Top Items:
Seth Weintraub / Computerworld Blogs:
Rumor: MacBook updates to include glass trackpad, other goodies — As I hinted in my “fun” blog, I have been hearing some interesting things about Apple's upcoming line of portable computers. The talk amongst insiders on the new MacBooks is kind of scattered but here's a summation of what I've heard:
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Kasper Jade / AppleInsider:
Apple's next-gen Macs to have something special under the hood — A new generation of personal computers on the way from Apple Inc. may sport some of the most significant architectural changes since the Mac maker made the jump from PowerPC processors to those manufactured by Intel Corp., AppleInsider has learned.
Discussion:
Digital Daily, One More Thing, MacRumors, VentureBeat, MacUser, Electronista, The Tech Report and MacDailyNews
Rafe Needleman / Webware.com:
Cuil shows us how not to launch a search engine — Google challenger Cuil launched last night in blaze of glory. And it went down in a ball of flames. Immediately after launch, the criticism started to pile on: results were incomplete, weird, and missing.
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Vince Sollitto / Cuil:
Cuil Launches Biggest Search Engine on the Web — Technology Company Offers New Look at Search — Cuil, a technology company pioneering a new approach to search, unveils its innovative search offering, which combines the biggest Web index with content-based relevance methods, results organized by ideas, and complete user privacy.
Harrison Hoffman / The Web Services Report:
When the “Wisdom of Crowds” turns on itself: IMDB Edition — The concept of the wisdom of crowds is a fundamental building block of a lot of the Web 2.0 services that we see today. While not all of them are built on this core concept, major sites like Digg, Wikipedia, and Mahalo rely heavily on crowds being wise.
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David Chartier / Infinite Loop:
iPhone, App Store problems causing more than just headaches — It has been a couple weeks since Apple deemed iPhone OS 2.0 to be ripe enough for us to pluck from its digital tree. While third-party software (albeit from a walled garden) is indeed an appetizing treat, widespread reports …
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Chris Foresman / Ars Technica:
iPhone NDA: Doing more harm than good — The iPhone software development kit (SDK) is the only sanctioned way to develop applications for Apple's iPhone and iPod touch. The SDK includes APIs, documentation, and sample code; so far, Apple is treating all of it as confidential information.
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
MPAA Still Clueless; Claims Anti-Piracy Is Why Dark Knight Had A Huge Opening — from the are-these-people-serious? dept — Last week, we wrote about how the massively successful opening of The Dark Knight showed (once again) how little an impact “piracy” has on movies. But don't tell the movie industry that.
Discussion:
Portfolio.com
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Dawn C. Chmielewski / Los Angeles Times:
Secrecy cloaked ‘Dark Knight’ — Warner Bros. took painstaking care to thwart pirates ahead of the film's premier, and the effort paid off. — For Warner Bros., the mission was to keep “The Dark Knight” from seeing the light of day. — In an era of instantaneous digital copying …
Jim Goldman / Tech Check with Jim Goldman:
Steve Jobs Walks Into the Trap — What was Steve thinking? I don't pretend to understand the pressures he's under, both physically and professionally, but calling New York Times columnist Joe Nocera with an “off the record” health update was a big mistake, completely unnecessary, and serves only to fan the flames.
Emil Protalinski / One Microsoft Way:
Microsoft Research releases free software for academics — At the ninth annual Microsoft Research Faculty Summit, Tony Hey, corporate vice president of Microsoft's External Research Division, unveiled free software to help researchers seamlessly publish, preserve, and share data.
Craig Donato / Oodle Blog:
New MySpace Classifieds Powered by Oodle — MySpace users now have a smarter classifieds site - more listings, better search and helpful pricing guides. The site is also more social: listings are linked to MySpace profiles - not anonymous IDs, and users can enlist their friends to help …
Discussion:
ReadWriteWeb, Screenwerk, Silicon Alley Insider, paidContent.org, The Social, WebProNews and AppScout
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Facebook Hires Mozilla Exec Mike Schroepfer As Director Of Engineering — Mike Schroepfer, the extremely well regarded VP Engineering at Mozilla, is now Facebook's Director of Engineering. — He'll be heading up Facebook Platform and the main product front end, he said by telephone this morning …
Discussion:
The Open Road, CNET News.com, AppScout, FaceReviews, All Facebook, Silicon Alley Insider, WebProNews, Furrier.org and Mashable!
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Robert M. McDowell / Washington Post:
Who Should Solve This Internet Crisis? — The Internet was in crisis. Its electronic “pipes” were clogged with new bandwidth-hogging software. Engineers faced a choice: Allow the Net to succumb to fatal gridlock or find a solution. — The year was 1987.
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Declan McCullagh / The Iconoclast:FCC probably can't police Comcast's BitTorrent throttling
Discussion:
The Technology Chronicles, IP Democracy, ZDNet Government, Electronista, Gizmodo and Wall Street Journal
Rich Miller / Data Center Knowledge:
VMware Plans Major Data Center in Wenatchee — VMware has become the latest tech titan to locate a major data center in central Washington. The virtualization market leader will lease more than 100,000 square feet of space in a new facility being built by Sabey Corp. in its Intergate.Columbia development in East Wenatchee, Wash.
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Jason Calacanis / Silicon Alley Insider:
Is Google A Content Company? Of Course It Is. So What Should Publishers Do? — For the past week, I've been fielding calls about Google's new content play, called Knol, “killing” Mahalo. Knol stands for “unit of Knowledge” and it's a very well-designed Wikipedia/Mahalo style content publishing play.
Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:
Yahoo Music Does The Right Thing: Issues Refunds to Customers — Last Thursday, we reported that Yahoo Music was going to shut down its store and DRM licensing servers on September 30, which was basically going to leave anybody who ever bought music from the Yahoo Music Store without a license to play their music.
Brooke Crothers / CNET News.com:
HP: Nvidia graphics defect an issue since November 2007 — Hewlett-Packard lists 24 separate laptop model variations affected by a widely reported Nvidia graphics chip defect. HP said the flaw has been a warranty issue since November of last year. — Dell made a statement Friday regarding the same graphics chip issue.
