Top Items:
Sam Oliver / AppleInsider:
Apple tweaks App Store layout amid developer unrest — Faced with criticism over the way it's been grouping applications on the digital shelves of the App Store, Apple this week is making some changes to the store's layout aimed at showcasing a broader range of top offerings in each category.
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Arn / MacRumors:
Apple Broadens App Store Acceptance, Approves ‘Pull My Finger’ — One of the major criticisms of the App Store has been a seemingly arbitrary rejection policy on the part of Apple. Air-o-Matic was one of the developers rejected by Apple for the reason of “limited utility” for his humor app “Pull My Finger”.
Christopher MacManus / Sony Insider:
Sony's First Touchscreen Walkman Revealed — Sony is set to debut a new 16 and 32GB drag and drop Walkman during CES 2009, according to trusted inside sources. This will be the most advanced music, video and photo Walkman music player ever released by Sony to date.
Discussion:
Engadget, Anything But iPod, SlashGear, Gizmodo, Crave, Electronista, Maximum PC all, CrunchGear, Obsessable, Technologizer and OLED-Info
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Your New Agreement With Google, Chrome Users — When Google released its browser called Chrome this fall, there was an unusually loud controversy about its End User Licensing Agreement (EULA). The company responded quickly to those complaints. — Now the contract with users has been changed again …
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Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:Google Chrome, the Default Browser in Google Pack
Discussion:
Google Watch, Lifehacker, eWeek, Silicon Alley Insider, Lucas Gonze' blog and VentureBeat
myfoxdc.com:
McCain Campaign Sells Info-Loaded Blackberry to FOX 5 Reporter — Exclusive FOX 5 Investigation — ARLINGTON, Va. - Private information at bargain prices. It was a high-tech flub at the McCain-Palin campaign headquarters in Arlington when Fox 5's Investigative Reporter Tisha Thompson bought …
Discussion:
The Register, Zero Day, Liquidmatrix Security Digest, PhoneDog.com Cell …, GMSV and Engadget
Todd Bishop / TechFlash:
Key data center architect leaves Microsoft, headed for Amazon — James Hamilton, one of the big brains behind Microsoft's data center strategy, has left the company, according to a note on his Microsoft home page. And we just confirmed that he's headed across town to Amazon.com …
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Aidan Malley / AppleInsider:
EFi-X USA to sell pre-made PCs capable of running Mac OS X — Leveraging an internal adapter that lets many generic PCs run Mac OS X, a company called EFi-X USA now plans to offer a solution that potentially allows customers to create their own Mac systems.
Discussion:
Infinite Loop, Engadget, The Toybox, Gadget Lab, Electronista, The Mac Observer, TechSpot, SlashGear, TUAW, Gizmodo, Insanely Great Mac and Macsimum News
Jeff Atwood / Coding Horror:
Profitable Until Deemed Illegal — I was fascinated to discover the auction hybrid site swoopo.com (previously known as telebid.com). It's a strange combination of eBay, woot, and slot machine. Here's how it works: — You purchase bids in pre-packaged blocks of at least 30.
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Sarah Palin, Please Come Back! Hulu Traffic Drops in November — File under “interesting, but understandable”: After a flurry of election-related interest in October, traffic to red-hot Hulu fell off in November. Blame Sarah Palin-or the lack of her. — ComScore says that traffic …
Kevin C. Tofel / jkOnTheRun:
I'm taking my phone off “the grid”, who's with me? — It's about time for another crazy mobile experiment. Last time was my 60-day “web-challenge” where I tried to use only a browser for my daily computing tasks. It went quite well, but indicated to me that web services still have plenty of room to mature.
Discussion:
Gear Diary
Dawn Kawamoto / CNET News:
Yahoo offers severance with a soft landing — A pink slip for corporate America's newly laid off typically means a severance package and a “see ya.” — But when Yahoo issued its layoff notices to 10 percent of its workforce on Wednesday, it came with a twist, according to several sources.
Kevin C. Tofel / jkOnTheRun:
Acer's $99 netbook can actually cost you $1,540. Should you get it? — For those of us already accustomed to the lifetime cost of a subsidized device, this isn't news. But netbooks are a relatively new market so there's bound to be many folks new to mobile tech and subsidization plans.
Discussion:
Boy Genius Report, LAPTOP Magazine, I4U News, Alice Hill's Real Tech News and Technology Questions
Martin LaMonica / CNET News:
Andy Grove urges Intel to build car batteries — Intel CEO Andy Grove has joined other Silicon Valley elites who are advocating for an industry shift into energy technology. — In an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Friday, Grove said he is urging Intel to invest …
Jessica Guynn / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
V is for this user's vendetta against Facebook — Everyone knows you on Facebook. The problem is, Facebook doesn't know you. — At least that was V Addeman's problem when he tried to sign up for the social networking site. — Recently laid off as a category analyst for convenience stores …
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Tech Layoffs Surge Past 100,000 — After a lull around Thanksgiving, December has seen some of the biggest layoffs in the tech industry yet since the economy entered its tailspin in the fall. Our Layoff Tracker is now past 100,000 lost jobs (109,629, as of this writing) …
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Apple iPod Touch, New MacBook Selling Like Crazy (AAPL) — Daring Fireball blogger John Gruber is one of the best-sourced Apple (AAPL) writers on the planet. So when he declares something, we listen. And he seems to be carrying good news for Apple, whose rivals in the PC industry aren't having the best year.
Doug Coleman / Jobwire:
Lessig Leaves Stanford, Rejoins Harvard Law — According to Harvard University, one of the “most brilliant and important legal scholars of our time” Lawrence Lessig has been appointed to the faculty of Harvard Law School. He'll serve as the faculty director of Harvard University's Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics.
Joshua Topolsky / Engadget:
Apple: “the iPhone is a gaming console” — According to extremely reliable and embarrassingly handsome Engadget sources, at an iPhone event held today, John Geleynse (AKA Director of Technology Evangelism at Apple) made some statements regarding the iPhone platform that should seriously raise a few eyebrows.
Matt Raymond / Library of Congress Blog:
Library Releases Report on Flickr Pilot — In January, the Library embarked on something that took the online community by storm. In conjunction with Flickr, we loaded a few thousand images from the Library of Congress' vast collections and asked the user community to get involved …
Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
Lenovo's Android phone for China hotter than a G1 with a defective battery — What if we told you the most beautiful phone in the world was a Lenovo? Reactions to that statement are likely going to oscillate between “Lenovo doesn't make cellphones” and “impossible, considering this is the country …
Todd Bishop / TechFlash:
November game market a bloodbath — Nintendo's Wii may have run away with the U.S. console hardware market for November, but two titles for Microsoft's Xbox 360 were solidly atop the NPD Group's rankings of video-game sales for the month. Yet Microsoft won't exactly be citing these results …
John Mahoney / Gizmodo:
Hands On: Pastebud Copy and Paste Trick For iPhone's Safari and Mail — Pastebud—the Javascript-based copy and paste framework that lets you move text from Safari to an email or a form on a web page—is the cleverest solution yet, but still doesn't quite hit the mark.
Pthurrott / SuperSite Blog:
How to fix Windows Mobile — This is an interesting if misguided article and, coincidentally, I met with the Windows Mobile folks just this week, so it's good timing as well: … Yep. This is bad. Microsoft is working on a number of things before that major update, Windows Mobile 7.
Mark Drapeau / Mashable!:
Do Brands Belong on Twitter? — Dr. Mark Drapeau is a biological scientist, government consultant, and regular contributor to Mashable.com and other venues. — Behind every Twitter account is a person. But some of these people ‘hide’ behind organizational brands, obscuring their persona …
Arn / MacRumors:
iPod Touch Gaming Ad Shakes Things Up — Adage points to a major new ad campaign from Apple which is currently running on http://games.yahoo.com/. Apple's latest web ad goes outside the usual bounds of traditional banner ads by affecting other portions of Yahoo's page (the ad must be initiated by the visitor).
