Top Items:
Jason Snell / Macworld:
First Look: MacBook and MacBook Pro — A quick hands-on tour of what's new and different in Apple's new laptops — The new MacBook and MacBook Pro are here. No, not just “here” in the sense of “publicly acknowledged by Apple and being shipped to arrive in Apple Stores tomorrow.”
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MacNN:
Analysts: $999 MacBook most significant announcement — The announcement of a $999 plastic MacBook may be more significant than the revelation of metal MacBooks and MacBook Pros, say analysts with UBS and Piper Jaffray. The former firm notes that while the metal notebooks are more attractive …
Discussion:
Lockergnome Blog Network, MacBlogz, The Apple Blog, RyanSpoon.com, Elliott C. Back, Engadget, Edible Apple and Electronista
Mozilla Developer News:
Firefox 3.1 beta 1 now available for download — Please note: Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 is a public preview release intended for developer testing and community feedback. It includes many new features as well as improvements to performance, web compatibility, and speed.
Discussion:
The Register, Maximum PC all, VentureBeat, Lifehacker, ReadWriteWeb, webmonkey, SEO and Tech Daily, TechSpot, Insanely Great Mac and ZDNet.com.au
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Adrian Kingsley-Hughes / Hardware 2.0:
Firefox 3.1 raises the browser bar ... again — Competition is a good thing, and the way that Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome have re-invigorated browser development will mean good a better web experience all round. — Let's be honest, Internet Explorer never really offered Firefox much of a challenge.
Christopher Blizzard / Web Tech Blog:Firefox 3.1 beta 1 - an overview of features for web developers
Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:First look: Firefox 3.1 beta 1 officially released
Discussion:
Lifehacker, Lockergnome Blog Network, The Tech Report, Download.com editors, Gizmodo and digg.com
Jesus Diaz / Gizmodo:
Is Steve Jobs Preparing His Farewell? — Steve Jobs is leaving Apple. Not tomorrow, but probably very soon. That's why he started to say good bye today, doing something more important than just presenting new MacBooks, MacBook Pros, and an updated MacBook Air.
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
First New York Times API is Live - Here's Why it Matters — The much-anticipated first Application Programming Interface (API) from the New York Times went live today, according to a post on the company's blog Open - All the code that's fit to printf(). First up is a campaign finance data API and next is a movie review API.
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Mark Hendrickson / TechCrunch:
Who's Afraid of Chrome? Flock 2 Released With Even More Bells And Whistles — Design philosophies could hardly be further apart. Google's ironically named Chrome browser, which launched last month, advanced the notion that browsers ought to be neither seen nor heard.
Harrison Hoffman / The Web Services Report:
Twitter accidentally reveals search integration? — Twitter Search integration? — (Credit: Twitter on Get Satisfaction) — We've assumed that Twitter would be integrating Twitter Search (formerly Summize) into the main site for awhile now. It seems that Twitter has accidentally confirmed this integration.
Gartner:
Gartner Says Worldwide PC Market Grew 15 Percent in Third Quarter of 2008 on Strength of Mini-Notebook Shipments; Industry Feeling the Impact of the Economic Crunch — Acer Moves Past HP for Top Position in EMEA Market — Worldwide PC shipments reached 80.6 million units in the third quarter of 2008 …
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John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Today's Claim Chowder — Let's flag the most egregiously wrong rumor reports from the last few weeks. — DUNCAN RILEY: $800 MACBOOKS — Jackass of the week honors go to Duncan Riley at Inquisitr, who a week ago launched the “$800 laptop from Apple” rumor.
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider, Infinite Loop, Technovia, Brier Dudley's blog, The Inquisitr and Macworld
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Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Microsoft aiming to deliver Vista SP2 before Windows 7 — The Windows team is readying second service packs (SP2) for Vista — and for its server complement, Windows Server 2008 — and is aiming to deliver these SP2s before it releases Windows 7, according to my sources.
Discussion:
Bink.nu
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John Dowdell / jd/adobe:
The thing about Player 10 — Techmeme is covering the press release. I see Adobe Flash Player a little more simply. — It's the world's runtime. It runs across more environments than anything else. When you send it instructions, you know how it will act. — It makes display easy.
Discussion:
Technologizer
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Agence France Presse:
Computer error behind Qantas midair drama — Authorities have blamed a faulty onboard computer system for last week's mid-flight incident on a Qantas flight to Perth. — The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said incorrect information from the faulty computer triggered a series …
Discussion:
Slashdot
Business Technology:
More Gloom in Venture-Capital Land — Silicon Valley venture capitalists last week declared that the financial downturn had reached tech's shores. Now their gloomy outlook is even more official. — In a study released Wednesday by the University of San Francisco, Mark Cannice …
InfoWorld:
Eclipse offers mobile dev tools — Seeking to establish Eclipse as the standard mobile development platform, the Eclipse Foundation on Wednesday is offering the first major release of its Eclipse Mobile Tools for Java Project (MTJ). — MTJ is a set of plug-ins for the Eclipse IDE offering capabilities …
Daniel Terdiman / CNET News:
Amazon, EA, Microsoft, others win ‘Popular Mechanics’ Breakthrough Awards … Popular Mechanics magazine Wednesday night will unveil its “Breakthrough Awards,” the publication's annual celebration of the best and brightest innovators and innovations, and users of the winning choices will be able …
Matt Rosoff / Digital Noise:
SanDisk's $20 MP3 player — Like many other commentators, I greeted last month's SlotMusic announcement from SanDisk with befuddlement. I don't understand why a consumer would pay $14.99, which is almost the same price as a CD, for a tiny MicroSD card preloaded with digitally compressed audio.
Richard Koman / ZDNet Government:
McCain to YouTube: Respect fair use (at least for pols) — YouTube's speedy response to DMCA take-down notices has been the subject of lawsuits - notably Stephanie Lenz, who with the EFF sued when YouTube deleted her video of her kid rockin' out to a Prince song. — Now John McCain has a problem with YouTube take-downs.
