Top Items:
Nick White / Windows Vista Team Blog:
Update on Windows Vista SP1 Prerequisite KB937287 — We've heard a few reports about problems customers may be experiencing as a result of KB937287, the servicing stack update I blogged about last week, and I wanted to provide a quick update for you. Immediately after receiving reports of this error …
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Brandon Hill / DailyTech:Microsoft Makes Windows XP SP3 RC2 Publicly Available
Discussion:
Engadget
Reuters:
Sharper Image files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy — NEW YORK (Reuters) - Retailer Sharper Image Corp has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing declining sales, three straight years of losses and litigation involving its Ionic Breeze air purifiers.
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Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
HP's UMPC 2133 to cost $630 when shipping in April? — A report by the Commercial Times says that HP will launch its 8.9-inch UMPC in April for “more than” NT$20,000 or about $630 bucks. Sure sounds like the UMPC 2133 we showed you yesterday, eh? That's about right when you compare it to the $300, entry-level 7-inch Eee PC.
Discussion:
Electronista, The Mobile Gadgeteer, UMPCPortal feed., The Boy Genius Report, Mobility Site, The Register and Digg
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Chippy / UMPCPortal:
HP UMPC to feature VIA Inside. Not Intel. — The HP UMPC news is everywhere and I think it's obvious from the response that this UMPC represents something special. The comparisons range from the Eee PC to the Macbook AIR. Just think about that for a minute. Is this a single device that could compete in multiple markets?
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Price War! Telcos Swoon As Analysts Chop Ests on Verizon, AT&T, Qwest, Sprint; How Low Can Prices Go? — Fearing a price war is shaping up in the wireless sector, the Street is dumping telco shares. — Credit Suisse telecom analyst Christopher Larsen this morning reduced his rating …
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Reuters:
Sprint expected to undercut rivals' call plans — NEW YORK (Reuters) - No. 3 U.S. mobile service provider Sprint Nextel Corp (S.N) is expected to offer flat-rate calling plans at up to a 40 percent discount to its rivals, hurtling the industry into a price war, analysts said on Wednesday.
Brandi Stewart / Fortune Small Business:
eBay seller strike starts, listings dip — EBay's listings appear to be down 3% since this week's seller strike began, but separating the boycott's effects from standard daily fluctuations is a tricky task. — (FORTUNE Small Business) — Monday marked the start of a week-long eBay (EBAY …
Discussion:
VC Ratings, ReadWriteWeb, Download Squad, Silicon Alley Insider, MarketingShift and AppScout
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
GenieTown Launches To Tackle Local Services — Palo Alto-based Genie Town launches this morning. They're trying to crack the local services nut - a huge market, but one that a lot of the big guys are eyeing, too. — The company says they are addressing the long tail of local services.
Discussion:
Tech Confidential, Screenwerk, Insider Chatter, CenterNetworks, Rational rants, 901am, bub.blicio.us, VentureBeat and Mashable!
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Google & Its 99 Broadband Balloons — Google, according to The Wall Street Journal is thinking about teaming up with Space Data Corp., a company that sends balloons carrying small (micro) base stations about 20 miles up in the air for providing connectivity to truckers and oil companies.
Discussion:
DSLreports
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Ina Fried / CNET News.com:
Gates on Yahoo: It's the people — PALO ALTO, Calif.—Bill Gates is willing to pay a lot for engineering talent. — Asked what makes Yahoo worth more than $40 billion, Gates pointed not to the company's products, its huge base of advertisers or its market share, but rather to the company's engineers.
Chris Williams / The Register:
BBC mulls dropping Flash as iPlayer meets iPhone — iDontbelieveit! — The BBC is considering ditching Adobe's Flash system for its iPlayer streams to improve the video quality of the on-demand service, it said on Tuesday. — The news came alongside an announcement that iPlayer …
Brooke Crothers / CNET News.com:
Dell launches Inspiron notebooks with ‘Penryn’ chip — As expected, Dell is now offering Inspiron notebook PCs with the Intel Core 2 Duo “Penryn” chip as an optional configuration. This is the first time that Dell has included the 45-nanometer processor as an option in the consumer-oriented Inspiron line.
Jason / Signal vs. Noise:
The New Backpack's First 24 Hours — Yesterday's big Backpack update was a huge success. It was the best day in Backpack's history — even better than the last big update in July '07 and add anywhere in Oct '07. — We usually don't share numbers, but we thought we'd break tradition …
Ashkan Karbasfrooshan / HipMojo.com:
Why Most VC-Backed, Ad-Supported Companies Are Doomed to Fail — Most of the web projects out there are ad-supported, or intend to be ad-supported. — While a lot of companies are bootstrapped, most are financed by angel investors or venture capitalists.
Discussion:
VC Ratings
Matt Martin / GamesIndustry.biz:
GDC: Molyneux despairs at “tragic” state of PCgaming — Warcraft, The Sims “sucking the air out of PC market,” says Lionhead boss — Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux has said that the PC gaming market is in a tragic state, with two blockbusters hogging sales and stagnation in the casual market.
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
That Didn't Take Long At All: $89 Million Australian Internet Filters Called A Failure — Last August the Australian Prime Minister announced plans to spend many millions of dollars to offer free internet filters that parents could use to keep their kids from surfing porn.
