Top Items:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Full Text Of AOL Email: XDrive, AOL Pictures, MyMobile And Bluestring To Shut Down — Below is the full text of the email AOL EVP Kevin Conroy sent out to staff on July 14, outlining the reorganization of his product groups and announcing the “sunsetting” of XDrive, AOL Pictures, MyMobile and Bluestring.
RELATED:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch: AOL To Shutter A Slew Of Products, EVP Kevin Conroy's Future Uncertain
Rafat Ali / paidContent.org:AOL Trimming Up For Sale; Sun Sets On XDrive, AOL Pictures, Mobile And Others
Discussion:
The Inquisitr
Andru Edwards / Gear Live:
Apple beta testing iPhone 2.1 firmware, adding more GPS features — We just got word that Apple has released a beta version of iPhone OS 2.1 to developers. Along with the 2.1 firmware, a new version of the iPhone SDK has been seeded as well, but the new SDK can't be used for submitting applications to the App Store at the moment.
RELATED:
Arn / MacRumors:
Apple Seeds iPhone 2.1 Firmware with GPS Features — GearLive reports that Apple has seeded a beta version of iPhone 2.1 Firmware (Beta 1, Build 5F90) to developers. — According to the site, Apple has included new Core Location features that might suggest that turn-by-turn GPS could become a reality.
Brier Dudley / Brier Dudley's blog:
Microsoft CFO to Wall Street: What gives? And forget about a Yahoo deal — If Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and CFO Chris Liddell weren't already bald, they would be from scratching their heads, trying to figure out why their stock is doing so poorly. Especially given the company's recent performance …
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Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:Ballmer seeks to justify Microsoft's bottomless-pit online spending
Discussion:
Search Engine Land, E-Commerce Times, Computerworld, Coop's Corner, GMSV and Silicon Alley Insider
Daisuke Wakabayashi / Reuters:Microsoft CEO backs Web spending, “done” with Yahoo
Discussion:
PC World
Denver Post:
Missing ‘spam king’ kills self, family — BENNETT — Just four days after escaping a federal minimum-security work camp, “Spam King” Eddie Davidson shot his wife and child and wounded a teen-age girl before turning the gun on himself. — Sheriff's deputies responded to a report of gunfire …
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Ryan Naraine / Zero Day:
Escapee ‘Spam King’ dead in apparent murder-suicide — Convicted spammer Eddie Davidson, who escaped from federal prison over the weekend, killed his wife and 3-year-old daughter before killing himself in what is being described as a murder-suicide. — Colorado's 9News.com said the tragic end …
Discussion:
WebProNews
David Pogue / New York Times:
Apple's MobileMess — Two weeks ago, Apple launched MobileMe, the successor to its.Mac service, which costs $100 a year. Among other benefits, it can keep multiple Macs, PCs and iPhones in sync. E-mail, calendars and address books are wirelessly kept up to date. Very cool idea.
Robert Vamosi / CNET News.com:
Vulnerable to a DNS cache poisoning at home? — On Wednesday, an exploit code allowing someone to attack the domain name system (DNS) became available. No one has yet used the code, but the advice is simple: Patch. Now. While most of the burden is on the Domain Name System servers …
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Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
The Day After: Looking At How Well Knol Pages Rank On Google — We've been assured that just because content sits on Google's Knol site, it won't gain any ranking authority from being part of the Knol domain. OK, so a day after Knol has launched, how's that holding up?
Discussion:
WebProNews
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Blockbuster remembers it bought Movielink for a reason — While company after company enter the digital movie download realm including former outsiders like Apple and Microsoft, the company once synonymous with movie rentals has been noticeably absent: Blockbuster.
Discussion:
paidContent.org
RELATED:
Computerworld:
Forrester: Windows Vista rejected like ‘new Coke’ by enterprises — Even though it's been out for about 18 months now, the Windows Vista OS doesn't seem to be gaining a lot of traction at large firms, according to survey results released by Forrester Research. — SECURITY / more stories...
Discussion:
Asa Dotzler, TomsTechBlog.com, Forrester Research, broadstuff, 9 to 5 Mac, Macsimum News and The Mac Observer
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
The Final Days of DRM: Yahoo Music Store Closing, Will Eat Your Purchased Music — Digital Rights Management technology is dying, it's becoming understood that hobbling tunes to enforce scarcity isn't the best way to monetize the music business online. What about all the suckers who bought DRM laden music in recent years, though?
Discussion:
Startup Meme, Ars Technica, CNET News.com, MarketingShift, Techdirt, Boing Boing and Smalltalk Tidbits …
Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land:
Microsoft Live Search Coming To Facebook — When Microsoft made its investment in Facebook I always had thought that Live Search would come to the site, together with search monetization. Later it appeared that search wasn't part of the deal. Facebook's competitors all have web search …
Brian Stelter / New York Times:
Griping Online? Comcast Hears You and Talks Back — PHILADELPHIA — Brandon Dilbeck, 20, a student at the University of Washington, was complaining recently on his blog, Brandon Notices, about Comcast's practice of posting ads in its on-screen programming guide. — He assumed he was writing for his own benefit.
Richard MacManus / ReadWriteWeb:
Android Is For The Masses, iPhone For The Rich — Our network blog last100 has an interesting interview with Nicolas Gramlich, founder of anddev.org - an online community for Android developers. As editor Steve O'Hear notes in his intro, there have been issues with Google's mobile OS of late …
Discussion:
last100
Garett Rogers / Googling Google:
Google creates a new market and wreaks havoc on another — When they first announced it, I was certain Knol was simply a way for Google steal some of the attention away from Wikia search — and I'm still sure that's what was actually happening. Google doesn't normally pre-announce applications months in advance.
Brad Stone / Bits:
Hasbro Notches Triple-Word Score Against Scrabulous With ‘Lawsuit’ — UPDATED — Looking to cut down its main competition and most high profile copycat in the growing market for social gaming, Hasbro has sued the two Indian brothers behind the popular Web game Scrabulous …
