Top Items:
Jacques Steinberg / New York Times:
Censored 'SNL' Sketch Jumps Bleepless Onto the Internet — The nearly three-minute digital film, shown on "Saturday Night Live" last Saturday, was a parody of two boy-band singers (including one played by the real Justin Timberlake) crooning a holiday song about making a gift to their girlfriends …
Discussion:
IP Democracy, PaidContent, michael parekh on IT, Reel Pop, Kevin Maney, Gadgetopia, HipMojo.com, Mathew Ingram, The 463, Screenwerk and Susan Mernit's Blog
BBC:
Record firms sue Russian MP3 site — A group of US record labels has started legal action against Russian music download site Allofmp3.com. — The lawsuit was filed in New York on behalf of Arista Records, Warner Bros, Capitol and UMG recordings. — They are suing Moscow-based Mediaservices …
Discussion:
Neowin.net
RELATED:
Alex Veiga / Associated Press:Record Labels Sue Web Site Operator
Discussion:
Engadget, Techdirt, Coolfer, The Digital Music Weblog, TechCrunch, TechnoLlama, Guardian Unlimited and PaidContent
Nick Bradbury:
Desktop Software is Paralyzed by Fear — Despite the power and rich UI that desktop applications offer, it's obvious that the move to Web applications is accelerating. For many people, the ability to access your data through any browser clearly outweighs the benefits of desktop software.
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Groklaw:
Jeremy Allison Has Resigned from Novell to Protest MS Patent Deal — The legendary Jeremy Allison (of Samba fame) has resigned from Novell in protest over the Microsoft-Novell patent agreement, which he calls "a mistake" which will be "damaging to Novell's success in the future."
Steve Rubel / Micro Persuasion:
A Year Later, Google Talk and AIM Still Don't Interoperate — I must be psychic. This morning I was recalling that Google and AOL have long promised to integrate their instant messaging platforms. This would allow users on Google Talk to chat with their peeps who are on AOL Instant Messenger and vice versa.
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APC:
Microsoft fights Gmail in the workplace — In an Exchange Server, far, far away: Microsoft Product Marketing Manager Martha DeAmicis demonstrates how Exchange 2007 can cope with 1GB and larger mailboxes at the launch of Vista, Office and Exchange in Singapore
Michel Marriott / New York Times:
At the Heart of the Wii, Micron-Size Machines — EVEN before its release last month, Nintendo's latest video game console, the Wii, was getting a lot of attention for its wireless motion-sensitive controllers. Swing the controller and — crack! — hit a virtual home run in a virtual ballpark, for example.
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Inside The Venice Project & Exclusive Screen Shots — EXCLUSIVE — Ever since we interviewed Janus Friis, the co-founder of Skype about The Venice Project, his latest start-up that plans to use peer-to-peer technology to disrupt the television industry, we have been intrigued and have been dying to get a look at the service.
Michael Calore / Monkey Bites:
Is Your ISP Blocking BitTorrent? — I was having a conversation earlier today with a coworker at Wired magazine, and he mentioned the difficulties he was having with BitTorrent on his home connection. When he's running a torrent, his upload bandwidth sits at zero and won't budge.
Fred / A VC:
Web 2.0 Is A Gift, Not A Threat, To VCs — It's Christmas time and I've been thinking about gifts. In this case, I've been thinking about what a gift the evolution of the web from its first generation to its second generation has been to the venture capital business.
Matt Hickey / CrunchGear:
Do Cameraphone Megapixels Really Add Up? — These days, it's harder to find a phone without a camera than one with, and as the prices of optical components and sensing chips fall, the quality of the "pedestrian" camera increases. You're average cameraphone now sports somewhere around …
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Andy Abramson / VoIP Watch:
The Doctor is In: New Presence 2.0 by Alec — Pal Ken Camp called for the SpinDoctor, so I'm in...remember folks, iotum is a client. So bias is a natural but his post is a must read and one that has the other VoIP bloggers attention. — So here's my SPIN on things:
John Blau / PC Advisor:
French will go it alone with Quaero project — A politically inspired partnership between the German and French governments to develop advanced multimedia search technologies, Quaero, appears to be falling apart over strategic and cultural differences. — Earlier this week, Hartmut Schauerte …
Mike / Techdirt:
Google Misses Another Chance To Be The Web Platform — from the strategic-errors dept — A few people have submitted various stories on the web about how Google has killed off their SOAP Search API in favor of their AJAX API, which is much more limited. Some are saying that this is more …
Brady Forrest / O'Reilly Radar:
OpenID on the Upswing — OpenID is a lightweight, decentralized identity system that has been gaining prominence. I expect this upcoming year to be a big year for OpenID — and not just because of the Google trend chart with the recent uptake in search query share.
big-images.com:
iPod Shuffles and jolly good cheer! — What do you get when you mix Apple iPods, Origami, and BIG Images Christmas cheer? — You get employee Christmas presents comprised of 2nd Generation iPod Shuffles wrapped in Origami boxes made of $100 bills. — The holiday season is a time for family …
Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:
Google drops beta tag from Blogger — The beta version of Google's popular blogging service, Blogger Beta, quietly shed its "beta" tag today. The switch came without much fanfare, only noted by the loss of the "beta" tag and the introduction of "the new Blogger" on the main Blogger web site.
GamesIndustry.biz:
MS exec questions long term potential for Nintendo Wii — Satchell also unconvinced by Sony's online strategy — Chris Satchell, general manager of Microsoft's Game Development Group, has questioned whether the Wii has got what it takes to keep gamers' interests in the long run.
