Top Items:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Adult FriendFinder Files To Go Public — Florida-based FriendFinder Networks (formerly Penthouse Media Group), a group of sites that includes Penthouse and Adult FriendFinder, has filed a registration statement with the SEC to go public. — Little known Russian investment bank Renaissance Capital is representing them in the deal.
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
iPhone fart app pulls in nearly $10,000 a day — Apple's App Store is currently experiencing a plague of fart applications. Last week, I detailed one day in which at least 14 new fart apps were accepted into the store. And now upon a quick search, it looks like there are something around 50 apps …
Discussion:
Edible Apple
RELATED:
New York Times:
More Readers Picking Up Electronic Books — Could book lovers finally be willing to switch from pages to pixels? — For a decade, consumers mostly ignored electronic book devices, which were often hard to use and offered few good things to read. But this year, thanks in part to the popularity …
Discussion:
L.A. Times Tech Blog, TechCrunch, TeleRead, Obsessable, GottaBeMobile.com, CostPerNews and Epicenter
CyberCrime & Doing Time:
More than 1 Million Ways to Infect Your Computer — An unknown hacker has been on a Search Engine Optimization rampage to flood search engines with more than a million ways to infect yourself with his virus. This is the first major “Scareware” infection we've seen since writing …
David / weblog.rubyonrails.org:
Merb gets merged into Rails 3! — It's christmas, baby, and do we have a present for you. We're ending the bickering between Merb and Rails with a this bombshell: Merb is being merged into Rails 3! — We all realized that working together for a common good would be much more productive …
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Facebook Bails on Project Playlist, Too — Four days after MySpace cut the legs out from under Project Playlist by disabling the music streaming service's app, Facebook is following suit. Here's the official statement from Facebook PR: … The only surprise here is that it took Facebook …
Khowell / University of Florida News:
Engineers: Efficient organic LEDs a step toward better lights — GAINESVILLE, Fla. — For those who love “green” compact fluorescent bulbs but hate their cold light, here's some good news: Researchers are closer to flipping the switch on cheaper, richer LED-type room lighting.
Ashlee Vance / Bits:
Dell's MacBook Air Rival Confirmed by . . . Dell — CLARIFICATION 5:55 p.m. - The story below references a Dell ad placed in UptownLife magazine. The online version of that ad, which has since been removed, appeared to include both an image from Dell and text.
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Notebook PC Sales Outpace Desktops: Good News For Apple (AAPL) — Notebook computer sales outpaced desktop PC sales for the first time last quarter, according to research firm iSuppli. — Worldwide, PC companies shipped 38.6 million notebook computers in Q3, up almost 40% year-over-year.
RELATED:
Todd Bishop / TechFlash:
Will Microsoft throw in the towels? — Google, Microsoft and other big tech companies spent the past few years ramping up employee perks as they battled each other for top talent. Now, as the tech industry tries to weather the economic storm, the fate of those extras will be an interesting barometer …
James Kendrick / jkOnTheRun:
Netbook enthusiast web sites getting C & D using term “netbook” — This is very preliminary but we are hearing that some netbook enthusiast sites are getting “cease & desist” letters from a firm in the UK ordering the sites to stop using the term “netbook”.
Discussion:
GottaBeMobile.com
Lawrence Lessig / Newsweek:
Reboot the FCC — We'll stifle the Skypes and YouTubes of the future if we don't demolish the regulators that oversee our digital pipelines. — Economic growth requires innovation. Trouble is, Washington is practically designed to resist it. Built into the DNA of the most important agencies created …
Chris Dannen / Fast Company:
What Ever Happened to Garmin's NuviFone? — It looked like the ultimate iPhone-killer, but delay after delay has kept it from market. Some reports say it will be ready soon, while others suggest it's been abandoned all together. Will we ever see Garmin's [GRMN] nuvifone?
Discussion:
GigaOM
Jim Goldman / Tech Check with Jim Goldman:
Venture Capitalist: Big 3 Should Turn To Silicon Valley — Ray Lane's got a bone to pick with Detroit and Washington: quit your whining, partner up with innovators here in Silicon Valley, and consumers, investors, auto industry workers, politicians, executives and America will be better off for it.
Discussion:
HipMojo.com
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Tweet A Last-Minute Gift To Charity — It's micro-messaging meets micro-funding. Marketing consultant Laura Fitton is trying to raise money $2 at a time through Twitter. She is using Tipjoy, which allows people to turn Tweets into payments (via PayPal). Help her raise $25,000 for Charity:Water by Christmas.
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Twitter relaunches name search, still no tweet search on site — The micro-messaging service Twitter has taken the slow time during the holiday to bring back a feature that, like so many others, went away when the site was having performance issues during the earlier part of this year: people search.
Discussion:
Twitter Blog, ReadWriteWeb, John Battelle's Searchblog, rizzn's socnets, Download Squad and Mashable!
Stephen Shankland / Underexposed:
iPhone claims high-ranking spot on Flickr … The iPhone is the mobile device of choice these days for doing most things that need a network. So it shouldn't be a surprise that the phone has carved out a prominent place on Yahoo's photo-sharing site, Flickr.
Matt / Burning Questions:
Our 210th variation on the theme, “Thank you for using FeedBurner.” — Interesting Fact: this is the 210th time we've posted to this blog. Bittersweet Reality: it will be the last. — Our team has used Burning Questions to provide FeedBurner product announcements and stories …
Sam Oliver / AppleInsider:
Analyst says Steve Jobs' spirit has been institutionalized — Investment bank Kaufman Bros. on Tuesday downplayed renewed concerns over the health of Apple chief executive Steve Jobs, arguing that although the co-founder has been critical to the company's resurgence, his spirit and drive …
Julia Angwin / Wall Street Journal:
Looking for a Few Good Answers Online — Why is the sky blue? How do you bleach a stained shirt? Why does cheese smell? — The answers to these questions used to be sought in encyclopedias and other reference books. Now, we increasingly seek the answers to such questions online …
Tiernan Ray / Tech Trader Daily:
Online Shopping Pops 98% Last Xmas Weekend — Online analytics firm comScore (SCOR) today released numbers for holiday online shopping activity in the U.S., and it looks as though cold weather that kept people indoors and online in some places provided one bright little sliver of hope.
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, Digits, VentureBeat, Bits, Voices, Contentinople and Andrea on Amazon …
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
If Washington Wants To Create Jobs, It Should Get Out Of The Way In Silicon Valley — from the lead,-follow-or-get-out-of-the- way dept — It's already quite clear that Sarbanes-Oxley has done very little to actually prevent fraud of any kind, but it has been a tremendous burden …
Discussion:
Slashdot
Seth Weintraub / 9 to 5 Mac:
‘New’ iMacs to begin shipping in January — We were pretty sure we'd see upgraded iMacs introduced at Macworld, but according to the Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN) via Digitimes: — .. sources inside the component supply chain as saying that Apple plans to launch a new iMac …
Paul Miller / Engadget:
HP Firebird 803 tower with VoodooDNA leaked! — We always loved us that Voodoo-designed HP Blackbird 002, but it was certainly a behemoth. Now it looks like the duo are going for a more realistic size — and hopefully pricepoint — with the all-new HP Firebird PC 803 that just fell in our lap …
Discussion:
Kotaku, Maximum PC all, CrunchGear, DailyTech, Gizmodo, Electronista, SlashGear, Rahul Sood's Weblog and techeblog.com
