Top Items:
John Markoff / New York Times:
Google Is Taking Questions (Spoken, via iPhone) — SAN FRANCISCO — Pushing ahead in the decades-long effort to get computers to understand human speech, Google researchers have added sophisticated voice recognition technology to the company's search software for the Apple iPhone.
Discussion:
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Trevin Chow:
Introducing the Microsoft Store US — We previously launched Microso ft Store internationally in the UK, Germany and Korea. I'm now happy to announce that we have officially launched Microsoft Store for the U.S! — With this launch, our customers in the U.S. are able to buy …
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Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Microsoft launches online store: Is there deeper meaning here? — Microsoft has launched something long overdue: An online store. Yes Virginia, you can download Windows. — The launch is a bit quiet. Trevin Chow, a senior program manager at Microsoft, announced the “first-party” store on his blog.
Brandon LeBlanc / The Windows Blog:
Introducing the Microsoft Store — This is something I think is pretty exciting - especially if you're looking to score some Microsoft product. We are announcing the Microsoft Store - the first online store where you can purchase Microsoft products straight from the source!
Margaret Kane / CNET News:
Sun restructures, lays off up to 6,000 — Sun Microsystems has announced a restructuring that will involve layoffs of 15 percent to 18 percent of its global workforce. — The company also announced a reorganization of its software operations and the departure of Rich Green, executive vice president of software.
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Business Wire:
Sun Microsystems Aligns Business with Global Economic Climate and Amplifies Growth Opportunities Across Open Source Platforms — SANTA CLARA, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:JAVA - News) today announced a series of changes designed to align its cost model …
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Digital Daily, VentureBeat, Guardian, Between the Lines, GigaOM, Tech Confidential, Tech Trader Daily, Tim Anderson's ITWriting, TMCnet and Web Strategy
Ashlee Vance / New York Times:
Sun Restructures and Plans at Least 5,000 Layoffs — Reeling from a significant decline in sales and a plummeting share price, Sun Microsystems, one of the larger sellers of server computers, said Friday that it planned to layoff 5,000 to 6,000 workers or 15 percent t0 18 percent of its work force …
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Silicon Alley Insider
Royal Pingdom:
The world's most super-designed data center - fit for a James Bond villain — This underground data center has greenhouses, waterfalls, German submarine engines, simulated daylight and can withstand a hit from a hydrogen bomb. It looks like the secret HQ of a James Bond villain. — And it is real.
BBC:
European debut for ‘$100 laptop’ — Europeans will soon be able to buy their own XO laptop. — The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organisation is planning to sell the devices via online store Amazon's European outlets from 17 November. — The machines will be sold under the Give One …
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Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
GirlInYourShirt: $75 Buys Your Startup Marketing For A Day — I imagine more than a few startups will take Jenaé up on her offer to wear your startup shirt and talk about your company for a day. It's $75, and she posts videos on her site, YouTube, Seesmic and Viddler, posts pictures on Flickr and tweets about it all as well.
Matt Peckham / PC World:
Xbox 360, Wii Sales Climb in October, Fable 2 Leads — The games industry grew another 18 points year-over-year in the opening beats of the critical fourth quarter, according to NPD. Nothing's recession-proof, but the games industry seems to be weathering Wall Street's slings and arrows with a durable Kevlar-grade coating.
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Vivek Wadhwa / Business Week:
Engineering: Suddenly Sexy for College Grads — As the financial crisis deepens, science and math grads who once flocked to investment banking are now considering jobs in engineering — Early in his college career, Tyler Bosmeny assumed that after graduating, he would do what hundreds …
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider
Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
Is the VC Model Broken? Far From it — Update: Adeo Ressi, the serial entrepreneur behind the venture-capital rating site TheFunded, has been getting a lot of attention for a presentation he gave at Harvard Business School in which he argued that the VC industry is “broken.”
Tom Krazit / CNET News:
Businesses warming up to the iPhone — Businesses are gradually getting used to the idea of using iPhones in the enterprise, but Apple has a long way to go. — (Credit: Apple) — Home - News - Apple — Apple — November 14, 2008 4:00 AM PST — Businesses warming up to the iPhone
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wmpoweruser.com
Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:
Google Finally Starts Firing Slackers? — “It used to be nearly impossible to get fired for general underperformance” at Google, a reader tells us. But times have changed. Read > — What The Heck Happened To The Site? — Henry Blodget | Nov. 13, 5:16 PM | 12
Discussion:
Beyond Search
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Entrepreneurs Ask VCs for Cash Back — This week's $250 million funding for vacation home rental listing company HomeAway Inc. was the largest web-related venture capital investment since the bubble days at the turn of the millennium. But it also contained a provision that signals how the lack …
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Universal Music Group: We're Still Selling Tunes, Amazingly — Universal Music Group, the world's biggest music company, insists the music business isn't dying. Yesterday, it released numbers to help bolster its case. — UMG saw sales drop 6.2 percent in the last quarter, parent company Vivendi disclosed yesterday.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
The Very Curious Microsoft-Facebook User Data Relationship — Facebook's ties to Microsoft go back to 2006 when they first signed an advertising deal. A year later they took a $240 million investment, and the advertising relationship was extended this year.
Lester Haines / The Register:
Hubble snaps planet orbiting distant star — First visible-light image of gravitationally-bound world — The Hubble space telescope has captured the first visible-light image of an exoplanet orbiting a star - a body no greater than three Jupiter masses, gravitationally-bound to Fomalhaut in the constellation Piscis Australis.
Kate Greene / Technology Review:
The Coming Wireless Revolution — Gadgets that operate over television frequencies promise to transform the wireless landscape. — If you believe some radio researchers and engineers, within the next couple of years, high-bandwidth, far-reaching wireless Internet signals will soon blanket the nation.
Discussion:
The Pondering Primate
Kim Dixon / Reuters:
Lawmaker Plans Bill on Web Neutrality — A renewed battle over network neutrality could be on the horizon, as a senior U.S. lawmaker plans to introduce a bill in January that would bar Internet providers from blocking Web content. — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior U.S. lawmaker plans …
Business Technology:
How Old Is Your Work Computer? — It used to be that every three years, workers would get brand new computers from their businesses' tech departments. But for many those days are over. — The reason: Delaying computer upgrades is one of the easiest ways for a tech department to cut its budget.
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal
David Kaplan / paidContent.org:
Invest Like It's 1998: Microsoft Stock Hits 10-Year Low, Down 30 Percent From First Yahoo Offer — Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) stock hit its lowest point in 10 years on Thursday— $18.74—when the tech sector took hits from Cisco (NSDQ: CSCO) and Intel (NSDQ: INTC), before coming back to close at $21.25.
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Associated Press
