Top Items:
Matt Marshall / VentureBeat:
Microsoft may buy Yahoo and AOL if the latter two merge — Microsoft is quietly readying a plan to make a purchase of the combined Yahoo-AOL, should Yahoo pull off its plans to acquire the struggling America Online unit, according to sources close to AOL — via the menage-a-trois with AOL.
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Peter Kafka / Silicon Alley Insider:
AOL Boss Randy Falco Begs Time Warner To Put Him Out Of His Misery (TWX) — Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes says he'll have a decision on the future of AOL “soon”. That can't come fast enough for AOL boss Randy Falco, who we're told is now fuming about the limbo state his company has entered …
Discussion:
Valleywag
Ben Worthen / Business Technology:
Larry Ellison's Brilliant Anti-Cloud Computing Rant — Maybe Larry Ellison can do what the Business Technology Blog can't. — Earlier this week, we wrote that the term “cloud computing” now seems to apply to just about anything even loosely associated with the Internet, making it effectively meaningless.
Discussion:
Digital Daily, Valleywag, Silicon Alley Insider, Alice Hill's Real Tech News, broadstuff and deal architect
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Dan Farber / Outside the Lines:
Oracle's Ellison nails cloud computing — Finally, a technology executive willing to tell the truth about cloud computing. Speaking at Oracle OpenWorld, Larry Ellison said that the computer industry is more fashion-driven than women's fashion and cloud computing is simply the latest fashion.
Discussion:
CNET News
Thom Weidlich / Bloomberg:
Apple Won't Face Lawsuit Over Limited Life of IPhone Batteries — Sept. 26 (Bloomberg) — Apple Inc. won't face a lawsuit claiming it didn't immediately tell customers about the limited life of batteries for its iPhone or their $86 replacement cost, including delivery.
Discussion:
IntoMobile, PC World, ZDNet Government, TG Daily, Gadget Lab, iLounge, The Toybox, MacRumors, Technology blog, AppleInsider, Macsimum News, MacNN, GMSV, Gizmodo and textually.org
Sam Diaz / Between the Lines:
Analyst: Fundamentals are deteriorating at Yahoo — An analyst trimmed revenue estimates for Yahoo this morning, noting some of the factors that seems to be bringing the company down with no relief in sight. Collins Stewart analyst Sandeep Aggarwal said in a research note that he believes Yahoo …
Discussion:
WebProNews
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Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:Yahoo: Collins Stewart Says Fundamentals “Deteriorating”
Discussion:
Search Engine Watch
Eric Krangel / Silicon Alley Insider:
Wall Street's Blowup Shrinks The Tech Market By Billions. Could Be Worse — The Wall Street collapse is terrible for tech, obviously. But it could be worse. — Forrester Research says the financial sector's troubled firms (Lehman, Merrill, Bear Stearns, AIG, Fannie, Freddie) all together equal about 2% of tech spending.
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Antony Bruno / Billboard.Biz:
UMG Plans Online Music Video Portal — Universal Music Group is in the planning stages of establishing its own online music video portal—similar to NBC's Hulu video streaming site, Billboard.biz has learned. — According to sources with knowledge of UMG's plans, the service would host …
Discussion:
Distorted-Loop.com
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Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
FeedBurner May Not Be Hearing Your Pings — Blogging is a fast medium, that's one of its advantages over traditional media. There are bloggers who specialize in reporting fast about breaking news on a wide variety of topics. Most of those bloggers use Google's RSS publishing technology FeedBurner …
Ina Fried / CNET News:
Ballmer on search: 'I don't like not being No. 1' — SANTA CLARA, Calif.—Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said his company may be the only one with a chance to rival Google in search over the long term, but acknowledged that it will take several more years and a whole lot of money.
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
The RIAA's Playbook: No New Business Models Without RIAA Ownership — Mathew Ingram covers the details of Muxtape's run-in with the RIAA. As you may recall, last month the rather useful site that let people create online “mix tapes” that could be streamed to others was shut down thanks to the RIAA.
Charlie Sorrel / Gadget Lab:
IPhone 2.2: Safari Redesign, Possible Cut and Paste — With the iPhone v2.1 software out of the door, Apple is hard at work on v2.2. From this first glimpse it looks like Apple, now that the major bugs have been squashed, is adding some new features. — The screenshot, unearthed by iPhone Atlas, shows a new Safari interface.
Ina Fried / CNET News:
Tellme for iPhone due by June — SANTA CLARA, Calif.—Microsoft is indeed working on an iPhone application. — As I predicted, it is the company's Tellme unit that is actively developing a program for Apple's iPhone. Tellme offers voice-activated search for a variety of phones, including the BlackBerry.
Brian Crecente / Kotaku:
Sony Price Dropping 40GB PS3 Model This Weekend — Ho Ho Ho, it looks like Christmas is coming early for fans of the Playstation 3 system. — According to a Blockbusters' memo leaked to us today Sony is permanently dropping the price of the discontinued 40GB model of the Playstation 3 starting Sunday.
Maciej Stachowiak / Surfin' Safari:
Full Pass of Acid3 — Today we would like to announce that WebKit is the first browser engine to fully pass Acid3. A while back, we posted that we scored 100/100 and matched the reference rendering. Now, thanks to recent speedups in JavaScript, DOM and rendering, we have passed the third condition …
Greg Kumparak / TechCrunch:
Wario Land: Shake It Busts Up YouTube — by Greg Kumparak on September 26, 2008 — Wow. Whoever came up with this new ad for Wario Land: Shake it deserves a raise and a paid vacation to Cancun or something. They've taken a basic concept of the game and managed to make it into creative …
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Where Is Microsoft's Smartphone? Everywhere, Says Redmond — The smartphone wars are set for this holiday season: Apple's (AAPL) iPhone 3G versus new BlackBerry gadgets from Research In Motion (RIMM), and now Google's ‘G1’ Android GPhone. Oh — and dozens of gadgets running Microsoft's Windows Mobile.
Ian Lesnet / Hack a Day:
How-To: Web server on a business card (Part 2) — This mini web server is slightly smaller than a business card. There are a lot of tiny one-board servers out there, but this is probably the smallest you can etch and solder at home. Unlike many embedded web servers …
Jay Alabaster / Associated Press:
Japan's online social scene isn't so social — TOKYO - Like a lot of 20-year-olds, Kae Takahashi has a page on U.S.-based MySpace, and there is no mistaking it for anyone else's. — It's got pictures of the funky Tokyoite modeling the clothes she designs in her spare time, along with her name …
Discussion:
Pulse 2.0
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Apple cuts iPhone 3G build plan; Suppliers to take a hit — Apple reportedly plans to build 14 million to 15 million iPhone 3Gs from a previous target of 18 million for 2008, according to a report from Pacific Crest. — Citing “supply chain channel checks” Apple's is cutting its iPhone 3G buildout.
Sam Diaz / Between the Lines:
Amazon feeling first pinch of holiday economic slump — The uncertainty surrounding the economy is starting to impact brand names that have become synonymous with online holiday shopping - notably Amazon. Lazard Capital analyst Colin Sebastian lowered estimates for Amazon's Q3 …
Discussion:
Valleywag
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
“No Walls” Trademark Dispute (Maybe Microsoft Should Bring Back Seinfeld) — An unusual Israeli-Palestinian joint venture start-up, which makes a cloud-based Web operating system letting users access their desktops from any computer with an Internet connection, is alleging a trademark violation …
Julian Sanchez / Ars Technica:
Larry Page blasts white space FUD on Capitol Hill — Google co-founder Larry Page says the time for delays has passed: he wants the Federal Communications Commission to open up fallow “white space” in the TV broadcast spectrum for unlicensed use, and to do it before November's presidential election.
Sam Diaz / Between the Lines:
Was RIM's Wall Street beating unjustified? — Shares of Research In Motion got hammered to the tune of more than 27 percent to close the week - this despite a quarterly earnings report yesterday that included a 72 percent jump in profit from a year ago. That just goes to show that …
Stephanie Condon / CNET News:
Senate unanimously passes RIAA-backed bill — The U.S. Senate on Friday unanimously passed a bipartisan bill backed by the recording industry that would increase federal protections over intellectual property. — Introduced in July by Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa. …
Discussion:
Techdirt
Mathew / mathewingram.com/work:
Election Twitter: Nice try, but... People have been talking for some time now about things that Twitter could be doing to add value to the service (apart from just managing to keep the servers up for more than a day or two at a time, which they appear to have accomplished) …
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Rocky Seas for the Online Display Ad Market? — It is not so apt, if you think about it, that Yahoo has finally put up the details of its new system to let customers buy and sell display advertising-now called APT-right smack in the middle of the most serious financial meltdown of the modern era.
Discussion:
Coop's Corner
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Can These Startups Beat Paypal? — Despite the acceptance of credit cards and services like PayPal, the issue of getting money from one person to another online still offers opportunities for innovation. Venture firms are continuing to fund startups that hope to offer better ways to pay online …
