Top Items:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Checkmate? MySpace, Bebo and SixApart To Join Google OpenSocial (confirmed) — Google may have just come out of nowhere and checkmated Facebook in the social networking power struggle. — MySpace and Six Apart will announce that they are joining Google's OpenSocial initiative.
Discussion:
Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Wired News, Deep Jive Interests, Good Morning Silicon Valley, Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog, Business Week, Telegraph Blogs, Computerworld, Epicenter, The Social Web, Between the Lines, CNET News.com, Seth's Blog, Download Squad, Technology Live, Mashable!, BlogRunner, Master of 500 Hats, AppScout, Valleywag, rexduffdixon.com, ClickZ News Blog and robhyndman.com
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Peter Kafka / Silicon Alley Insider:
MySpace Joining Google's OpenSocial — We hear Google is planning to announce yet another partner to its anti-Facebook coalition today — News Corp.'s MySpace. [Haven't confirmed]. Look for an announcement by the end of the day. This makes a lot of sense for both sides …
Discussion:
Read/WriteWeb, Search Engine Land, New York Times, The Technology Chronicles, CNET News.com, Epicenter, WebProNews, blognation, VentureBeat, mathewingram.com/work, B.L. Ochman's weblog, Digital Daily, ExperienceCurve, WebMetricsGuru, All Facebook, Mashable!, Valleywag, FORTUNE and ParisLemon
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Facebook, Your Move — Not so fast, Mike. The anti-Facebook coalition piling onto Google's OpenSocial platform does not constitute checkmate for Google just quite yet. These are developer announcements. No actual consumers have changed their social networking habits because of OpenSocial.
Saul Hansell / Bits:
Google's OpenSocial Is Not a Facebook Killer — For the last year, Sergey Brin has been campaigning at Google with the slogan "features not products" in an attempt to reduce the sprawl of the company's eccentric creativity. — This campaign may have gone too far, at least when it comes to Google's new OpenSocial initiative.
Dan Farber / Between the Lines:
Is Facebook the next Netscape? — Marc Andreessen's Ning team has put together a screencast and screenshots of OpenSocial in action. He notes that the examples are a little light on social functionality at this point, but they are working on getting user's friends information and ctivities feed into the applications.
Lev Grossman / Time:
Invention Of the Year: The iPhone — Stop. I mean, don't stop reading this, but stop thinking what you're about to think. Or, O.K., I'll think it for you:
John Biggs / New York Times:
A Computer That Works With Google, Not Microsoft — Advocates of Linux, the free open-source operating system, like to say that buying a standard-issue computer involves a Microsoft Tax, because you have no choice but to pay for Windows. New versions of Linux and inexpensive hardware …
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Arn / MacRumors:
Apple Updates MacBooks to Santa Rosa, GMA X3100; 2.6GHz MacBook Pro — As rumored, Apple has quietly updated the MacBook tonight to the Santa Rosa architecture with mild speed bumps and the GMA X3100 integrated video. — White 13.3" — $1099.00 2.0GHz/1GB RAM/80GB/Combo/GMA X3100
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Matthew Moskovciak / Crave:
HD DVD players hit $99 at Wal-Mart, Best Buy — Earlier this week it was big news that HD DVD broke the $200 price barrier. Well, in the same week it looks like HD DVD has broken the $100 price barrier as well. As previously reported, Wal-Mart is running a "Secret In-Store Specials" …
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Ryan Block / Engadget:
Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player: $100, this Friday, Wal-Mart — Still waiting to jump into the high def disc game? Or just wanted another weaker, cheaper player for the last-gen TV you phased out to your rumpus room? Well, whatever your reasons, some (not all!)
Discussion:
Tech Check with Jim Goldman, Christopher Null, Gizmodo, ParisLemon, Alice Hill's Real Tech News, technabob and Gadget Lab
Elsa Wenzel / CNET News.com:
Microsoft upgrades its Office for Mac upgrade offer — Correction 2:10 p.m. PDT: This blog initially misstated the savings for buyers of Office 2004 for Mac Student and Teacher edition if they choose to upgrade to the 2008 Special Media Edition. The savings would be $350.
Discussion:
WinBeta
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Marguerite Reardon / CNET News.com:
FCC urged to stop Comcast Internet blocking — Members of the SavetheInternet.com Coalition and Internet scholars from Harvard, Yale and Stanford law schools filed a petition and complaint with the Federal Communications Commission Thursday in response to claims that Comcast is blocking some kinds of peer-to-peer traffic.
Discussion:
GigaLaw.com Daily News
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Chris Soghoian / CNET News.com:
A dangerous conflict of interest between Firefox and Google — The Firefox browser may not be as independent as previously thought. Mozilla essentially owns Firefox, and it proved so whenit flexed its muscles last year in forcing Debian to rename its browser IceWeasel.
Google Blogoscoped:
Google's Internal Tool to Check Search Results? — Just a note : I've photoshopped the screenshot, so the numbers are real but not for "www.ffp.asso.fr" ;-) — Tom, does that include all numbers displayed alongside www.ffp.asso.fr, or just the GG Score? — the bottom lines are real, but they are not related to the results.
Discussion:
Valleywag
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Adrian Kingsley-Hughes / Hardware 2.0:
Audio glitching - Common under Vista, not so bad under other OSes — The Windows Vista Team blog has an interesting post by Steve Ball, Senior Program Manager for Sound in Windows Vista, on why sound in Windows sometimes glitches. I'm still left with one question though …
Discussion:
Computerworld
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Rob Mead / Tech.co.uk:Is Apple's Leopard still in beta?
Discussion:
mathewingram.com/work, Good Morning Silicon Valley, Compiler, Webomatica and Podcasting News
François Bancilhon / Mandriva Blog:
An open letter to Steve Ballmer — Hi, this is François, from Mandriva. — I'm sure we're way too small for you to know me. You know, we're one of these tiny Linux company working hard for our place on the market. We produce a Linux Distro, Mandriva Linux.
Discussion:
Between the Lines, Digital Daily, The Register, CNET News.com, Channel 9, Microsoft Watch, Gadget Lab, p2pnet, BetaNews, PC Magazine, BlogRunner, Slashdot, Jeremy's Blog, Engadget and WebProNews
Jon Swift:
Facebook Declares War on the Blogosphere — Just as in earlier times a man was only as good as his family name, today we are defined by the social networks we belong to. So imagine my horror when I learned that I have become a virtual bastard. Earlier this week I logged into Facebook …
Discussion:
Epicenter, WebProNews, Good Morning Silicon Valley, All Facebook, CNET News.com, Scobleizer, Irregular Enterprise, Blogcosm and AccMan Pro
Matt Marshall / VentureBeat:
PurpleYogi, the 1999 personalization company, finally hits pay dirt — PurpleYogi, one of the earliest Silicon Valley companies to focus on "extreme personalization of the Internet," has finally been sold for $158 million after a dramatic series of twists in business strategy.
