Top Items:
Claire Cain Miller / Bits:
Facebook Is No Friend of Power.com — Power.com is a start-up based in Brazil that aims to be the portal through which people access all of their favorite social networking sites. Facebook would prefer that its members access it directly, thank you very much.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, L.A. Times Tech Blog, VentureBeat, Silicon Alley Insider and The Social Times
Chuq von Rospach / Guardian:
Enjoying the show, avoiding the flamethrower: life inside Apple — What's it like working inside Apple when the MacWorld announcements are made? The man who set up many of its email systems and worked there 17 years explains the inside story of the preparation, the unveiling - and why it's sometimes best to avoid Steve Jobs
Discussion:
Scobleizer, Boing Boing Gadgets, The Mac Observer, Chuqui 3.0, Apple 2.0, Macsimum News and Slashdot
Peter Rip / EarlyStageVC:
The Coming Venture Capital Boom — No, I am not a Pollyanna. I see the today's carnage as much as everyone else. This year is going to be tough. The destructive firestorm of leveraged, momentum investing has destroyed much of the forest. But the forest will begin its renewal because Life Goes On …
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Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
VentureSource: Worst venture liquidity in five years — Now that 2008 is over, we can officially declare it the worst year for U.S. venture liquidity since 2003 (when the industry was still feeling the effects of the bursting tech bubble). This year, venture-backed companies generated $24 …
Kasper Jade / AppleInsider:
Apple's next-gen Mac mini to get dual display support — Bringing its least expensive system up to par with features in the rest of its lineup, Apple is due to revamp the Mac mini with multiple video outputs, AppleInsider has learned. — Those familiar with the company's plans …
Discussion:
MacRumors, Infinite Loop, Boy Genius Report, Obsessable, Electronista, CrunchGear, I4U News, Appletell and Ubergizmo
Victor Godinez / techblog.dallasnews.com:
Internet Explorer's share of the browser market fell below 70% in November — Not coincidentally, Mozilla's Firefox browser has also surpassed 20 percent market share for the first time. — And Google certainly isn't reluctant to kick Microsoft while it's down, as it now automatically recommends …
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider, VentureBeat, Download Squad, InfoWorld, The Microsoft Blog, Digital Daily, ReadWriteWeb, Obsessable and Beyond Search
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VentureBeat:
Android netbooks on their way, likely by 2010 — The image above shows a netbook Asus EEEPC 1000H running on Google's mobile operating system Android. Huh? You thought Android was for mobile phones, right? Well, as we've written before, Google is planning to use Android for any device — not just the mobile phones.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, CNET News, Telegraph, GPS Obsessed, Open Source, Search Engine Land, GottaBeMobile.com, Google Watch, Search Engine Watch, TECH.BLORGE.com, The Tech Report, OStatic blogs, Gizmodo, Ubergizmo, Engadget, Incremental Blogger, Open Gardens, GigaOM, Ewan Spence's All New Musings, jkOnTheRun, CrunchGear, Signal to Noise, Inquirer, Lockergnome Blog Network, SlashGear, Liliputing, atmaspheric and Local Mobile Search
Heather Hopkins / Hitwise Intelligence:
Facebook Traffic Reaches Peak - Christmas Eve — On Christmas Day 2007 Facebook reached a peak in traffic that wasn't surpassed until July 2008. Traffic reached a new high on Christmas Eve 2008 when Facebook saw its highest ever traffic level - reaching 2.18% of all US Internet visits compared with 1.42% average for November.
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
Apple Researching Gloves for Use with Multi-Touch Devices — The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office today released a patent application from Apple describing research into gloves that allow the wearer to operate electronic devices. The patent application was filed on June 28th, 2007.
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Google's iPhone app has a hidden menu — In November, Google launched voice search capabilities for its native iPhone application. It took a fairly pointless app and made it cool, interesting and useful. But alongside that update Google added a hidden menu, which it revealed today on the Google Mobile Blog.
Discussion:
Google Watch
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Nicholas Jitkoff / Google Mobile Blog:Ring in the New Year with Bells and Whistles
Discussion:
Webware.com, Search Engine Land, Boy Genius Report, TUAW, Unwired View, Lifehacker, TechCrunch, Download Squad and mobilesyrup.com
Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:
$6.2 Million: Wikipedia Reaches Fundraising Goal for 2008 — The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization behind the immensely popular Wikipedia online encyclopedia, just announced that it has reached its fundraising goal for 2008, which will allow the foundation to cover …
Discussion:
The Register, Silicon Alley Insider, Webware.com, CenterNetworks, TG Daily and Quick Online Tips
Matt Warman / Telegraph:
Orange considers BlackBerry Bold future — The BlackBerry Bold handset may be removed from Orange line-up. — Mobile phone operator Orange is believed to be considering the removal of the BlackBerry Bold smartphone from its range of handsets because of ongoing technical problems.
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
Hyperlinking the Real World — European researchers working on the MOBVIS project have developed a new system that will allow camera phone users to hyperlink the real world. After taking a picture of a streetscape in an urban area, the MOBVIS technology identifies objects like buildings …
Discussion:
ICT Results Features
Tiernan Ray / Tech Trader Daily:
Apple: Jobs Isn't Sick, Says Argus Research — Pretty much nobody is picking up the phone at equity research firm Argus Research this morning, so take this as unverified: the firm's analyst on Apple (AAPL), Wendy Abramowitz, this morning lowered her price target on Apple to $145 from $155 …
Sean Portnoy / Home Theater:
Ace Computers to release $999 CableCard-equipped home theater PCs — One of the major impediments to the growth of the home theater PC (HTPC) market has been the lack of digital cable TV support. Yes, Clear QAM tuners can handle unencrypted digital channels, but only now that cable companies …
Michael Bettiol / Boy Genius Report:
Verizon Pearl for going for $19.99, get 'em while they're hot! — Well if this isn't a nice way to start of 2009, we don't know what is. Sort of. Verizon is offering the ever popular BlackBerry Pearl 8130 in both silver and pink at the ridiculously low price of $19.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate.
Brendan Gregg:
Unusual disk latency — The following screenshot shows two spikes of unusually high disk I/O latency during a streaming write test: — This screenshot is from Analytics on the 7410. The issue is not with the 7410, it's with disk drives in general. The disk latency here is also not suffered …
Discussion:
StorageMojo, VoIP & Gadgets Blog, Data Center Knowledge, Engadget, Slashdot, Speeds and feeds and MAKE Magazine
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
Make “Add-ons” for Google Chrome Using Bookmarklets — Even though Google took their web browser Google Chrome out of beta last month, we can't help but feel like Chrome is still only half way to being a compete product at this point. Without RSS support, the ability to use add-ons …
Discussion:
Matt Cutts
Will Park / IntoMobile:
What premium apps in the Android Market means for Android users — Everyone loves free mobile applications. Just look at the iPhone App Store's volume of free-app downloads and you'll start to understand. Interestingly, it's actually the premium applications that drive development of free apps.
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
If You Are Really, Really Desperate For Cash, These Guys Will Give You $3k — Consulting firm Herman Blackbook is launching a new micro-fund today for application developers who want to build stuff on top of “Twitter, Boxee, AppNexus, Trulia, iPhone, and more” called the New Platforms Fund.
Jessica Guynn / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
You've got mail wars: Google making an inbox push — Google is pushing harder on yet another front in its bid to dominate all of online advertising: e-mail. — Yahoo and Microsoft still have an edge when it comes to your inbox, but the Internet search leader is pushing to win more share, the Financial Times reports.
Discussion:
Financial Times
BBC:
Guyana leader wants to know who put him on Facebook — The president of Guyana has asked police to investigate who is impersonating him on Facebook, the social networking website. — A government statement said that Bharrat Jagdeo was not a Facebook member, the Associated Press reported.
Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:
UK tech start-ups call for more support — The UK's technology start-up community is increasing pressure on the government to provide more support to help young companies survive the recession. — Among the suggestions to aid start-ups are: a one-off financial stimulus package …
