Top Items:
David Pogue / New York Times:
BlackBerry Storm Downgraded to a Depression — Research in Motion (RIM), the company who brought us the BlackBerry, has been on a roll lately. For a couple of years now, it's delivered a series of gorgeous, functional, supremely reliable smartphones that, to this day, outsell even the much-adored iPhone.
Arn / MacRumors:
Black Friday Discounts on Macs Have Begun — MacMall has announced their Black Friday sale which will runs from now until midnight P.T. on Friday, November 28th. Last year's MacMall sale delivered some of the largest discounts available online. This year, however, MacMall faces stiff competition …
Discussion:
TechFlash, Hardware 2.0, Gizmodo, InformationWeek, Boing Boing Gadgets, Gearlog, Crave, MacBlogz, SlashGear, IntoMobile, FierceWireless, The Apple Core and AppleInsider
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Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Apple 2.0:
Apple sale! All Macs must go! — You know times are tight when even Steve Jobs starts cutting prices. — Apple (AAPL), which keeps the tightest reins on list prices in the business, seems to have loosened them significantly this holiday season. Authorized resellers who normally …
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:
Yahoo Launches “Vertical Lens” Search Through BOSS — Yahoo announced an expansion to the BOSS technology named “vertical lens” technology. In short, this allows developers build their own vertical search engines using Yahoo's search technology, through BOSS. This new technology is replacing Yahoo's old Search Builder tool.
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Yahoo! Search Blog:
Search the Web Through a Vertical Lens — Over the last few months we've showcased a handful of innovative mashups that developers have created using Yahoo! Search BOSS. The creations have ranged in functionality and focus, but all have included interesting applications of Yahoo! Search's index, infrastructure and technology.
Discussion:
TechCrunch
BBC:
Apple made to drop iPhone advert — An Apple iPhone advert has been banned by the advertising standards watchdog for exaggerating the phone's speed. — The advert boasted the new 3G model was “really fast” and showed it loading internet pages in under a second.
Discussion:
Guardian, Unwired View, TUAW, GMSV, Macworld, Boing Boing Gadgets, Boy Genius Report, MacDailyNews, Apple 2.0, Engadget, SuperSite Blog, Macsimum News and textually.org
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Jack Schofield / Guardian:
Apple's deceptive iPhone ad banned in the UK — Apple's TV advert for the 3G iPhone has been attacked on the web for being deceptive, and as Media Guardian reported this morning, it has now been banned in the UK. The Advertising Standards Authority received 17 complaints that the ad was misleading for …
Discussion:
Infinite Loop, Byte of the Apple, CNET News, Guardian, Yahoo! Tech, asa.org.uk, RCR Wireless News, Gearlog, The Register, Inquirer and Technology Live
James Plath / DVDTOWN.com News:
Samsung Blu-ray players to deliver Netflix in HD — Tools: — Recommend this news to a friend » — Samsung Electronics America, a market leader and award-winning manufacturer of consumer electronics, today announced that its two cutting-edge Blu-ray players, the BD-P2500 and BD-P2550 …
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Saul Hansell / Bits:
Amazon.com Tries User-Generated Public Relations — Just as Tom Sawyer got his friends to whitewash that fence, Internet companies have been delighted to offer their users the chance to perform many of the tasks they would otherwise have to hire people to do, from making videos to tattling on those who write offensive comments.
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Nicholas Carlson / Alley Insider:
Yahoo Still Losing Search Share: Time To Do Deal, Focus On Display — Yahoo should do a a search deal with Microsoft now, if only so it can focus on its strengths — on and off network advertising to its tremendously large audience. — Nielsen's October U.S. search share rankings show Yahoo's …
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Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
SEC Outlines Its Reasoning For Shutting Down P2P Lender Prosper — Last month, peer-to-peer lender Prosper stopped all new lending on its site because of scrutiny by the SEC. Prosper agreed to register under the Securities Act, a process which can take months.
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Twitter kills Canadian SMS updates. Can the U.S. be far behind? — As regular readers know, I hate SMS (text messaging). It's not the idea or technology that I hate, it's just the ridiculous costs associated with it. Why should I pay AT&T $15 a month for unlimited text messages …
Stephen Shankland / Webware.com:
How widely used is Chrome? More than I expected — Chrome doesn't have much market share among CNET News visitors, but it's climbing. — (Credit: CNET News) — Is Google's Chrome browser mainstream? — Certainly not. But I've been curious how widespread its use is …
Discussion:
Alley Insider, SitePoint, Beet.TV, The Noisy Channel, Matt Cutts, WebWorkerDaily and digg.com
Gmgfarrand / Instructables:
VGA to USB power! — introVGA to USB power! — This INSTRUCTABLE came into being because of the new craze of NETBOOKS. — These small laptops have only 3 or less USB ports which is fine for some people, but for others that want to use an external Mouse, Keyboard, or just want to charge your MP3 player …
Adam Lashinsky / Fortune:
Why can't Microsoft make money online? — Yes, the software giant is hugely profitable. Just not where it competes with Google. — (Fortune Magazine) — Struggle? You don't normally think of that word applying to the company Bill Gates founded. But there it is: Microsoft …
Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins / Mashable!:
You Gotta Try Mr. Tweet — Last night I happened across Mr. Tweet, a stealth startup that's growing quickly. The site bills itself as your “personal assistant for Twitter,” but it functions as a very interesting version of Facebook's friend finder. — The site asks you for your Twitter username …
Ian D Thomas / Lies, Damned Lies:
Ads in user-uploaded videos - new work from Stanford — Those smarty-smart smart people at Stanford (which gave us Sergey and Larry, Sun, and, ahem, Jerry) have developed some software to make it possible to insert dynamic images or videos inside the environment of another video.
Chris Shipley / DEMO.com:
In a Tough Economy DEMO Delivers Value — As the December 1 deadline for DEMO 09 demonstrator applications approaches, you can bet that we're getting all sorts of questions about the event, the audience it pulls, its track record, and - most notably - its price.
Discussion:
Valleywag
Robert Andrews / paidContent.org:
Lycos Europe To Shut Down After Failing To Find Buyer — It's the end of the road. After putting itself on the auction block in April, Lycos Europe has finally conceded what had become increasingly clear - no one wants to buy the ailing portal. It confirmed Wednesday morning it will wind …
Daniel Lim / SlashGear:
More 5D Mark II video - Vincent Laforet's 7 days 7 shoots — Three months after its introduction, Canon finally ships the EOS 5D Mark II; but due to the holiday and huge demand of this 5D sequel, early adopters may not be able to get their unit in time for turkey session.
Dan Nystedt / PC World:
HTC's Real IPhone Rival Stands Up: the Touch HD — High Tech Computer (HTC), the world's largest maker of smartphones that use Microsoft's Windows Mobile software, launched the Touch HD handset in Taipei on Wednesday, a 3.8-inch touchscreen mobile phone that more closely matches up to the iPhone 3G.
John Biggs / CrunchGear:
You're doing it wrong: Motorola astroturfs just about everyone — Joel at BBG has found a bunch of threads from MGOODE08, apparently a shill for Motorola who posts comments to gadget sites about the Motorola Krave. … And before that: … UPDATE - I found that MGoode is now appearing on CrunchGear as well.
Lauren Weinstein / Lauren Weinstein's Blog:
Sending Secret Messages Via Google's SearchWiki System — Greetings. I've previously written of some concerns associated with Google's new “SearchWiki” feature, a concept with considerable merit in theory, but as currently implemented appears to be easily abused.