Top Items:
Adam Lashinsky / Fortune:
The genius behind Steve — The CEO is the heart and soul of Apple Inc. yet he's got a deep management bench from which to choose his eventual successor. — (Fortune Magazine) — Let's start with some uncomfortable truths. We wouldn't be publishing an article about the under-the-radar guy who's …
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BBC:
Study shows how spammers cash in — Spammers are turning a profit despite only getting one response for every 12.5m e-mails they send, finds a study. — By hijacking a working spam network, US researchers have uncovered some of the economics of being a junk mailer.
Jesus Diaz / Gizmodo:
MacBook Nano Looks Like It Came from Cupertino — I don't know if these MacBook Nanos are a custom hack or if they come from some kind of shady outlet selling retrofitted MSI U100 laptops made to look like shiny—and fictional—Apple notebooks with Mac OS X installed.
The Boy Genius / Boy Genius Report:
Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1a hitting Best Buy next month — Thanks to our Best Buy ninjas, we've just got some screen shots showing that Sony Ericsson's X1a (North American model) will definitely be hitting best buy early next month. The actual in stock date as of now is December 7th. The price?
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Spot.Us Experiments With Citizen-Funded Community Journalism — Newspapers are dying across the country. Local papers are shutting down, Gannett is laying off 3,000 people, the Christian Science Monitor will no longer put out a print edition, and even the New York Times is facing a serious cash crunch.
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Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
Bill Gates' New Career? Patent Troll For Nathan Myhrvold? — from the kinder-capitalism? dept — Plenty of folks have been wondering just what Bill Gates is up to now that he's left his full-time position at Microsoft. Longtime rabble-rouser theodp has alerted us to one thing …
Bloomberg:
Circuit City, Electronics Retailer, Seeks Bankruptcy — Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) — Circuit City Stores Inc., the 59-year- old seller of televisions and computers, filed for bankruptcy protection, becoming the biggest retail casualty of the slowing U.S. economy and frozen credit markets.
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Electronista:
Study: new MacBooks likely 33% of US sales — Apple's recent MacBook lineup and the iPhone may make it one of the better-positioned companies to survive a likely steep drop in spending during the holidays, according to new data from ChangeWave. The analyst firm says that a full third …
Chrix Finne / Google Reader:
Is Your Web Truly World-Wide? — The Reader team is happy to announce that another 20% project has come to fruition: automatic translation in Reader! Post by 20% volunteer and glottology expert, Brett Bavar. — Believe it or not, the web truly is world-wide.
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Microsoft Does MSN Toolbar Distribution Deal With Java — Continuing on with its strategy to build search share by gaining distribution partners, Microsoft has landed a deal to have its MSN Toolbar offered to anyone in the United States who downloads Java for Internet Explorer.
Discussion:
Reuters, The Microsoft Blog, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Clickety Clack, The Register, Boy Genius Report and All about Microsoft
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John Mahoney / Gizmodo:
How To: Max Out Apple TV's Potential With Boxee — This is a guide that, if followed, will unchain your Apple TV from its cruel iTunes tether, turning it into the useful living room conduit of music, video and web-based content it should have been all along via the media center software Boxee.
Discussion:
MAKE Magazine
Sydney Morning Herald:
Cyber criminals target Facebook users — Facebook has been infiltrated by Nigerian scammers and other cyber criminals who use compromised accounts to con users out of cash. — Now that even non-tech savvy internet users know not to respond to, or click on links in, emails from strangers …
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Blockbuster in a rush to get you that set-top box there was no rush for — “Is there any real urgency for us to go out there and create a whizbang set-top box? No,” Blockbuster chief executive Jim Keyes told paidContent in August. So it's somewhat surprising to hear that the company …
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Eric Krangel / Silicon Alley Insider:
Rock Band Creators Score $300 Million-Plus Payday (VIA) — When Harmonix founders Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy — the guys behind mega-hit games Guitar Hero and later, Rock Band — sold their company to Viacom's (VIA) MTV for a reported $175 million in 2006, the deal didn't end there.
Reuters:
YouTube to post full-length MGM films — NEW YORK (Reuters) - YouTube, the largest video-sharing website, will show full-length television shows and films from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's archives in its latest step to boost advertising revenue by adding professional programing, the company told Reuters on Sunday.
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Dapper MashupAds Turn Your Website Into Contextual, Display Ads — The most important ad for a company or brand is its Website. So why not use that Website to generate ads? Dapper, a startup that can create a feed from any Website, is applying its technology to generate contextual …
Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:
Everybody's Underwater In Silicon Valley — As tech stocks plummet, more Silicon Valley workers find themselves holding worthless options — the kind that would allow them to buy company stock at higher prices than they are currently being publicly traded. — They're “underwater.”
Darien Graham-Smith / PC Pro:
Windows 7: faster or just smarter? — If you've been following the PC Pro blogs, you'll know that we recently received a preview build of Windows 7. Useful work has pretty much ground to a halt as we've all set about nuking our Vista installations and upgrading our work PCs to this unsupported pre-alpha OS.
Discussion:
Gizmodo
Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:
VideoCrawler: AT&T Launches its Own Video Search Engine — It is not quite clear to us how a video search engine fits into AT&T's portfolio, but the telecom giant just launched VideoCrawler, a video search engine it developed in cooperation with Divvio, a Menlo Park-based startup.
Discussion:
PR Newswire, VentureBeat, DSLreports, CNET News, NewTeeVee, BetaNews, AppScout, RotorBlog.com and Electronista
Chris Ziegler / Engadget Mobile:
The better part of Nokia's smartphone roadmap goes on display — Okay, so maybe the N96 isn't your cup of tea. Perhaps you're disappointed that Nokia didn't blow out its inaugural entry into the wide world of touch with something just a little more superphone-ish than the 5800.
Steve O'Hear / last100:
I've been playing with Nokia's new touchscreen phone - the 5800 XpressMusic (aka the Tube) — Ever since Nokia officially announced its new consumer touchscreen smartphone, the 5800 XpressMusic (aka the “Tube"), I've been dying to get my hands on the device.
Discussion:
Electronista
Esme Vos / MuniWireless:
Boingo acquires airport Wi-Fi operator, adds 25 airports to network — Boingo has acquired Opti-Fi Networks, a company that manages Wi-Fi networks in 25 airports in North America. Boingo now has 55 airports in its roaming network which already includes John F. Kennedy …
Wall Street Journal:
Dell Lags in New Products — Michael Dell last year promised innovative new consumer products to generate “product lust” and spark his company's turnaround effort. But in the runup to the holiday sales season, Dell Inc. has been slow to deliver on that promise.
Discussion:
Ars Technica, Valleywag, Gadget Lab, InformationWeek, MacUser, Edible Apple, Digital Daily, Macworld, Boing Boing Gadgets, Listening Post and Silicon Alley Insider
Guy Kawasaki / How to Change the World:
Looking for Mr. Goodtweet: How to Pick Up Followers on Twitter — At 10:15 pm I discovered that I had not brought a Macbook power supply on the trip. I was in a hotel on Coronado Island, and early the next morning I was flying to an aircraft carrier off San Diego for an overnight visit.
