Top Items:
Mike / Techdirt:
AT&T Agrees To Keep The Net Neutral For 30 Months To Get BellSouth — from the punting-until-later dept — With FCC chair Kevin Martin unable to push through an approval for the AT&T BellSouth merger due to an (no, seriously, don't laugh) ethical stance from a fellow commissioner …
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John Dunbar / Associated Press:
AT&T compromise may get merger approved — WASHINGTON - AT&T Inc. has offered a new set of concessions that are expected to satisfy the two Democrats on the Federal Communications Commission and lead to approval of the company's $85 billion buyout of BellSouth Corp. Approval by the full commission could happen as soon as Friday.
Scott Leith / Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
BellSouth-AT&T deal may be wrapping up — AT&T appears to be edging closer to completing the company's $86 billion buyout of BellSouth, with Federal Communications Commission approval possible as soon as today. — The timing of the vote still could change, given that the FCC was once expected to sign off on the deal in October.
Discussion:
Techdirt
LeeAnn Prescott / Hitwise US:
Google Blog Search Surpasses Technorati — When Google Blog Search launched last year, I wondered if it would surpass Technorati in market share of visits. This week Hitwise data show that the market share of visits to Google Blog Search surpassed visits to Technorati for the week ending 12/23/06.
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Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Gmail Disaster: Reports Of Mass Email Deletions — Just a week after I wrote "Uh Oh, Gmail Just Got Perfect" a number of users started complaining that all of their Gmail emails and contacts were auto deleted. — The first message, posted on the Google Groups forum on December 19, stated …
Discussion:
CyberNet Technology News, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, CenterNetworks, Googling Google and digg
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Matt Marshall / VentureBeat:
News site Digg raises $8.5M more, rejects evidence it has been gamed — Digg, the news site that lets users rank stories by voting, has raised $8.5 million in fresh financing from existing backers, putting to rest for now speculation that it might sell to a bigger media player.
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Artem Boytsov / Official Google Blog:
How we came up with year-end Zeitgeist data — The Zeitgeist is "the spirit of time." This is why when we come up with the lists of top searches on Google.com for 2006, we do not simply retrieve the most frequently-searched terms for the period — the truth is, they don't change that much from year to year.
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CNET News.com:
Top ten Apple rumours of all time — What do you get when you cross a notoriously tight-lipped computer company with rabidly fanatical users? A whole lot of gossip, speculation and hearsay, that's what. Thirty years of Apple Computer has seen the company rise, fall and rise again like a kind …
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Joel Spolsky / Joel on Software:
Bribing Bloggers — There's an interesting debate going on about whether bloggers should accept gifts from vendors. — Lately Microsoft, working through their PR agency, Edelman, has been getting rather aggressive about trying to buy good coverage from bloggers.
Discussion:
Niall Kennedy's Weblog, Office Evolution, Deep Jive Interests, Mathew Ingram, broadstuff, Web Worker Daily, Incremental Blogger, Michael Gartenberg, Geeking with Greg, Tom Hume, PR 2.0, Jeremy's Blog, TechBlog, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, A View from the Isle, Pito's Blog, Blogging Stocks, Seeking Alpha and Slashdot
Scott Beale / Laughing Squid:
Windows Vista Laptop on eBay, Proceeds Going To EFF — So regarding my infamous Acer Ferrari 1000 Windows Vista laptop (one of several sent to bloggers which are stirring up a quite a bit of controversy), I think the best thing to do at this point is auction it off on eBay and donate …
Discussion:
ProBlogger Blog Tips, Microsoft Watch, Michael Gartenberg, CyberNet Technology News and digg
Gamasutra:
Mars Sucks - Can Games Fly on Google Earth? — As part of an Intel team focused on pushing the limits of PC gaming, we decided to investigate whether Google* Earth could be used as the foundation of a video game. Of course the best way to find out was to try it, which we did with a small prototype we call "Mars Sucks."
Discussion:
Joystiq
Kate Kaye / ClickZ:
Marketers Flout Craigslist Rules to Promote Wares — A syndicated article providing guidance on marketing via free classifieds site Craigslist has been making the rounds on various business-oriented Web sites lately. Still, there's no doubt the practice is controversial …
Gerald Traufetter / Spiegel Online:
The Whole Planet on a Hard Drive — Google and Microsoft are racing to provide computer users with a virtual world tour. Who will be the first to offer its readers a 3-D map of the globe? — Early in his life, John Hanke was fond of running his finger across the pages of his National Geographic atlas …
Los Angeles Times:
What will they think of next? — Napster in 1999. MySpace in 2004. YouTube in 2006. Experts from the tech community look ahead to the innovations that will change how we work, play and communicate in 2007. — STEVE BALLMER; NED SHERMAN; RAFAT ALI; KEVIN WERBACH; CHRIS ANDERSON; HANK BARRY; JOHN BROCKMAN
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes / Hardware 2.0:
HD-DVD AACS hacked — A hacker going under the alias "muslix64" has written a utility which is capable of decrypting a AACS (Advanced Access Content System) protected HD-DVD discs. — The decryption tool, called BackupHDDVD, is a Java-based command-line utility which decrypts …
Louis Hau / Forbes:
Free Music—Next Year? — SpiralFrog, the free music downloading service that made a series of splashy announcements in 2006, has yet to get wet. — The New York City-based company drew attention in August, when it announced plans to distribute music downloads from Vivendi's Universal Music Group …
