Top Items:
Nilay Patel / Engadget:
iTunes activation servers go down, iPhone 3G customers being sent home unactivated, first-gen iPhone customers stuck with dead iPhones — In a repeat of last year's problems, it looks like the insane demand for the iPhone 3G has taken its toll on Apple's iTunes activation servers …
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Mark Wilson / Gizmodo:
Apple and AT&T Stores Having Difficulty Activating iPhones (UPDATE: It's the iPocalypse) — We've heard [four] many accounts now from varying Apple store and AT&T locations that employees are having problems while trying to activate phones through iTunes. From Atlanta, one camper reports:
John Biggs / TechCrunch:
Epic Fail: Six Million iBricks... and Growing — Well this is a fine kettle of fish. iPhone activations have essentially gone down and everyone - from folks updating their old phones to new 3G activators - are stuck with bricks until traffic dies off. Reader Brent reports:
Joe Fay / The Register:
O2 buckles under 3G iPhone demand — O2 customers reported that the firm's activation system crashed this morning as they raced to get their new 3G iPhones, but the telco insists everything is going swimmingly. — One reader in West London told El Reg that the manager of his local O2 shop …
Discussion:
Speeds and feeds, VentureBeat, CNET News.com, The Open Road, 9 to 5 Mac and Josh Chandler's Blog
Industry Standard:
Exclusive: Phil Schiller on the long wait for iPhone 3G activation — I swung by the Boylston Street Apple Store in Boston to check out the iPhone 3G festivities and who did I find? None other than Phil Schiller, Apple's Senior Vice President for Worldwide Product Marketing.
Caroline McCarthy / CNET News.com:
Server crashes slow lines, frustrate iPhone buyers — NEW YORK—The process of obtaning an iPhone 3G appears to be going in slow motion because of AT&T activation server crashes that have been confirmed in New York, San Francisco, and Palo Alto, Calif. — Unlike its predecessor last year …
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Guardian Media Group Buys paidContent for $30 Million — In what will be seen as a new media coup, sources tell BoomTown that Britain's Guardian Media Group is set to announce this morning that it will buy the company that runs the high-profile digital media news site paidContent for a price “north of $30 million.”
Discussion:
alarm:clock, paidContent.org, VentureBeat, mathewingram.com/work, Valleywag, HipMojo.com, Silicon Alley Insider, MEDIANAMA, Aqute Research Blog, The Next Web, Gawker, Pulse 2.0, Silicon Valley Watcher, Deal Journal, Tech Confidential, BuzzMachine, The Inquisitr, Susan Mernit's Blog, VC Circle and Beet.TV
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Rafat Ali / paidContent.org:
ContentNext 2.0: Life With The Guardian Media Group — We got scooped on the biggest story of our own company's life. Such is our life. Almost six years after our company started with paidContent.org, we have been acquired by Guardian News & Media (GNM), the news media division of UK-headquartered Guardian Media Group (GMG).
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb: Confirmed: PaidContent Bought By the Guardian - Here's How Media History is Made
Matt Asay / The Open Road:
Apple's iPhone 2.0 update is failing — Look familiar? It's what I and others have been seeing this morning when trying to upgrade to the iPhone 2.0 firmware. Apple's servers are apparently being dismantled by heavy traffic. That's nice. But now I have a brick with no ability to call, no contacts, nothing.
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Tom Spring / Today @ PC World:
iTunes Store “Unavailable”: This iPod Touch Owner is Stuck in Update Limbo — Since I'm a Verizon Wireless customer the closest thing to joining the iFrenzy for the iPhone 3G is taking advantage of Apple's App Store and the wealth new software options available for my iPod Touch.
Dan Kimerling / TechCrunch:
Before the App Store “Opens”, it has already made Apple $55,000 — Tucked away on the iPhone 2.0 version of Apple's Application Store is a counter for the number of times that each application has been purchased . When this information is combined with an application's price …
Discussion:
CNET News.com, Forbes, Pinch Media, PDA, Contentinople, MacRumors, Ajaxian, Creative Capital, The Unofficial Apple Weblog and last100
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John Dunbar / Associated Press:
FCC chief says Comcast violated Internet rules — WASHINGTON — The head of the Federal Communications Commission said Thursday he will recommend that the nation's largest cable company be punished for violating agency principles that guarantee customers open access to the Internet.
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Vindu Goel / Bits:
An Imminent Victory for ‘Net Neutrality’ Advocates — When Comcast admitted last fall that it was blocking — or slowing down, as the company preferred to call it — certain file transfers by customers, a lot of people complained that the company was unfairly discriminating against heavy Internet users.
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
iPhone 3G In NYC: Sold Out At AT&T, Still Some At The Apple Stores — No surprise: Apple seems to have stocked its own retail stores with many more new iPhone 3Gs than it gave out to carrier partner AT&T. — As of noon Friday, ten of ten AT&T (T) stores we contacted in Manhattan and Brooklyn …
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Ryan Block / Engadget:
iPhone 3G review (updated) — It's hard to think of any other device that's enjoyed the level of exposure and hype that Apple found in the launch of the first iPhone. Who could forget it? Everyone got to be a gadget nerd for a day; even those completely disinterested in technology seemed to come down with iPhone fever.
Discussion:
DailyTech, Quick Online Tips, GigaOM, Switched, The iPhone Blog, The After Mac, Slashdot and The Map Room
Greg Sandoval / CNET News.com:
When you're Robert Scoble, you don't wait for an iPhone — SAN FRANCISCO—The perks of being a famous tech blogger include not having to stand in line all night for the latest gadget. — I was out in front of the Apple store near Union Square here at 9 p.m. PDT on Thursday standing in line …
Brandon Bailey / Mercury News:
Female CEOs at top Silicon Valley tech firms down to zero — OUSTER AT VMWARE RIPPLES IN VALLEY — The number of women chief executives at Silicon Valley's biggest technology companies dropped to zero this week, with the abrupt departure of VMware's Diane Greene from the company she co-founded 10 years ago.
Lester Haines / The Register:
Obama bloats Vista by 11MB — 56MB update adds five words to dictionary — We're very much obliged today to readers Hawkeye and Duncan Lilly for providing evidence that the Beast of Redmond's Vista is not the lean, mean fighting machine it really should be. Try this “important” update warning for size:
