Top Items:
Robert Andrews / paidContent.org:
Music Biz Pushes Piracy Blame To ISPs; Digital Sales Up 40 Percent — We said in December the music industry would this year start to shift blame for piracy on to ISPs. As of today - and buoyed by recent similar French moves - the business is going after access providers in a big way.
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IFPI:
IFPI publishes Digital Music Report 2008 — ‘REVOLUTION, INNOVATION, RESPONSIBILITY’ … Governments are starting to accept that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) should take a far bigger role in protecting music on the internet, but urgent action is needed to translate this into reality …
Discussion:
Ars Technica, Podcasting News, IP Telephony, VoIP, Broadband, TechSpot News, Mark Evans, Digital Trends and Coolfer
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Sprint Cleans House: CFO, CMO, Sales Chief Get The Boot — Sprint Nextel (S) this morning started cleaning house: the company announced the departures effective tomorrow of CFO Paul Saleh, Chief Marketing Officer Tim Kelly, and President of Sales and Distribution Mark Angelino. Buh-bye. Buh-bye.
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Robert A. Guth / Wall Street Journal:
Gates Calls for Kind Capitalism — Famously Competitive, Billionaire Now Urges Business to Aid the Poor — Free enterprise has been good to Bill Gates. But later today, the Microsoft Corp. chairman will call for a revision of capitalism. — In a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos …
Discussion:
Insider Chatter, Master of 500 Hats, Tech Tracks, Techdirt, Harry Chen Thinks Aloud, JD on EP and Slashdot
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Miguel Helft / Bits:
YouTube On the Go — YouTube first dipped its toe in the mobile world in November of 2006 with a deal to deliver some video clips through the VCast service of Verizon Wireless. Last year it created a mobile Web site accessible on many Sprint and AT&T phones. But the site only carried a small slice of YouTube content.
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John P. Falcone / CNET News.com:
Vudu drops price to fend off resurgent Apple TV — Vudu is knocking 25 percent off the price of its eponymous video-on-demand box. Effective immediately, the Vudu is now $295, down from its original $399 asking price. Customers who've purchased the unit in the past 30 days …
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Bill Snyder / InfoWorld:
Move over, Red Hat. Open source ain't what it used to be — Has the open source software movement become a victim of its own success? A provocative new study by a longtime software analyst suggests that the giants of the commercial software world are cashing in on the popularity …
Discussion:
Open Source
Reuters:
Google ties up with Japan's DoCoMo — Google's search engine will be featured on NTT DoCoMo, giving it access to 48 million mobile Net users in Japan. — DoCoMo, Japan's largest mobile operator, said Thursday the tie-up on Internet searches, e-mail, and other services …
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Arn / MacRumors:
Netflix to Offer Mac Video Streaming in 2008 — AlleyInsider reports that during their Q4 financial results, Netflix confirmed that they were hoping to have a Mac web-streaming video solution available in 2008. An earlier Netflix blog entry from August had reported the same expectation.
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Kevin Rose / Digg the Blog:
Digg: New Algorithm Changes — Just wanted to give everyone some insight into some of the changes we've been making this week. As we've talked about in the past, Digg's promotional algorithm ensures that the most popular content dugg by a diverse, unique group of diggers reaches the home page.
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Tony Smith / The Register:
Linux-less Eee PC launched in Japan — Asus has formally launched its bonsai laptop, the Eee PC, in Japan, pre-installing the machine with Windows XP Home Edition rather than Linux. — The machine's specifications proved to be those of the standard 4GB solid-state disc model - the Eee PC 701 …
Alex Iskold / ReadWriteWeb:
The “Work From Home” Generation — For decades in American households the most dreaded morning sound was that of an alarm clock. Sometime between 6 and 7am a beep or radio music signaled that it was time to get up and head to work. But in the early 21st century two things have begun to change.
Josh / Redeye VC:
After the Techcrunch Bump — I see many consumer Internet pitches these days where the basic marketing strategy is to (1) get covered by Techcrunch, (2) get tens of thousands of users from the “Techcrunch Bump”, and then (3) “grow virally". While a positive Techcrunch review has the potential …
Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:
Best Buy sold infected digital picture frames — Factory-installed virus a threat to Windows PCs, says retailer — Best Buy Co. has confirmed that, during the holidays, it sold digital picture frames that harbored malicious code able to spread to any connected Windows PC. It is not recalling the frames, however.
Discussion:
Webware.com, Engadget, Switched, Technology Live, Zero Day, insignia-products.com and Spyware Sucks
Emily Steel / Wall Street Journal:
Wall Street Journal Web Site To Remain Subscription-Based — The Wall Street Journal's Web site, WSJ.com, will keep a significant portion of its content behind its paid-subscription wall, News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said Thursday. — Speculation that News Corp. would make WSJ.com …
Discussion:
MediaFlect
USA Today:
MacBook Air: The sexy kind of skinny but with some flaws — Apple has earned a sterling reputation designing beautiful products that usually perform as splendidly as they look. — The MacBook Air laptop that CEO Steve Jobs unveiled last week turns heads.
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Apple halving iPhone projections for quarter? — Take this for what it's worth. After all, DigiTimes' rumor record has been piss-poor of late. Nevertheless, the widely quoted Taiwanese-tattle rag says that projected iPhone shipments have been reduced from 2 million units to “around 1 …
Timothy Lee / Techdirt:
Your Website Shouldn't Be Just An Electronic Version Of Your Print Publication — We spend a lot of time here at Techdirt beating up on large media companies for their poor media strategies. For a long time, established media companies saw their websites as little more than an afterthought.
Discussion:
blackrimglasses.com
Cher Pryce / Inquirer:
Rumours of Big Blue buy-out boost AMD stock — Worth a punt — SOME GEEZER came up with the idea that IBM should buy up AMD. He told a few of his mates and, hey presto! AMD's shares became hot property for an hour or three. — Whether there's any substance to the proposition, we can't tell right now.
Discussion:
Between the Lines
