Top Items:
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:
TechCrunch, Ars Technica, CNET News, Bits, Between the Lines, Mashable!, Windows-Now.com, broadstuff and The Technology Liberation …
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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 …
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.
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John Markoff / New York Times:
I.B.M. Sues to Block Executive's Move to Apple — SAN FRANCISCO — I.B.M. sued one of its top executives on Thursday in an attempt to prevent him from taking a position at Apple. — The company said that the executive, Mark Papermaster, who until last week had been manager in charge …
Discussion:
Edible Apple
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, TechSpot, InformationWeek, Lifehacker, 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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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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Michael Calore / webmonkey:
OMG! Gmail Adds SMS Chat — Users of Google's Gmail service can now send text message chats to mobile phones using the webapp's built-in Chat feature. — Google is adding the experimental functionality through Gmail Labs. To turn it on, go to the Labs tab within Gmail's settings.
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Arn / MacRumors:
Opera Browser Not Allowed in iPhone App Store — The NY Times profiles Opera Software, the company that distributes the Opera browser for multiple platforms. According to the article, however, Apple is not allowing an iPhone version of the browser into the App Store:
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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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.
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
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 …
Kurt Mackey / Ars Technica:
More on the Windows 7 UI: new taskbar will be mandatory — While we haven't yet gotten our hands on a Windows 7 build with the new taskbar, we did talk to Microsoft's Steven Sinofsky about the various UI changes and what we can expect at release time. — It's not a surprise …
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
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
True Ventures Bets $2.35 Million On Syncplicity — San Francisco based Syncplicity, a startup who entered the crowded market of online storage and file synchronization service providers last April, has raised $2.35 million in Series A funding from True Ventures and other private investors …
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).
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.
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 …
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 …
Stephen Shankland / CNET News:
Study: Google runs more than 10 million Web sites — There's no doubt Google is a vast power on the Internet, but because the company uses its own software to host Web sites, it's possible to see just how powerful. — Specifically, Google operates about 10.5 million Web sites in October …
Nilay Patel / Engadget:
Softbank introduces Sharp Aquos Fulltouch slider with quasi-XGA resolution — Just when we thought the Touch HD really packed the pixels in, Softbank and Sharp have announced the Aquos Fulltouch 931SH slider, which sports a wild 1024 x 480 3.8-inch touchscreen.
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
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 …
