Top Items:
Daya Baran / WebGuild:
Google Layoffs - 10,000 Workers Affected — Google has been quietly laying off staff and up to 10,000 jobs could be on the chopping block according to sources. Since August, hundreds of employees have been laid off and there are reports that about 500 of them were recruiters for Google.
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Stephen Shankland / CNET News:
Google cutting contractor workforce — Google is in the process of paring back a contractor workforce that numbers about 10,000, the company confirmed Monday. The news, though, isn't as fresh as it might appear at first blush. — The contractor cut story made the rounds Monday …
Discussion:
VentureBeat
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
When Twitter Met Facebook: The Acquisition Deal That Fail-Whaled — [Updated with new details about deal, including who worked on it and info on a cash component.] — About three weeks ago, Facebook and Twitter ended several weeks of serious talks, in which Facebook was offering …
Discussion:
Bits, Search Engine Land, Tech Confidential, Industry Standard, Between the Lines, TechCrunch, Regular Geek, ZDNet.com.au, Alley Insider, The FASTForward Blog, Mark Evans, Mashable!, John Battelle's Searchblog, Homotron.net, bub.blicio.us, Contentinople, Charles Hudson's Weblog, Maximum PC all, PR 2.0, Media Bullseye, Webware.com, MarketingVOX, VatorNews, Valleywag, Pulse2 and Inside Facebook
Max Kelly / Facebook Blog:
Making Facebook Safe Against Spam — Last Friday, Facebook won an important victory for our users - and against spam and those who create it. — We've all experienced spam - those unwanted and, sometimes, inappropriate marketing messages. The bad guys behind those messages are always looking …
Discussion:
L.A. Times Tech Blog, Epicenter, CNET News, AppScout, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, InformationWeek, TG Daily and WebProNews
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Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
Facebook awarded $873 million in lawsuit against spammer — Spam marketing messages on Facebook have been getting worse over the last year as the site has grown — but maybe such spamming is about to stop. On Friday, the company won a court battle against spam perpetrator Adam Guerbuez …
Charlie Sorrel / Gadget Lab:
Why the iPod Touch Didn't Get Google Street View — The new 2.2 update for the iPhone brings a lot of great new features. Google Street View, direct viewing, listening and download of podcasts and a few small but neat tweaks. The iPod Touch also got a 2.2 upgrade, but it lacks one headline feature: Street View.
Discussion:
Appletell
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Arn / Touch Arcade:
2nd Generation iPod Touch Faster than iPhone — While we had generally considered the iPhone and iPod Touch to be one cohesive platform, as games have started to push the boundaries of these devices, it has become apparent that there are differences in performance between the different models.
Discussion:
Infinite Loop, CNET News, PC World, Gizmodo Australia, Kotaku, IntoMobile, DailyTech, Alice Hill's Real Tech News, jkOnTheRun, Boing Boing Gadgets and Engadget
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Google SearchWiki is Not a Wiki — Late last week Google unveiled the first major change to its search interface since the introduction of multi-media ("Universal") results into the search results page. They called it Google SearchWiki. — It's a big deal, it's awkward, it's frightening …
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David Worthington / Technologizer:
A Zune Phone? Likely. — It is plausible that rumors about Microsoft is close to announcing its answer to the iPhone are true. Microsoft must maintain parity with Apple, and its acquisition of Danger Inc. has given it the industrial design known-how to get the job done well.
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Dan Frommer / Alley Insider:
RIM To Blow Q3, Says Citi (RIMM) — BlackBerry maker Research In Motion just launched three new smartphones, including the touchscreen BlackBerry Storm, which went on sale last Friday. But RIM is at risk of missing its subscriber growth numbers for its third quarter that ends Nov. 29, Citi's Jim Suva said this morning.
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Matthew Miller / Smartphones and Cell Phones:
T-Mobile G1 Android gets Opera Mini and visual voicemail — It seems like the gold rush of applications for the T-Mobile G1 (see my review) has slowed down considerably over the last couple of weeks with just a few apps trickling out here and there. I imagine most of this is because developers …
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Google stock rains on the tech rally parade — The stock market had a good day today. The tech-heavy Nasdaq continued its climb back towards 1,500, ending the day up 87.67 points (6.33 percent) to close at 1,472.02. Looking at various tech stocks, it looks like most had very nice gains today, but one notable one did not: Google.
Discussion:
Reuters
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Palm: The Beginning Of The End? — At a moment in time when smartphones are one of the few hot tech products, Palm (PALM), the industry's pioneer, appears to be dying. — This morning, Global Crown Capital analyst Pablo Perez-Fernandez cut his rating on the company to Underweight from Neutral …
James Sherwood / The Register:
Samsung demos amazing folding phone — A video has appeared online of what's claimed to be an OLED display able to fold itself in half to become a mobile phone. — Initially, the phone - which it's thought was recently seen on a Samsung stand at a display tech trade show in Japan …
Discussion:
Gizmodo, OLED-Info, Anything But iPod, Mobility Site, Boing Boing Gadgets, Electronista, blogs.telegraph.co.uk … and Obsessable
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Be-A-Magpie Is PayPerPost For Twitter — Like much-criticized PayPerPost for blogs, German/UK startup Be-A-Mapgpie will pay you to insert advertisements into your Twitter stream. — Advertisers pay on a cost-per-thousand-impression basis, and the ads are promised to be delivered to relevant audiences based on keywords.
Discussion:
Valleywag, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, SitePoint, David Risley dot com, WinExtra, dot.life blog and Sean Percival's Blog
Mark Peter Davis / Alley Insider:
Why VCs Aren't Investing Anymore — There is one topic on the minds of all entrepreneurs right now: the impact of the economy on their startups. The economy is the centerpiece of every networking event and panel, and it even consumed the Q&A session after my speech at VANJ last week on how to raise VC.
Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:
Final judgment: SCO owes Novell millions (plus interest) — Federal district judge Dale A. Kimball has handed down the final judgment in the SCO case. The decision dismisses SCO's latest claims, grants declaratory relief to Novell, and sustains the court's previous judgment that SCO owes Novell …
Steve O'Hear / last100:
Video demo: SkyFire's S60 mobile web browser accessing Hulu and YouTube — In my first attempt at a video demo — something I hope to do a lot more of — I've been putting SkyFire's new mobile web browser through its paces, running on my S60-powered Nokia e71.
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
LinkedIn Launches Streamlined People Search — LinkedIn has a launched a revamped version of its search engine that aims to streamline the business social network's most oft-used features. Most of the new features revolve around people-search (not surprising given the network's theme) …
Discussion:
WebProNews
The Local:
Bill Gates in Sweden for high society wedding — Microsoft billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates is in Gothenburg this weekend to attend the wedding of billionaire Charles Simonyi and Swedish socialite Lisa Persdotter. — Gates arrived in Sweden on Friday in time for the start …
Gene Marcial / Business Week:
Apple Is Ripe for the Picking — These days, Apple's beaten-down stock looks like an appetizing “value” play based on the company's potential for earnings and sales growth — Apple Inc. (AAPL) is definitely ripe for the picking. After reaching a 52-week high of 202.96 on Dec. 27, 2007 …
Meghan Keane / Epicenter:
TV Viewing Higher Than Ever — Take That, Internet! — We've all been hearing about the migration of television viewers online for years now, but the shift of TV watchers to the Internet is not yet a reality. Television viewership is now at an all time high, according to Nielsen.
Discussion:
WebProNews
Electronista:
Intel builds 32Gb, 34 nanometer flash chips — Intel and its memory making partner Micron today said they have begun mass producing their promised first 34nm NAND flash memory. The smaller manufacturing process lets the two firms build individual chip layers with 32 gigabits (4GB) …
InfoWorld:
Apple sued for patent infringement over iPhone — EMG Technology on Monday announced it has filed suit against Apple in the District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in the Tyler Division. The suit claims that Apple infringes an EMG patent in the way that the iPhone navigates the Internet.
Discussion:
Business Technology, TechCrunch, Infinite Loop, Business Wire, Technologizer, CNET News, Gearlog and MacBlogz
Joe M / Stuff.tv:
Does LG's multitouch display mean a touchscreen iMac is coming? — Here in Korea, LG's just given me a quick look inside one of their factories. And beyond the sight of 100in TVs being cranked out faster than Lewis Hamilton on a flying lap, one interesting nugget of info caught my eye.
Jeff Atwood / Coding Horror:
Can You Really Rent a Coder? — I've been a fan of Dan Appleman for about as long as I've been a professional programmer. He is one of my heroes. Unfortunately, Dan only blogs rarely, so I was heartened to see a spate of recent blog updates from him. One of the entries asks …
