Top Items:
Business Wire:
Amazon.com Announces Fourth Quarter Sales up 18% to $6.70 Billion; 2008 Free Cash Flow Grows 16% to $1.36 Billion — SEATTLE—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN - News) today announced financial results for its fourth quarter ended December 31, 2008.
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Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Retail stinks, but Amazon doesn't; E-tailer delivers strong fourth quarter — Amazon managed to get stronger even as retailers across the U.S. struggled amid weak holiday sales. — The company reported fourth quarter earnings of $225 million, or 52 cents a share, on revenue of $6.7 billion, up 18 percent from a year ago.
Discussion:
The Register, TechFlash, paidContent.org, VentureBeat, Tech Beat and Andrea on Amazon & …
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Is Dell's Phone Called The MePhone? (DELL) — We've received a few tips from someone who claims to be close to Dell (DELL) about the company's entry into the smartphone market. We don't know if they're true, but they're not unreasonable, so we decided to share them for discussion.
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Wall Street Journal:
Dell Readies Smartphone Offering — Dell Inc., aiming to rev up sales as its mainstay personal computer business struggles in the recession, is preparing a move into cellphones as early as next month, said people familiar with the matter. — The Round Rock, Texas, company has had a group …
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Days to 1 million: the smartphone wars — In a fit of editorial sobriety, reader Noel just sent us this handy “1 million devices sold” graphic above. The image demonstrates the speed (in terms of days) at which each competing handset achieved the magic milestone.
Christopher Breen / Macworld:
iTunes Plus upgrades go à la carte — If you've been skipping the daily double-wet-cappuccino in order to save enough money to upgrade your iTunes library to the DRM-free iTunes Plus format, you can put coffee back on the menu. Apple has dispensed with the iTunes Store all-or-nothing upgrade policy.
Discussion:
Ars Technica, Download Squad, TUAW, MacRumors, VentureBeat, The Apple Core, The iPhone Blog and TechSpot
Liam Tung / CNET News:
Chrome, Firefox face clickjacking — Security researchers have discovered a flaw affecting Google's Chrome browser that exposes it to “clickjacking”—in which an attacker hijacks a browser's functions by substituting a legitimate link with one of the attacker's choice.
Discussion:
eWeek, Search Engine Land, Google Operating System, ZDNET.com.au, Switched, Obsessable, Google Blogoscoped, TechSpot and WebProNews
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Stephen Schenck / Obsessable:Google responds to Chrome clickjacking, seeks group effort to mitigate vulnerability
Thanks:danoh
Adam Frucci / Gizmodo:
Google Maps Car Hits a Deer, Records Entire Ordeal on Google Maps — Here's a sad one: the Google Maps car took out a baby deer, and it recorded the entire process for all Google Maps users to see. For shame, Google Maps car! — As you follow the street view scene down Five Points Road in Rush …
Stuart Dredge / Pocket Gamer.biz:
Rumour: Apple planning $19.99 games section on App Store — But only with a restricted number of publishers — Product: — Manufacturer: — Apple is planning to introduce a premium games section to its App Store where it will sell a range of iPhone games for $19.99, sources tell PocketGamer.biz.
Discussion:
MacRumors, PC World, AppleInsider, Touch Arcade, TheAppleBlog, Gizmodo, CNET News, The iPhone Blog, ChannelWeb, Edible Apple, GMSV and MacBlogz
Joe Hall / Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim:
Twitter is a Cash Cow in the Making — We have been talking a great deal lately about how Twitter should be monetizing their service. Most of this talk comes after news that Twitter secured $20 million in venture capital, to push its total valuation to $250 million.
Thanks:wesmax27
Roi Carthy / TechCrunch:
Pipl.com: People Search Engine So Good, It Will Scare Your Pants Off — Google may be good at many things, but people search is not one of them. For that you'll have to use a more specialized search engine. Spock and Wink (merged with Reunion.com) are the people-search destinations …
Discussion:
Business 2.0 Press
Staska / Unwired View:
Microsoft patents the interface to transform your phone into a PC — The power of modern smartphones in many ways equals and even surpasses the power of a desktop PC of just few years ago. You know, things like CPUs faster then 800 Mhz, hundreds of megabytes of RAM, tens of gygabytes of storage, dedicated graphics accelerators, etc;.
Matt Rosoff / Digital Noise:
Microsoft: More Zunes coming in 2009 — Remember that teenage trick of sticking your fingers in your ears and saying, “I can't hear you”? That's how I felt on Thursday morning when I talked to Adam Sohn, the marketing director for Zune. — I don't mean that Microsoft is oblivious to reality …
Discussion:
blogs.ft.com
Greg / Pinch Media:
iPhone 2,1 — Recently, one of the users of Pinch Analytics noticed the string “iPhone 2,1″ appearing in their version reporting, and realized that if Apple stuck to its naming conventions, this might be the next version of the iPhone. At Pinch Media, we've seen this for some time now …
Discussion:
MacRumors, AppleInsider, InformationWeek, MacBlogz, Crave, TechSpot, VentureBeat, GPS Obsessed, IntoMobile, Silicon Alley Insider, TheAppleBlog and Technologizer
Associated Press:
Swiss police spy marijuana field with Google Earth — ZURICH, Switzerland - Swiss police said Thursday they stumbled across a large marijuana plantation while using Google Earth, the search engine company's satellite mapping software. — Police said the find was part of a bigger investigation …
Elinor Mills / CNET News:
Google delays stock option exchange program — Googlers who want to revalue their underwater stock options will have to wait until Tuesday for the voluntary employee option exchange program to launch, Google said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday that did not explain why.
David Peterson / SitePoint:
President Obama uses RDFa — The WhiteHouse.gov site is CC licensing all its material, and if you peek behind the covers (view source), you will see some RDFa. Granted it is a small start, but it is a start. Well done to the new administration and I look forward to more openness and more Web mashups!
John Timmer / Ars Technica:
Sony vs. Nintendo: same bad economy, very different results — Sony and Nintendo released their financial reports on the holiday quarter this week, and both are being pummeled by the strength of the Japanese Yen. But Nintendo's focus on gaming and the strength of its console have left it in far better shape than its bigger rival.
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
8 Mobile Technologies to Watch in 2009, 2010 — Analyst firm Gartner has just released a report that highlights eight up-and-coming mobile technologies which they predict will impact the mobile industry over the course of the next two years. According to Nick Jones, vice president and analyst at the firm …
Sumner Lemon / Macworld:
Intel to detail eight-core Xeon processor — Intel plans to detail an eight-core Xeon processor at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco next month, offering an early look at what appears to be the company's first eight-core chip.
Om Malik / GigaOM:
StatShot: Tech Job Cuts Inching Closer to 200,000 — The technology industry cut close to 186,955 jobs in 2008, up 74.2 percent from the 107,295 job cuts recorded in 2007, according to data collected by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a recruitment company based in Chicago.
Edward J. R. / msmobiles.com:
i-mate to unveil new revolutionary Windows Mobile phone at Mobile World Congress 2009 next month — i-mate is alive and kicking! … Note: we will be at MWC 2009 on location, and we will bring first-hand reports from the i-mate! Since by now i-mate has been releasing several Windows Mobile phones …
Discussion:
PC World, Unwired View, WMExperts, wmpoweruser.com, Boy Genius Report, Phone Arena and Mobile Roar
Yariv Adan / Google Data APIs Blog:
Bringing OpenID and OAuth Together — We are happy to announce an important enhancement to our recently launched OpenID endpoint. Google now supports the “Hybrid Protocol”, combining OpenID federated login together with OAuth access authorization. Websites can now ask Google to sign …
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Google Gobbled Up 90 Percent Of All U.S. Search Growth In 2008 — Google ended the year with 63.5 percent market share of all search queries performed in the U.S., estimates comScore. And that market share has inched up steadily from 58.5 percent in January, 2008.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
$2.99 Printed PhotoBooks Now Available On Facebook: HotPrints — Anyone who has turned digital photos into a printed photo book via Apple iPhoto or any of a variety of competitors knows how great they are. They make a perfect gift, if you can afford the $20 - $30 they generally cost to create, plus shipping.
Discussion:
RotorBlog.com
Mark Gimein / The Big Money:
Leave Steve Jobs Alone — Disclosing more won't help Apple shareholders. — One day you wake up and don't feel quite yourself. The next day is no better, nor is the next week. Eventually you go to the doctor, who tells you that you have cancer. Heroically, you stay on the job …
Thanks:brendanmonaghan
Arik Hesseldahl / Business Week:
The Eye of the (BlackBerry) Storm — iSuppli took apart Research In Motion's BlackBerry Storm to determine the cost of its components. Guess what? The iPhone parts are cheaper — As the battle for the smartphone market heats up, comparisons abound between Research In Motion's BlackBerry Storm …
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
SEAmail: Applying Semantic Technology to Email — A prototype email system being developed at Stanford University is designed to bring the power of semantic technology to our inbox. Called SEAmail, short for “semantic email addressing,” the system will help its users route email …
Thanks:atul
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Adding YouTube Annotations Just Got Easy. I've Got A Bad Feeling About This... For better or for worse, YouTube has just made it easier to add annotations to your videos. Annotations, which were introduced to the site last June, consist of little grey popups that can include standard text boxes …
Robert X. Cringely / Notes from the Field:
The Julie Amero case: Injustice for all — The Julie Amero porn pop-up case should be history by now, but some folks just won't let it die. Cringe has the scoop. READ MORE
Thanks:tynan_on_tech
Richard MacManus / ReadWriteWeb:
5 Problems of Recommender Systems — Earlier this week we posted a Guide to Recommender Systems, as part of our series on recommendation technologies. In this post we look at some of the challenges in building or deploying a recommender system. And yes, Napoleon Dynamite is one of them.
Discussion:
StyleHop Blog
Economist:
Paved with good intentions — Is “broadband for all” a recipe for recovery, or a boondoggle? — BEGGING for government help would have made you a pariah in most parts of the high-tech industry a few months ago. But these days state aid, and how to dole it out, are nearly as hotly debated …
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
The State of Blog Search, 2009 — What blog search engine should you use? That depends on your needs. — In order to join a conversation, you've got to be able to find it first. Three years ago “blog search” was expected to be a booming industry, startups left and right developed different technologies …
