Top Items:
John Markoff / New York Times:
Start-Up Aims for Database to Automate Web Searching — A new company founded by a longtime technologist is setting out to create a vast public database intended to be read by computers rather than people, paving the way for a more automated Internet in which machines will routinely share information.
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Tim O'Reilly / O'Reilly Radar:
Freebase Will Prove Addictive — Danny Hillis' latest venture, Metaweb, is about to unveil its first product, the aptly named freebase, tomorrow. While freebase is still VERY alpha, with much of the basic functionality barely working, the idea is HUGE. In many ways, freebase is the bridge between …
Richard MacManus / Read/WriteWeb:
Friday Fun: Weird Search Engines — While the serious talk today is about Freebase, a new next-gen search engine from Danny Hillis, it's the end of the week and so time for a bit of fun. Author of the popular Top Alternative Search Engines list, Charles Knight, flicked me an email this morning …
Nick / Rough Type:
Freebase: the Web 3.0 machine — Artificial intelligence guru Danny Hillis has launched an early version of the first major Web 3.0 application. It's called Freebase, and its grandiose epistemological mission is right up there with those of Google and Wikipedia.
Discussion:
Scripting News
Josh Lowensohn / Webware.com:
MYSPACE NEWS: IT WAS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME [UPDATE] — MySpace is preparing to launch an integrated news service—with self-aggregating content and social bookmarking—in the coming weeks. MySpace members will be able to post the stories on their profiles, discuss, promote …
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Reuters:
MySpace goes all out for content — News Corp is "in very active negotiations with all the media companies" to bring their content to its MySpace property, the firm's top interactive-media executive said on Wednesday. — Currently, only shows from News Corp-owned Fox, such as 24 and Prison Break …
Discussion:
901am
James Quintana Pearce / PaidContent:MySpace To Launch News Service, May Need Age Checks
Discussion:
Reuters
John Markoff / New York Times:
Palm Responds to the iPhone — Palm Inc., the maker of hand-held computers, has hired a top Silicon Valley software designer as it seeks to respond to the challenge posed by Apple's new iPhone. — The designer, Paul Mercer, a former Apple computer engineer, began work three weeks ago …
I, Cringely . The Pulpit | PBS:
The Great Apple Video Encoder Attack of 2007 — Maybe you have wondered, as I have, why it takes a pretty robust notebook computer to play DVD videos, while Wal-Mart will sell you a perfectly capable progressive-scan DVD player from Philips for $38? In general, the dedicated DVD player …
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Seth Weintraub / Computerworld:
Why Apple's 'consumer' Macs are enterprise-worthy — Not everyone needs a Mac Pro; sometimes a mini might do — Not too long ago, ad agencies, design firms and other creative companies were about the only businesses that widely deployed Macintosh computers to their employees.
Mad4 Mobile Phones.com:
Patent: Google Phone knows what you want before you search — Our patent gurus have discovered an interesting patent filing from Google that could reveal the applications they are planning for the Google phone. Alternatively this technology could even debut in the iPhone when it is released in June.
Wall Street Journal:
Music's New Gatekeeper — From their Silicon Valley cubicles, Apple staffers have become music's unlikely power brokers. Our reporters on the horse-trading that can turn unknowns into stars. — Every day, the roughly one million people who visit the iTunes Store home page are presented …
Mike Musgrove / Washington Post:
Music Industry Tightens Squeeze On Students — The recording industry is dusting off an old tactic in its never-ending effort to crack down on pirated music: Target the college kids. — So far this year, the music industry's trade group has sent out hundreds of complaints to students …
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Richard MacManus / Read/WriteWeb:
Technorati 100: What's Hot in the Blogosphere — Written by Alex Iskold and edited by Richard MacManus — Earlier this week Emre wrote about declining traffic on Technorati and considered the exit options for this blog vertical search and portal site. The challenge from Google Blogsearch is certainly serious.
Newlaunches.com:
SeaGrand Gene Sound adds a digital touch to your Vinyl — Seagrand Japan has announced the Gene Sound TAS-100 which can play your good old Vinyl records and Audio / MP3 CD's. In addition to this it has a SD card slot and a USB connector, so you can put in your favourite Vinyl which is converted …
MSNBC:
Yahoo feels the pressure of AT&T alliance — By Kevin Allison in San Francisco and Paul Taylor in New York — Shares in Yahoo, the internet portal, were marked down more than 5 per cent on Friday morning after it emerged that AT&T is trying to renegotiate a five-year-old agreement under …
Gizmodo:
R2D2 Mailbox: Use the Postal Service, Luke — No announcement has been made as yet, but these R2D2-themed mailboxes will be in post offices throughout the US later this year to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Star Wars. They are not, however, being placed on the streets in case …
Everything USB News, Reviews, Tips:
Electronic USB Flute, Clarinet? — If playing the normal flute just isn't manly enough for you might try out the Electronic USB Wind Instrument with USB. This device looks like a cross between a flute and a clarinet and plugs into your PC USB port. Synthesizer software that is included …
Jeff Atwood / Coding Horror:
Dude, Where's My 4 Gigabytes of RAM? — Due to fallout from a recent computer catastrophe at work, I had the opportunity to salvage 2 GB of memory. I installed the memory in my work box, which brings it up to 4 gigabytes of RAM— 4,096 megabytes in total. But that's not what I saw in System Information:
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Web Giants Team Up for Wireless Spectrum Auctions — Scoop — p>Google, Yahoo, and eBay may not see eye to eye with each other, but when it comes to broadband access, they all agree that the future is too much in control of the incumbents who can squeeze them dry.
