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Susan Crawford blog:
The day the internet became cable television: Dec. 29, 2006 — As part of the AT&T/BellSouth merger that is expected to be approved today, AT&T is now pledging to keep its "wireline broadband Internet access service" neutral. — AT&T joins the trickster pantheon with this move.
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Marguerite Reardon / CNET News.com:
FCC approves AT&T-BellSouth merger — update The Federal Communications Commission approved the roughly $86 billion megamerger between AT&T and BellSouth on Friday, ending a partisan standoff. — The commission, which had been split between Democrats and Republicans for months on what …
May Wong / Associated Press:
Apple Says Options Probe Clears Execs — Apple Says Options Probe Finds No Misconduct by Managers, Has 'Complete Confidence' in Jobs — SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Apple Computer Inc. cleared Chief Executive Steve Jobs and the rest of its current management of misconduct involving stock option grants …
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New York Times:
Apple Says Options Probe Exonerates Executives — Apple Computer today exonerated its chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, of any wrongdoing in a stock options backdating probe. — In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Apple said that while its investigation revealed …
Discussion:
Slashdot
Graeme Wearden / CNET News.com:
Apple takes $84 million charge, defends Jobs — update Apple Computer released new information about its allocation of stock options on Friday, defending Chief Executive Steve Jobs following speculation that a key document had been forged. — In its delayed annual report, published early on Friday …
Steve Dowling / Apple:Apple Files 10-Q and 10-K
Discussion:
Infinite Loop, MacUser, Seeking Alpha, O'Grady's PowerPage, Guardian Unlimited and Podcasting News
Matt Cutts / Gadgets, Google, and SEO:
My thoughts on recent Google tips — I wanted to talk about Blake Ross' post entitled "Trust is hard to gain, easy to lose". I agree with much of what he says. There's a continuum to showing tips. Toward the "hawk" side of the spectrum is the notion that a company can show whatever reasonable content …
Om Malik / GigaOM:
The Ferrari Vista Question — My doorman just brought a package of blogger kryptonite, aka the Acer Ferrari laptop tricked out with Microsoft Vista and Office 2007. Before the recent brouhaha broke out, I was going to do a simple review, and then send the machine back to Microsoft.
Discussion:
The Jason Calacanis Weblog
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Ed Sutherland / internetnews.com:
Bloggers Rebuff Microsoft 'Gifts' — A tactic by Microsoft (Quote), AMD (Quote) and a PR firm to gain traction for Vista is instead reaping a whirlwind of controversy. — Edelman, the PR agency behind Vista's launch, sent Acer Ferrari laptops sporting the Windows Vista operating system and AMD processors to tech bloggers.
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Q&A With Jimmy Wales On Search Wikia — News came out earlier this week that Wikipedia cofounder Jimmy Wales had a new project in mind, to build a community-driven "Google-killer" search engine. I've just finished talking with Jimmy about his plans. Here's a rundown on his vision …
PJ Doland / The Frosty Mug Revolution:
A Semantic Solution for Presenting NSFW Content — THE PROBLEM WITH REL. — In an earlier post, we recommended the use of the REL attribute for indicating that content was "not suitable for work." The REL attribute has obvious benefits: — REL isn't widely (or even sparsely) implemented.
Discussion:
digg
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Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
Meet your shiny new 2007 HTCs — If the X7500 "Athena" somehow managed to fail to attract your attention and you found the Vox, Libra, Love, and Cavailer positively forgettable, first verify that you have a pulse (because we really don't think that's normal) then check this out …
Peter Enav / Associated Press:
Taiwan telecom won't build add'l backup … TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan's largest telecom company said Friday it will not invest more in backup lines to protect against disasters like the recent earthquake that snarled telephone and Internet service across Asia, affecting service as far away as the United States.
Don Dodge / Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing:
Scoble and John Edwards in New Hampshire — Robert Scoble was with presidential candidate John Edwards in Portsmouth, New Hampshire today. Robert is shooting lots of video for PodTech, his employer who is paying his expenses. — The Edwards campaign invited Scoble to travel with them around …
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Of Disappearing Sex Blogs & Google Updates — Last week, Barry Schwartz reported there seemed to be a Google update going, based on forum activity he was seeing. Google's Matt Cutts quickly followed up with a short refresher on the difference between algorithm updates, data refreshes and index updates.
Marguerite Reardon / CNET News.com:
YouTube hosts New Year's Eve Bash — Forget Dick Clark and the Rockin' New Year's Eve party on ABC. YouTube wants you ringing in 2007 with them online. — The video sharing Web site now owned by Google is teaming up with Warner Music Group to produce the first-ever YouTube New Year's Eve Countdown.
Discussion:
Technically Speaking
Marc Canter / Marc's Voice:
Original thinking — Hugh MacLeod accused me of being an Original Thinker when we were in Cork, Ireland recently. — I was struck w th how boring all the speakers were and how much fun it was to listen to Hugh. Both of us also spoke at LeWeb3 - so I was running into Hugh quite a lot.
Gregg Keizer / TechWeb:
Can-Spam Law 'Big Disappointment' — As the federal Can-Spam Act nears its third anniversary, a spam researcher calls it a "big disappointment" and says it hasn't been a deterrent to junk e-mailers, who have stepped up their efforts in the last few months to flood inboxes with an unprecedented volume of spam.
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yelvington.com:
Throw the bums out — Here's a New Year's resolution every news site should make: Throw the bums out! There is no reason to allow a small number of bullies to corrupt a community discussion forum. If your message boards, story comments, or blogspace has turned into the kind of place …
Daniel Jalkut / Red Sweater Blog:
Macintendo Family Values … Nintendo and Apple Announce Strategic Partnership — Nintendo Co. Ltd. and Apple Computer Inc. today announced a multi-year, strategic partnership had commenced earlier this year and will culminate in the January 9, 2007 launch of the partnership's first product: Podfondo.
Michael Fahey / Kotaku:
Feature: The Decline of the PS3 Grey Market — The rise and fall of the PlayStation 3 on eBay is one of the most talked about gaming stories of the year. In order to paint a broader picture, I've tracked pricing trends from preorders to Christmas Eve and surveyed retailers to determine just how hard the PS3 grey market has crashed.
Greg Sandoval / CNET News.com:
Guba CEO steps down, says more execs may follow — Guba CEO Thomas McInerney has stepped down from the video-sharing site, marking the second executive shuffle within the sector in a week. — McInerney told CNET News.com that two other Guba executives are likely to follow him.
Discussion:
HipMojo.com, Venture Chronicles, Valleywag, NewTeeVee, splashcastmedia.com, GigaOM, Mashable! and Screenwerk
Reuters:
Ford in Sync with Microsoft's technology? — Ford Motor plans to unveil a deal with Microsoft in January that will put the software company's technology into some of the automaker's cars, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Louis Hau / Forbes:
A Prescription For Big Music's Blues — If you're wondering where the digital music business is headed, you could do worse than to look up Bob Kohn. — Kohn is a co-founder of eMusic, the digital music pioneer that has sold more song downloads than any other vendor besides Apple Computer's …
