Top Items:
Jerry Yang / Yodel Anecdotal:
Tough times — As we announced in October, we've been aggressively managing our costs to bring them in line with the challenging economic conditions. Unfortunately, that means laying off employees — by far the toughest part of being a manager. Here's the email I sent to Yahoos today:
Discussion:
GigaOM, VentureBeat, Tech Beat, Technologizer, Search Engine Watch, blogs.ft.com, Valleywag, Forbes, internetnews.com, Docu-Drama, MediaNama, Screenwerk and L.A. Times Tech Blog
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Miguel Helft / Bits:
Yahoo Layoffs Today May Not Be Last — Yahoo began laying off 1,500 workers on Wednesday as part of a plan, announced in October, to slash expenses by $400 million a year. The cost cutting, however, may have to go deeper in the coming year. — “There could be additional staff reductions next year …
Owen Thomas / Valleywag:
Yahoo's secret layoff doublespeak revealed! — Yahoo isn't firing people en masse — it's “getting fit.” That noisome euphemism for today's layoffs of 1,500 people must have hissed forth from the brain of some overpaid management consultant. Likewise for pages upon pages of instructions …
Rafe Needleman / Webware.com:
Watching layoffs in real time, on Twitter — If you want to watch a community event reveal itself in real time, there's really nothing like Twitter. As the Yahoo layoffs finally took hold this morning, newly former employees headed to Twitter to say farewell to the company; those staying reported what it was like for the rest.
Discussion:
CNET News
Leo Dirac / Gmail Blog:
Really new in Labs this time: SMS Text Messaging for chat — How often do you try to chat with somebody and they don't respond because they just walked away from their computer? Or maybe you're in the middle of chatting with them just as they need to leave.
Discussion:
Webware.com, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, Google Watch, Epicenter, Mashable!, Lifehacker and Gear Diary
Jessica E. Vascellaro / Wall Street Journal:
Google Executive Departs for LinkedIn — Dipchand “Deep” Nishar, a longtime Google Inc. executive who helped start its mobile business and other key products, is leaving the company to become a senior executive at LinkedIn Corp. — Mr. Nishar, 40, in January will become vice president …
Greg Sandoval / CNET News:
TV has license to kill movies at iTunes, Netflix — Apple is an Internet retailer and Neflix is a Web video rental service, but Hollywood treats them as if they were potential competitors to TV broadcasters. — In the past two weeks, customers of iTunes and Netflix's streaming digital-movie service …
Discussion:
paidContent.org, Infinite Loop, Techdirt, VentureBeat, MediaMemo, iLounge, Public Knowledge, Webomatica and AppleInsider
Brian Lam / Gizmodo:
Rumor Smash: No Zune Phone at CES — Sorry dudes. Just it first hand from Brian Seitz, Group Manager of Zune: “No Zune phone at CES.” — Well, at least no Zune Phone as we're hearing it. A few days ago, some analysts stirred up the rumors of a Zune specific piece of hardware this week …
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Matt / WordPress:
WordPress 2.7 “Coltrane” — The first thing you'll notice about 2.7 is its new interface. From the top down, we've listened to your feedback and thought deeply about the design and the result is a WordPress that's just plain faster. Nearly every task you do on your blog will take fewer clicks …
Paul McDougall / InformationWeek:
Apple Secretly Bricks Non-Intel PCs, Psystar Claims — Mac cloner says OS X 10.5 includes code designed to shut down unauthorized machines. — Apple's Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard” operating system contains undocumented code designed to render inoperable personal computers that aren't running …
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Stephen Fry:
Gee, One Bold Storm coming up.... So here I am. In a hotel room in New York. The writing desk and its view of xth Avenue are all but obscured by:- — 7 x Mini USB cables: 2 of them are the new Micro type that Blackberry has switched to for the Storm only, the rest are standard.
Discussion:
broadstuff
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:
Google SearchWiki To Get Off Button, Might Get Used As Ranking Signal — TechCrunch has coverage of Google's Marissa Mayer talk at Le Web conference in Paris, France. In that talk, Mayer said SearchWiki will gain an option to let users turn it off and reiterated statements that Google's previously made …
Discussion:
TechCrunch
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Window Snyder / Mozilla Security Blog:
Leaving Mozilla — I will be leaving Mozilla at the end of the year. I am sad to be leaving, but I am excited to go work on something I have always been passionate about. I wish I could tell you about it now, but that will have to wait for a while. — You will still get Mozilla security information here.
internetnews.com:
Google, Microsoft Back Off on Datacenter Plans — The two online giants rethink ambitious datacenter efforts, but for different reasons. — With the economy in the shape it's in, even Microsoft and Google are thinking twice before dropping $100 million on a new datacenter.
Discussion:
Microsoft Pri0
Microsoft:
New President of Online Services Group Sees Chance to Make Impact at Microsoft — Q&A: Qi Lu discusses what attracted him to Microsoft and how he plans to boost the company's efforts in online search and advertising. — On Dec. 4, Microsoft announced Qi Lu had been hired as president of the Online Services Group.
Discussion:
TechFlash, Beyond Search, ChannelWeb, AppScout, Silicon Alley Insider, The Microsoft Blog and Microsoft Pri0
Tom Krazit / CNET News:
Apple stabilizes new Mac notebooks — Apple has released stabilizing updates for its new MacBook, shown here, as well as other systems introduced in October. — (Credit: Apple) — Apple has released several new firmware updates aimed at solving problems with its latest batch of notebooks.
Google:
2008 Year-End Google Zeitgeist — As the year comes to a close, it's time to look at the big events, memorable moments and emerging trends that captivated us in 2008. As it happens, studying the aggregation of the billions of search queries that people type into the Google search box gives us …
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Microsoft Live Labs Tackles Web Clips With Thumbtack, Still Needs Polish — Microsoft's Live Labs has just released Thumbtack, a web clipping service that allows users to compile links, media, and text snippets into online storage bins for future reference.
Discussion:
PC World, Microsoft Live Labs, Download Squad, Webware.com, Mashable!, Bink.nu and The Microsoft Blog
Joe Wilcox / Microsoft Watch:
Make Your Corporate Blog Believable — In a blog post today, Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang offered up a “simple heuristic health check to gauge whether your corporate blog is going to be trusted by your readers.” — GOT A TIP OR RUMOR? — Jeremiah offers eight points …
Discussion:
Apple Watch, ReadWriteWeb, Google Watch, Web Strategy, The Noisy Channel, Fast Wonder Blog and Glass House
Emily / textually.org:
MOBILE PHONES JAMMED NEAR BANK ATM — A Tokyo area bank has begun installing devices that jam cell phone signals in order to prevent elderly citizens from becoming victims of phone fraud. Swindlers have been targeting seniors, telling them to go to the bank and all the while stay on the line …
Discussion:
Ubergizmo
Flavio Lerda / Google Mobile Blog:
Street View on Nokia S60 and Windows Mobile? Check. — (cross posted with the Google LatLong Blog) — In case you hadn't noticed, the Google Street View team has been busy photographing France, Italy, Spain, and Australia. Given the international focus of recent Street View launches …
Discussion:
Unwired View, Wap Review, jkOnTheRun, Engadget Mobile, Local Mobile Search and SlashGear
Arn / MacRumors:
Latest Firefox 3.1 Beta Adds Multi-Touch Support — On Monday, Mozilla released the latest beta version of Firefox 3.1. This “Beta 2” version of the popular web browser adds a number of new features across all supported platforms including: — Private Browsing Mode — Faster JavaScript engine
Alana Semuels / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Lose your Time Warner Internet connection (again)? You could try Open DNS — If you live in greater Los Angeles and are fed up with Time Warner Cable, there's probably not much you can do about it (unless you're the L.A. city attorney, in which case you can sue).
PC World:
Sony to Close Last US TV Factory — Sony has named its Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, plant as the second factory of a planned 5 or 6 that will be shut down as part of a global restructuring. The factory is Sony's last remaining TV manufacturing facility in the U.S. and the closure will see 560 people lose their jobs.
Discussion:
Technologizer
Darren Murph / Engadget Mobile:
T-Mobile produces official statement regarding international G1 data roaming — Okay G1 owners, so here's the end-all answer to your data roaming quandaries. For those not caught up, there has been quite the hubbub going around about the G1's inability to not suck down data whilst traveling aboard.
Dawn Kawamoto / CNET News:
Yahoo amends controversial severance program — As part of its settlement agreement stemming from a shareholder lawsuit, Yahoo announced Wednesday it revised its controversial severance policy that had the potential of making a buyout of the company more expensive to a prospective buyer.
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
What the MPAA wants from Obama: 3 strikes, Canada crackdown — The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has supplied its political wish list to the Obama transition team, and thanks to new transition team policies, that means the MPAA has shared its agenda with everyone on the Internet.
Betsy Lordan / Federal Trade Commission:
Court Halts Bogus Computer Scans — At the request of the Federal Trade Commission, a U.S. district court has issued a temporary halt to a massive “scareware” scheme, which falsely claimed that scans had detected viruses, spyware, and illegal pornography on consumers' computers.
Dan Goodin / The Register:
Indian court urged to ‘ban Google Earth’ — Aided Mumbai attacks — Legal advocates have petitioned an Indian court to ban Google Earth following intelligence indicating the satellite imaging site was used to plan last month's terrorist attacks in Mumbai that killed 170 people.
