Top Items:
Brad Stone / New York Times:
Want to Copy iTunes Music? Go Ahead, Apple Says — SAN FRANCISCO — In moves that will help shape the online future of the music business, Apple said Tuesday that it would remove anticopying restrictions on all of the songs in its popular iTunes Store and allow record companies to set a range of prices for them.
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GigaLaw.com Daily News
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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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Infinite Loop, L.A. Times Tech Blog, TechCrunch, PaulStamatiou.com, CNET News, Network World, Macsimum News, iLounge, CrunchGear, Zatz Not Funny!, Wall Street Journal, mathewingram.com/work, iPhone Savior, Pulse2, GMSV, ReadWriteWeb, Boy Genius Report, Ken McGuire Technology Blog, blogs.ft.com, Alice Hill's Real Tech News, Gallop Services Blog, TECH.BLORGE.com, TUAW, Phone Scoop, DSLreports, GigaOM, Podcasting News, Hardware 2.0 and Epicenter
Matthew Moore / Telegraph:
Google Trends hit by 'trolls" 9/11 web stunt — A crude illustration of a plane crashing into the Twin Towers appeared near the top of a list of Google's most popular searches after a stunt by users of a notorious internet message board. — The symbol - an icon of an aircraft pointing towards …
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Guardian:
The shape of things to come — A self-confessed ‘pretty unlikely early adopter’, the digital guru Clay Shirky still proved to be uncannily prescient about the impact of the web - which is why Tom Teodorczuk is getting his media forecast for 2009 — Clay Shirky, with his bald head and composed manner …
Farhad Manjoo / Slate:
Missing Steve Jobs at Macworld. — Just before the holidays, Apple announced that CEO Steve Jobs would not deliver the keynote address at Macworld, the annual conference that he's long used as a platform for his flashiest product announcements. The company's terse press release …
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Declan McCullagh / CNET News:
Obama picks RIAA's favorite lawyer for a top Justice post — As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama won applause from legal adversaries of the recording industry. Stanford law professor Larry Lessig, the doyen of the “free culture” movement, endorsed the Illinois senator, as did Google CEO Eric Schmidt and even the Pirate Party.
Om Malik / GigaOM:
WebEx on Your iPhone, Finally — If I had to name one collaboration application that I to use on an almost daily basis, with the exception of Google Docs, my answer would be Cisco's WebEx. A lot of companies make pitches to me using WebEx. Despite its patchy performance on the Mac …
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Kim Zetter / Threat Level:
Weak Password Brings ‘Happiness’ to Twitter Hacker — An 18-year-old hacker with a history of celebrity pranks has admitted to Monday's hijacking of multiple high-profile Twitter accounts, including President-Elect Barack Obama's, and the official feed for Fox News.
Dave Zatz / Zatz Not Funny!:
TiVo Beefs Up Search Functionality — Later today, broadband-connected TiVo Series3 and TiVo HD subscribers will be treated to a revamped search experience. And, marking a first, TiVo is finally taking widescreen televisions seriously with a high-def interface utilizing that extra real estate.
The Boy Genius / Boy Genius Report:
T-Mobile BlackBerry Curve 8900 makes its way into stores, Feb. 11th release — Yes, yes, the rumors about the T-Mobile BlackBerry Curve 8900 release being moved up to February 11th is true. One of our T-Mobile ninjas just sent us in some pictures of the Curve 8900 in their retail store.
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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.
Discussion:
Boy Genius Report, Liliputing, DisplayBlog, CrunchGear, SlashGear, Sony Insider, Electronista, Obsessable, techeblog.com and Mobility Site
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Here Come The 12 Inch Netbooks, And Intel Isn't Happy About It — 12 inch Netbooks are coming. Dell has the Inspiron Mini 12, Samsung will unveil its 12 inch netbook model to the U.S. shortly, and more are coming. And Intel isn't happy about this at all. — In fact, the whole Netbook market may be making them nervous.
Discussion:
CrunchGear
Ryan Kim / The Technology Chronicles:
CES09: Powermat looks to charge your gadgets wirelessly — One of my favorite items from CES last year was WildCharge's wireless charging set up, which allowed you to power up gadgets without actually plugging them in. You just plopped them on a charging pad and away you go.
Mark Wilson / Gizmodo:
Asus T91: Your 1-inch Thick Convertible Eee PC — The Asus T91 is an intriguing netbook from Asus. Just 2lbs in weight, it features an 8.9" convertible touchscreen display and Atom processor. Pricing/availability are yet unannounced.
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Pandora Radio 2.0 Lands On The iPhone Tonight — Pandora Radio, the personalized internet radio service that has remained among the most popular iPhone apps on the iTunes App Store since its inception in July (and that I've previously called the iPhone's killer app), will be releasing its most significant update yet later today.
Discussion:
Lifehacker, Webware.com, greg hughes, Gizmodo, VentureBeat, iPhone Buzz, Edible Apple and Gizmodo Australia
Kelvin Soh / Reuters:
As laptops dominate, desktop PCs face obsolescence — TAIPEI (Reuters) - The age of the desktop PC appears to be over as its more portable cousin, the laptop, surges ahead with consumers clamoring for light-weight computers in funky designs for use at home, in cafes and on the train to work.
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CloudAve
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.
Wilson Rothman / Gizmodo:
Apple Confirms $179 Battery Swap Cost for 17" MacBook Pro — We just confirmed with Apple that swapping out the 17" MacBook Pro's non-removable battery will cost $179. Fortunately, says Apple, the swap might not be needed for a long time: — From a spokesperson at Apple:
Discussion:
DVICE, Network World, TheAppleBlog, SlashGear, CNET News, Infinite Loop, Macworld, PC World and Boing Boing Gadgets
Greg Kumparak / CrunchGear:
Linksys announces Wireless Home Audio System, another wireless audio toy for rich people — Unless you're down to hobble your own crazy homebrew set-up, tinkering with wireless audio systems is a damned expensive hobby. Everytime I read about these products, I imagine some rich old dude …
Clint Ecker / Infinite Loop:
Macworld.Ars: GarageBand '09 first impressions — Phil Schiller spent a decent amount of time talking about the new “Learn how to Play” feature in Apple's newly announced GarageBand '09. It makes sense that he would want to focus on the flashy, star-powered updates to the application …
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GPS Obsessed
James Niccolai / PC World:
Phoenix Offers Faster Boot Times for Laptops — BIOS vendor Phoenix Technologies has launched its HyperSpace “instant on” software, which allows a laptop to boot up in less than 30 seconds for basic tasks like surfing the Web. — HyperSpace is based on a compressed Linux OS that boots up while Windows is starting in the background.
Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
F-A-I-L: Official Scrabble Facebook apps still smaller than Scrabulous was — This summer, board game makers Hasbro and Mattel forced the popular Facebook gaming application Scrabulous to shut down, claiming that it violated the companies' copyrights on the crossword board game Scrabble.
