Top Items:
Richard MacManus / ReadWriteWeb:
Amazon Buys Shelfari and its Innovative UI — Shelfari, a small book sharing startup, was acquired today by Amazon (an existing investor in the company). Shelfari is known for its innovative user interface, something which we've discussed a few times on ReadWriteWeb.
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Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Amazon Acquires Shelfari: Moves To Corner Book-Centric Social Networks — Shelfari, a social network for bibliophiles, has been acquired by Amazon for an undisclosed amount. Amazon has been a longtime supporter of the Seattle based startup, having invested $1 million in the site in February 2007.
Shelfari:
Shelfari joins the Amazon.com family — It's an exciting day here at Shelfari. The rain has stopped, the birds are chirping and the biggest news of all - we are being acquired by Amazon.com. — As many of you may already know, Amazon has been a long supporter of Shelfari.
Discussion:
Digital Daily, Epicenter, Mashable!, John Cook's Venture Blog, AppScout and CNET News.com
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
If Amazon Really Wants To Get Serious About The Kindle... More rumors about the new Kindle are emerging, which we first wrote about on July 15. The first device will have a similar sized screen as the existing model but will have a much enhanced form factor.
Discussion:
TeleRead, The Register, Why does everything suck?, Switched, Guardian Unlimited, InformationWeek and EfluxMedia
AndroidGuys:
No More Speculation - This is the G1 from T-Mobile — It's time to put this rumor to bed once and for all. We've seen a handful of mockups online these last few weeks guessing as to what the first Android handset is going to look like. We even saw a video that divided many fanboys, including us AndroidGuys.
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Jennifer Liu / The Official Google Blog:
At a loss for words? — Have you ever been stumped in finding the right words to search for? Back when I was planning my wedding, I had a list of wedding songs in mind, but the problem was that I couldn't remember any of the artist names or song titles. So I started typing …
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Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:Google.com Finally Gets Google Suggest Feature
Discussion:
Inquirer
Jessica Guynn / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
For Andreessen and Horowitz, it's gotta be Qik — Netscape wunderkind Marc Andreessen and longtime business partner Ben Horowitz are teaming up again, this time to invest in Qik, which lets users stream live video from their mobile phone. — Andreessen, co-founder and chairman …
Discussion:
CNET News.com, Epicenter, Beet.TV, NewTeeVee, VentureBeat, The Next Web, Silicon Alley Insider, All About Symbian, paidContent.org and mobilesyrup.com
Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
As Facebook hits 100 million user mark, twenty percent have already opted in to the redesign — Will Facebook users like the redesign? The company made a big gamble in changing the interface to focus on feeds — it's a move that many in the “early adopter” crowd liked (including myself).
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
College Sophomore Sells His iPhone App To Flixster — Movie focused social network Flixster acquired a popular iPhone application called Movies.app (iTunes link) last week, and has re-released the application this evening. As far as we know, this is the first acquisition of an iPhone app.
Preston Gralla / Computerworld:
Opinion: Why Google has lost its mojo — and why you should care — Computerworld) Google has gone from innovative upstart to fat-and-happy industry leader in what seems like record time. Put simply, the search giant has lost its mojo. That's good news for Microsoft …
Anick Jesdanun / Associated Press:
Facebook cuts off Scrabulous after legal complaint — NEW YORK - A highly popular Scrabble clone already pulled from Facebook in the United States and Canada continued its tumble over the weekend as the online hangout extended its block of the game throughout most of the world.
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Matt Buchanan / Gizmodo:
Canon EOS 50D Official: 15-Megapixel Prosumer DSLR Is First With Digic 4 Processor — Canon's EOS 50D probably isn't the DSLR you were praying they would unveil at Photokina, but it does fill a gaping hole in their lineup between the low-end prosumer 40D and semi-pro 5D.
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Charles Jade / Infinite Loop:
Rumor: Apple Event for September 9th — The rumored iPod Zune, captured in grainy black and white, of course — Kevin Rose is teasing Apple fans again. Just a day after blogging about an Apple Event for new iPod nanos, a less expensive iPod touch, and iTunes 8, he has now set a date.
Discussion:
MacRumors, The iPhone Blog, Boy Genius Report, Electronista, Apple Gazette, VentureBeat, 9 to 5 Mac and Engadget
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MacNN:
Apple pulls free Tetris clone from iTunes — Apple's legal machine has turned its sights on an independent developer, a college student responsible for an iPhone Tetris clone called Tris, who is conceding to the company's removal of the game from the App Store.
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Ionut Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
Gears for Safari — Google posted a link to a beta version of Gears for Safari: http://dl.google.com/gears/current/ gears-osx-opt.dmg. The minimum system requirements are: Safari 3.1.1 on Tiger 10.4.11 or Leopard 10.5.3, although Gears is likely to support other WebKit-based browsers in the future.
Olga Kharif / Business Week:
VoIP Goes Mobile — Gorilla Mobile and other carriers are allowing cell-phone users to make calls for virtually free using Internet technology — Scott Goldman uses his mobile phone to call friends and business contacts all over the world, from Britain to Australia.
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
XIHA Life: A Social Network For Multilinguists — XIHA Life, a site that calls itself “the world's first truly multilingual social network”, has launched in the United States. The site is geared towards multilingual users who feel constrained by the single language networks offered by sites like Facebook …
Discussion:
Mashable!
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
Hi5 goes mobile: It's a bigger deal than you think — The biggest social networks, like Facebook and MySpace, have operated mobile sites since long before anyone had seen an iPhone. Medium-sized ones are still warming up to it: Hi5, a San Francisco-based company that counts its biggest following …
