Top Items:
Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Ballmer: ‘We are done’ with Yahoo acquisition idea — Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer threw his daily bucket of cold water on the notion that the software maker will return with a new bid for all of Yahoo. — “We are done with all acquisition discussions with Yahoo,” Ballmer said …
Discussion:
Technologizer, VentureBeat, Bloomberg, Docu-Drama, MarketWatch, HipMojo.com, paidContent.org, CNET News, Microsoft Pri0, TechFlash, Tech Confidential, Epicenter, Valleywag and GMSV
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Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Yahoo Search Suffers Another Blow, as Key Engineer Departs for Microsoft — Yahoo-which has stuck to its guns by staying in the search business, even though many think it is a losing game and should be sold off to Microsoft-has lost a key engineer in that arena to, uh-oh, Microsoft.
Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land:Microsoft Says It's Open To Search-Only Deal With Yahoo
Discussion:
Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim
Annie Chen / Gmail Blog:
Spice up your inbox with colors and themes — Gmail fans have been building unofficial extensions to spice up their inboxes for a while, but up til now themes haven't been an integral part of Gmail. We wanted to go beyond simple color customization, so out of the 30 odd themes we're launching today …
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Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Gmail Themes. That's Totally Ninja. — Apparently a lucky few Gmail users had a “Themes” tab pop up under settings. No longer do you have to suffer through the boring-if-functional standard Gmail interface for the 16 hours a day that you keep the page loaded. Try “Ninja” instead.
Rafat Ali / paidContent.org:
Ziff Davis To Close PCMag Print; Focus on Online; Still Looking For Options For Gaming Division — Ziff Davis, the tech/gaming media company that recently exited Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is now taking the brave but inevitable step of closing down the print version of PCMag to focus its energy …
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Lance Ulanoff / PC Magazine:PC Magazine Goes 100% Digital
Discussion:
Technologizer, Podcasting News, GMSV, TECH.BLORGE.com, VoIP & Gadgets Blog, ReadWriteWeb and Epicenter
Signal vs. Noise:
Why the Drudge Report is one of the best designed sites on the web — A couple weeks ago on Twitter I said: “I still maintain the Drudge Report is one of the best designed sites on the web. Has been for years.” A few people agreed, but most didn't. Some thought it was a joke. I wasn't kidding.
Greg Sandoval / CNET News:
Sources: Apple, music labels talk DRM-free songs — A year after iTunes began offering music without copy protection software from EMI, Apple is in discussions with the other three top recording companies about acquiring DRM-free songs, according to two music industry sources.
Discussion:
AppleInsider, Infinite Loop, MacRumors, The iPhone Blog, Electronista, MacBlogz, iLounge and Macsimum News
Jim Goldman / Tech Check with Jim Goldman:
Xbox Vs. PlayStation With Netflix Caught In The Middle — It's a big day for Netflix with the service going live on Microsoft's Xbox 360 platform. But there's one big thing lacking and you can thank the heated rivalry between Sony and Microsoft for it and I'm getting an earful from some of you.
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Arik Hesseldahl / Business Week:
Hewlett-Packard Out-Touches Apple — Apple watchers assumed Jobs & Co. would be the first to offer a multitouch laptop, but Hewlett-Packard has beaten them to the punch — From the first time Steve Jobs demonstrated “the pinch”—the two-finger gesture used to zoom in and out of photos …
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Mitchell / Mitchell's Blog:
Sustainability in Uncertain Times — Today we are posting our audited financial statements and tax form for 2007. As in past years, I'll use this event as an opportunity to review both our financial status and our overall effectiveness in moving the mission forward. — Financial
Zach Epstein / Boy Genius Report:
Confirmed: iPhone 3G coming to Wal-Mart on December 28th, select Sam's Club stores as well — Shortly after we posted about the iPhone coming to Wal-Mart this morning, it seemed like all of our ninjas came out of the woodwork to bombard us with info. Rather than post an update, we want to lay out what is now confirmed info.
Discussion:
PC World, IntoMobile, CrunchGear, Apple 2.0, Alley Insider, InformationWeek, Infinite Loop, CNET News, PMP Today, AppleInsider, MacBlogz, iPhone Buzz, Tech Trader Daily, Tech Beat, Valleywag, Obsessable, Digital Daily, The Toybox and TUAW
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
SimCity for the iPhone may ruin my life (in a good way) — No game captured my imagination when I was growing up like SimCity. Certainly, a part of it was my God complex, but more it was the open-ended nature of a game with few rules that let you build a city.
Discussion:
Touch Arcade
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
SnapTell: Instant Product Lookup From The iPhone. You Want This. — If you have an iPhone, you'll probably want to check out SnapTell Explorer, a free application now available on the App Store. The premise is simple: take a photo of the cover of any CD, DVD, book, or video game …
Will Park / IntoMobile:
MMS coming to iPhone 3G! — Now, before you get all worked up in an MMS-frenzy, you should know that MMS is coming to iPhone 3G's on Telia's network. MacWorld has confirmed that the Scandinavian wireless carrier has the distinction of offering the iPhone 3G exclusively in Apple rival Nokia's home-turf …
Jeremy Crane / Compete Blog:
Behold the Power of google.com — What would you give for one day of Google eyeballs? What would it be worth to you to have one single ad running on Google's oh so sparse and much hailed homepage? My guess, that for better or worse, many an online marketing department would be more than happy …
Discussion:
ReadWriteWeb
Josh Lowensohn / Webware.com:
Searchme brings its Coverflow search to iPhone — Visual search engine Searchme has a sexy new iPhone app that brings its signature Coverflow-like interface to the phone's 3.5-inch display. Search results come in the form of large thumbnails with short content summaries underneath.
Discussion:
TechCrunch
Nick O'Neill / All Facebook:
Patent Squatter Sues Facebook — Leader Technologies, an Ohio-based “intellectual capital company”, has filed a lawsuit against Facebook. The company claims that Facebook has infringed on one of their patents which relates generally “to a method and system for the management and storage of electronic information.”
Discussion:
VentureBeat
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Insidious New SEO Ad Product Will Be Hard For Google To Detect (Updated With Google Response) — New York-based advertising firm MediaWhiz, never one to worry about gray areas when it comes to advertising, has launched a new product today called InLinks. — It's fairly straightforward …
Discussion:
Deep Jive Interests, ProBlogger Blog Tips, Shoemoney, Digital Inspiration and SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog
Justin Scott / Mozilla Add-ons Blog:
1 Billion Add-on Downloads — This morning, addons.mozilla.org reached a huge milestone: we served our 1 billionth add-on download since we started keeping track of downloads in 2005. — This number only includes downloads from addons.mozilla.org, but as many add-ons are hosted elsewhere …
Serkan Toto / CrunchGear:
Konica Minolta develops a USB stick-sized projector — Not the real thing. — Konica Minolta (or its subsidiary Konica Minolta Opto, to be more exact) has developed what sounds like it's one of the smallest projectors around today. Measuring just 20×40x7mm, the projector is reportedly …
Discussion:
Computerworld Blogs, News at About Projectors, SlashGear, Electronista, Gizmodo, Engadget and Gizmodo Australia
Dan Rayburn / The Business Of Online Video:
MLB.com's Switch To Flash Video Leaves More Questions Than Answers — Adobe got a big customer win this week when they announced that MLB.com would move from the Silverlight platform back to Flash for all their live and on-demand video. The two-year deal, which kicks off in 2009 …
Discussion:
Broadband Developments
Marcus Foster / Google Mobile Blog:
Google Sync for BlackBerry: Now with contacts — You asked for it, so here it is. We're happy to announce that in the latest update to Google Sync for BlackBerry, we've added two-way contacts synchronization. This new functionality will enable you to sync your handheld's built-in address book with your Gmail contacts.
Discussion:
IntoMobile, Google Operating System, jkOnTheRun, Unwired View, BerryReview.com, CostPerNews and Lifehacker
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch UK:
Updated: BNP member list mashed with Google maps creates a sea of red dots, but dangerously inaccurate — BREAKING NOW: — Creator of the Map, Ben Charlton, removes it from his site. Here's his post explaining why: … [More coverage on this story here and here.] — [Updated: Please see further updates below]
Zach Epstein / Boy Genius Report:
Nokia E71 coming to AT&T as E71x; live and in the flesh — There it is people, looking sexy as ever - we can only hope that the “X” doesn't stand for “Xtra crippled”. It looks like we're now pretty close to seeing AT&T formally announce the E71, rebranded as the E71x, as a welcome addition to its smartphone line.
