Top Items:
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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Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Is Google Playing Chicken With the Justice Department? — Are Google and Yahoo thinking walking away from its controversial search advertising deal, as reported in an amusingly hedged report in The Wall Street Journal last night? — How's this for covering your bases in a story …
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
Discussion:
Edible Apple
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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Amol Sharma / Wall Street Journal:
Sprint Will Hold On to Nextel — After failing to find a buyer for its Nextel cellphone unit, Sprint Nextel Corp. said Thursday it will hold on to the asset and renew a long-term partnership with Motorola Inc. to provide network support and mobile devices for Nextel.
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider
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Matt Buchanan / Gizmodo:
BlackBerry Curve 8900 First Impressions (Kills the Original) — RIM excels at many things, but keeping secrets ain't one of 'em, so we'd eyeballed the BlackBerry Curve 8900 (nee Javelin) quite a bit before this AT&T-branded one dropped in our laps. It's a Bolder version of the current Curve …
Kiyoshi Takenaka / Reuters:
Nintendo sees overseas DSi launch by next summer — TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese video game maker Nintendo Co Ltd will likely launch a new model of its top-selling handheld player, the DS, in overseas markets by the summer of 2009, President Satoru Iwata said.
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Shino Yuasa / Associated Press:Nintendo eyes record profit in fiscal year
Discussion:
Agence France Presse
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Facebook May Be Growing Too Fast. And Hitting The Capital Markets Again. — When Facebook raised $240 million from Microsoft in 2007, and another $235 million in debt and equity in 2008, everyone thought they had plenty of cash to get through their big growth phase.
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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Kirk / Medialoper:
Waiting for Google's Kindle Killer — During an onstage interview with Chris Anderson at this year's BEA, Jeff Bezos described his vision of a world where any book ever published would be available anywhere, at any time. At the time it seemed like one of those distant fantasies that might be decades away.
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:
Reuters, OSDir.com, Inquirer, A VC, Associated Press, CNET News, TechCrunch, Ars Technica, Between the Lines, Mashable!, Windows-Now.com, broadstuff and The Technology Liberation …
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Dennis Crouch / Patent Law Blog:In re Bilski: Patentable Process Must Either (1) be Tied to a …
Discussion:
Bits, John Palfrey, Reuters, Groklaw NewsPicks, Feld Thoughts, Tech Daily Dose, VentureBeat, BlawgIT and LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION®
Amanda Kelly / Inside AdWords:
Improvements to Ads Quality — We're always working on improvements that will help us show the most relevant ads to our searchers, and we're excited to tell you that we'll soon introduce two changes designed to enhance how we calculate Quality Score and rank ads.
Ashlee Vance / New York Times:
Sun Microsystems Reports $1.7 Billion Loss and Falling Sales — MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — As Sun Microsystems reported dismal sales and a massive charge Thursday, it's clear that the company is coming under increasing pressure from Wall Street to do something radical.
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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 …
Discussion:
OSNews
Monica Chen / DigiTimes:
Asustek expects to ship US$200 Eee PC in 2009, says president — Asustek Computer has announced consolidated revenues of NT$78.26 billion (US$2.39 billion) for the third quarter this year, while net profit after tax was NT$6.38 billion, an increase of 13% on quarter, but a drop of 14.2% on year.
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 …
Discussion:
Broadband Developments
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:
Discussion:
AppleInsider, Apple Gazette, Technologizer, Unwired View, Mac Soda, VentureBeat and digg.com
Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
Chinese State Bans Video Sites, Huge eDonkey Site Survives — The Chinese government has stepped in and banned 10 video sites, while giving warnings to 17 others. The sites were accused of ‘regulations violations’ ranging from running a service without authorization, through to displaying violent or horrific content.
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 …
John Kennedy / Silicon Republic:
BlackBerry Storm price plans revealed — Vodafone today revealed the price plans for the much-anticipated BlackBerry Storm device that will enter the market just in time for Christmas. The device will come with mobile TV and music downloads included. — The new BlackBerry …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Electronics Arts reports loss, will lay off more than 500 workers — Electronic Arts reported a big loss today and said it would lay off 6 percent of its 9,000-person work force, or roughly 540 people. — The cutbacks come after a huge increase in the employment rolls thanks to acquisitions …
Rick Turoczy / ReadWriteWeb:
Selling Ads on Your Twitter Background? You'll Love Magpie — While Twitter has been less than forthcoming on how they plan to monetize their service, there is no shortage of ideas from third parties on ways to get paid for spending time with Twitter. From pay-to-tweet to selling off …
Discussion:
Mashable!
