Top Items:
John Markoff / New York Times:
Thieves Winning Online War, Maybe in Your PC — SAN FRANCISCO — Internet security is broken, and nobody seems to know quite how to fix it. — Despite the efforts of the computer security industry and a half-decade struggle by Microsoft to protect its Windows operating system, malicious software is spreading faster than ever.
Nick Wingfield / Wall Street Journal:
Ballmer: Yahoo Deal Better If Done Soon — Q&A: Steve Ballmer and Qi Lu — After a nearly five month search, Microsoft Corp. on Thursday said it has found a new executive to lead its charge against Google Inc. in the online search and advertising business: Qi Lu, a technologist who was previously a top executive at Yahoo Inc.
Jim Goldman / Tech Check with Jim Goldman:
Apple Apps “Bubble” Talk Just That, As Downloads Soar — You may have seen the Apple advertisement in the New York Times this morning (back page of the Business section) extolling the virtues of the iPhone. Nothing new there. — If you made it through the fine print …
Discussion:
Computerworld Blogs, Gadgetell, Silicon Alley Insider, VentureBeat, AppleInsider, ChannelWeb, Gadget Lab, Mashable! and MacBlogz
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Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider: Estimating Apple iPhone App Sales So Far: $50-$100 Million In Revenue (AAPL)
Jim Dalrymple / Macworld:Apple: 300 million iPhone apps downloaded
Discussion:
Business Technology, MacRumors, TG Daily, Apple 2.0, The Register, World of Apple, InformationWeek and digg.com
Erica Sadun / Ars Technica:
Hidden SDK features transform iPhone into TV gaming device — Look what we found — What do you do after uncovering undocumented SDK features? I got in touch with Freeverse, makers of Moto Chaser, one of the top iPhone games in App Store. After a few back and forth e-mails …
Discussion:
AppleInsider, Appletell, IntoMobile, TUAW, VentureBeat, Engadget, MobileCrunch, iLounge, MacBlogz, Touch Arcade, 148AppsNews Archives, 9 to 5 Mac, techeblog.com, MacRumors and digg.com
J.W. Crump / The Bivings Report:
A Look At Failed Social Networks — Many social networking sites have come and gone, though it's easy to forget about most of them with monsters like Youtube and Facebook acting like they are the only kids in the classroom. Social networking online began with a site called Six Degrees …
Chris Snyder / Epicenter:
Wikipedia's WYSIWYG Dilemma — The Wikimedia Foundation recently announced a $890,000 grant from the U.S.-based Stanton Foundation to simplify its very techy user interface for editing posts. It's a big chunk of change on top of a new $6 million budget for the non-profit encyclopedia …
Robert McMillan / PC World:
FBI: Criminals Auto-dialing With Hacked VoIP Systems — Criminals are taking advantage of a bug in the Asterisk Internet telephony system that lets them pump out thousands of scam phone calls in an hour, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation warned Friday.
Discussion:
VoIP Watch
Microsoft:
Microsoft and Lenovo Connect Customers to Integrated Online Services — Lenovo to be first PC manufacturer to provide customers worldwide with a new seamless, customizable Web experience through Microsoft Live.com and Live Search. — REDMOND, Wash., and RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. …
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Nelson Minar / Nelson's Weblog:
Warcraft account security — My World of Warcraft account is now more secure than my bank account. It is harder to steal 5,000 fake Warcraft gold from me than $5,000 real US dollars. Why? Because unlike my bank, my computer game supports two factor authentication.
Bonnie Cha / Crave: The gadget blog:
Verizon officially rolls out BlackBerry Storm firmware update — Earlier on Friday, we reported on rumors that Verizon Wireless would release a firmware update for the RIM BlackBerry Storm, but it's now official. — The carrier has begun rolling out the software upgrade via …
Discussion:
I4U News, SlashPhone, MobileCrunch, IntoMobile, Electronista, Engadget, BlackBerryNews.com, TechSpot, PalmAddicts, Gizmodo, PhoneDog.com Cell … and The Toybox
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Facebook Introduces Embeddable Videos Only Your Friends Can See — Video is not front and center on Facebook. It's a tiny link in the sidebar of a member's homepage that many hardly notice. They are probably more familiar with the random videos from friends that sort of pop up in their News feeds.
Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:
Google Plasters 75% More Ads On Search Pages...Desperately Seeking Clicks? (GOOG) — So far in Q4, Google (GOOG) is serving 3.82 ads per keyword — about 52% more than it did during Q3. During November, Google served 4.38 ads per keyword, a 75% increase over its Q3 average.
Andy Patrizio / internetnews.com:
Does Google Have a Secret OS? — Net Applications caused a bit of a stir this week with a report that showed Microsoft's operating system share had dipped below 90 percent. This played very well where anti-Microsoft sentiment was strongest, not surprisingly.
Discussion:
Forbes
Chris Putnam / Facebook Blog:
Video Just Got Better — Since we launched video last year, more than 45 million videos have been uploaded to Facebook with approximately 100,000 new videos added each day. Starting today, you'll be able to upload higher quality videos to Facebook and also embed your Facebook videos on other websites.
Brad Stone / Bits:
Pirates of the Amazon Abandon Ship — Earlier this week, two students from the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, made headlines by releasing a plug-in for the Firefox Web browser that made it easy for people who were browsing books, music and movies on Amazon.com to download …
Discussion:
Zeropaid File Sharing …, Threat Level, nettime mailing list, TechnoLlama, Slashdot and digg.com
Rik Myslewski / The Register:
Ex-Appler resurrects Mac-friendly RAID — ‘Set and forget’ — Apple's XServe RAID may have given up the ghost, but now there's a new option for storage-hungry Mac shops. — Today, The Reg spoke with Alex Grossman, formerly the senior director of hardware server and storage at Apple …
Sindya Bhanoo / Industry Standard:
Facebook Connect vs. Google Friend Connect: A battle for Internet mindshare — One hour after Google did a public launch of Google Friend Connect, Facebook launched Facebook Connect. The simultaneous launch is not a coincidence — the two competing services are battling for mindshare …
Kevin C. Tofel / jkOnTheRun:
First Qualcomm Snapdragon netbook concept is a tablet — What do we have here? Looks like some of the first pics I've seen of a netbook based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon chipset have appeared at Silicon.com. While the eight portraits likely represent more concept design rather than actual product, I like what I see.
Eric Krangel / Silicon Alley Insider:
Hate Vista? Dell Now Charging $150 Extra for Windows XP (MSFT) — We know that many consumers just don't like Windows Vista. But just how much more will people pay for a copy of the now nominally off-the-market Windows XP? — More and more. In June, Dell (DELL) …
Paulita David / Google Retail Blog:
Cyber Monday is the new Black... Labels: 2008 Winter Holiday, Online Traffic Trends, Seasonality — ...Friday that is. Fashionistas and Frugal Freddies alike hit the keyboards in record numbers this Cyber Monday. According to comScore, the four days from Black Friday to Cyber Monday saw spending online up 13%.
Charles Arthur / Guardian:
Charlie's Angles: Why rickrolling is bad for the link economy — The other day a message popped up on Twitter. Jay Rosen, who teaches journalism at New York University, asked — in all seriousness, and innocence — “I know I sound clueless and that's never pleasant, but... what in tarnation does ‘rickrolled’ mean?”
Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:
Qitera: Social Bookmarking for the Deep Web — Earlier this year, we featured a stealth startup called Qitera, which just launched publically today. At its core, Qitera is a social bookmarking service, but unlike most of its competitors, Qitera can not only save a screenshot of the site …
Discussion:
RotorBlog.com
Andrew Noyes / Tech Daily Dose:
Change.org Gets Boost From Obama Transition Site — With increased attention to Change.gov, President-elect Barack Obama's transition Web site, we wondered whether Change.org — a self-described “social entrepreneurship venture” based in San Francisco — might be benefiting from a surge …
