Top Items:
Tom Neumayr / Apple:
Changes Coming to the iTunes Store — Apple® today announced several changes to the iTunes® Store (www.itunes.com). Beginning today, all four major music labels—Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, Warner Music Group and EMI, along with thousands of independent labels …
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Ethan Smith / Wall Street Journal:
ITunes to Change Pricing Strategy — Apple Inc. said it is making changes to its iTunes Store, representing significant shifts in its longstanding approach to the business of selling songs online. — The changes, unveiled during a speech Tuesday at the Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco …
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.
Discussion:
The Register, VentureBeat, CNET News, L.A. Times Tech Blog, USA Today, Epicenter, InfoWorld, Byte of the Apple, Gizmodo, Boy Genius Report, AppleInsider, Associated Press, Ed Burnette's Dev Connection, ZDNet Government, Digital Daily, Technologizer, Lucas Gonze' blog, Obsessable, Engadget and TUAW
AppleInsider:
Apple unveils 17-inch MacBook Pro with 8-hour battery — Presenting at the Macworld Expo on Tuesday, Apple unveiled the new 17-inch MacBook Pro featuring a durable and precision aluminum unibody enclosure, and a revolutionary new built-in battery that delivers up to eight hours of use …
Discussion:
Infinite Loop, Between the Lines, Boy Genius Report, MacRumors, Gizmodo, Silicon Alley Insider, Digital Daily and Gearlog
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Joshua Topolsky / Engadget:
MacBook Pro 17-inch first hands-on (update: video added) — Yep — it looks just like its little brothers! Feels like 'em too, except the obvious bit of heft added by that 17-inch display. Of course, they don't have that sweet, gigantic battery inside, or that matte display option (until we torch Curpertino, of course... in love).
Bill Evans / Apple:
Apple Introduces 17-inch MacBook Pro With Revolutionary New Built-in Battery That Delivers Eight Hours of Use & 1,000 Recharges — Apple® today unveiled the new 17-inch MacBook® Pro featuring a durable and beautiful precision aluminum unibody enclosure, and a revolutionary new built …
Reuters:
Apple disappoints-no Jobs, big news at Macworld — (Refiles to delete extraneous words in paragraphs one and three) (Adds analyst comment, product details) — Apple Inc (AAPL.O) said on Tuesday it was dropping copy protection from songs sold on the Internet and debuted its slimmest 17-inch laptop yet …
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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 (!)...”
Discussion:
Between the Lines, Technologizer, CrunchGear, NEWSFACTOR, Infinite Loop, Industry Standard, ReadWriteWeb, Apple 2.0, Gizmodo, TUAW, Techdirt, CNET News, Macworld, Tech Trader Daily, VentureBeat, Tech Check with Jim Goldman, Digital Daily, Switched, Scobleizer, MacRumors, Bits, Obsessable, The Tech Report, Boy Genius Report, GPS Obsessed, Ars Technica and Paul Colligan's …
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.
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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 …
Discussion:
Scripting News
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Michael Hirschorn / The Atlantic Online:
End Times — VIRTUALLY ALL THE predictions about the death of old media have assumed a comfortingly long time frame for the end of print—the moment when, amid a panoply of flashing lights, press conferences, and elegiac reminiscences, the newspaper presses stop rolling and news goes entirely digital.
Discussion:
MediaMemo
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, Changing Way, Webware.com, WebProNews, Silicon Alley Insider and MarketingVOX
VMware:
VMware Appoints Tod Nielsen as Chief Operating Officer — Veteran from Leading Software Companies Including Borland, BEA, Oracle and Microsoft Brings Proven Executive Leadership to VMware — VMware Inc., (VMW: NYSE) the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter …
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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.
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Report: PC makers to provide free Vista-to Win-7 upgrades starting July 1 — In yet another indicator as to the progress of Windows 7, the Tech ARP site reported that Microsoft plans to allow PC makers to offer customers who buy Windows Vista machines as of July 1 free upgrades to Windows 7 once it ships.
Wilson Rothman / Gizmodo:
Apple Revamps iLife for '09 with iPhoto Facial Recognition and More — Today at Macworld 2009, 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. — It's a good solid upgrade full of very nice features.
Discussion:
Infinite Loop, Apple, TechCrunch, MacRumors, TUAW, gizmag Emerging …, Obsessable and Lifehacker
Macky Cruz / TrendLabs:
Bogus LinkedIn Profiles Harbor Malicious Content — The LinkedIn professional networking site connects more than 30 million users from across many different industries. The advantages of maintaining a list of trusted business contacts for career planning purposes is not lost on LinkedIn's users.
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Sony's VAIO P ultraportable revealed — Chicklet keyboard, check. Tiny pointing nub, check. Looks like this is Sony's Vaio P series ultraportable on display at CES. By on display we mean, on display as these shots were taken off the display monitors here at CES.
Philipp Lenssen / Google Blogoscoped:
On Google Disallowing Crawling of Their LIFE Hosting — Isn't it great how Google makes millions of photos available to the world in their LIFE photo archive? Well - with one exception: they disallow other search engines to access these photos. The same access rights that make Google Image search crawl …
Brian Krebs / Washington Post:
Data Breaches Up Almost 50 Percent, Affecting Records of 35.7 Million People — Businesses, governments and educational institutions reported nearly 50 percent more data breaches last year than in 2007, exposing the personal records of at least 35.7 million Americans, according to a nonprofit group that works to prevent identity fraud.
Caroline McCarthy / CNET News:
Hackers 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 by offensive messages …
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
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Forbes Layoffs Finally Arrive: 19 Fired From Magazine, Web — Like their colleagues at Time Warner's Time Inc. (TWX), the editorial staff at Forbes has known that layoffs were coming to the company's magazine and Web site for quite some time. But at least they're getting it over with in one fell swoop …
Emil Protalinski / One Microsoft Way:
Microsoft promotes Bob Muglia to president — After working for 21 years for Microsoft, Bob Muglia has been promoted from vice president to president of Microsoft's Server and Tools Business (STB), which generated some US$13 billion in FY08, or about 20 percent of the company's total revenue.
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
AOL Boss Kevin Conroy Bolts For Univision (TWX) — Here's CEO Randy Falco's memo. A big loss or don't-let-door-hit-you-in-ass? AOLers, please weigh in below. — Dear AOL colleague, — I'm writing to tell you that Kevin Conroy has accepted a position as President of Interactive Media at Univision.
Discussion:
paidContent.org
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Judge: transcoding doesn't block Veoh “safe harbor” defense — On December 29, video-sharing site Veoh won another legal victory after Universal Music Group sought to keep the company from using a “safe harbor” defense against copyright infringement. A federal judge has rejected such pleas.
