Top Items:
Wall Street Journal:
Music Industry to Abandon Mass Suits — After years of suing thousands of people for allegedly stealing music via the Internet, the recording industry is set to drop its legal assault as it searches for more effective ways to combat online music piracy. — The decision represents …
Discussion:
Slyck, Between the Lines, CNET News, ReadWriteWeb, TorrentFreak, TechCrunch, Industry Standard, DSLreports, PC World, Download Squad, mathewingram.com/work, GigaOM, Silicon Alley Insider, Contentinople, ZDNet Government, Obsessable, Chronicle of Higher Education, Tech Daily Dose, Mark Evans, Music Ally, p2pnet, BetaNews, CrunchGear, Epicenter, Engadget, The Open Road, DailyTech, Neowin.net, Mobilewhack.com, TechWag, AppScout, Aram Squalls, Homotron.net, Zeropaid File Sharing …, Computerworld Blogs, GeekTonic, Lockergnome Blog Network, blogs.chron.com, Mashable!, securosis.com, Lifehacker, iLounge, Life On the Wicked Stage, Electronista, Gizmodo and MediaMemo
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Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
RIAA Abandoning Mass Lawsuits In Favor Of Backroom 3 Strikes Policy — from the it's-a-step,-but-a-very-small- one dept — It really was just three days ago that we suggested that if the record labels actually wanted anyone to take them seriously concerning their desire to come …
Fred von Lohmann / Electronic Frontier Foundation: RIAA v. The People Turns from Lawsuits to 3 Strikes
Times Online / Tech Central:
Is the internet going down? Undersea sub-cables have just broken... Breaking news: something's happening to the internet, right now. We're just not quite sure what. — Interoute, the internet networks company, reports that three of the four internet sub-cables that run from Asia to North America have been damaged.
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Bloomberg:
Severed Cables in Mediterranean Disrupt Communication — A A A — Dec. 19 (Bloomberg) — Internet and telephone communications between the Middle East and Europe were disrupted after three submarine cables between Italy and Egypt in the Mediterranean Sea were damaged.
english.etnews.co.kr:
Samsung Electronics will launch Google Phone in Q2 — Samsung Electronics will release its first Google phone in the second quarter of the next year in North America. — The launch of Google phone by Samsung is regarded as a signal of its plan for increasing the shares in the smart phone market …
Spencer E. Ante / Business Week:
A Wrench in Silicon Valley's Wealth Machine — A year ago, cash rained on tech startups like Digg. Now their valuations are slipping, and venture capital is drying up — A year ago there were reports that Digg had hired investment bank Allen & Co. to put the popular news aggregation Web site …
Dave / MacBlogz:
One More Thing: Apple's New Multi-touch Mighty Mouse — Let's face it, the Mighty Mouse is flawed. Luckily, Apple has filed for numerous patents directly hinting at a multi-touch Mighty Mouse, which could prove to bring us an unexpected treat sometime in the near future.
Steve Poland:
Evan - Twitter needs a better policy on Usernames — I have a bunch of Twitter usernames — I gobbled them up in March 2007. I'd consider them some of the “quality” ones. Almost like the domain game of 1995, I grabbed some of the best Twitter usernames, because I could see value in their use in the future.
James Kendrick / jkOnTheRun:
Foxit eSlick- cheaper ebook reader alternative — Foxit Software are the folks behind Foxit Reader, a free PDF reader that is a great alternative to the standard Adobe Reader. The folks at Foxit know text file conversion and formats and in a surprising twist are going to introduce an electronic ebook reader in January.
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Alan Stafford / PC World:New eBook Reader Undercuts Kindle, Sony Reader Prices
Discussion:
paidContent.org, Download Squad, Engadget, SlashGear, Gadget Lab, Obsessable, Gizmodo and CrunchGear
Arn / MacRumors:
Evidence that Next iMacs and Mac Minis to use NVIDIA Chipsets — Configuration files buried within some versions of Mac OS X show evidence that the next iMac and Mac Mini will indeed be based on the NVIDIA MCP79 chipset. Apple recently switched their MacBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models to the NVIDIA chipsets in October.
Matt Asay / The Open Road:
We are all open source/proprietary now — Reading through a Jane's Strategic Advisory Services report entitled “Open Source Software in Defense Markets” (PDF), I was struck by this passage: … In other words, we are all hybrid vendors now. — Granted, Microsoft sponsored the research …
Discussion:
Computerworld
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Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Meebo Passes IMs Between MySpace And Facebook — MySpace and Facebook may be frenemies forever, but now they have a new mutual friend that will pass notes between them. Meebo, the Web-based IM service, now supports IM accounts from both social networks. That means you can enter your Facebook …
Between the Lines:
Palm CEO: It's not too late for us; Is it a dead company walking? — Is Palm a dead company walking or just one in a rough transition to a set of next generation products that will return the company to past glory? — Palm CEO Ed Colligan clearly believes Palm is that latter.
Discussion:
Seeking Alpha
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Ed Bott / Ed Bott's Windows Expertise:
Windows 7 Beta download coming? — Neowin's Tom Warren is reporting that Microsoft's Windows 7 homepage has been updated with a download link for the beta release. Here's what it looks like: — Currently, the link goes nowhere. — I'm still highly doubtful that the public …
Dawn Kawamoto / CNET News:
EA boosts layoffs to 10 percent of workforce — Updated 8:02 a.m. PST with more information about EA's decision to increase the size of its layoffs and with Friday's share price performance. — Game publishing giant Electronic Arts announced Friday that it is expanding the scope …
Discussion:
paidContent.org
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Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
ComScore: YouTube Now 25 Percent Of All Google Searches — Video search on YouTube accounts for a quarter of all Google search queries in the U.S., according to the latest search engine numbers from comScore. Its monthly qSearch report, which was released on Thursday night, breaks out the number of searches conducted on YouTube.
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
Chilling Effects: Another Mixtape Provider Shut Down — A few months ago, the RIAA shut down Muxtape, a very popular and incredibly useful online service that let individuals create “mixtapes” for streaming to others. As anyone with even a hint of business sense would recognize, this was a great promotional tool for musicians.
Discussion:
Epicenter
Justin Berka / Infinite Loop:
Silent protest planned for Jobs-less keynote — There's a lot going on during your average Macworld keynote, with writers busily typing away, photographers covertly snapping pictures, and Apple fans doing of a bit of cheering. The upcoming Macworld 2009 keynote may have a bit of a different feel …
Agence France Presse:
Japanese seek to scrap Google's Street View — TOKYO (AFP) - A group of Japanese journalists, professors and lawyers demanded Friday that the US Internet search giant Google scrap its “Street View” service in Japan, saying it violates people's privacy. — Google launched Street View …
Brad Linder / Download Squad:
NPR launches Mix Your Own Podcast tool — NPR has rolled out a new feature that lets you build your own podcast by entering a list of topics you're interested in. Once you've finished building your list, you can subscribe to your custom podcast by hitting the iTunes or Zune buttons.
