Top Items:
Greg Sandoval / CNET News:
Sources: Apple to expand DRM-free music, pricing — Apple has cut deals that will finally enable iTunes to offer songs free of copy protection software from the three largest music labels, according to two sources close to the negotiations. In exchange, Apple has agreed to become more flexible on pricing, the sources said.
Discussion:
Bits, PC World, Gizmodo, Silicon Alley Insider, Lifehacker, Tech-Ex, VentureBeat, TeleRead, AppleInsider, FierceMobileContent, louisgray.com, Gizmodo Australia, hypebot, BoomTown, ringtonia.com, CrunchGear, I4U News, Epeus' epigone, MacNN, Insanely Great Mac, Music Ally, 9 to 5 Mac, Boy Genius Report, The iPhone Blog, Technology Live and Macsimum News
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Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Confirmed: iTunes Going DRM-Free. Unclear: Does Anyone Care? — In 2007, Apple CEO Steve Jobs predicted that half the music offered at his iTunes store would be sold without digital rights management-the lock and key system that the music labels wrap their songs-by the end of that year.
Motorola Media Center:
Motorola Unveils World's First Mobile Phone Made Using Recycled Water Bottle Plastics — Latest devices to be displayed at 2009 International CES in Las Vegas — Las Vegas - CES - Jan. 6, 2009 - Today Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) announced two new mobile devices that will make social responsibility …
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Dan York / Disruptive Telephony:
Skype 2.8 Beta for Mac OS X provides screen sharing, WiFi access, chat features and Twitter-like mood messages — Tonight out at the “ShowStoppers” event at MacWorld in San Francisco, Skype announced the new 2.8 Beta for Mac OS X. The new version will apparently be available for download tomorrow, January 6, 2009, from Skype's website.
Discussion:
Epicenter, Skype Blogs, Webware.com, Skype Journal, Alec Saunders SquawkBox, The Register, ReadWriteWeb and Pat Phelan
Microsoft:
Xbox 360 Records Its Biggest Year Ever — Driven by record sales at retail along with an 84 percent jump in online consumer spending; global install base lead over PlayStation 3 expands to more than 8 million units. — Despite a tough economy, the gaming industry held strong in 2008 …
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Daniel Terdiman / CNET News:Early returns show strong holiday video game console sales
Discussion:
TechFlash, Joystiq, bit-tech.net, GamesIndustry.biz, VentureBeat, Microsoft Pri0 and The Microsoft Blog
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
MediaSentry may be gone, but RIAA tactics will live on — The Wall Street Journal reported Monday (subscription) that the Recording Industry Association of America has dropped long-time P2P investigator MediaSentry in favor of European firm DtecNet. — The move comes as the RIAA switches tactics …
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The Boy Genius / Boy Genius Report:
HTC announces HTC S743: U.S. edition, suckaz — Not forgetting about those ever-important arrogant American consumers, HTC has crafted a U.S.-specific version of their HTC S740 Windows Mobile Standard device. Supporting 850MHz/1900MHz HSDPA bands (sorry, T-Mo users), they're taking …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
HP unleashes a series of new low-cost computers at CES — Hewlett-Packard is launching a bevy of new products today that show it is designing its products to take into account the lighter pocketbooks and energy usage concerns of consumers. — These products being unveiled this week …
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Jessica Dolcourt / CNET News:
SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone announced — Six months after announcing its intention to bring SlingPlayer to the iPhone 3G, Sling Media has another announcement to make—just not the one you're wishing for. — SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone isn't ready yet, Sling said on Tuesday, but it is on its way.
Matthew Lasar / Ars Technica:
Comcast starts new year with new network management system — Comcast says that, as of December 31, it has turned over a new leaf, network management practices-wise. The new-and-hopefully-improved “protocol agnostic” system the company unveiled to the Federal Communications Commission in September is now in effect.
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Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:Comcast Can Now Slow Bandwidth Hogs Across Its Network
Discussion:
DSLreports
PC World:
AMD: Creating a New Laptop Category (PC World) — Netbooks have their appeal—tiny budget machines with just enough oomph to run Windows XP. Ultraportables have horsepower in spades, but they cost too much to suit some people. This year we're going to see a whole new category of notebook …
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Bonnie Cha / CES 2009:
Pharos Traveler 137 GPS smartphone unveiled — Getting a jump start on CES 2009, location-based provider Pharos officially introduced on Tuesday the Pharos Traveler 137 smartphone, a Windows Mobile 6.1-based handset with integrated GPS and navigation software.
Discussion:
Boy Genius Report
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Netbooks and the Death of x86 Computing — Freescale said Monday it would offer an ARM-based chip that could lead to a $200 Linux-based netbook, offering about twice the amount of usage on a single battery charge as Intel's Atom processor allows. Freescale's efforts are nothing new …
Arik Hesseldahl / Business Week:
Was Apple ‘Adequate but Late’ on Jobs? — Some corporate governance experts question whether the tech giant could have been more forthcoming about its CEO's hormone imbalance — Apple (AAPL) investors got answers to some of their nagging questions about the health of the company's chief executive …
Discussion:
L.A. Times Tech Blog, dot.life blog, Big Tech, Business Week, Profy, MacDailyNews, Memex 1.1 and mathewingram.com/work
Nathania Johnson / Search Engine Watch:
Yahoo Gives Itself Permission to Change Your Search Marketing Campaigns — If you conduct search advertising through Yahoo, you just got a brand spanking new addition to your search marketing team: Yahoo. — Through an update to their terms and conditions, Yahoo gives itself permission to hijack your search marketing campaigns.
Discussion:
Search Engine Journal
Chris Meadows / TeleRead:
Disney DVD debacle: Wall •E vs. DRM — As anyone who's watched his adventures knows, Wall •E knows all about obstinate, malfeasant corporate software that does nothing except step on individuals' rights. Which is why it's so ironic that the DVDs of Wall
InfoWorld:
Bringing Macs into business: Real-life IT stories — As more businesses bring Apple Macintoshes into their regular operations, IT has to figure out how to ensure the Macs play well in the typical Windows-dominated environments. Several companies share the lessons — good and bad — that they have learned.
Tony Smith / The Register:
NEC breakthrough paves way for powerless standy-by modes — NEC has announced the development of a memory circuit element that, it claims, will allow chips to consume no power when they're put in stand-by mode. — The circuit component is a non-volatile magnetic flip-flop (MFF) …
Discussion:
jkOnTheRun
Susanna Leng / The Official Google Blog:
Introducing Picasa for Mac (at Macworld!) — Sometimes I find it hard to describe Picasa without sounding like a late-night infomercial for a multi-bladed thingamabob: “It's a photo organizer! A photo editor! A web-savvy photo sharing and management system in just one tiny package!”
Discussion:
Search Engine Land, The Register, Google Mac Blog, Network World, geeksugar, Gear Live, O'Grady's PowerPage, Macsimum News and Mashable!
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Brian Axe / Google Photos Blog:Announcing Picasa for Mac
Discussion:
Tech-Ex, Macworld, TheNextWeb.com, Google, Gizmodo, Technology Live, WebProNews, MacRumors, I4U News, The Mac Observer, Lifehacker and InformationWeek
