Top Items:
Jessica E. Vascellaro / Wall Street Journal:
Google to Extend Reach With Venture-Capital Arm — Ex-Entrepreneur Hired To Assist in Setup; Brand-Name Advantage — Google Inc. is working on plans to start a venture-capital arm, according to several people briefed on the discussions. — The group will be lead by David Drummond …
Discussion:
VentureBeat, GigaOM, Search Engine Land, PDA, John Cook's Venture Blog, CNET News.com, VC Circle, MediaFile, WebProNews, paidContent.org, AppScout, IDG News Service and Clickety Clack
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Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Google To Launch Venture Fund — The WSJ is reporting that Google is set to launch a venture fund to give it the option of investing in startups instead of just flat out buying them. The fund will be led by Google's SVP Corporate Development David Drummond and Bill Maris …
Rafat Ali / paidContent.org:
LG's New Blu-Ray Box Includes Netflix Streaming; “Well Under $500” — Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) announced its first direct-to-TV movie partnership with LG Electronics (SEO: 066570) early this year, but was short on details then. Since then, it launched through a low-cost Roku box.
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Nick Wingfield / Wall Street Journal:
LG Electronics Device To Deliver Movies Online — South Korea's LG Electronics Inc. will soon offer a device that plays high definition Blu-ray movies along with video streamed over the Internet from Netflix Inc., the latest move by Netflix to deliver movie rentals online rather than through the mail.
Bobbie Johnson / Guardian:
Watchdog clears Google's street cameras — Google's controversial Street View service - which will offer ground-level pictures of every UK street online -can finally be launched in Britain, after a privacy watchdog said it had no complaints about the service.
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BBC:
Google Street View gets go ahead — Google's controversial Street View photo-mapping tool has been given the all clear by the UK's privacy watchdog. — The system takes pictures of streets and adds them to online maps to let people see what locations look like.
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
‘Scrabulous’ gets a nip-tuck, returns as ‘Wordscraper’ — In the high school cafeteria of Facebook apps, Scrabulous is like that girl who gets in trouble for showing too much skin, only to throw on a hoodie and be let back into the principal's good graces. Sort of.
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Justin Smith / Inside Facebook:
Facebook Launches News Feed Filters - First Look — It's been nearly two years since Facebook's News Feed launched. Tonight, Facebook is turning on the first major change to the News Feed user experience: News Feed filters. — News Feed filters are tabs at the top of the News Feed that allow you to view stories of only one type.
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Surprise! Motorola posts profit; Isn't unraveling as handset sales crater — Motorola posted a small profit excluding charges-a small victory, but enough to top Wall Street estimates calling for a loss of 3 cents a share. The company's enterprise and networking business carried the quarter.
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The Smoking Gun:
Google: “Complete Privacy Does Not Exist” — Defending “Street View” lawsuit, firm says trespasses to be expected — Arguing that technology has ensured that “complete privacy does not exist,” Google contends that a Pennsylvania family has no legal grounds to sue the search giant …
Wil Shipley / Call Me Fishmeal:
“The Mojave Experiment:” Bad Science, Bad Marketing — I guess I should first admit I hate the show Punk'd. I mean, here's a guy who is famous for lying about his age so he seems hipper, telling us that his show's purpose it to deflate the big egos on other stars, and show them what truly matters in life.
David Kaplan / paidContent.org:
Forrester Buys JupiterResearch For $23 Million — Forrester Research has bought rival tech and media analyst JupiterResearch along with its parent company, JUPR Holdings, from MCG Capital Corporation for $23 million in cash. The announcement was made by the Jordan, Edmiston Group, which managed the deal.
Wall Street Journal:
Newspapers Think Locally for Online Ads — Sales Efforts Increase, But ‘Smaller Dollars’ Prove Hard to Chase — In an effort to make up for their plunging print-ad revenues, newspaper companies have been scrambling to train their sales teams in the intricacies of selling online ads to local marketers.
Arn / MacRumors:
Apple Seeds 2nd Beta of iPhone 2.1 Firmware to Developers — Just a week after the first iPhone 2.1 beta seed, Apple has released another 2.1 firmware release to developers. The new version appears to include several bug fixes. … Apple has not announced a timeframe for the 2.1 release …
Mat Balez / Google Mobile Blog:
Transit directions: Now on S60 & Windows Mobile — A few weeks ago we released Google Maps for mobile with Transit directions for BlackBerry and Java-based handsets. Now, with the release of version 2.2 of the application for Symbian S60 (3rd edition or later) and Windows Mobile (2005 or later) …
Caterina.net:
Joining Hunch — After hanging up my purple and yellow cleats, dodging some headhunters, taking a brief vacation, hanging out at some very hot board meetings and pondering the future of social software, it was fairly obvious that I was going to have to do another something.
Russell Buckley / MobHappy:
Windows Mobile in the Dunk Tank — Most of the press coverage of Microsoft recently has obviously been focused on their on-off pursuit of the coy Yahoo!. Followed by lots of analyses of what Redmond needs to do now to catch up in Search and Advertising. — Mr Ballmer has also spoken …
