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:
L.A. Times Tech Blog, Screenwerk, Bits, Search Engine Land, Tech Trader Daily and Silicon Alley Insider
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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 …
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Another Sad Day for Yahoo: Layoffs Begin, While Employees Vent — While layoffs have become all too common across tech and this country, today's at Yahoo feel a little worse, coming after 18 unceasing months of painful changes and stumbles at the troubled Internet icon.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Yahoo To Close Brickhouse By End Of Year — Yahoo Brickhouse, the two year old San Francisco based Yahoo business unit to foster new product development, is to be shut down by the end of the year, says a source. The announcement may be as early as Wednesday.
Discussion:
Valleywag
Steve Gillmor / TechCrunch:
Google To Take Chrome Out Of Beta — Google vice president Marissa Mayer announced Google Chrome is coming out of beta in an interview with Michael Arrington at Le Web 08. The Google's open source browser has a number of eager customers, including OEMs who can't offer the browser until it is in full release.
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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:
Search Engine Roundtable
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Marissa Mayer's Simple Advice On Who To Hire: Smart People Who Get Things Done — Google's Marissa Mayer said a lot of interesting things on stage today on stage at the Le Web Conference in Paris. We covered the Chrome and Search Wiki news. — But the most important thing she said, in my opinion, was also the simplest.
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 …
Discussion:
BBC, ReadWriteWeb, PC World, TechCrunch, internetnews.com, Gizmodo, Lifehacker, PSFK, Search Engine Land, MarketingVOX, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim and louisgray.com
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Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
AOL Gets More Social With Renovation of Bebo (But There's Much More to Come) — This morning, AOL will launch an updated look for its Bebo social-networking property, with a new “social inbox” profile for its users. — The inbox, which you can see below in the old and new versions …
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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:
Local Mobile Search, jkOnTheRun, Wap Review, Mashable!, Unwired View, SlashGear and InformationWeek
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes / Hardware 2.0:
Latest twist in Apple vs. Psystar — Mac clone maker Psystar has modified its counterclaim against Apple. Gone are the Clayton Act and Sherman Act antitrust claims, and in are sections that refute claims of violating the DMCA. — Psystar's latest counterclaim rests on two pillars:
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InfoWorld:
HP to offer 3-year laptop battery — A fast-charging laptop battery that promises to last at least three years without any degradation in performance is coming to the market as an option with Hewlett-Packard laptops. The Sonata battery is the product of three years of development work …
Discussion:
Boston Power, Electronista, Technologizer, Obsessable, SlashGear, The Toybox, Engadget and Gadgetell
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
PC World:
Verizon Aims for LTE Deployment in 2009 — Verizon Wireless expects to begin deploying next-generation LTE (Long-Term Evolution) wireless broadband within a year, a top executive of the carrier said Tuesday. — “We expect that LTE will actually be in service somewhere here in the U.S. probably …
Discussion:
eWeek, GigaOM, DSLreports, Gizmodo, jkOnTheRun, Electronista, Unwired View, Out of the Box, Boy Genius Report and PhoneNews.com
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Sony to launch Home virtual world for PlayStation 3 on Dec. 11 — Sony will launch its much-anticipated virtual world, Home, for the PlayStation 3 on Dec. 11. The service will still be in beta testing but it will now be freely available to all 16 million-plus PS 3 users.
Discussion:
PC Magazine, Agence France Presse, TechSpot, Technology Live, Signal to Noise and GamePolitics News
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Jack Buser / PlayStation.Blog:PlayStation Home Open Beta Launches Tomorrow
Discussion:
PC World, CrunchGear, The Microsoft Blog, Joystiq, Massively, Destructoid, Electronista, Sony Insider and Engadget
Blog of helios:
Linux - Stop holding our kids back — This blog is momentarily interrupted to bring you a snippet of recently received email. … Karen xxxxxxxxx — xxxxxxxxx Middle School — AISD — Hmmmm.... I suppose I should, before anything else, thank you.
Discussion:
Download Squad
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
Wall Street Journal:
Nortel Seeks Bankruptcy Advice — Nortel Networks Corp. has sought legal counsel to explore bankruptcy-court protection from creditors in the event that its restructuring plan fails, according to people familiar with the situation. The move comes as the Toronto-based company grapples …
Discussion:
Between the Lines, RCR Wireless News, Silicon Alley Insider, GigaOM, BloggingStocks, Digital Daily and Virtual Worlds News
Joanna Stern / LAPTOP Magazine:
MSI to Demo Touchscreen Wind, Release Wind U110, Wind U115 and U300 in U.S. — MSI has gained a significant chunk of the netbook market thanks to its 10-inch Wind. But can the company keep up in the now crowded space that is saturated with products from the top notebook manufactures?
Discussion:
Crave, Obsessable, Liliputing, The Toybox, SlashGear, CrunchGear, Electronista, UMPCPortal, Gizmodo and Gadget Lab
Margaret Kane / CNET News:
Report: Yahoo investor urges Microsoft search deal — A major Yahoo shareholder is reportedly pushing for the company to renew discussion with Microsoft for a deal over its search business, CNBC reported Wednesday. — Ivory Investment Management, a hedge fund based in Los Angeles …
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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 …
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
VoIP on the iPhone Without Wi-Fi — TruPhone just last week released an iPod Touch application that allows for VoIP calls on the device using Wi-Fi and also has such an app for the iPhone. But this morning the company has pushed out an app that allows iPhone users to make VoIP calls on the cellular network.
Kim Tong-hyung / The Korea Times:
Goodbye WIPI, Hello iPhone — After dragging its heels for months, Korea's telecommunications regulator finally came around and declared WIPI, a local software standard mandated for data-enabled mobile phones, a mistake. — The decision will bring an end to the dreadful wait by Korean gadget lovers …
