Top Items:
Joshua Topolsky / Engadget:
Live from the Macworld 2009 keynote — 9:07AM “If you wanna hear some new things today — I have three new things...” — 9:07AM “The last year was our biggest ever, 9.7 mil Macs. We did it by growing twice as fast as the rest of the industry.” “The hardware THE leopard (!)...”
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Paul Miller / Engadget:
Apple unveils all-new 17-inch MacBook Pro — Apple just confirmed the totally expected yet eagerly anticipated unibody 17-inch MacBook Pro. They're calling it the world's thinnest and lightest 17-inch laptop. It features a 1900 x 1200 LED backlit display, with a 700:1 contrast ratio …
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Apple 2.0:
Live from Apple's last Macworld — This is a live coverage of the valedictory keynote Steve Jobs decided not to give — sending Apple (AAPL) senior vice president Phil Schiller to Macworld 2009 in his place. — Schiller's remarks began shortly after 9 a.m PST (12 noon EST),
Discussion:
AppleInsider, TechFlash, NewTeeVee, Digital Daily, Technologizer, Ars Technica, geeksugar, p2pnet and iPhoneWorld.ca iPhone
Wilson Rothman / Gizmodo:
Apple Revamps iLife for '09 with iPhoto Facial Recognition and More — Today at Macworld 2009 in SF, Apple showed off a new iPhoto with true facial recognition, a better iMovie and other iLife updates—$79 solo, $99 for family, requires Leopard, available late January.
Mark Wilson / Gizmodo:
Sting Teaches You to Play Guitar in Garageband '09 — In one of the odder announcements during the Macworld keynote, Sting, along with others like Norah Jones, will teach you to play guitar and piano in Garageband '09.
Nicholas Deleon / CrunchGear:
Say hello to iWork 09: Like iWork 08, but plus one — Whoever predicted that Apple would introduce iWork '09 today gets a gold star. Keynote, Pages and Numbers all received what I would consider minor updates; no need to run around all willy nilly for these, methinks.
Discussion:
Apple
Ethan Smith / Wall Street Journal:
ITunes to Change Pricing Strategy — Apple Inc. plans a series of changes to its iTunes Store that represent significant shifts in its longstanding approach to the business of selling songs online, according to people familiar with the matter. — The changes, many of which could be unveiled during …
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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.
Greg Sandoval / CNET News:Sources: Apple to expand DRM-free music, pricing
Discussion:
Techdirt, AppleInsider, Music Ally, Digital Daily, Engadget, PC World, Associated Press, Technologizer, MediaMemo, Epicenter, paidContent.org, Contentinople, Silicon Alley Insider, TechSpot, The iPhone Blog, Mashable!, mocoNews.net, Obsessable, Gallop Services Blog, Boy Genius Report, VentureBeat, Gizmodo, hypebot, FierceMobileContent, Lifehacker, the Econsultancy blog, Tech-Ex, BoomTown and Gizmodo Australia
Owen Thomas / Gawker:
The Russian Bear Slashes a Social Network — The bubble in social networking has burst, decisively. LiveJournal, the San Francisco-based arm of Sup, a Russian Internet startup, has cut 12 of 28 U.S. employees — and offered them no severance, we're told. — The quirky site …
Discussion:
paidContent.org, The Social, Silicon Alley Insider, WebProNews, Mashable!, The Blog Herald and Changing Way
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
ZOMG! Pranksters hit MacRumors keynote coverage — Some nasty pranksters, likely associated with Web forum 4Chan, have hacked into Apple gossip mainstay MacRumors' live-blog coverage of Tuesday's Macworld keynote. Hosted on a separate domain, MacRumorsLive.com, the site was plagued …
Jack Shafer / Slate:
How Newspapers Tried to Invent the Web — But failed. — A moment of sympathy, please, for newspapers, whose readers and advertisers have been fleeing at a frightening rate. — It would be easy to accuse editors and publishers of being clueless about the coming Internet disruption …
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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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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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 …
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Clearspring Lays Off 20%, President And COO Jay Rappaport Leaving — Seems like widget distribution startup Clearspring is another victim of the economic meltdown forced to make some tough decisions. We heard rumors floating that the company laid off about 20% of its staff in early December …
Discussion:
Webware.com
Dan York / Disruptive Telephony:
Skype 2.8 Beta for Mac OS X provides screen sharing, WiFi access, chat features and Twitter-like mood messages — UPDATE: Skype 2.8 Beta for Mac OS X is now available for download. — UPDATE #2: The 2.8 Beta also includes some experimental support for linking Skype mood messages to Twitter.
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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Twitter Status:
Delivery delays — We're experiencing some delays in the amount of time it takes for updates to appear in timelines. Working on this now.
Anne Thomas Manes / Application Platform …:
SOA is Dead; Long Live Services — SOA met its demise on January 1, 2009, when it was wiped out by the catastrophic impact of the economic recession. SOA is survived by its offspring: mashups, BPM, SaaS, Cloud Computing, and all other architectural approaches that depend on “services”.
Staska / Unwired View:
Apple patents iPhone Mobile Navigation / Mapping App — With the introduction of iPhone 3G with a GPS sensor, many fans expected a bonanza of various navigation apps for the new phone. — And, to be sure, there are quite a few of them using location capabilities.
Karen Jacobs / Reuters:
Best Buy offers used iPhones at lower price — ATLANTA (Reuters) - Retailer Best Buy Co, seeking new ways to appeal to cost-conscious shoppers, said on Tuesday it is selling refurbished versions of Apple Inc's iPhone 3G at its stores that are priced about $50 less than new iPhones.
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.
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
Philipp Lenssen / Google Blogoscoped:
Checkout Icon Makes Ads 10% More Clickable, Google Says — An ad with a Checkout badge to the right, with non-Checkout ads below it. — Cross-integrating their products can help Google bring customers from their more successful products to their less successful ones.
Discussion:
Search Engine Land
