Top Items:
Aaron Ricadela / Business Week:
End Runs Around Vista — The operating system is turning off users, so HP and others are trying to capitalize on its weakness — The ecosystem that Microsoft (MSFT) has built up around its Windows operating system is showing signs of strain. In one of several recent moves by partners …
Discussion:
Electronista, GottaBeMobile, Gizmodo, TechSpot, Download Squad, Valleywag, Engadget, Slashdot and Smalltalk Tidbits …
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Erica Ogg / CNET News:
Report: HP trying for ‘end-run’ around Windows — Is the biggest PC vendor in the world looking to give customers an option besides Windows? — An article appearing in BusinessWeek this week cites anonymous sources who say Hewlett-Packard is at least looking into it.
Discussion:
Linux News from Linux Loop
Dan Moren / Macworld:
First Look: iPhone 2.1 — Latest update to the iPhone software brings lots of fixes and a few new features — iPhone 2.0 brought a lot of cool features with it, but it also brought a lot of bugs. Performance was slow, calls dropped often, and the battery life was less than impressive—and that's just off the top of my head.
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Engadget
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David Chartier / Ars Technica:
First look: iPhone OS loses beta feel with 2.1 update — We're back after updating to iPhone OS 2.1, and we're happy to report that the install process went well. Really well, actually. Now that we've had some time to play with the new features and fixes, we have some hands-on info and screenshots for you.
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Microsoft fires game test contractor who talked to VentureBeat — Robert Delaware was the only named Microsoft worker (a contract employee) who talked — without permission — to VentureBeat for our story last week on the Xbox 360 defects. — Microsoft had him fired on Wednesday.
Stephen Shankland / CNET News:
Yahoo Open: Finally, a real answer to Google — SUNNYVALE, Calif.—On Friday, 300 programmers will descend upon Sunnyvale, Calif., to plant the seeds of what Yahoo hopes will be an answer to Google's Internet might. — The event is called Open Hack Day 2008, and at it the coders …
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Practical Blogging, SitePoint Blogs, Valleywag, TECH.BLORGE.com, DailyTech, Wall Street Journal and GMSV
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Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:Yahoo: How Open When You Compete With Others?
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BoomTown
Gina Keating / Reuters:
Media Group to Create Digital Video ‘Ecosystem’ — A group of major media industry companies called the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem that includes Best Buy, Cisco Systems, Comcast and HP will share details of its interoperability and media usage rights plan at the Consumer Electronics Show.
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Almerica Blog:
Podcaster rejeceted because it duplicates iTunes functionality — Today I finally got a reply from Apple about the status of Podcaster. — Apple Rep says: Since Podcaster assists in the distribution of podcasts, it duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes.
Discussion:
Daring Fireball, Geek News Central, TUAW, Infinite Loop, Gizmodo, Podcasting News, Silicon Alley Insider, PC World and UNEASYsilence
Devin Leonard / Fortune:
MySpace sets music free — Coming soon to MySpace pages everywhere: Kid Rock, free. Christina Aguilera, free. T.I., free. Just about any music out there, free. (With ads, of course.) — (Fortune Magazine) — Myspace founders Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson have had an uneasy relationship with the music industry.
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Techdirt, Listening Post, WebProNews, hypebot, Mashable!, paidContent.org, Valleywag and Silicon Alley Insider
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Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:MySpace Music CEO Hunt Continues: Facebook's Owen Van Natta Top Contender
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Valleywag
Chris Flores / Windows Vista Team Blog:
What's up with those ads? — As I did previously, I'm posting this on behalf of my colleague David Webster. — Since my last post here as a guest blogger a few weeks back was to give you some context on the Mojave Experiment, I figured I should do the same for the other little campaign we're running on TV right now.
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Roger Highfield / Telegraph:
Hackers attack Large Hadron Collider — Hackers have mounted an attack on the Large Hadron Collider, raising concerns about the security of the biggest experiment in the world as it passes an important new milestone. — The scientists behind the £4.4bn atom smasher …
Ki Mae Heussner / ABCNEWS:
Paper's Decision to Twitter 3-Year-Old's Funeral Sparks Outrage — Critics Question Value of Giving a Play-by-Play of a Tragedy — A Colorado newspaper's decision to live blog the funeral of a 3-year-old boy with Twitter has prompted a flurry of criticism from the local media, bloggers and media ethicists.
Forbes:
Spore's Piracy Problem — How do you measure the failure of the copy protections that software companies place on their media products? In the case of Electronic Arts' highly-anticipated game “Spore,” just count the pirates. — As of Thursday afternoon, “Spore” had been illegally downloaded …
Frank Caron / Ars Technica:
Amazon temporarily gags Spore critics, deletes and restores all customer reviews — Spore may have been a long-awaited title, but publisher EA surely didn't expect the most talked-about aspect of the game to be its DRM. Alas, now it seems that all the protest from angry gamers …
Katie Marsal / AppleInsider:
Analyst trims Apple estimates, says Air seeing decreased demand — American Technology Research trimmed its estimates for Mac maker Apple Inc. on Friday, saying that while the company's near term prospects look fine, future quarters may be met by muted demand, particularly for higher-end products like the MacBook Air.
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Macsimum News
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Kirk / Medialoper:
The Digital TV Transition: A Disaster in the Making — Monday was a bad day for Vivian C. Brown of Wilmington, N.C.. The 79 year-old missed her programs as Wilmington became the first city in the U.S. to make the switch from analog-to-digital TV. — Depending on who you talk to …
Dan Farber / Outside the Lines:
Track coming back to Twitter — A trio of Twitter executives—Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Alex Payne—showed up at the BearHug Camp, held at CNET headquarters in San Francisco, to answer questions about the future of the service, such as when the “track” feature would return.
Discussion:
The Web Life
Tom Jackman / Washington Post:
Va. Ban On Spam Is Ruled Unlawful — E-Mail Restriction Called Violation of First Amendment — The Virginia Supreme Court yesterday ruled that the state's anti-spam law, designed to prevent the sending of masses of unwanted e-mail, violates the First Amendment right to freedom of speech.
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Robert Pear / New York Times:
In Digital Age, Federal Files Blip Into Oblivion — WASHINGTON — Countless federal records are being lost to posterity because federal employees, grappling with a staggering growth in electronic records, do not regularly preserve the documents they create on government computers, send by e-mail and post on the Web.
