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.
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:
TechCrunch, Webware.com, Silicon Alley Insider, TechSpot, InformationWeek, Lifehacker, Pulse 2.0, WebProNews and Google Enterprise Blog
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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.
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Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Motorola: No Google Android ‘GPhones’ Til Next Christmas — Motorola's (MOT) cellphone business restructuring includes a big bet on Google's (GOOG) Android platform, which Motorola hopes to use for several high-end smartphones and mid-level phones. So when will we see their first ‘GPhone’?
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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.”
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 …
Discussion:
MacDailyNews
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 …
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 …
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) …
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 …
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
Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:
Google Clarifies Its OpenID Implementation — After we wrote about Google becoming an OpenID provider yesterday, a number of reports suggested that Google was not following the OpenID guidelines closely and that it was basically forking OpenID to suit its own agenda.
Erica Sadun / Infinite Loop:
Accept credit card payments from your iPhone — Want to bring your business with you wherever you go? Inner Fence's new Credit Card Terminal accepts payments directly from your iPhone. According to the company's web page, the system offers just enough features so you don't have to drag …
Discussion:
MacBlogz
Jacobs School Computer Science and Engineering News:
Keys Can be Copied From Afar, Jacobs School Computer Scientists Show — UC San Diego computer scientists have built a software program that can perform key duplication without having the key. Instead, the computer scientists only need a photograph of the key.
Mark Larson / Google Chrome Releases:
Beta release: 0.3.154.9 — Google Chrome version 0.3.154.9 has been released. You will automatically get updated in the next few days. You can open About Google Chrome (from the wrench menu) to get the update at any time. — This release fixes the top issues we've heard about from people using …
Discussion:
Ars Technica, PC World, ReadWriteWeb, Download.com editors, Maximum PC all, InformationWeek and Download Squad
Ben Charny / Wall Street Journal:
H-P Mulls Service Bundles for Netbooks — Hewlett-Packard Co. wants to employ a new tactic to market “netbook” computers in the U.S., offering them at a steep discount to customers who sign-up for wireless service contracts. — This bundling of cellular service with PCs isn't done in the U.S. …
Discussion:
Electronista, Liliputing, jkOnTheRun, Gearlog, Crave, TechSpot, Gizmodo Australia, Engadget, Gizmodo, GottaBeMobile.com, Bits and Smallbiztechnology.com
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
Facebook Using DMCA Notices To Takedown Private Videos? — from the say-what-now? dept — You may remember last month that we had a story about Google taking down a video on Google Video for copyright infringement, even though the video itself (a brief Christmas home movie) was set to private, and only 3 or 4 people had seen it.
Discussion:
All Facebook
Sam Oliver / AppleInsider:
Japanese iPhone owners to be offered TV tuner add-on — Addressing a widely-publicized feature omission for Japanese iPhone users, local carrier Softbank on Thursday announced plans to begin selling a TV Tuner add-on later this year that will also serve as an extended battery pack.
Discussion:
Infinite Loop, IntoMobile, VentureBeat, Unwired View, Electronista, Akihabaranews.com and MacDailyNews
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
Peter Bright / Ars Technica:
Hands on: Windows Media Player 12's surprising new features — Though many previously bundled applets are now will ship separately to Windows 7, Windows Media Player remains part of the core OS. Windows 7 will ship with Windows Media Player 12, which includes some surprising new features.
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Silicon Valley Leaders Say No to Proposition 8 With New Group and Ad — Today, a panoply of prominent tech and Internet leaders is taking a very public stand against a controversial initiative before California voters, which would eliminate the current legal right of same-sex couples to marry.
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 …
Discussion:
Search Engine Land
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Electronic Arts Off On Weak Outlook; Cutting Staff 6% — Electronic Arts (ERTS) shares are taking a big hit this afternoon on investor disappointment with the company's near-term outlook. — For the fiscal second quarter ended September 30, the company posted non-GAAP revenue of $1.126 billion …
Erica Ogg / Crave: The gadget blog:
Sony batteries involved in another recall — Updated at 2:15 p.m. PDT with the names and quantities of notebooks affected by each manufacturer. — More than two years after the largest battery recall in the electronics industry, Sony batteries have been fingered again as the culprit …
Josh Lowensohn / Webware.com:
Clipping via bookmarklet service Snipd launches — Snipd, a Web clippings service we profiled in September, has just opened up to everyone. Its claim to fame is that it lets you clip bits of the Web including text, images, and videos, all without having to download any software or register for an account.
Discussion:
TechCrunch
Tech-On! : tech news:
[FPDI] ‘40-inch OLED Panel Is Largest Size Possible,’ Samsung Says — Samsung SDI Co Ltd exhibited a 40-inch OLED panel that features a full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080, a contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1, a color gamut of 107% NTSC and a luminance of 200cd/m2 (peak luminance of 600cd/m2) at FPD International 2008.
Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:
Ubuntu gets horny: Intrepid Ibex (8.10) officially released — The Ubuntu developers have announced the official release of Ubuntu 8.10, codenamed Intrepid Ibex. This release includes new versions of many popular open source desktop applications and also introduces several important new features.
