Top Items:
Betsy Schiffman / Associated Press:
Apple faces suit over iPod-iTunes link — NEW YORK - As if its options woes weren't trouble enough, Apple Computer Inc. said Friday it is facing several federal lawsuits, including one alleging the company created an illegal monopoly by tying iTunes music and video sales to its market-leading iPod portable players.
Discussion:
Mashable!, Apple Gazette, InfoWorld Tech Watch, Engadget, Podcasting News, hypebot and CNET News.com
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New York Times:
Apple Panel on Options Backs Chief — Apple Computer said Friday that a special committee of its board had found that its chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, was not responsible for improper dating of stock options at the company. To account for the backdating, Apple restated its financial reporting …
Jameskyton / unnecessary:
Looking at Fiji and Vienna — Windows Vista has been released for a month now to business, and is going to be released to the general public in a month (January 30). For those who haven't been following Vista's development, it is worh noting that even though Vista comes 5 years after XP, it is a rushed product.
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Paul Miller / Engadget:
Never mind Vista, here's Fiji and Vienna — Face it, Windows Vista is just so played these days. With that preliminary biz release under its belt, we're ready for bigger and better things, and luckily a certain "jameskyton" drive-by-blogger has the low-down for us on Vista's successors, Fiji and Vienna.
Deborah Schoeneman / New York Times:
Can Google Come Out to Play? — ON a Thursday afternoon before the holidays, the game room at Google's new offices in Chelsea was being put to good use. Two engineers were taking a break from coding at the pool table. A programmer in a purple Phish T-shirt was practicing juggling.
Doc / Doc Searls' IT Garage:
How VRM can help CRM get past DRM — DRM is a solution to a problem that only appears on the supply side of the market for easily copied entertainment goods. In the absence of a real relationship with customers, the entertainment industry characterize the problem of file copying as "piracy" …
Karen Wickre / Official Google Blog:
A year in Google blogging — The definition of "googol" is a number, and Google lives by numbers. So how else should we look back over the year but with numerical bits? Here goes: This post marks the 294th time this year you're reading a post from us — nearly 100 times more often than in 2005.
Peter / MySQL Performance Blog:
Where to get recent MySQL version ? — As you might noticed there are no recent MySQL Community versions available for download from MySQL Download Area This applies both to binaries (which is expected with new polices) but also to the source files which were promised to be available.
Discussion:
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Stephen Shankland / CNET News.com:
Virtual reality to get its own network? — A nonprofit group says it plans to build a network called Neuronet purely to support virtual-reality game and business applications. — Neuronet, which is planned to be separate from the Internet, "will evolve into the world's first public network capable …
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Pete Cashmore / Mashable!:
Saddam's Execution Video Makes it to Google Video, YouTube, Revver — It's a sign of the times that cameraphone footage of Saddam Hussein's execution - including the aftermath as he hangs from the noose - has made its way to video sharing sites. While mainstream media avoided showing the whole clip …
Tim Green / mobile-ent.biz:
First Google phone actually Samsung phone — It was touted as Google's first handset, but the Ultra Edition 13.8 is really just a Samsung slider with a bunch of Google apps pre-loaded. — Samsung's HSDPA device incorporates Google's mobile search and Gmail applications.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Google's Tipping Point — Taken in a vacuum, a fairly trivial thing happened a few days ago. The co-founder of Firefox, Blake Ross, wrote a post criticizing Google called "Tip: Trust is hard to gain, easy to lose". He takes issue with a new Google search feature that promotes certain …
Discussion:
Matt Cutts, Don Dodge on The Next …, gapingvoid, Mathew Ingram, Smalltalk Tidbits …, Scripting News, CenterNetworks, Mark Evans, Sadagopan's weblog …, GigaOM, Jeremy's Blog, WebMetricsGuru, The Blog Herald, Search Engine Land, Ars Technica, Feedonomics, CNET News.com, SmugBlog, Webware.com, VCMike's Blog, Project Management … and Slashdot
Washington Post:
AT& T Completes BellSouth Takeover — The Federal Communications Commission yesterday overcame a seven-month deadlock and approved AT&T's $85 billion purchase of BellSouth, creating a new corporate giant that will stand astride the telecommunications industry like none other in the generation since …
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Search Marketing Gurus:
Barack Obama Doesn't Know What a Widget Is - Internet Marketing Meets Politics 101 — Barack Obama doesn't know what a widget is, neither does John Kerry, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and I highly doubt Hilary Clinton does either. I know, the next question is "what about John Edwards?"
Ryan Carter / Download Squad:
Performancing Firefox plugin is now ScribeFire — Now you know that PayPerPost acquired Performancing, right? The Performancing Firefox plugin (the blog editor) is now rebranded as ScribeFire. I'm glad the plugin is still its own entity. I am a huge fan of it, and I would hate for any kind of merger …
Major Nelson / Xbox Live's Major Nelson:
Top Xbox Live Games of 2006 — Here are the top games for 2006, based on Xbox Live connectivity. — The following rankings are based on data collected from 1/1/06 - 12/29/06: — 2006 Top Xbox 360 Titles (UU's) — 1 — Gears of War — 2 — Hexic HD — 3 — Call of Duty 2
Sion Touhig / The Register:
How the anti-copyright lobby makes big business richer — Comment We're continually being told the Internet empowers the individual. But speaking as an individual creative worker myself, I'd argue that all this Utopian revolution has achieved so far in my sector is to disempower individuals …