Top Items:
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
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:
Telegraph, Search Engine Land, Google Watch, Search Engine Watch, Open Source, Gizmodo, OStatic blogs, Engadget, Incremental Blogger, Open Gardens, TECH.BLORGE.com, CrunchGear, jkOnTheRun, Ewan Spence's All New Musings, Inquirer, GigaOM, SlashGear, Liliputing, atmaspheric, Signal to Noise, Lockergnome Blog Network and Local Mobile Search
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, Boy Genius Report, Lifehacker, Search Engine Land, Unwired View, TechCrunch, Download Squad and mobilesyrup.com
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:
VentureBeat, Download Squad, Digital Daily, ReadWriteWeb, InfoWorld, Obsessable, Silicon Alley Insider, TechSpot and Beyond Search
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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 …
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.
Discussion:
Boy Genius Report
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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 …
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.
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.
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
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:
VoIP & Gadgets Blog, StorageMojo, Data Center Knowledge, Speeds and feeds, Engadget, Slashdot and MAKE Magazine
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 …
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 …
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.
Jason Perlow / Tech Broiler:
Windows 7: Mojave My Ass — I've been playing with the Windows 7 Build 7000 (Beta 1) for several days now, and I've come to the conclusion that like Vista, it's not a major improvement over what most users are currently experiencing with Windows XP, and is at best only a slight improvement over Vista SP1.
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 …
Jose Fermoso / Gadget Lab:
New Vuzix VR Glasses To Be Unveiled at CES — The biggest feature of the new Vuzix virtual reality glasses has nothing to do with a new technology. — Mostly, it comes from the fact that the company finally hired a designer aware of current aesthetic tastes.
Reuters:
Chip Sales Declined 10% in November — Global semiconductor sales fell almost 10 percent in November, as the economic slowdown shook the chip sector, an industry trade group said Friday. — Semiconductor sales dropped to $20.8 billion in November from $23.1 billion a year earlier, the Semiconductor Industry Association reported.
Discussion:
IT Facts
Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:
From geek to online guru — A dyslexic web designer turns professional photographer and author. A call-centre operative becomes a fashion designer. A single mother goes from selling make-up on Ebay to launching her own beauty range and newspapercolumn. — All owe their change in fortunes …
Laura Brunow Miner / JPG Magazine:
JPG Magazine Says Goodbye — Today is a particularly sad day for all of us at JPG and 8020 Media. — We've spent the last few months trying to make the business behind JPG sustain itself, and we've reached the end of the line. We all deeply believe in everything JPG represents …
