Top Items:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Death To The Embargo — PR firms are out of control. Today we are taking a radical step towards fighting the chaos. From this point on we will break every embargo we agree to. — Background: — Tech companies are desperate for press and hammering their PR firms for coverage on blogs and major media sites.
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Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Entrepreneurs: We Will Happily Respect Your Embargoes — Michael Arrington at TechCrunch said today that his site will no longer respect press embargoes, the informal system where press outfits agree to hold back publishing until an agreed upon time so that multiple sources can cover a story well.
Katie Marsal / AppleInsider:
Piper believes leadership shift at Apple is underway — Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, one of the most outspoken figures on all things Apple, told clients on Wednesday that Steve Jobs' absence from this year's Macworld Expo signals “the beginning of a shift in leadership roles” at the company.
Discussion:
Infinite Loop, Guardian, Tech Trader Daily, PC World, Apple 2.0, GMSV, Pogue's Posts and Computerworld Blogs
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Tom Krazit / CNET News:
Apple's blind-side hit on IDG — Apple shocked Macworld organizer IDG with its decision to have Steve Jobs skip his upcoming keynote. — (Credit: Corrine Schulze/CNET) — Home - News - Apple — Apple — December 17, 2008 4:32 PM PST — Apple's blind-side hit on IDG — Posted by Tom Krazit
Arik Hesseldahl / Byte of the Apple:Might Apple Be Ditching Macworld For CES?
Discussion:
AppleInsider, Gadget Lab, Computerworld Blogs, LAPTOP Magazine, Computerworld, Lockergnome Blog Network and MacRumors
Jim Dalrymple / Macworld:Apple Expo Paris cancelled
Discussion:
Appletell, GigaOM, PC World, Infinite Loop, AppleInsider, Between the Lines, Gizmodo, Guardian, MacRumors and iLounge
Jessica Guynn / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Major leadership shakeup at LinkedIn: Nye leaves, Hoffman back at the helm — After a two-year stint in which he helped propel dramatic growth, LinkedIn Corp. Chief Executive Dan Nye is handing back the reins to company founder Reid Hoffman in a major leadership shakeup at one of Silicon Valley's hottest companies.
Discussion:
paidContent.org, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, Tech Beat, The Social Times, Associated Press, Search Engine Land and Silicon Alley Insider
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Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
LinkedIn's Hoffman Takes Back CEO Title, as Nye Departs and Weiner Enters — Well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneur Reid Hoffman (pictured here) will become CEO of LinkedIn again, taking on the job he had for nearly four years after founding the business networking company in 2003.
Discussion:
Valleywag
Wilson Rothman / Gizmodo:
The Definitive Coast-to-Coast 3G Data Test — After a grueling eight-city coast-to-coast test of the 3G networks run by AT&T, Sprint and Verizon, we've come up with some clear-cut test results. Think you know who has the best network? Think again. — The Test — 3G is more important now than ever before.
Discussion:
eHomeUpgrade, Between the Lines, jkOnTheRun, TechFlash, DSLreports and VOIP IP Telephony
Microsoft:
Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-078 - Critical — Security Update for Internet Explorer (960714) — Version: 1.0 — General Information — Executive Summary — This security update resolves a publicly disclosed vulnerability. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution …
Discussion:
Computerworld, Microsoft Corporation, BBC, The Register, Technologizer, All about Microsoft, InformationWeek, MSRC, Full of I.T., eWeek Security Watch, Zero Day, Ed Bott's Windows Expertise, Microsoft Subnet's blog, One Microsoft Way, Guardian, theWHIR.com Blogs, Homotron.net, TechSpot, Alice Hill's Real Tech News, IEBlog, Security Fix, Microsoft News Tracker, CNET News, jkOnTheRun and Security Watch
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Chris Foresman / Infinite Loop:
iPhone gaming is maturing as more major games join the fray — With Apple pushing iPhone game development, industry veterans quitting their jobs to focus on game programming, and some developers making record profits with their iPhone apps, it's getting harder and harder to argue that the iPhone isn't a good gaming platform.
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Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
Facebook's platform: Rebuilding the plane in midflight — Facebook's developer platform was a watershed. It gave outside companies unprecedented access to users of a major social network. But the platform, launched in May, has come under increasing scrutiny.
Discussion:
E-Media Tidbits
Ben Worthen / Business Technology:
Adobe's Other Battle: The Economy — Adobe is battling Microsoft over the future of Internet software. But its more pressing battle might be against the economy. — The San Jose, Calif., software maker on Tuesday reported that the economic downturn has hurt sales of its flagship Creative Suite …
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Don Reisinger / Webware.com:
What Gmail does better than its competitors — As someone who spends an inordinate amount of time wading through e-mails, finding the best e-mail service is paramount in my life. — Realizing that, I've done my fair share of shuffling from one e-mail program to the next …
Steve Gillmor / TechCrunchIT:
Why Track will be back - Fred Wilson says so — For those of you new to the Web since the end of May, you can be forgiven for having no clue about why Track is the s**t. Despite months of denial, an open source clone war, a VC-backed API counter offensive, and unknown secret plans …
Brooke Crothers / CNET News:
Toshiba to show 512GB solid-state drive at CES — Toshiba said Wednesday that it will showcase a 512GB solid-state drive at the Consumer Electronics Show next month and begin shipments in the second quarter of 2009. — To date, this would be one of the largest-capacity solid-state drives …
Chris Nuttall / blogs.ft.com:
GTA maker is hit-and-run victim — Video game software sales are up 30 per cent this year in the US, but the rising tide is not floating all boats - most publishers appear to be holed below the waterline. — Take-Two, publisher of the Grand Theft Auto series, is the latest harbinger of bad news.
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
SnapTell: One Of The Coolest iPhone Apps Gets Even Better — SnapTell, the awesome iPhone app that lets you take a photo of nearly any CD, DVD, book, or video game to get instant product reviews, has just released an upgrade that introduces a number of useful new features.
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
The Difference Between Invention And Innovation In The Netbook Space — from the it's-all-about-the-tweaking dept — Business Week's Steve Hamm has a short post talking about the “sudden” success of “netbooks,” those mini-laptops that are suddenly selling like crazy.
Discussion:
Scripting News
Marshall Kirkpatrick / Jobwire:
Dave McClure Joins Founders Fund — Startup aficionado Dave McClure has formally joined VC firm the Founders Fund as an angel investor, according to an update he made to his LinkedIn profile this week. The Founders Fund was created by former PayPal CEO Peter Thiel in 2005 and is described …
Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
Are bloggers & social networks killing the big shows? — I've noticed a trend lately (actually I noticed it back when I worked at Microsoft and my bosses kept refusing to buy booths at conferences, saying they didn't return the ROI, but that trend has grown and grown big time).
Suzanne Tindal / CNET News:
Huawei powers up its Android plans — Australian telecommunications companies would be able to start selling Chinese vendor Huawei Technologies' Android-based phones by the third quarter of 2009 if they wanted to, the company said this week. — Huawei entered the Android open handset alliance earlier …
Discussion:
AndroidGuys
Ross Mayfield / Socialtext blog:
Corporate Alumni Network offer for the 2009 Recession — With record layoffs in the 2009 Recession, more former coworkers are turning to each other to get jobs and start new businesses. In less turbulent times, large employers would invest in hosting Corporate Alumni Networks for sharing connections, knowledge and expertise.
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Walmart iPhone on sale the 28th for a lot more than $99 — At this point, it's clear that the $99 iPhone 3G rumor was just that: rumor. We have a letter that we believe to be authentic from a source within Walmart that says the iPhone will launch in the house that Sam built at 9am December 28th.
Discussion:
PC World, Unwired View, PMP Today, ChannelWeb, VentureBeat, The Register, Local Mobile Search, IntoMobile, Insanely Great Mac, FierceWireless, Switched, TUAW, Pulse2 and Boy Genius Report
Mac OS X Internals:
More User-Space File System Goodies — There has been much buzz about new features and functionality in MacFUSE 2.0. Besides the MacFUSE 2.0 release, there are still more new and interesting things to be discussed in the realm of user-space file systems. As I described and briefly demonstrated during …
Discussion:
Infinite Loop
Kathrin Hille / Financial Times:
Beijing widens search engine ads crackdown — Internet search engines in China face growing risks as a media campaign against Baidu, the market leader, has broadened to target the entire industry, including Google. — In a report broadcast on December 11, China Central Television …
