Top Items:
Reuters:
US appeals court rejects business method patents — A U.S. patent appeals court ruled on Thursday that business methods, such as Amazon.com Inc's (AMZN.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) one-click to buy goods on the Internet, cannot be patented. — The case was closely watched …
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Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
Court Greatly Limits Software And Business Method Patents — from the huge-victory-for-innovation dept — I don't say this often, but it looks like the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) — or “the patent court” — got a big one mostly right.
Discussion:
Ars Technica, CNET News, Bits, Between the Lines, TechCrunch, Windows-Now.com, Mashable!, broadstuff and The Technology Liberation …
The Official Google Blog:
What we learned from 1 million businesses in the cloud — The reliability of cloud computing has been a hot topic recently, partly because glitches in the cloud don't happen behind closed doors as with traditional on-premises solutions for businesses. Instead, when a small number …
Discussion:
Webware.com, TechCrunch, InformationWeek, Lifehacker, TechSpot, Silicon Alley Insider, Pulse 2.0, WebProNews and Google Enterprise Blog
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Clint Boulton / eWeek:Google Brings Premier Edition SLA to Calendar, Docs, Sites, Talk Apps
Discussion:
Webware.com
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Google Now Indexes Scanned Documents — Google has announced that it will now begin including scanned documents in its search results - a feat that requires an immense amount of processing power and advanced image recognition technology. Unlike standard text documents …
Discussion:
GigaOM
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Evin Levey / The Official Google Blog:
A picture of a thousand words? — (Note: Click on the first result in each of the search results pages linked to throughout the post to see this feature in action.) — A scanner is a wonderful tool. Every day, people all over the world post scanned documents online …
Jessica E. Vascellaro / Wall Street Journal:
Talks Over Google-Yahoo Search Deal Fail to Progress — The likelihood that Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. will walk away from their planned search partnership has risen, say people familiar with the matter. — The two Internet companies have so far failed to reach an agreement on their partnership …
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Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:
Microsoft Updates Live Mesh: Worldwide Availability, Mac and Windows Mobile Clients — Today, Microsoft will release a major update for Live Mesh, its consumer oriented cloud storage and synchronization service. Among these updates are more granular permissions for sharing folders …
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Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:
Google Clarifies Its OpenID Implementation — Update: We've been contacted by members of the OpenID community who argue that we've mischaracterized the controversy in this post. Additional complications not discussed here include the now-ceased process of whitelisting domains that could use Google OpenID.
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Paul Buchheit / FriendFeed Blog:
Share your FriendFeed activity on Twitter — We want to make it easier for you to share your FriendFeed activity on the web services you're already using. Now you can publish your FriendFeed updates directly to Twitter. — To enable this feature, go to your Account page and find the 'Post …
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CPSC:
PC Notebook Computer Batteries Recalled Due to Fire and Burn Hazard — WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with the firms named below, today announced a voluntary recall of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed.
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Charlie Sorrel / Gadget Lab:
8 Things to Expect in the Next iPhone Update — One of the great things about the iPhone is the regular software updates. Free and automatic improvements are piped, hot and steaming, to your pocket computer. — We don't know exactly when the next version of the iPhone operating system …
Sara Silver / Wall Street Journal:
Some Shed Their Gadgets by Turning to One: iPhone — Lower-income households are turning in force to Apple Inc.'s iPhone and may be doing so to save the cost of a separate broadband connection and music devices, according to the media measurement firm comScore Inc.
Chloe Albanesius / PC Magazine:
Motorola Delays Cell-Phone Spinoff, Drops Platforms — Motorola confirmed Thursday that it will eliminate its MOTOMAGX and Symbian platforms in order to focus on the Google Android, Windows Mobile, and P2K 3G solutions. The company will also delay plans to spin off its mobile business into a separate entity.
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PBS:
Azure Blues: Microsoft and the electric power industry have a lot in common. — It isn't very often I get to apply Moore's Law to a non-Information Technology business and rarer still that I can then relate the whole thing back to Microsoft, so I'm going for it. Here's what the solar power industry can teach us about Microsoft:
Discussion:
Microsoft Watch
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
Pirate Bay Talk: How To Dismantle a Billion Dollar Industry — Pirate Bay co-founders Peter Sunde and Fredrik Neij gave a keynote speech at the Hack In The Box Security Conference 2008, entitled “How to dismantle a billion dollar industry - as a hobby.” The two discuss how The Pirate Bay grew …
Discussion:
digg.com
Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:
Revenue Crisis: Here Come The Pro Accounts — In his Wired magazine cover story, “Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business,” Wired editor Chris Anderson wrote: “It's now clear that practically everything Web technology touches starts down the path to gratis, at least as far as we consumers are concerned.”
Tom Krazit / CNET News:
Apple hires top IBM chip designer and blade server guru — Apple's decision to hire Mark Papermaster away from IBM could mean that its Xserve lineup is taking on a more prominent role. — (Credit: Apple) — Updated throughout at 4:55 p.m. PT with additional details and comment from IBM.
Sam Diaz / Between the Lines:
Sun posts $1.67 billion loss on write-off — updated: Sun Microsystems reported a loss for the first quarter of its fiscal 2009 year of $1.67 billion, or $2.24 per share, on revenue for $2.99 billion, down from $3.22 billion for the first quarter of 2008 (statement).
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Google to AdSense users: Please don't dump us in crap economic times — Given the poor state of the global economy, there's a worry that online advertising, a key factor for the survival of many websites, will take a big hit. That hasn't happened just yet, but Google, the leader in the field …
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Google Local Business Hijacking: Microsoft Acquires Yahoo, Becomes Escort Service — Mike Blumenthal has been diligently covering how local listings can be hijacked in Google Maps. He's also been frustrated that Google doesn't seem to be fixing the local hijacking problem.
Discussion:
Understanding Google …
YouTube Blog:
Link To The Best Parts In Your Videos — Here at YouTube, we still pride ourselves in listening closely to our community and building what you ask for. In this spirit, we are pleased to announce the ability to “deep link” to YouTube videos. This means you can now not only link to a YouTube video itself …
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
Big Guns Come Out In Effort To Show RIAA's Lawsuits Are Unconstitutional — from the this-ought-to-be-worth-watching dept — People have been submitting this story nonstop, but I wanted to take some time to read the details before commenting on it. It's not the first time that folks …
Discussion:
Brier Dudley's blog
Stephanie Condon / CNET News:
The first wiki president? Obama adviser votes ‘yea’ — WASHINGTON—Even Republicans will probably concede that Barack Obama's campaign made good use of the Internet in the last year. Now an advisor is saying that an Obama administration would do the same, even turning to wikis to discuss topics like privacy.
Discussion:
PC Magazine
David Pogue / Pogue's Posts:
The MacBook Makeover — Apple's bestselling MacBook laptop just got its 2008 makeover. It's a thing of beauty, clad in aluminum like its more expensive Pro siblings. It's slightly lighter than the previous black or white plastic models (and, at $1,300, more expensive) …
