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.
RELATED:
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 …
John P. Falcone / Crave: The gadget blog:
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 …
Discussion:
eHomeUpgrade
RELATED:
Steve O'Hear / last100:
Vudu “slashes” price again (sort of) — When Apple announced the launch of iTunes movie rentals and an updated AppleTV, most of the talk was about how it would compete with incumbents such as Netflix. But one company, Vudu, has more to fear than most. — It's set-top movie box offering …
Paul Miller / Engadget:Vudu price slashed to keep up with Apple TV
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider
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, CNET News.com, Master of 500 Hats, Harry Chen Thinks Aloud, JD on EP and Slashdot
Joshua Topolsky / Engadget:
Netflix bringing streaming rentals to Macs, game console next? — Recent announcements on iTunes rentals certainly caused a stir amongst the neglected Mac-masses, but it looks like the online rental game is about to get a little more cutthroat for fanboys and fangirls everywhere.
RELATED:
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.
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.
Discussion:
Hardware 2.0, New York Times, jkOnTheRun, Switched, MacDailyNews, Macsimum News, MacRumors and Gizmodo
RELATED:
Steven Levy / Newsweek:The Skinny on the MacBook Air
Discussion:
Personal Technology, Gizmodo, CrunchGear, Computerworld Blogs, Engadget, Today @ PC World, Insanely Great Mac, I4U News and Mickeleh's Take
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 …
RELATED:
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 …
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
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Google on the verge of launching Microsoft HealthVault competitor — Google is finally poised to launch its long-awaited Google Health service, according to the Google Blogoscoped site. — Google Health will allow users to build online health profiles, download medical records …
RELATED:
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Microsoft: Vista has fewer first-year vulnerabilities than any modern OS — He we go again. Like an evil pope preparing to recapture the Holy Land, Jeff Jones, Microsoft's self-proclaimed “Security Guy” (and Microsoft Director) just published the Vista One Year Vulnerability Report.
Discussion:
Bink.nu
RELATED:
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.
Brian Crecente / Kotaku:
EA Calls Fox Out on “Insulting” Mass Effect Inaccuracies — Electronic Arts, likely sick of having their recently-acquired role-playing franchise Mass Effect dragged through the mud on national television, has requested that Fox News Channel correct their error-plagued segment on the game.
John Leyden / The Register:
Virus writers charged with copyright violation — Movie-munching Trojan miscreants go all Winny — Japan has arrested its first suspected virus writers, but in a strange twist the three suspected creators and distributors of a strain of P2P malware have been charged with copyright violation …
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
The AT&T leaves: Wireless strong; U-Verse buildout continues; Outlook in tact — AT&T reported its fourth quarter earnings and the big takeaways are that wireless growth is strong and enterprise spending is chugging along. — AT&T's earnings report garnered a little more attention …
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
Fred / A VC:
Rethinking The Local Paper — This is my local newspaper, called The Villager. If you live in Greenwich Village, NYC, you probably read The Villager. But there are several problems with The Villager (which was voted NY State's “Best Community Newspaper"). — First, it's only updated once a week.
Discussion:
Dan Blank, mathewingram.com/work, Search Engine Land, Insider Chatter, Curbed, stevenberlinjohnson.com and TechCrunch
