Top Items:
Owen Thomas / Gawker:
Google Hands Out ‘Dogfood’ as Christmas Bonus — Groans are issuing from the Googleplex over this year's holiday bonus. In the past, the search engine paid cash — as much as $20,000 or $30,000 per Googler, we hear. This year? A cell phone. — Oh, but not just any cell phone …
Discussion:
Android Phone Fans, Gizmodo, CNET News, IntoMobile, WebGuild, Boy Genius Report, AndroidGuys and Slashdot
Geoff Boucher / Los Angeles Times:
VHS era is winding down — Ryan Kugler, left, president of Distribution Video Audio in Burbank, and his brother Brad, the CEO, have shipped their last truckload of VHS tapes. “Anything left in warehouse, we'll just give away or throw away,” Ryan Kugler said.
Owen Thomas / Gawker:
Bono and Steve Jobs No Longer BFFs — What did Steve Jobs do to his old buddy Bono? The Irish rock star, once the Apple CEO's adoring buddy, is funding the most credible threat to the iPhone yet. — Bono is a founder of Elevation Partners, the Silicon Valley private-equity firm named after the U2 song.
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider
RELATED:
Om Malik / GigaOM:Another $100 Million for Palm From Bono & Pals
Discussion:
Tech Trader Daily, GMSV, Boy Genius Report, I4U News, MobileCrunch, Between the Lines, jkOnTheRun, Digital Daily, CNET News, Engadget and SmoothSpan Blog
Chris Snyder / Epicenter:
App Developer Strikes E-Book Deals With Major Publishers — ScrollMotion, a New York mobile app developer, has concluded deals with a number of major publishing houses, and is in talks with several others, to produce newly released and best-selling e-books as applications for the iPhone and iPod touch.
Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:
Music Labels In Talks To Create Hulu-For-Music (GOOG) — Warner Music Group — now banned from YouTube following failed licensing negotiations — isn't the only major record label tired of doing business with Google's video-sharing site. — A source familiar with the negotiations tells us …
Discussion:
Digital Noise, AdAge, Podcasting News, Electronista, Mashable!, broadstuff and DSLreports
RELATED:
Paul McDougall / InformationWeek:
Apple Failed To Copyright Mac OS X, Psystar Claims — The charge is the latest in a series of allegations in the ongoing legal spat between the clone maker and Apple. — Mac clone manufacturer Psystar said that Apple's copyright suit against it should be dismissed because Apple has never filed …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly To Run For California Attorney General — Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly will be announcing his candidacy for the office of Attorney General of California, we've heard from multiple sources. He'll be running in the 2010 election as a Democrat …
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Report Says Twitter Would Take 36 Years to Catch Facebook - If Facebook Stopped Growing Today — Marketing firm HubSpot will publish a report tomorrow on the state of Twitter at the end of 2008, based on user data the company harvested from its controversial app TwitterGrader.
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Private — There has been much discussion lately regarding the use of private iPhone APIs. First with Google Mobile's publicly acknowledged use of a private API to access the proximity sensor, then again with Landon Fuller's report of having an app rejected from the App Store for appearing …
Discussion:
Edible Apple
Paul Carton / ChangeWave HotWire Blog:
BlackBerry vs. iPhone - The Smart Phone Battle Rages On — Research In Motion (RIMM) and Apple (AAPL) continue their smart phone battle for the hearts and minds of consumers, according to the latest ChangeWave survey. The survey shows Apple enjoying another good quarter in the aftermath of its 3G iPhone release.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
I'm Sorry Robert, But It's Time For A Friendfeed Intervention — I'm a big champion of services like Twitter and the newer Friendfeed (can you believe Friendfeed is less than a year old?). But there's a difference between liking a service and having an addiction.
Michael S. Malone / Wall Street Journal:
Washington Is Killing Silicon Valley — Entrepreneurship was taken for granted. Now we're seeing a lot less of it. — Even as economic losses and unemployment levels mount, America's most effective engine for wealth and job creation is being dangerously — perhaps fatally — compromised.
Lisa Fernandez / Mercury News:
Fry's executive arrested in alleged $65M fraud to pay off gambling debts — A one-time computer salesman who rose through the ranks to help build Fry's Electronics into a robust national retailer is facing allegations that he defrauded the San Jose-based company out of $65 million …
Discussion:
Techdirt
Ben Worthen / Wall Street Journal:
Tech Chiefs See '09 Bright Pockets — Online Software, Mobile, Security Expected to Buck Downward Trend in '09 — The technology industry was dominated this year by the question of whether businesses and consumers would scale back their tech spending. Now that it's clear they are cutting back …
Discussion:
GigaOM
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Scrapplet: Powerful Social Web Canvases That Are As Easy As Drag-And-Drop — There are a few sites out there that let you aggregate your entire online presence into a single place, but for the most part they offer little control over the way your information is actually presented.
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
USA Today pretties up the news on the iPhone — USA Today, the national newspaper, has a long history of prettying-up the news with the use of color. Full color images, graphics and even sections have long been a staple of the paper, even when most of its peers were still in black and white.
Zachary A. Goldfarb / Washington Post:
Washingtonpost.com Executive Editor to Step Down — Jim Brady is stepping down as executive editor of washingtonpost.com after four years, the latest in a series of management changes at the top of a media company trying to revamp its operations to meet the needs of the digital age.
Discussion:
paidContent.org
Alexander Haislip / Reuters:
Will Ferrell site, Funny Or Die, raises $3 million — LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Internet comedy site Funny Or Die, supported by actor Will Ferrell and seeded by Sequoia Capital, has raised $3 million in cash from a single, undisclosed investor. — The financing also includes …
Discussion:
paidContent.org
Microsoft:
Microsoft Security Advisory (961040) — Vulnerability in SQL Server Could Allow Remote Code Execution — Microsoft is investigating new public reports of a vulnerability that could allow remote code execution on systems with supported editions of Microsoft SQL Server 2000 …
Peter / Local Onliner:
GateHouse Sues Boston.com's HyperLocal Site for News Links — Hyperlocal sites aspire to grab headlines from everywhere and be a one stop for the neighborhood. That's been accepted practice, providing the site links back to the origination site, and too much copy isn't exposed.
Subbu Subramanian / Facebook Developers:
Inviting anyone to your applications — Invitations are one of the best ways for users to share applications they love with their friends. Many developers have told us that this is one of the biggest ways in which their applications reach new users and grow usage.
The Boy Genius / Boy Genius Report:
T-Mobile Dash 2 in black floating around? — Thanks to one of our ninjas, we've just got a hold of a brand-new-looking T-Mobile Dash photo. Except, it's in black, and sports subtle design changes like a different color combination on the keyboard, and.... stuff.
Gerard Fitzgibbon / Limerick Today:
Dell job losses: “A massive blow to the region” — MINISTER Willie O'Dea today described Dell's decision to cut up to two-thirds of its Limerick workforce a “massive blow for the region”, and said it is now the Government's job to “minimise the fallout as best we can.”
Discussion:
Digits
Between the Lines:
Google, Microsoft, Yahoo as Ford, GM and Chrysler — Could Google, Microsoft and Yahoo be the equivalent of Ford, GM and Chrysler more than 60 years ago? — That thought provoking question was raised by Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay, who cooks up weekend missives designed to make you go hmmm.
Discussion:
SmoothSpan Blog
BBC:
Windows XP allowed to live again — Microsoft has given yet another reprieve to its seasoned Windows XP operating system. — The cut off date for PC makers to obtain licenses for the software was 31 January 2009. — But now Microsoft has put in place a scheme that will allow …
Discussion:
Computerworld, The Register, Neowin.net, Engadget, TG Daily, DailyTech, Obsessable, Switched, WebProNews, Gadgetell, jkOnTheRun, I4U News, CNET News, AppScout, Digital Daily, Ubergizmo, SlashGear, CrunchGear, Gizmodo and MobileDevicesToday
