoo is in peril, reports News.com. "Current is exploring better opportunities …
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Natali Del Conte / TechCrunch:
Million Dollar Homepage Becomes Multi-Million Dollar Homepage — Alex Tew, the mastermind behind The Million Dollar Homepage is most certainly pressing his luck. Tew sold one million pixels worth of advertisement for $1 per pixel and made $1 million. It worked so well that he thinks …
Discussion:
CyberNet Technology News, Mathew Ingram, Digital Alchemy, software ? what do you mean and digg
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Ok, Now I Get JPG Magazine — JPG Magazine relaunched last month with a new business model: Get users to upload photos to their website, and then have the community vote on and rank photos. The winners are published in a bi-monthly print magazine and get $100 plus a free one-year subscription.
Leo Lewis / Financial Times:
Sony sidelines PS3 mastermind Kutaragi — Ken Kutaragi, the maverick Sony engineer behind all three generations of PlayStation games consoles, will on Friday become chairman and chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment in a management reshuffle that underscores Sony's difficulties in the video games market.
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Jay Greene / Business Week:
Microsoft Vista: Companies Can Wait — Corporate buyers may be slow to adopt the new operating system and Office business programs — It's been five years since the last release of Microsoft's Windows operating system, and more than three since the previous iteration of its Office word-processing and spreadsheet program debuted.
Stephen Shankland / CNET News.com:
Open-source group wants educational patent reversed — A legal center is trying to overturn a patent it says threatens three open-source educational projects, a sign of the tension between patent holders and the collaborative programming community. — The Software Freedom Law Center …
John Gartner / Marketing Blog Bent …:
Podcasting's 15 Minutes Almost Up — Podcasting probably will never become an "impact media" like online video or satellite radio, and deservedly so. — According to the most recent survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, only 1 percent of Internet users download a podcast on a given day.
Discussion:
MediaShift
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
On to the next version of Windows — Guess Microsoft really wants to make sure the next version of Windows doesn't take another five years. — The day after releasing the final Windows Vista bits to volume-licensing business customers. Microsoft issued a call to testers asking for input on the next version of Windows.
Peter Rojas / Engadget:
BenQ uses WTC & 9/11 imagery to sell devices — We're not exactly what you'd call sanctimonious — we try not to take ourselves or what we're doing too seriously — but we feel obligated to call BenQ out for using an image of a crumbled World Trade Center in an ad for its new MusiQ campaign.
Derek / .:UNEASYsilence:.:
Parallels - IE7 & Firefox in "coherence" mode — OS X Parallels Desktop users will rejoice knowing that the latest beta build of Parallels includes a slew of new updates including the ability to resize the virtual machine window (with resolution adjusting automatically) and my personal favorite - "coherence".
