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.
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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 …
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
Microsoft Corporation:
Open XML File Format Converter for Mac 1.0 — Open XML Converter allows you to convert Open XML files that were created in Office 2008 for Mac or Office 2007 for Windows so that you can open, edit, and save them in earlier versions of Office for Mac. Open XML Converter can convert Word documents …
Discussion:
The Register, AppleInsider, Microsoft Help and Support, O'Reilly Digital Media Blog and Beyond Binary
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Jonathan Cassell / iSuppli:
New iPhone Carries $173 BOM and Manufacturing Cost, According to a Preliminary Estimate From iSuppli — Apple Inc.'s second-generation iPhone is expected to carry an initial hardware Bill Of Materials (BOM) and manufacturing cost of $173, according to a preliminary “virtual teardown” conducted by iSuppli Corp.
Discussion:
IDG News Service, PalmAddicts, DigiTimes, Gadget Lab, CrunchGear, The Apple Core and Insanely Great Mac
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
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.
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Greenpeace:
How the companies line up — We first released our ‘Guide to Greener Electronics’ in August 2006. The guide ranks the 18 top manufacturers of personal computers, mobile phones, TV's and games consoles according to their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change.
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 …
communities.hp.com:
Finding SQL Injection with Scrawlr — You have likely been tracking the mass SQL Injections that are currently sweeping through the net. Just last night I was shopping on www.ihomeaudio.com when I noticed they had been injected (they have since fixed their site). HP started to observe these attacks in January.
Discussion:
Microsoft Help and Support, Computerworld, hackademix.net, ZDNet.com.au, Zero Day, Defense in Depth and Jeremiah Grossman
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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
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
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.”
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 …