Top Items:
Microsoft:
Microsoft to Acquire Tellme Networks — Combined expertise will bring the power of voice technology to everyday life. — Microsoft Corp. today announced it will acquire Tellme Networks, Inc., a leading provider of voice services for everyday life, including nationwide directory assistance …
RELATED:
Om Malik / GigaOM:
5 Things about Microsoft TellMe deal — Microsoft just sent out a press advisory confirming that it is buying TellMe Networks. More details to follow after the press conference which begins in a few minutes. But here are some nuggets which our sources have sent our way:
Discussion:
VC Ratings
Don Dodge / Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing:
Microsoft acquires TellMe - Voice/Mobile search is the target market — Microsoft announced today the acquisition of TellMe, a hosted speech applications company. Tellme uses voice recognition to radically simplify how people use the phone to get the information they need every day.
Discussion:
Good Morning Silicon Valley
Christopher Grant / Joystiq:
Games for Windows Live and Halo 2 hit Vista May 8th — While the editors of Games for Windows' official magazine may not be ready to drink the Vista-flavored Kool-Aid just yet, Microsoft is ready to give Vista early adopters a handful of reasons to pick up the latest OS upgrade ... err …
RELATED:
Ben / Nuclear Sledgehammer:
Ask puts its foot in it — Lately these ads have started appearing on the London Underground: — They're also on stickers on lampposts, on posters, and generally dotted around London. It looks like a grassroots campaign - but what grassroots campaign has the money to plaster ads on the Tube?
RELATED:
Online Journalism Review:
Eyetracking points the way to effective news article design — OJR's design experts review usability research and offer suggestions on how you can make your online articles better connect with readers. — When one of world's best-known usability experts, Jakob Nielsen …
Microsoft:
Microsoft and Lenovo Connect Customers to Integrated Online Services — Lenovo to be first PC manufacturer to provide customers worldwide with a new seamless, customizable Web experience through Microsoft Live.com and Live Search. — REDMOND, Wash., and RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. …
RELATED:
Matt Marshall / VentureBeat:
The dirty little secrets about VCs, at TheFunded — TheFunded is a Web site that rates venture capitalists, giving entrepreneurs more information about whether or not to take money from a particular VC — This is a very useful service to have, because the venture process is still secretive …
RELATED:
Reuters:
EU consumer chief eschews another bite at Apple — The European Union's consumer chief soft-pedalled her views on Apple Inc (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) on Tuesday, backing off the line that its iTunes online music store must become more compatible with other formats.
Dave Winer / stories.scripting.com:
The future of Twitter? — I was introduced to Twitter last summer at a dinner at Henrietta's Table in Cambridge by Ross Mayfield. I posted two or three notes using my Blackberry that evening and never did it again. I still receive SMS's from Ross on a regular basis, but …
Erica Ogg / CNET News.com:
A new wavelength for satellite radio — For a company calling itself Slacker, its business plan is awfully ambitious. — Debuting this week at the South by Southwest multimedia festival in Austin, Texas, Slacker is a distinctive new Web music service and portable music player from the San Diego-based company of the same name.
RELATED:
New York Times:
Viacom Sues Google Over Video Clips on Its Sharing Web Site — Since it bought YouTube last October, Google has been chasing deals that would give it the right to put mainstream video programming on the site. Just a few weeks ago, Google's chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt …
Discussion:
CNET News.com, Blogging Stocks, point being, Lost Remote, madisonian.net, Soaring on Ridgelift, Paul Mooney and The Media Age
MobiTV®:
NBC Universal and MobiTV Announce First-Ever Wireless Deal for Full-Length Primetime on Demand Programming — Primetime Offer to Include 'Heroes,' 'Friday Night Lights,' 'The Office,' 'Monk,' 'Battlestar Galactica' and 'Work Out' Additional NBCU Channels to Launch on MobiTV Include Bravo, SCI FI, USA, Telemundo and mun2
Ed Oswald / BetaNews:
Second Draft of 802.11n Moves Forward — 802.11n wireless networking came closer to becoming an actual standard on Tuesday, as the IEEE said that 'Draft 2.0' received more than the required 75 percent supermajority required for the process to move forward. — Nearly 84 percent of those eligible to vote approved of the draft.
RELATED:
Brendan / Brendan's Roadmap Updates:
The Open Web and Its Adversaries — A small presentation I gave at SXSW asks what it means to be "Open" in the sense of open standards, open source, and a web whose major content formats are not controlled by a single vendor (I credited Nat Friedman's amusing keynote from last year's Free …
RELATED:
Gizmodo:
Awesome TIE Fighter Speakers Flew Out of Star Wars and Into Your Living Room — These TIE Fighter speakers come to us from a company called Question Mark Entertainment, and as far as their specs go, that company name is just about right. We have no idea what sort of drivers are in these two …
Eric Costello / FlickrBlog:
Collections! — Today we launched what's probably the most requested feature over the last few years: a way to categorize and organize your photo sets! In the past this feature has been referred to as "sets of sets" or "subsets". After today, we'll know it as "collections". — What are collections, you ask?
Darryl K. Taft / eWEEK.com:
Microsoft Puts FoxPro Out to Pasture — Microsoft has announced that it will not be releasing any new versions of its Visual FoxPro development software past Version 9.0, but the company will continue to support the technology through 2015. — Instead of releasing new versions of FoxPro …
Discussion:
Thinking Tech
Rick Malwitz / www.dailyrecord.com:
Cop: Wife googled 'How to commit murder' — At exactly 5:45:34 on April 18, 2004 a computer taken from the office of the attorney of Melanie McGuire, did a search on the words "How To Commit Murder." — That same day searches on Google and MSN search engines, were conducted on such topics …
