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Announcing the RTM of Windows Vista SP1 — Hi, Mike Nash here from the Windows Product Management group at Microsoft. Today we are excited to announce that we have released Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista to manufacturing (RTM) for our first set of languages (English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese).
Discussion:
Microsoft Watch, Good Morning Silicon Valley, InfoWorld, eWeek, Ars Technica, All about Microsoft, AppScout, Christopher Null, CrunchGear, DSLreports, Full of I.T., Digital Daily, BetaNews, CyberNet, Alice Hill's Real Tech News, Today @ PC World, Sunny Talks Tech, DailyTech, TechBlog, istartedsomething, Windows Connected, Download Squad, Cheap Hack, WebProNews, Digital Trends, Valleywag, TechSpot News, Ed Bott's Windows Expertise, Compiler, Hardware 2.0, Paul Mooney, Neowin.net and Gadgetell
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Media Alert: Microsoft Releases Windows Vista Service Pack 1, Windows Server 2008 to Manufacturing — Client and server operating systems help provide customers with increased efficiency, performance and security. — What: Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) was released to manufacturing today …
Discussion:
George Ou, All about Microsoft, CNET News.com, Engadget, Gizmodo, The Tech Report and Microsoft News Tracker

What you all are missing about Google — I'm surprised that even Kara Swisher has missed this. The bloggers are going nuts, once again, over the email that a Google lawyer sent to Microsoft regarding Microsoft's proposed purchase of Yahoo. — Here's what's really going on:
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How Yahoo! Can Get Out Of The Microsoft Bear Hug — Let me start this post by saying that I don't think Microsoft will achieve its goal of obtaining some sort of balance and scale in the search market with an acquisition of Yahoo! If you look at the share of search that Google …

Google Uses Oldest Trick in Book to Counter Microsoft
Discussion:
Salon, Good Morning Silicon Valley, eWeek, The Digital Home and Tech Check with Jim Goldman


Yahoo axes music service, strikes deal with Rhapsody — It's been a tumultuous few days for Yahoo—you know, with that takeover bid from Microsoft—but the company continues to shake things up internally, too. — On Monday, the company announced that it will discontinue …
Discussion:
VentureBeat, Tech Confidential, Ars Technica, Bits, mathewingram.com/work, Digital Noise, E-Commerce Times, Switched and Orbitcast
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Music for the masses — Last year, shortly after I assumed the role of Yahoo! Music's General Manager, we started saying publicly that we were “de-emphasizing” our premium music offering, Yahoo! Music Unlimited. The fact of the matter is that building a great premium music service takes …
Discussion:
Los Angeles Times, FoxyTunes Blog, USA Today, Digital Daily, Yahoo! Music Blog, Yahoo! Finance, CyberNet and Mashable!

Who cut the cables? — Curiouser and curiouser. Last Wednesday two undersea communication cables carrying Internet traffic were severed near Alexandria, Egypt, causing widespread outages in Egypt and India that left a reported 100 million people without Net access.
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Yang e-mail reaches out to Yahoo employees — Wonder what Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang and the company's nonexecutive chairman, Roy Bostock, said to the troops on Friday, after Microsoft launched its unsolicited $44.6 billion bid? — Here's the text of the e-mail they sent to employees …


Intel debuts Silverthorne processor; Dragonfire Ring, Dwarfsbane Sword and Elven Might Sling to follow — As subnotebooks like the Eee PC and the XO become more and more common (they will), a new market will develop around them and copycat machines. Intel hopes to be a player in this new market …
Discussion:
PC World
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CFO: Microsoft likely to go into debt for Yahoo deal — Microsoft has historically been renowned for its huge cash holdings, and its ability to avoid going into debt, but the company will probably need to borrow for the first time to help cover the cash portion of its giant Yahoo bid.
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Is Google's Social Graph API a Creeping Privacy Violation? — I love me some screenscaping and mashups and data portability, but when it comes to personal information things get a little more complicated. — I'm in San Francisco today at Dappercamp, an event concerning a tool that's always got …
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The danger of social markers made public (more on the Social Graph API)
Discussion:
apophenia


Google: Like A Rock (That Is, Falling Like One) — Google has thus far today dropped another 5% of its stock price to drop below the $500 mark for the first time since last August. Remember, up until the final days in December the stock was still over $700 a share, and it was near the $750 a share level …

Google Android - a sneak preview — What's in it for developers? — Google invited developers to its London office for one of three workshops - the others being in Munich and Tel Aviv to spread the word and teach developers how to write for their new OS.
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Microsoft wants to bring Surface home sooner — When people get a chance to try out Microsoft's Surface touch-screen tabletop computer, they often wish they could take one home. — Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said Monday that the company is trying to speed up that process after getting a lot of demand for a consumer version.

Google Reaches Out to Yahoo — Google CEO Eric Schmidt offered Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang help in any effort to thwart Microsoft's unsolicited $44.6 billion bid. Though regulatory concerns make a bid by Google unlikely, it could play a role in bids by others.
Discussion:
Epicenter, HipMojo.com, John Battelle's Searchblog, www.gulker.com, Associated Press, Seeking Alpha, VC Cafe and Googling Google

Goowy acquired by AOL! — We have been working closely in partnership with AOL since early 2007. During this time, we've had an opportunity to see AOL grow and evolve as a company. For this reason, among others, we're thrilled to announce that AOL has acquired Goowy.
Discussion:
Mashable!, Search Engine Journal, Profy.Com, VentureBeat, Download Squad and Somewhat Frank


Dynamic Bookmarking with Iterasi — Iterasi is a new browser-based tool for saving web pages. Unlike other bookmarking services, which simply save a link to a page's location, Iterasi captures the content of a page as it appears at that particular moment in time and saves it in an accessible HTML format with just one click.


Is Obama a Mac and Clinton a PC? — STYLES make fights — or so goes the boxing cliché. In 2008, they make presidential campaigns, too. — This is especially true for the two remaining Democrats, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Reporters covering the candidates have already resorted …


Rumor: New MacBook Pros on the way? — With Apple's MacBook Air having reached store shelves, it might not be too much longer before the company updates the rest of its notebook lineup. — MacRumors notes fresh evidence—of sorts—that Apple is getting ready to launch revamped MacBook Pros in February.