Top Items:
Todd Bishop / Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog:
Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant — Sometimes, software isn't so magical. Even for Bill Gates. — For the opening piece in our series on Gates leaving daily life at Microsoft, one goal was to give a clear picture of the Microsoft co-founder's role inside the company, as a gauge of the impact his departure will have.
BIZ / Twitter Blog:
Welcoming Bijan and Jeff — We're happy to announce two new members of our investment team: Bijan Sabet with Spark Capital in Boston and Jeff Bezos of Bezos Expeditions in Seattle. Bijan has also accepted a seat on our board of directors. We're looking forward to the guidance and advice both will bring to Twitter.
Discussion:
Feeds, Mark Evans, Industry Standard, I'm Not Actually a Geek, Profy.Com, ReadWriteWeb, bijan sabet, paidContent.org, WebProNews, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Valleywag, Maple Leaf 2.0, Startup Meme, L.A. Times Tech Blog, John Cook's Venture Blog, mathewingram.com/work, metarand, Silicon Alley Insider, The Social Web, BloggingStocks and Pulse 2.0
RELATED:
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Android Expectations … More about Google's (and their Android team's) motivation and goals than about specific details of the platform, but interesting. — One thing I should make clear, given some of the email I've gotten this week, is that I'm rooting for Android, big-time.
RELATED:
Andrew Orlowski / The Register:
Farewell then, Symbian — Epoc's journey: from world-beater to basket case — The smart in smartphone disappeared — The smartphone wars once devoured a great deal of attention and energy, particularly during the long PR war that took place in the first four barren years …
Discussion:
Mobile Opportunity
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Sources: Microsoft And Yahoo Talks Back On — We've got multiple sources at both Yahoo and Microsoft telling us that official talks are back on between the two companies. But we're hearing something different than CNET - the talks are about a full buyout again, not a sweetened search-only deal.
Discussion:
BoomTown, Profy.Com, The Technology Chronicles, The Inquisitr, Startup Meme, CNBC, CNET News.com, Silicon Alley Insider, Homotron.net, Deal Journal, BloggingBuyouts, BloggingStocks, Beyond Binary, mathewingram.com/work, ZDNet.com.au, Industry Standard, Techland, Search Engine Land, TECH.BLORGE.com, Alice Hill's Real Tech News, Electronista, Digital Daily, Tech Trader Daily, Tech Beat, Portfolio.com, GMSV, Valleywag, Microsoft News Tracker, MediaFile, Simon's Blog and paidContent.org
Jennifer Leggio / Feeds:
Is Microsoft accessible without Bill Gates? — Bill Gates spent the last two years slowly disengaging as he prepared for his final departure from Microsoft at the end of this week. In doing so, he appears to have left the company's technical direction in strong hands with Ray Ozzie, Craig Mundie and 22 Technical Fellows.
Discussion:
Forbes
Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:
Google's Vint Cerf, ‘Father of the Internet’: “Online Video Will Be Distributed in Download Mode” — Vint Cerf, a computer scientist who is most often called the “father of the Internet,” says that the popularity and demand for online video will mean that the distribution will eventually be done …
Discussion:
Outside the Lines
Jonathan D. Glater / New York Times:
Hidden Sex Scenes Draw Ho-Hum, Except From Lawyers — Lawyers who sued the makers of the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas profess to be shocked, simply shocked, that few people who bought the game were offended by sex scenes buried in its software. — Any buyer upset about hidden sex …
Michael Geist / canada.com:
Uncle Sam's fingers are all over the Canadian copyright bill — Last week's introduction of new federal copyright legislation ignited a firestorm with thousands of Canadians expressing genuine shock at provisions that some MPs argued would create a “police state.”
Josh / Redeye VC:
The Death of Stealth Mode — D Seeing how attacking startup lawyers seems to be en vogue this month, let's put this post in the category of “Things I wish lawyers told their startup clients.” — Here's a situation I see all the time: — A pre-launch, stealth-mode company just closes a seed round of funding.
Chris Anderson / Wired News:
The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete — “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” — So proclaimed statistician George Box 30 years ago, and he was right. But what choice did we have? Only models, from cosmological equations to theories of human behavior …
Discussion:
Conversation Agent
Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:
Evri Beta Launches: Search Less - Understand More — Evri, a Paul Allen backed semantic search engine, is launching into a limited beta tonight. Evri was first shown publicly at the D6 conference. Evri's CEO Neil Roseman likes to talk about Evri in terms of organizing content instead of calling it a search engine.
Mark Hendrickson / TechCrunch:
Kosmix Goes Horizontal — Kosmix, until now a vertical search engine for information about health, automobiles and travel, transformed itself into a universal search engine for all subjects earlier today during a general redesign. — The move has been anticipated since at least last September …
Discussion:
Beet.TV
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Is Google Ad Planner Getting Its Data From The Google Toolbar? — The recent launch of Google Trends for Websites was just a dress rehearsal. The real product that it is based on is Google Ad Planner, which the company announced today. Google Ad Planner is built for ad buyers who want to decide where to place their ads.
Justin Berka / Infinite Loop:
O2 may let users pick iPhone plans in advance to cut lines — UK carrier O2 has already been pimping the iPhone 3G pretty hard following the announcement of the device, and has allowed customers to preregister their interest in getting their hands on the new iPhone when it arrives.
RELATED:
Phil Manchester / The Register:
Eclipse will be watching you very closely — To Io and beyond... The Eclipse Foundation wants to know who is using Eclipse and how they are using it ahead of next year's planned mega release. — One of the main innovations in the Eclipse Foundation's Ganymede synchronized release …
