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Looking back and looking ahead: Bill Gates leaves Microsoft — Although describing things as the “end of an era” is something of a cliché, Bill Gates' departure from Microsoft today surely deserves the label. Gates announced two years ago that he would be reducing his workload …
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Audio: Bill Gates says so long to Microsoft — Bill Gates and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer both fought back tears as they concluded a farewell event for the Microsoft co-founder on the company's Redmond campus this morning. Ballmer presented Gates with a bound scrapbook of photos and memories …


Gates bids farewell to Microsoft — Factbox: Microsoft's post-Gates leaders — INSIGHT AND ANALYSIS — FACTBOX — Who will fill Bill Gates' shoes? — Who will fill the void left by Bill Gates? Erick Schonfeld, co-editor of TechCrunch, picks the leaders to watch. Full Article

Gates' big-picture memos shaped Microsoft, changed tech world

Rogers Launches Flexible Price Packages for Apple iPhone 3G — Starting at $60 for voice and data combined TORONTO, June 27 — TORONTO, June 27/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Rogers Wireless, Canada's — largest wireless carrier with Canada'sfastest wireless network, today announced a variety …
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Rogers announces iPhone 3G plans, unlimited data isn't one of them — Here we have it, iPhone 3G pricing for our better mannered, gun-toting friends up north. All the plans from Rogers Wireless require that lovely, three-year contract and include visual voicemail, free evenings and weekends …


Google enters the PC to TV arena — Google today made its own contribution to solving the PC to TV problem with the release of Google Media Server. The Windows-only software works in conjunction with Google's desktop search application - Google Desktop - to locate various media (photos …
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From the desktop to your TV — In the old days, we used to watch a simple device called a television. Nowadays, all the stuff worth watching and listening to tends to be stored on or accessed through a computer. To help remedy this, we are pleased to release the Google Media Server.
Discussion:
The Inquisitr, NewTeeVee, Bits, VentureBeat, Digital Inspiration, Google Operating System, Lockergnome, InformationWeek, BetaNews, WebProNews and Lifehacker


EXCELLENT HBR PIECE CHALLENGING THE LONG TAIL — Anita Elberse, a Harvard Business School associate professor, has a really interesting article in the new Harvard Business Review that analyzes some Long Tail data and challenges some of the theory's predictions.


Virgin Mobile USA buys Helio for $39 million — Virgin Mobile USA will pay $39 million in stock to buy operator Helio, the company said Friday. — The deal ends more than a month of speculation that the two troubled mobile virtual-network operators would combine forces.
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The Register, The Technology Chronicles, eWeek, Boy Genius Report, Computerworld, Electronista and Gearlog
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Virgin Mobile Acquiring MVNO Helio For A Paltry $39M In Equity …

ICANN moves toward completely opening top-level domains — One of the biggest news items this week, according to The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), could result in the biggest expansion to the Internet in forty years. — ICANN unanimously voted in favor …
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Microsoft fires shot across VMware bow with Hyper-V release — Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualization platform today moved out of beta. The RTM version is now available for download, and will be released to Windows Update on July 8. Hyper-V, previously codenamed “Windows Server Virtualization” …
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eWeek, Computerworld, LinuxInsider, WinBeta, GigaOM, OStatic blogs, InformationWeek, Virtually Speaking and Virtualization.com

Mashups: Google's Adoption Makes oAuth a Must Have for All Apps — Open standard based user authentication protocol oAuth has now been implemented across all Google Data APIs, quickly offering this young standard for easy mashups more market validation than it's ever had before.
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Official Google Data APIs Blog

New Google search results pages for BlackBerry users — Two weeks ago we updated our mobile homepage in the US so that it would load more quickly. Today, we're releasing in the US a number of improvements to our mobile search results pages for BlackBerry browsers.
Discussion:
The Inquisitr, CIO.com, Search Engine Land, Search Engine Watch Blog and InformationWeek


Are iPhone app devs getting a raw deal? — We mentioned yesterday a rumor that Apple won't cut a check for iPhone application developers until the dev's share of the sales tops $250. A lot of commenters were upset about this, if it's true: TomWBrowning said “So if you make an app that costs $1 …
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iLounge

Memo to Jakob Lodwick: Grow up — At the risk of writing about two “High School 2.0″ blogosphere situations in one week (the first one being the Loren Feldman and Shel Israel brouhaha), I couldn't help but notice that Jakob Lodwick — the brash young millionaire co-founder of Vimeo …


Meet The Man Behind Facebook's Most Useless - And Popular - Apps — You've probably never heard of Blake Commagere. But if you're on Facebook, you've almost certainly seen his work. Blake's the guy behind the Zombies, Werewolves, Vampires and Slayers apps, which means he's …
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Valleywag