Top Items:
Gmail Blog:
A picture is worth a thousand words — Here on the Gmail team, we're always thinking of ways to help you communicate. Back in the day, we put chat right inside Gmail. Then along came group chat and more emoticons. And when we realized that late night communication had its downsides …
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Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:
Gmail Adds Emoticons, Canned Responses & Updates Mobile Client — The Gmail team has been busy over the last few days. They have added emoticons to mail messages, created a new labs project for canned responses and updated their mobile client for J2ME-supported phones and Blackberry devices.
Chris Nuttall / blogs.ft.com:
Oprah likely to kindle big interest in digital books — Kindle sales appear likely to get a significant boost on Friday, with talk-show megastar Oprah Winfrey apparently about to endorse Amazon's digital book reader. — Amazon is featuring a trailer of her Friday show on its site …
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Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Will the Kindle Get an Oprah Bump? — Oprah Winfrey doesn't really strike me as a gadget girl. Of course, I've never even watched her show, so maybe she is. One way or another, when I saw the Financial Times reporting that the cultural icon looked ready to endorse the Amazon Kindle today, I made a point of setting my DVR.
Discussion:
The Register
Miguel Helft / Bits:
A New (Fighter) Jet for Google's Founders? — A company controlled by Google's top executives, including billionaire founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, appears to have added a new plane to its well-equipped fleet: a fighter jet, or more precisely a Dornier Alpha Jet.
Kasper Jade / AppleInsider:
Informed players say Apple's Mac mini still kickin' — First on AI: With Apple's recent ‘State of the Mac’ omitting any mention of the Mac mini and reports surfacing over the current line's discontinuation, there's been some speculation that the diminutive desktop's days may (again) be numbered.
Discussion:
CrunchGear, Electronista, TechNewsWorld, MacRumors, Edible Apple, MacDailyNews, Insanely Great Mac, Technology Live and HardMac.com
Associated Press:
Source: Yahoo to announce plans for Neb. facility — LA VISTA, Neb. - Yahoo Inc. is expected to unveil plans to build a new facility in Nebraska on Friday, just days after the California-based Internet company announced it will cut at least 1,500 workers as it deals with the economic downturn.
Tony Smith / The Register:
Dell readies small, cheap computer for small biz — Dell is preparing an all-black version of its Inspiron Mini 9 netbook, this one aimed at small businesses and set to ship as the Vostro A90. — Dell's Vostro A90: rebranded Inspiron Mini 9 — The PC giant launched the machine in Japan today …
David Scheer / Bloomberg:
Jobs Said to Be Targeted by Teen in Heart-Attack Tale — Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) — A fake Internet report that Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs had suffered a heart attack was posted by a teenager, and investigators haven't found evidence he tried to profit from driving down the stock …
Discussion:
The Register, Digital Daily, WebProNews, Epicenter, Computerworld Blogs, Silicon Alley Insider, CNET News, The Mac Observer, MacBlogz, Roughly Drafted, Alice Hill's Real Tech News, MacNN, Between the Lines, Apple Gazette, Insanely Great Mac, AppleInsider, Boing Boing Gadgets, The Apple Core, iPhone Savior and Edible Apple
Electronista:
HTC Touch Pro for Sprint gets launch info — Wireless provider Sprint on Friday announced it will soon offer the HTC Touch Pro for sale and use on its network, bringing with it HTC's TouchFLO 3D interface on its 2.8-inch screen along with a five-row QWERTY keyboard and Windows Mobile 6.1.
Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:
Study: Sequoia e-voting machines disturbingly easy to hack — The Princeton University Center for Information Technology Policy has published a report disclosing security vulnerabilities that researchers have detected in Sequoia's AVC Advantage voting machine.
Ben Fritz / Variety:
Legendary to acquire Epic Games — Talks underway for ‘Gears of War’ developer — Legendary Pictures is in talks to acquire Epic Games, developer of vidgames including ‘Gears of War.’ — Legendary may be getting Epic. — Private equity-backed film financier Legendary Pictures …
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider, The Cut Scene, Destructoid, Kotaku, Big Download Blog, videogaming247, Joystiq, GamesIndustry.biz and Blue's News
Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
The XO laptop gets a Windows makeover — On the outside, the Windows version of the XO laptop looks just like the Linux model. But simply booting up the device shows that the Windows version bears little resemblance to the original One Laptop Per Child device.
Discussion:
Engadget
Newsosaur / Reflections of a Newsosaur:
Voodoo newspaper economics — The formidable problems of the newspaper industry won't get solved if industry leaders substitute voodoo economics for rational discourse. So, let's dispense with some of the bad juju we have heard in the last couple of days. — Voodoo Economics 101
Tom Sullivan / InfoWorld:
Looking for job security? Try Cobol — As long as there are mainframes, there will be Cobol. Learn the language and the culture and you might land a job that that lasts until retirement — A career as a Cobol programmer might not be as sexy as slinging Java code or scripting in Ruby …
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
New York Times (NYT) Running On Fumes — Not sure how it came to this so fast, but the New York Times (NYT) is approaching the point where it will have to manage its business primarily to conserve cash and avoid defaulting on its debt. This situation will only get worse as advertising revenue continues …
Discussion:
Beyond Search, mathewingram.com/work, Business Wire, Startup Wire, Reuters, Between the Lines, paidContent.org and Associated Press
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Thomas Claburn / InformationWeek:
Apple Patent Applications Support Snow Leopard's Promise Of Speed — The Mac maker looks to be working on improved techniques for executing computer code on multiple multicore CPUs and GPUs. — Apple has said its forthcoming Mac OS X 10.6 operating system, known as “Snow Leopard,” …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Microsoft closes the quarter with less cash than Apple — Buried in the first quarter earnings report from Microsoft is an astounding fact. For the first time that I can remember, Microsoft closed the quarter with less cash than Apple. Cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments for Microsoft add up to $20.7 billion.
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Tom Krazit / CNET News:
Intel ‘corrects’ executives who slammed iPhone — Updated 4:30pm with additional background on the ongoing saga of Apple and Intel. — Intel issued a “correction” Thursday regarding comments one of its executives made earlier this week slamming the iPhone as incapable of working correctly with the Internet.
John Herrman / Gizmodo:
Nintendo Kills Wii Homebrew With Update, Again, Again, Again — Nowadays, any self-respecting hardware manufacturer is locked in an interminable battle to lock down their platforms for unclear reasons, because that's how things are, OK? Accordingly, Nintendo has just released a patch …
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
To Prep for Downturn, VCs Turn to Triage — The credit crunch has scared America straight for a few quarters at least. This means that consumers aren't buying, and corporations are putting spending on hold. As such, venture firms have been sowing panic among their portfolio companies, telling them to cut early and cut often.
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
White space battle gets dirty as the mud flies — If you thought that the battle over white space devices might cool down after the Federal Communications Commission issued its own engineering report on the technology, think again. In a new set of comments (PDF) just filed with the FCC …
