Top Items:
Seth Schiesel / New York Times:
Microsoft Plays Up Family Appeal of Xbox — As Microsoft executives played down the impact of an extensive repair program for defective Xbox 360 game machines, they announced several efforts to broaden the appeal of their machine to families. — Opening the annual E3 game conference here …
Discussion:
Information Arbitrage
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Todd Bishop / Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog:No Xbox 360 price cut ... and other E3 notes
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CNET News.com
Thai Tran / Google LatLong:
Google Maps Mashups 2.0 — When we were building the original Google Maps site, we envisioned that it would eventually become a platform for navigating all kinds of location-based information, such as home listings and travel information. Within weeks of the launch of Google Maps …
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Arnold Zafra / Search Engine Journal:Introducing Google Mapplets, A Mashup of Mashups on Google Maps
Discussion:
TechCrunch
WJXT-TV:
Sprint Cuts 1,000+ Customers For Excessive Complaining — JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Hundreds of cell phone customers are being given the boot, accused of being too high maintenance. — Sprint-Nextel is disconnecting more than 1,000 subscribers on grounds the clients call customer service too often and make "unreasonable requests."
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Tomi T Ahonen / Communities Dominate Brands:
For industry accused of arrogance, pinnacle of conceit: Customer comes last at Sprint Nextel — This post could be entitled Disasterous Customer Service Experiences Part X, Y and Z. The ultimate worst example of sheer lunacy, moronic and near sadistic customer treatment, by Sprint Nextel.
Ecamm Network News:
iPhoneDrive Released — Ecamm Network today announced the release of iPhoneDrive for Mac. — The new program allows iPhone owners to store files and data in the iPhone's flash memory. The iPhone can now be used for storage and backup, as well as moving files from Mac …
Discussion:
CrunchGear, Gizmodo, jkOnTheRun, Macsimum News, iLounge, MacUser, MacDailyNews and O'Grady's PowerPage
The Underachiever Life:
Squidoo Slap!! — NewsFlash!: SQUIDOO SLAP!!! EDGE / SET MEMBERS STAND BY FOR DETAILS OF THIS BREAKING STORY! — The lab has been investigating the recent drop in ranking for Squidoo lenses in Google's search engine results. It appears that as of the 7th of July nearly all Squidoo lenses …
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Steve Gillmor / Steve Gillmor's GestureLab:
Bad Sinatra I — I'll have the AppleTV version up on BadSinatra.com in a bit. — iPhone download
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Dan Farber / Between the Lines:Gillmor vies for attention with 'Bad Sinatra'
Discussion:
John Furrier
Kendra Marr / Washington Post:
Nielsen Alters Web Ratings, Favoring AOL Over Google — Nielsen/NetRatings has changed the way it rates Web sites and in the process has upended the rankings of the top online destinations, vaulting AOL and Yahoo over rival Google. — The research service announced yesterday …
Brad Stone / New York Times:
Accuser Says Web Site Has X-Rated Link — Parents and child safety experts concerned about the online activities of teenagers have been particularly nervous about a Web site called Stickam, which allows its 600,000 registered users, age 14 and older, to participate in unfiltered live video chats using their Web cameras.
Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
Video startups get veterans to jump — Wild, I was just reading feeds and posting the best to my link blog when this came through Google Reader: Old Media Jumping to New Media. Wow, Jim Louderback (pictured above at a recent photowalking) is now CEO over at Revision 3.
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Evan Blass / Engadget:
Is this the successor to the Nokia N800? — Just when we're in full-on video game mode, along comes a friendly tipster with some shots of the supposed successor to Nokia's N800 Internet Tablet that snap us out of our daze and remind us that there's more to life than Xboxes and PlayStations.
Christine / Team Blog:
Microsoft Reader Optimized for Origami™ Is Finally Here! — Hi! I'm Christine from the Microsoft Reader team. Some of you may know me from some of the other device forums like PocketPCThoughts, Aximsite or the Microsoft.Public.Reader newsgroup under the name MSReadergirl.
James Sherwood / The Register:
Casio cosies up to YouTube — Receive the day's biggest stories by email, sign up here — A tie-up between Casio and YouTube wouldn't have been our first guess for an expansion attempt by either of the two companies, but when you think about it, it sort of makes sense.
Eric Bangeman / Ars Technica:
Broadband on the go: the ups and downs of Verizon's EV-DO network — A need for speed — How fast is 3G wireless? That's a tough question to answer, especially if you try to get your answer from one of the wireless providers. With its EV-DO BroadbandAccess, Verizon says users …
Discussion:
jkOnTheRun
Susie Pan / DigiTimes:
Wintek to ship touch screen panels for new Apple iPods — Taiwan-based Wintek will be the panel supplier of Apple's new iPod video, according to sources at upstream suppliers. Apple is set to launch a next-generation iPod video in August with the new products featuring a touch screen panel similar to the iPhone, the sources noted.
Ben Kuchera / Ars Technica:
Ars at E3: Microsoft shows off games, touts Disney addition to Video Marketplace — Microsoft picked an odd place for its press conference: the Santa Monica High School amphitheater. The concrete risers meant that even with the squishy Microsoft-branded cushions provided for us, all of our butts were hurting within minutes.
Discussion:
DailyTech
Motoko Rich / New York Times:
Potter Has Limited Effect on Reading Habits — Of all the magical powers wielded by Harry Potter, perhaps none has cast a stronger spell than his supposed ability to transform the reading habits of young people. In what has become near mythology about the wildly popular series by J. K. Rowling …
