Top Items:
Apple:
Apple Media Advisory — Apple CEO Steve Jobs today sent the following email to all Apple employees: — Team, — I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very personal with the Apple community. Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues …
Discussion:
The Ponderings of Woodrow, Tech Sanity Check, Forbes, Gadget Lab, TUAW, Silicon Alley Insider, InfoWorld, Apple 2.0, PC World, mobilesyrup.com, TidBITS, Gizmodo, Macworld, Digits, mocoNews.net, RCR Wireless News, iLounge, Homotron.net, geeksugar, Creative Capital, Industry Standard, I4U News, Computerworld, Alice Hill's Real Tech News, Tech Beat, Contentinople, VatorNews, InformationWeek, Network World, AppleInsider, Digital Daily, MacDailyNews, Between the Lines, Open Sources and TechFlash
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Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Steve Jobs Takes Leave (AAPL) — Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs will take a medical leave of absence until the end of June. Apple COO Tim Cook will take over for Steve until then. Apple shares are down about 7% in after-hours trading. — The Latest: — Apple Without Jobs: Fine For Now, But...
Discussion:
Gizmodo, CNBC.com, Associated Press, VentureBeat, Reuters, Gawker, AppleInsider, Tech Broiler, Guardian, ChasNote, Bloomberg, Coolest Gadgets, The iPhone Blog, Beyond Binary, TechCrunch UK, Computerworld, Digital Daily, Forbes, Ars Technica, The Toybox, Obsessable, louisgray.com, GigaOM, Boy Genius Report, L.A. Times Tech Blog, The Register, InformationWeek, WinExtra, Epicenter, Apple 2.0, Bits, MediaFile, The Apple Core, Digits and Hardware 2.0
Yukari Iwatani Kane / Wall Street Journal:
Apple's Steve Jobs Takes Medical Leave — Just a week after reassuring investors and employees about his health, Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs disclosed he has a “more complex” medical condition and would take a leave of absence until the end of June.
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Google Ends Google Video Uploads, Shutters Notebook, Catalog Search, Dodgeball & Jaiku — Google's announced they're closing or ceasing development of a variety of products as part of an already continuing move to keep efforts focused on other products with greater usage.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, loose wire blog, Googling Google, CenterNetworks, /Message, Micro Persuasion and John Battelle's Searchblog
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Raj Krishnan / Notebook Blog:
Stopping development on Google Notebook — At Google, we're constantly working to innovate and improve our products so people can easily find and manage information. At times though, we have to decide where to focus our efforts and which technologies we expect will yield the most benefit to users in the long run.
Vic Gundotra / Google Code Blog:
Changes for Jaiku and Farewell to Dodgeball and Mashup Editor — Google has long believed that thoughtful iteration is the best way to build useful products for our users. As part of that process, we are always looking for ways to better focus our teams on the products that can have the most impact.
Michael Cohen / Google Video Blog:
Turning Down Uploads at Google Video — At Google, we like to launch early, launch often, and to iterate our products. Occasionally, this means we have to re-evaluate our efforts and make difficult decisions to be sure we focus on products that make the most sense for our users.
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Fake Steve Jobs Banned From CNBC For Life — Newsweek's Dan Lyons — “Fake Steve Jobs” — is banned from CNBC for life because of his appearance on the cable network earlier this evening, we have learned. — In a special report about Steve Jobs' stepping down from day-to-day operations at Apple …
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Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
Fake Steve Jobs Rips Real Jim Goldman A New One (VIDEO) — We've already poked Jim Goldman, the CNBC reporter who has spectacularly blown the Steve Jobs story over the past few weeks (and insulted the writers and readers who got it right all along the way).
Discussion:
Howard Lindzon
Laszlo Bock / The Official Google Blog:
Changes to recruiting — As we made clear during our last quarterly earnings call in October, Google is still hiring but at a reduced rate. Given the state of the economy, we recognized that we needed fewer people focused on hiring. — Our first step to address this was to wind down almost …
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Owen Thomas / Gawker:
Google's Loss of Innocence: 100 Jobs Cut — The Magical Kingdom of Larry and Sergey has laid off 100 full-time recruiters, a tipster tells us. Inevitable, given the economy. But a crushing blow to Google's self-image as a kinder-than-thou employer. — In the last dotcom bust …
Discussion:
Bits
The Official Google Blog:
Changes to engineering — At Google we recognized early on that branching out beyond Mountain View was key to building innovative products for users everywhere. That's why we put so much effort into hiring outstanding engineers in a wide mix of countries.
Nick Wingfield / Wall Street Journal:
Microsoft Is Exploring Job Cuts — Microsoft Corp. is seriously exploring significant work force reductions that could be announced as early as next week, in a sign that the weak economy is prompting tough decisions even at one of the steadiest ships in the technology industry.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Facebook Blows A Whopper Of An Opportunity — Burger King, through their insanely creative advertising agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky (see their recent Burger King perfume launch), launches a Facebook application that encourages users to remove Facebook friends. Sacrifice ten of them and you got a free Whopper.
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Jeff Widman / TechCrunchIT:
Salesforce.com Launches The Service Cloud, A Customer Service SaaS Application — These days, when I have technical question, I reach for Google long before reaching for customer service. What if customer service could reach for Google? — Salesforce.com just launched a new customer service application called Service Cloud.
Brent Frei / Smartsheet:
Value Investing? Answer: Invest in Yourself — The last 8 months I've gone few days without an investment-related question from a friend, colleague or distant relative. Should I stay in? Should I get out? Where should I invest? Should I maintain a cash position? What about T-bills?
Matt Buchanan / Gizmodo:
The Netbook Hackintosh Video Apple Is Suing Wired For — Gadget Lab writer and Giz friend Brian X. Chen reveals via Twitter that Apple “is suing Wired for my video tutorial on hacking netbooks to run Mac OS X.” — Brian actually loaned his personal MSI Wind Hackintosh for the Giz Gallery.
Discussion:
AppleInsider, CNET News, Technologizer, The Toybox, Pulse2, PC World, Boing Boing Gadgets and MacNN
Wailin Wong / Chicago Tribune:
Motorola to lay off 4,000 in 2009 — Schaumburg-based Motorola Inc. said Wednesday it is laying off 4,000 workers in 2009, with 3,000 of them in the company's flagship mobile phone division. — The layoffs are expected to begin immediately and come on top of a 3,000 workforce reduction announced during the fourth quarter of 2008.
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Mark Milian / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Ashton Kutcher, Kevin Rose to co-host live Web game show at Sundance — If you're attending the annual Sundance Film Festival, which kicks off Thursday in Park City, Utah, don't be alarmed by the person running around with a canned ham or the lunatic who seems convinced that Ashton Kutcher …
Pal Takacsi / Gmail Blog:
New in Labs: Send & Archive — In addition to having two cappuccinos, my morning routine includes processing new mail that's arrived in my inbox overnight. More often than not, as I reply to a message I also want to archive it so I can enjoy the satisfaction of a pristine inbox.
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch UK:
As raw as it gets - Skype legend Morten Lund bankrupt — Morten Lund, an entrepreneur from Copenhagen, Denmark, might just be the real Rock-'n Roll entrepreneur. Yesterday he was declared personally bankrupt by the Copenhagen Maritime and Commercial Court after losing 10M Krona in an investment …
Discussion:
TheNextWeb.com
Stephanie Condon / CNET News:
Democrats' 2009 legislative plan: Net neutrality, copyright rewrite — WASHINGTON—It may seem as though Congress has completely forgotten about Net neutrality, a topic that has languished in legislative purgatory since mid-2006. But a Democratic aide said Wednesday that it's likely to come back this year …
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Gmail Grew 43 Percent Last Year. AOL Mail And Hotmail Need To Start Worrying. — Google launched Gmail only four years ago, and it is now the fourth most popular e-mail service on the Web after Yahoo Mail, AOL Mail, and Windows Live Hotmail. In 2008, it saw some serious growth …
YouTube Blog:
User Choice and Music Licensing — Music licensing can get very complicated, but we try to make your experience as simple as possible. We want you to have options when uploading videos with music in them. And if your video is subject to a copyright claim, you should have some choices too.
