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:
Inside Facebook, L.A. Times Tech Blog, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Silicon Alley Insider, The Social Times, broadstuff and VatorNews
AppleInsider:
Macworld site rife with concealed banners (photos) — Despite lessened expectations for next week's Macworld Expo, the Moscone Center venue for the trade show already sports roughly a dozen sprawling, cloth-concealed banners that hint at several product announcements.
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 …
RELATED:
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, The Mac Observer, Chuqui 3.0, Boing Boing Gadgets, Macsimum News and Slashdot
Matt Asay / The Open Road:
Google's Microsoft-esque landgrab for IE's market share — The browser wars are heating up in earnest, with Google urging its customers to dump Internet Explorer 6 for the Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome browsers. Internet Explorer commands a 68 percent global market share …
Discussion:
TechFlash, Asa Dotzler, timesonline.typepad.com, Maximum PC all, Microsoft Watch and DSLreports
RELATED:
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Ballmer's CES Keynote Promises To Be A Snoozer (Non-Announcements Revealed!) — The annual Consumer Electronics Show is going to be so boring this year that even Bill Gates is not showing up. He gave his farewell keynote (and his 13th) last year. This year, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will try to rouse the crowd.
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 …
RELATED:
The Daily Beast:
The Year (Ahead) in Media — My New Mantra for 2009 by Tina Brown — Blogs and Stories — Journalists will moonlight as bloggers. Bloggers will moonlight as investigative reporters. And other predictions you can bank on for 2009 — if we still have banks.
Discussion:
broadstuff
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, Obsessable, CrunchGear, Boy Genius Report, Electronista, Infinite Loop, I4U News, Appletell and Ubergizmo
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.
Chris Nuttall / Financial Times:
Google in push to gain e-mail market share — Google, the clear leader in internet search, has been zeroing in on user's inboxes in a push to win market share in e-mail, an area where its rivals Microsoft and Yahoo still dominate. — Gmail, its web-based e-mail product …
Discussion:
L.A. Times Tech Blog
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:
VentureBeat, The Register, CenterNetworks, TG Daily, Quick Online Tips, Silicon Alley Insider, Webware.com and Tech-Ex
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.
dailymobile.se:
Pictures: Sony Ericsson C510 ( Kate ) — Here are some high quality pictures on the Sony Ericsson C510 aka Kate, the successor of the Sony Ericsson K770. The phone will be shipped in feb 2009. — Specifications: — 3.2 MP AF camera and LED — Face detection — Smile shutter
Discussion:
Unwired View, MobileCrunch, Unofficial Sony Ericsson Blog, Gizmodo, Obsessable and SEMC Blog
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 …
John Cook / TechFlash:
EMC buys SourceLabs, operator of open source site Swik.net — SourceLabs, an open source software support startup based in Seattle, has been sold to storage giant EMC for an undisclosed price, according to a source familiar with the deal. — The evidence suggests it is true …
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 …
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.
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.
Ynetnews:
Israeli domain registration server hacked — Gaza offensive prompts Islamic group Team Evil to ‘hijack’ Israeli domain names by hacking into registration server, rerouting users of Ynetnews, Bank Discount to hostile webpage. Original sites were not hacked — Niv Lillian
Discussion:
CyberCrime & Doing Time
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
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.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
iPhone, MySpace, Facebook Race To Micropayments In 2009 — Application platforms, broadly defined, are here to stay. Facebook's platform, first launched in 2007, now has tens of thousands of applications. MySpace, which mostly relies on Google's OpenSocial platform, has 4,500 apps available to users …
