Top Items:
Justin Uberti / Gmail Blog:
Say hello to Gmail voice and video chat — I'm a big user of Gmail chat. Being able to switch from email to chat as needed, all within the same app, is really great for productivity. But people can only type so fast, and even with our new emoticons, there are still some things that just can't be expressed in a chat message.
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Rafe Needleman / Webware.com:
Google launches video chat for Gmail — Google is rolling out video and voice capabilities for the chat function that is embedded in the Gmail interface. It's a bare-bones voice and video-conferencing service, but it's simple to install and use and is a very good addition to Gmail.
Kasper Jade / AppleInsider:
Apple may turn to carbon fiber for lighter MacBook Air — Apple enthusiastically claimed ownership to the world's thinnest notebook earlier this year with the introduction of the MacBook Air, but is rumored to be unsatisfied with the system's weight, which it now hopes to drop below 3 pounds.
Aviv / MacBlogz:
AT&T iPhone Tethering Plan Specifics, No Unlimited Plan? — AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph De La Vega has recently announced the arrival of an official iPhone tethering plan. While we already knew the plan was in development prior to his announcement, little information pertaining to specific tethering offerings has been revealed.
Discussion:
MacRumors iPhone Blog, DSLreports, CrunchGear, Gizmodo, The iPhone Blog, MacDailyNews and Computerworld Blogs
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
Facebook invites members to vote in developer competition — Facebook members can now vote on the second round of finalists for its FBFund seed funding competition, which will give out a total of $225,000 to five grand prize winners. The 25 companies currently in the running …
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Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:Five Rules For Winning Facebook's Developer Competition
Discussion:
All Facebook
Jesus Diaz / Gizmodo:
iPhone 2.2 Release Just 10 Days Away — According to the consistently reliable iPhone Hellas, the iPhone OS 2.2 update will appear even sooner than we all expected. Barring any sudden plan changes, the iPhone Hellas people are saying the upgrade will be available on November 21.
Discussion:
Digital Daily, Homotron.net, Gadget Lab, MacRumors, Unwired View, IntoMobile, SlashGear, VentureBeat, Lifehacker, InformationWeek and 9 to 5 Mac
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Condé Nast Web Arm CondéNet's Turn for “Across the Board” Cuts — Here's the deal: If you work at a media company that hasn't had layoffs recently, just go ahead and assume they're coming. — This afternoon's installment-CondéNet, which manages some, but not all …
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Martin / Security and the Net:
AVG virus scanner removes critical Windows file — An update for the AVG virus scanner released yesterday contained an incorrect virus signature, which led it to think user32.dll contained the Trojan Horses PSW.Banker4.APSA or Generic9TBN. AVG then recommended deleting this file …
Discussion:
Computerworld, PC World, Christopher Null, DailyTech, CNET News, blogs.chron.com, AppScout, The Register and Neowin.net
Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:
DeepDyve: Indexing the Deep Web — DeepDyve is a new search engine that is aimed at students, academics, and knowledge workers. DeepDyve's mission is to index the ‘deep web’ that is hidden behind pay walls and subscription fees. We first looked at DeepDyve in September …
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Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Trippin' With Trip: One Man's View Of Carnage To Come — Every month, Trip Chowdhry, the one-man band who covers all things tech under the moniker Global Equities Research, writes a piece he calls Silicon Scoop on current trends and gossip from the Valley. It's always a good read …
Microsoft:
Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-069 - Critical — Vulnerabilities in Microsoft XML Core Services Could Allow Remote Code Execution (955218) — Version: 1.0 — General Information — Executive Summary — This security update resolves several vulnerabilities in Microsoft XML Core Services.
Discussion:
eWeek, PC World, InformationWeek, Computerworld, Washington Post, Maximum PC all and Security and the Net
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Jessica E. Vascellaro / Wall Street Journal:
Facebook Tries to Woo Marketers — Firm's ‘Engagement Ads’ Amplify Its Push to Curry Favor With Madison Avenue — Despite its surging Internet audience, Facebook Inc. has yet to prove it can wring steady revenue out of advertisers. Now it's trying a new tactic to woo Madison Avenue.
Chippy / UMPCPortal:
Free PDF Report. Ultra Mobile Computing Buyers Guide. — To all the websites, companies and visitors that I've learned so much from in the last few years, here's something back. The 5-part, 11,000 word, 28-page Ultra Mobile Computing Buyers Guide as a single re-flowable PDF file.
David Chartier / Infinite Loop:
iTunes Store finally gets a bargain bin for movies — The glory days of grabbing that $5 DVD at the road trip pit-stop or Target checkout counter have finally made their digital transition to the iTunes Store. — With a new section unfortunately called “This Week's Great Movies Under $5” …
Discussion:
Gizmodo
Chris Alden / Six Apart News & Events:
Changes at Six Apart — Earlier today, I published the following message on our internal company blog. For those members of our community who wanted to know about the changes at Six Apart today, I've reposted it here publicly for reference. — Today we are making some changes at Six Apart.
Business Technology:
Who Did Nortel Cut? — It was no surprise that Nortel, reporting a $3.41 billion loss, said it would keep slashing jobs, this time on the order of 1,300. More unusual are some of the names on the list: four executives who CEO Mike Zafirovski recently recruited from IBM, Broadcom and EMC in an effort to turn the company around.
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
BlackBerry 9530 Storm pricing revealed on VZW staging server — Ah, now this is a bit more solid pricing information. Verizon's testman pre-launch site now lists the BlackBerry 9530 Storm for $219.99 under a 2 year contract. Not quite below the $199 threshold set by the iPhone 3G as predicted by some analysts.
Rafat Ali / paidContent.org:
Vivian Schiller Leaves NYT; Joins NPR As New CEO — This one is a shocker: Vivian Schiller, the longtime head of NYTimes.com's digital efforts, has left the company, and has joined National Public Radio as its new CEO. She succeeds Dennis Haarsager, who has served as interim CEO since March …
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
CBS Kills CNET Music Site It Never Launched — One way for a big media company to avoid the embarrassment of shutting down a Web site-just avoid launching it altogether. That's what CBS has done with “Juke,” a music site that CNET had started assembling last spring and planned to launch this fall.
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
iPhone Exploit Undermines App Store Security, Lets Devs Update And Run Arbitrary Code — We have stumbled across a severe flaw in iPhone security that allows third party developers to update and execute arbitrary code from their applications at will, totally circumventing Apple's App Store approval process.
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
Facebook Now Worth About $4 Billion, Revenue Light — Facebook's common stock is now changing hands in private sales at about a $4 billion valuation, a source says (unconfirmed). And Facebook CFO Gideon Yu is indeed trying to raise money in Dubai, the source says (also unconfirmed).
Discussion:
HipMojo.com
PC World:
Is Our Internet Future in Danger? — The digital Disneyland of the future — where we freely work and play online — may be at risk. Why? Because, some argue, broadband carriers can't support it. The Internet's “free ride” culture has led to more people downloading gigabytes of data at practically no cost.
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols / PC World:
The Next Windows: 7Up or New Vista? — Running away as fast as it can from Vista , Microsoft rolled out an alpha version of Windows 7 at its recent Professional Developers Conference . But is Windows 7 going to be 7Up, the Un-Vista, or is it going to be (gag) New Vista ?
Discussion:
Smalltalk Tidbits …
Amanda Kelly / Inside AdWords:
Google Ad Planner: new features, available to everyone — Since we launched Google Ad Planner a few months ago, you've suggested more ways we could help improve your media planning process. First, we're excited to announce that Ad Planner is now accessible to anyone with a Google account.
David Rothman / TeleRead:
EeeRotate: Portrait-mode reading on the Eee PCs and other notebooks — Laptop screens are often set up for the landscape mode—they're wider than tall. This might be good for watching videos but not for reading e-books. — Some software such as yBook or Mobipocket can actually …
