Top Items:
John Biggs / CrunchGear:
Belkin paying 65 cents for good reviews on NewEgg and Amazon? — I just contacted Belkin to confirm but this doesn't look good. A site called The Daily Background found evidence that Belkin Bizdev guy, Michael Bayard, is paying folks 65 cents to write good things about Belkin routers. Why?
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Arlen Parsa / The Daily Background:
Exclusive: Belkin's Development Rep is Hiring People to Write Fake Positive Amazon Reviews — I know I usually don't write about consumer advocacy stuff, but I came across this just recently and it's pretty beyond the pale and I couldn't let it go without blogging about it. Here's the scoop.
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Jaiku Founder: “We're Not Dying, We're Morphing” — Last week, Google announced that the company was unceremoniously discontinuing or at least ceasing development of a number of services it had launched or acquired in the past, including Google Video, Notebook, Catalog Search, Dodgeball and The Mashup Editor.
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Jyri / zengestrom.com:
Signal (and noise) about Jaiku this week — On Wednesday we posted on the Google Code Blog that: — “As we mentioned last April, we are in the process of porting Jaiku over to Google App Engine. After the migration is complete, we will release the new open source Jaiku Engine project on Google Code under the Apache License.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Zumodrive Takes Cloud Storage And Syncing Up A Notch — Cloud storage and file synchronization is becoming increasingly important as users access the Internet and their data via a plethora of devices - desktop computers with large hard drives, laptops with smaller drives …
Dawn Kawamoto / CNET News:
IT venture investing posts worst Q4 in a decade — Venture capital investments in IT companies plunged 40 percent to $2.18 billion in the fourth quarter, their worst level in a decade, according to figures released late Friday by VentureSource. — The data further confirms concerns entrepreneurs …
Discussion:
TechFlash
Dan Nosowitz / Gizmodo:
iPod Touch 2G Jailbroken by the iPhone Dev Team — The 2nd generation iPod touch proved a tricky customer to break, but the Dev Team has made the first big step toward a full-on jailbreak. — The Dev Team stumbled upon the break when making yellowsn0w, the iPhone jailbreaker …
Staci D. Kramer / paidContent.org:
Napster Warns Subscribers That Best Buy Will Have Access To All Data Unless They Cancel By Feb. 17 — Napster (NSDQ: NAPS) subscribers using the service after Feb. 17 will be giving the gift of data to Best Buy. In an “important announcement” sent to subscribers this morning …
Rick Turoczy / ReadWriteWeb:
Obama in 3D: Photosynth to Crowdsource Synth of the 44th Presidential Inauguration — Next Tuesday, the eyes of the United States - and likely the world - will be on Washington, DC, as Barack Obama takes the oath of office to become the 44th President of the United States.
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Reuters:
Vatican to get own YouTube channel — VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican will soon have its own channel on the video sharing site YouTube where the Catholic faithful or the curious will be able to see Pope Benedict or Church events, a Vatican source said on Saturday.
Elinor Mills / CNET News:
Developer considers charges after iPhone app is pirated — The developer of an iPhone app that has been cracked and distributed for free said he is considering pursuing criminal charges against whoever is responsible for the piracy. — On the Apple App Store, Annoy-A-Teen sells for 99 cents.
Discussion:
Alice Hill's Real Tech News
CNN:
Obama thinks he can keep his BlackBerry — (CNN) — President-elect Barack Obama told CNN Friday he thinks he may be able to “hang onto” his BlackBerry after all. — In an interview with CNN's John King, he talked about the privacy issues that threaten his ability to maintain normal communications …
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