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Techmeme News:
Guess what? Automated news doesn't quite work. — Any competent developer who tries to automate the selection of news headlines will inevitably discover that this approach always comes up a bit short. Automation does indeed bring a lot to the table — humans can't possibly discover and organize news as fast as computers can.
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Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
TechMeme Gives Up On Fully Automated News — 3+ year old TechMeme, an automated news site that shows breaking news clustered by topic, has always generated “headlines” by analyzing how news sites link to each other. If a lot of sites start linking to something unique, TechMeme guesses it's news.
Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
News aggregator Techmeme melds algorithms and humans — News aggregator Techmeme is perhaps the fastest way to find interesting tech news - it takes minutes to find and link to breaking stories, as opposed to the hours or days that rivals like Digg or Google News take.
Groklaw NewsPicks:
Apple Tells Court It Believes Someone Is Behind Psystar; Adds New Claims, Including DMCA Violation — Apple has filed a motion to amend its complaint [PDF] to add a claim of violation of the DMCA, among other new and enlarged claims. Here's the proposed Amended Complaint [PDF].
Discussion:
Technologizer, CrunchGear, AppleInsider, MacDailyNews, MacRumors and GigaLaw.com Daily News
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Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Adobe lays off 600 workers, CS4 demand weaker than expected — Adobe said Wednesday that it will eliminate 600 full-time positions, or roughly 8 percent of its workforce, amid weaker than expected fourth quarter earnings. — The company said in a statement that it will deliver fourth …
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Om Malik / GigaOM:
Why Twitter Didn't Sell to Facebook — Really — The New York Times' Claire Miller attended a Churchill Club function to fete Twitter co-founder Evan Williams last night. In an onstage interview, Williams talked about many different aspects of his micro-blogging service, which now has 6 million subscribers.
Discussion:
SarahLacy.com
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Nate Raymond / amlawdaily.typepad.com:
Hogan's Litvack Discusses Google/Yahoo — Google Inc. and Yahoo! Inc. called off their joint advertising agreement just three hours before the Department of Justice planned to file antitrust charges to block the pact, according to the lawyer who would have been lead counsel for the government.
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Arik Hesseldahl / Business Week:
Apple's iPod Problem — With fewer iPod users upgrading, the days of explosive growth are over. And that leaves iPhones and Macs picking up the slack — William Thomas Cain/Getty Images — Chris Wysopal is the head of a four-iPod family. His wife and two kids all carry …
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Josh Lowensohn / Webware.com:
New Firefox extension turns Amazon.com into illegal free-for-all — A new Firefox extension called Pirates of the Amazon lets users download movies, games, TV shows, and MP3s free of charge by cross referencing Amazon's product pages with torrent files from the Pirate Bay.
Matt Buchanan / Gizmodo:
Barack Obama Uses a Zune — After all of the misinformation and dirty lies spread about Obama over the course of the presidential campaign, this is the most shocking I've heard about him: He uses a Zune. This can't be possible. — Why? Because, as has been widely reported, Obama, many of his staffers and Joe Biden use a Mac.
Discussion:
Business Technology, The Clog, The Microsoft Blog, Digital Joystick, LAPTOP Magazine and Gawker
Paul Graham:
The High-Res Society — For nearly all of history the success of a society was proportionate to its ability to assemble large and disciplined organizations. Those who bet on economies of scale generally won, which meant the largest organizations were the most successful ones.
Ed Burnette / Ed Burnette's Dev Connection:
Sun launches JavaFX 1.0 — On Thursday Sun released the production version of JavaFX, a new platform for building rich internet applications. Version 1.0 targets web browsers and desktops, but subsequent releases will be available on mobile devices, TVs, and other consumer electronics devices.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
588 Kleiner Perkins iFund Applications Accidentally Published To Web — Kleiner Perkins's iFund is a $100 million fund to invest in startups building applications for the iPhone. — Startups that wish to apply for funding can fill out an online application here.
Om Malik / GigaOM:
DNS Problems Hit Yahoo — Updated: Yahoo, one of the largest web sites on the planet, is being plagued by series of problems related to Domain Name System (DNS). A test using Gomez's testing service shows error messages in certain cities such as Chicago. Others are experiencing slower access …
William M. Bulkeley / Wall Street Journal:
IBM Offers ‘Microsoft-Free’ Desktop — Applications for Thin Clients Would Operate From Back-Office Server — International Business Machines Corp. is hoping to convince corporate customers that they no longer need Microsoft Corp. — IBM says it has created a “Microsoft-free” …
Meghan Keane / Epicenter:
Greystripe Brings Flash to the iPhone, Sort Of — Adobe may be hard at work creating a version of its Flash Player that works on the iPhone, but until Apple gives its OK, iPhone users must muddle along without viewing most online video content. — Except that on Monday …
Darren Murph / Engadget:
Kogan intros world's second Android phone: Agora / Agora Pro — We'll be totally honest — we pretty much blew Ruslan Kogan off when he proclaimed that he was about to push out a $199 Android phone by the year's end. And truthfully, the guy still hasn't totally delivered …
Joseph Tartakoff / The Microsoft Blog:
Debut of new Windows Live hits a snag — The debut of the new Windows Live, which introduces a set of social networking-like features to Microsoft's suite of online services, has not gone exactly as planned. — On the Windows Live team blog this afternoon, the team writes that some users have had trouble accessing the services:
Greg Sandoval / CNET News:
What's causing video glitches at Apple, Netflix? — Some Apple TV owners have complained for several weeks that it takes much longer now to download and playback high-definition movies. — “I started downloading an hour back and it says it will take two hours,” wrote someone with the user name Reachg.
RFA:
Chinese Authorities Enforce Switch from Microsoft — Internet cafes in China are forced to switch to a Chinese-made operating system, with steep licensing fees. … HONG KONG—Authorities in the southeastern Chinese city of Nanchang are requiring all local Internet cafes to replace …
Brian X. Chen / Gadget Lab:
Apple: Our Ads Don't Lie, But You're a Fool if You Believe Them — Apple doesn't want you to believe what it says, even though the company claims it's not lying. — That's the gist of the Cupertino company's legal response to a lawsuit regarding allegedly misleading advertising for the iPhone 3G.
Discussion:
DailyTech, Neowin.net, AppleInsider, LAPTOP Magazine, Hardware 2.0, GottaBeMobile.com, The Toybox, DSLreports, TechSpot, TG Daily, Gizmodo, CrunchGear and Techdirt
Frank Davies / Mercury News:
Tech leaders, advocacy groups seek Obama's sympathetic ear — WASHINGTON — Advocacy groups promoting network neutrality and tech leaders seeking a national broadband strategy are not wasting time in pushing their agendas, trying to get the ear of President-elect Barack Obama …
Robert Vamosi / CNET News:
Worm uses familiar brands to lure people — Ho-ho-ho. This isn't an offer for a real coupon book from McDonald's. It's a new mass-mailing e-mail worm. — On Tuesday security vendor WebSense issued an alert warning that holiday coupon e-mails from familiar companies may be malicious code in disguise …
