Top Items:
Megan McCarthy / Epicenter:
Rumor: Plaxo Sold to Google for $200M? — We're hearing rumors that online contact management service Plaxo has accepted a sub-$200 million offer and that the purchasing company is most likely search engine Google. — Plaxo has been in the news recently, reportedly hiring a bank to shepherd a sale.
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Owen Thomas / Valleywag:
Google to buy Plaxo — and a new pal — for $200 million? — Plaxo, the contact-sharing service trying to reinvent itself as a social network, may have sold itself to Google for something close to $200 million. And if the rumor's true, I think the companies may be doing it out of friendship.
Discussion:
The Open Road
Google News Blog:
All News is Local — Something you already know about Google News is that we crawl thousands of sources from around the world. This means you get as many different perspectives on a story from many perspectives. A while back, we started thinking about how to bring this same diversity …
Discussion:
Googlified, Digital Daily, Compiler, TeleRead, innonate, Download Squad, Search Engine Watch Blog, Between the Lines, BetaNews, CyberNet, PDA, Google Operating System, WebProNews, Journalistopia, Google Blogoscoped, Joe Duck, Technology Questions, Insider Chatter, AppScout, mathewingram.com/work, Seeking Alpha, Mark Evans, Googling Google, Mashable! and Lifehacker
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Tolles / blog.topix.com:
Welcome to the Neighborhood, Google — Gulp. — Silicon Valley CEO nightmare right out of central casting, right? In our case, Google launching a local news product that is targeted down to the ZIP code level, something we've had a lock on since 2004, and one of our clearest differentiators.
Mike Schramm / The Unofficial Apple Weblog:
Rumor: Apple event the last week of February — TUAW has received a tip that the company that does television for Apple's live events and Macworld is apparently hiring for an unannounced Apple event at the end of February. Keep in mind that this is an unconfirmed rumor — while TUAW trusts our source …
Heather Hopkins / Hitwise Intelligence:
Google Properties Breakdown - by Pages — I wanted to follow up on a comment I received on my post last week with the Google Properties Breakdown. Gonçalo asks a great question - whether the ranking changes much if we look at page views rather than visits as websites.
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Amazon Quietly Launches Product Ads; Secretly Wants to Become a Shopping Search Engine. — Sometimes I think that Amazon secretly wants to get out of the physical retailing business. It gets much higher margins from selling digital goods, or from collecting an affiliate fee from any sales it directs to an third-party Amazon Merchant.
RELATED:
Brian Smith / ComparisonEngines.com:amazon becomes the largest shopping engine
Discussion:
Redeye VC
Andrew Orlowski / The Register:
Major labels ‘face DoJ antitrust probe’ — Unlaunched TotalMusic prompts price fixing concern — Two major labels have been served notice of a fresh antitrust investigation, a music business newsletter reports today. MusicAlly's daily Bulletin suggests that the as-yet-unlaunched TotalMusic service …
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Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
OpenID Welcomes Microsoft, Google, Verisign and IBM — As anticipated by TechCrunch UK in early January, OpenID is welcoming some big new partners to the club - Microsoft, Google, Verisign and IBM (TechCrunch UK anticipated all but Microsoft). — Google has been dabbling with OpenID …
Discussion:
mathewingram.com/work, Silicon Florist, Mashable!, CenterNetworks, Signal vs. Noise and SmoothSpan Blog
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Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
RIAA boss: Move copyright filtering from ISPs to users' PCs — Filtering sounds so wholesome. As with filtered water, Internet filtering backers suggest that their products simply keep the sludge from passing through, and who wants to drink unfiltered sludge?
RELATED:
Alex Curtis / Public Knowledge:RIAA wants content filters and proposes spyware too [VIDEO]
Discussion:
The Register, Techdirt, DSLreports, p2pnet, Gizmodo, IP Telephony, VoIP, Broadband and TechSpot News
AppleInsider:
Apple filing depicts Apple TV with iChat widget interface — A new and discrete patent filing on the part of Apple Inc. portrays previously undisclosed versions of the company's Apple TV set-top-box software and remote control that make extensive use of widgets to facilitate everything …
Reuters:
ARM to show Google phone prototype next week: source — FRANKFURT/LONDON (Reuters) - British chip designer ARM (ARM.L: Quote, Profile, Research) will show a prototype mobile phone based on Google's (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) Android platform next Monday at the Mobile World Congress wireless show …
Discussion:
Engadget, eWeek, PC World, Reuters, Electronista, IntoMobile, CrunchGear, Mashable!, Gizmodo, localmobilesearch.net and Gadgetell
TVTechnology.com:
Apple Drops Out of NAB Show — Apple has announced that it will not have a booth at The NAB Show this year. — Rumor had been spreading on the Internet in recent days about Apple's presence at the show. Speculation increased after Avid Technology, the company's main competitor at the NAB Show dropped out late last year.
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Alex / Neatorama:
The Evolution of Tech Companies' Logos — You've seen these tech logos everywhere, but have you ever wondered how they came to be? Did you know that Apple's original logo was Isaac Newton under an apple tree? Or that Nokia's original logo was a fish? — Let's take a look at the origin …
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Some won't have to wait until March for Vista SP1, after all — Surprise! If you were among the 15,000 chosen testers who got the Vista Service Pack (SP) 1 Release Candidate (RC) 1 Refresh 2 test build in late January, you already have the final SP1 bits.
Discussion:
One Microsoft Way
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Jon Stokes / Ars Technica:
IBM shrinks Cell to 45nm. Cheaper PS3s will follow — SAN FRANCISCO — At an ISSCC session yesterday afternoon, IBM announced details of a smaller, lower-power version of the Cell BE processor that powers Sony's PlayStation 3. The Cell BE is currently fabricated on IBM's 65nm SOI process …
Discussion:
DailyTech, The Tech Report, Kotaku, Engadget, Gizmodo, Valleywag, Joystiq, TechSpot News and Slashdot
