Top Items:
Michael Liedtke / Associated Press:
Google believes $1B investment in AOL is crumbling — SAN FRANCISCO - In an assessment that could lead to a substantial charge against its future profits, Google Inc. believes its $1 billion investment in advertising partner AOL is souring. — The Mountain View-based company disclosed …
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Rafat Ali / paidContent.org:
Google: AOL's Not Worth $20 Billion Anymore — Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has filed its 10-Q quarterly, and some interesting language about how it continues to value its 5 percent stake in AOL: “We review our investment in AOL (NYSE: TWX) for impairment in accordance with FSP SFAS 115-1 …
L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Apple removes $1,000 featureless iPhone application — Eight iPhone owners have joined an elite clan: Their Apple gadget is running a program that cost nearly $1,000. — When the iPhone first hit the market in June 2007, those who paid the $499 entry price — and signed the two-year AT&T contract — owned a status symbol.
Discussion:
9 to 5 Mac, The Apple Core, MacRumors iPhone Blog, Dollars and Sense, iPhone Atlas and Digg
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Tom Krazit / One More Thing:
Much ado about the iPhone's ‘kill switch’ — The discovery of a “kill switch” inside the iPhone 2.0 software prompted much consternation and little fact-finding. — (Credit: Apple) — Apple's iPhone “kill switch” has prompted much hand-wringing, despite the fact that no one knows exactly what it does.
Discussion:
Daring Fireball, TG Daily, PC World, Forbes, Infinite Loop, CNET News.com, Guardian Unlimited, GMSV and iPod Observer
Robert Vamosi / CNET News.com:
Black Hat expels reporters in network snooping — Elinor Mills of CNET News co-wrote this story. Updated 6:50 p.m. with more detail. — LAS VEGAS—Three journalists for a French security magazine were kicked out of the Black Hat security conference after they allegedly sniffed the press room computer network on Thursday.
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Jeff Jarvis / BuzzMachine:
A stake through the heart of the has-been Inquirer — What the hell are they thinking in Philadelphia? Inquirer ME Mike Leary just sent a memo saying they are going to hold all but breaking news for the paper and even restrict bloggers from using their blogs to work on stories in progress.
Jeff Jarvis / BuzzMachine:
The myth of the creative class — As I near the end of writing my book, one lesson that has struck me is about the will of most people to create, and the new possibilities the Google age brings us. — One survey I quote says that 81 percent of us say we have a book in us.
Discussion:
broadstuff, PSFK, TomsTechBlog.com, The Inquisitr, ben barren, Broadband Politics and contentious.com
Bill Tancer / Hitwise Intelligence:
How Cuil is This? — We received numerous requests to update the daily chart from our last post on Cuil. As expected, as the initial media hype subsided, traffic to the upstart search engine has declined precipitously. — As of this Tuesday, August 5th, Cuil.com ranked as the #1034 …
Kevin J. O'Brien / International Herald Tribune:
Facebook and StudiVZ battle over Germany — BERLIN: When Facebook sued the German leader in social networking, StudiVZ, last month, it contended that the company had illegally copied Facebook's “look and feel” with similar graphics and features. — “A great deal, if not all …
David F. Gallagher / Bits:
Rumor Control: Why I Can't Put ‘Tibet’ in My Hotmail Address — A reader wrote in to say he had heard that Microsoft was not letting people choose usernames with the word “Tibet” in them when signing up for its online services. This turns out to be true, technically speaking.
Eliot Phillips / Hack a Day:
Black Hat 2008: FasTrak toll system completely broken — FasTrak is the electronic toll collection system used by the state of California. Motorists can purchase a toll transponder for ~$26 and link the serial number with a debit account to have their tolls deducted automatically.
Jeremiah Owyang / Web Strategy:
The Many Challenges of the Social Media Industry — Like every industry, the Social media industry is plagued with problems that for now, are slowly being solved. It's important to note the challenges in our industry in order to first identify them and eventually overcome them.
Discussion:
Media Bullseye
Wired News:
Watch the Olympics Online — The 2008 Beijing Olympics will happen while most Americans are sleeping. While NBC, the games' official media outlet in the United States, will be providing thousands of hours of content on the web, the only way to truly ensure you won't miss too many record-breaking moments …
Joseph Menn / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Social networking sites attract friends, but also enemies — MySpace bills itself as “a place for friends.” But it and other social networking sites are becoming a place for enemies too. A couple of things happened today that reinforce the point that these sites, while being a terrific …
Daniel Scocco / Daily Blog Tips:
Alexa is Becomeing Completely Worthless — Alexa is becoming a joke lately. Some people claim that over the previous two years it was already losing reliability, but lately it went completely nuts. Whatever they did on the last algorithm update, it messed up their rankings badly.
Discussion:
TechNation Australia
Katie Marsal / AppleInsider:
New software would let iPhones access iTunes libraries from anywhere — A new version of Apple's iPhone Software could provide iPhone and iPod touch users with access to their home computer's entire iTunes media library while on the go without having to first download those media items through …
