Top Items:
Sunir / Fresh Thinking:
Amazon Flexible Payment Service — Introducing Amazon Flexible Payment Service — A couple months ago the good folks at Amazon invited FreshBooks to be among their first few 3rd party integrators with Amazon Flexible Payment Service (FPS), the next leg in their amazing line up of web services.
RELATED:
Amazon Web Services Blog:
Ka-Ching! — Ever since the first Amazon Web Service was released in mid-2002, we have encouraged developers to use them to create new types of businesses. — This encouragement has taken many forms over the years. Let's revisit some of the more interesting moments in the last 5 years of AWS history...
BBC:
Warning of webmail wi-fi hijack — Using public wi-fi hotspots has got much riskier as security experts unveil tools that nab login data over the air. — Demonstrated at the Black Hat hacker conference in Las Vegas, the tools make it far easier to steal account details, said Robert Graham of Errata Security.
RELATED:
Fred / A VC:
The Open Social Network — We've got social networks with lots of users, like MySpace, Beebo, Facebook, etc, and we've got open social networks like Marc Canter's People Aggregator and Marc Andreessen's Ning. But we really don't yet have an open social network with a lot of users.
Discussion:
Scripting News, All Facebook, broadstuff, Basement.org, Geek Speaker, CostPerNews, Feedonomics, Mashable! and MediaVidea
RELATED:
Joe McDonald / Associated Press:
Lenovo targets rural China with basic PC — BEIJING - Lenovo Group Ltd. said Friday it will sell a basic personal computer aimed at China's vast but poor rural market and priced as low as $199. — Lenovo's announcement follows rival Dell Inc.'s bid to boost its presence in China's booming market …
RELATED:
Ari Levy / Bloomberg:
Yahoo to Revamp Video Site After Losing to YouTube — Aug. 2 (Bloomberg) — Yahoo! Inc., after losing out to Google Inc.'s YouTube, is revamping its video site by the end of the year to include more content from media companies and Internet users. — Music videos, movie trailers …
Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
Plaxo launching Pulse, its own social network — Plaxo, the online address book, will try to recreate itself as an open social network called "Pulse" beginning Monday. — In retrospect, you should have seen this coming. Plaxo is primed for this. — The Mountain View …
RELATED:
Wil Harris / Inquirer:
Tech rags forced to face unpalatable facts — Analysis Online is the way, unless it isn't — WHAT TO make of the recent wave of high-profile defections, replacements and general crashes over in the SF tech press? Some might suggest it's the death of print. Some suggest it's the death of online.
BBC:
Firms withdraw BNP Facebook ads — Six major firms have withdrawn advertisements from the networking website Facebook, after they appeared on a British National Party page. — First Direct, Vodafone, Virgin Media, the AA, Halifax and the Prudential have all withdrawn ads.
BBC:
Google sidesteps mobile reports — Google has refused to deny mounting speculation that it is working to produce its own brand mobile phone. — Reports suggest that the web giant is developing a "GPhone", centred on its mobile services, such as search, e-mail and maps.
Tim O'Reilly / O'Reilly Radar:
Yahoo!'s bet on Hadoop — One of the most important announcements at Oscon last week was Yahoo!'s commitment to support Hadoop. We've been writing about Hadoop on radar for a while, so it's probably not news to you that we think Hadoop is important. — Yahoo's involvement …
Wagner James Au / GigaOM:
Second Life (finally) gets a direct competitor: Multiverse — The brainchild of several ex-Netscape execs, the Mountain View start-up Multiverse, as the name suggests, isn't a single online world, but a platform for creating games and other 3D experiences with the company's development tools, which are then run on its servers.
Discussion:
Multiverse, Portfolio.com, Second Life Insider, Metaversed, Tech Confidential Blog and Virtual Worlds News
Jesus Diaz / Gizmodo:
True Story: Man Goes Through Vasectomy to Get iPhone — A Gizmodo reader underwent a vasectomy to get an Apple iPhone, following his wife's orders after a road trip with his kids to Boise, Idaho. But fear not, dear readers-with-your-manly-parts-still- intact, because his amazing tale …
Reuters:
Microsoft slashes Vista price in China — Microsoft has more than halved the retail price of its Vista operating system in China. — The Home Basic edition dropped from $201 (1,521 yuan) to $66, and the Home Premium package dropped from $238 to $118. The move was effective as of Wednesday.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Vonage Beta Testing New Ambit VOIP Gateway — Consumer VOIP service Vonage is beta testing a new, self-described "cool and sleek, yet simplistic and approachable" gateway device produced by Ambit. The device, an Ambit VDV21, includes a LCD screen that displays caller ID and voicemail notifications.
