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:
Brier Dudley's blog
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
HP's outlook for next year unchanged despite tough economy — Hewlett-Packard reported its fourth fiscal quarter earnings this afternoon for the quarter ended Oct. 31 that were consistent with the company's upbeat preliminary results. The surprising thing is that the world's biggest …
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:
VentureBeat, Webware.com, Search Engine Land, Bits, Mashable!, Industry Standard, TechCrunch, Between the Lines, Mark Evans, Homotron.net, Contentinople, Charles Hudson's Weblog, Maximum PC all, The FASTForward Blog, Regular Geek, PR 2.0, bub.blicio.us, John Battelle's Searchblog, ZDNet.com.au, Guardian, Media Bullseye and Pulse2
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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:
Epicenter, L.A. Times Tech Blog, InformationWeek, AppScout, ChannelWeb Complete Feed, TG Daily and WebProNews
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Twitter Blog:
Meet Rael Dornfest — Rael Dornfest is a famously talented engineer, author, and entrepreneur. Before founding Values of n, Rael served as Chief Technology Officer at O'Reilly Media and is known for his pioneering work on RSS as well being the series editor of O'Reilly's celebrated Hacks books.
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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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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Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
Music service iLike may be for sale — ILike, the music startup that's especially big on Facebook, is out look for an acquirer, according to MediaMemo. “Nothing iminent nor active discussions,” a source close to the company tells me in response. That's not an outright no …
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Guy Patrick / The Sun:
Juror axed for verdict poll on net — A JUROR was kicked off a trial after using Facebook to ask pals if they thought the defendants were guilty. — The woman posted details of the child abduction and sex assault case on the website. — Then she told friends: “I don't know which way to go, so I'm holding a poll.”
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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 …
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, Boing Boing Gadgets, Electronista, blogs.telegraph.co.uk …, Obsessable, Anything But iPod and Mobility Site
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.
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
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.
Meera Selva / Associated Press:
Negotiations to put Beatles on iTunes stalled — Paul McCartney says negotiations to put Beatles songs on iTunes have stalled — LONDON (AP) — Paul McCartney said Monday negotiations on a long-awaited deal to make the Beatles' catalog available on the online music service iTunes have stalled.
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) …
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 …
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
Rob Galbraith:
Shipments of Canon EOS 5D Mark II to U.S. dealers commencing tomorrow — Shipments of the Canon EOS 5D Mark II will begin leaving Canon USA's distribution centres en route to U.S. dealers starting November 25, 2008, says Chuck Westfall, Technical Advisor at Canon USA.
