Top Items:
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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Wilson Rothman / Gizmodo:
Dell Builds Prototype Android and Windows Mobile Phones, May Finally Sell Them — Stop me if you've heard this one: Dell might go into the smartphone business. OOOLLLDDD? But today the WSJ reports Dell's closer than ever, with prototypes built in two different styles and two competing platforms.
Discussion:
Electronic Pulp
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 …
Discussion:
GigaOM, Unwired View, Silicon Alley Insider, Tech Check with Jim Goldman, Newsome.Org, MobileCrunch, Electronista, msmobiles.com, Telecompetitor, Between the Lines, textually.org, wmpoweruser.com, WMExperts, MacDailyNews, AndroidGuys, Crave, Pocket PC Thoughts.com, Phone Scoop, atmaspheric and Mobility Site
Stephen Shankland / Webware.com:
Google fakes out Hotmail for Chrome support — Google has added a patch to its latest beta and stable versions of Chrome to make the browser work better with Microsoft's Hotmail site. — With the patch, Chrome tells Microsoft's site it's actually Apple's Safari browser …
RELATED:
Mark Larson / Google Chrome Releases:
Stable, Beta update: Yahoo! Mail and Security Fixes — Google Chrome's Beta and Stable channels have been updated to 1.0.154.46. (Note, we won't have a different release for the Beta channel until we have something Beta-worthy come out of the Dev channel in February.)
MediaShift:
Warning: Dependence on Facebook, Twitter Could Be Hazardous to Your Business — You've probably heard how much the micro-blogging service Twitter can help your business, or that being on social networking site Facebook can boost your company's profile. But what you might not have considered …
John / Plaxo's Personal Card:
Introducing Two-Click Signup, an initiative to improve the user experience of OpenID; first test now live with Google — At Plaxo, we're big believers in (and early adopters of) OpenID, the promising open standard for online identity. As a result, we've suffered as much as anyone …
Discussion:
FactoryCity
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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 …
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:
Business Week, TechFlash, paidContent.org, The Register, tinyComb, Andrea on Amazon & …, VentureBeat, Tech Trader Daily, Tech Beat and WebProNews
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Dave Morin / Facebook Developers:
Facebook Connect and Apple's iPhoto '09 — At Facebook, we think that photos are one of the most powerful ways to connect and share with friends. Since 2005, Facebook Photos has given users a chance to share rich experiences with their friends who are on and off Facebook.
Scobleizer:
Zuckerberg: Facebook's “intense” year — Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO, in a tie? Oh my. — If you know Mark you know he's a pretty casual dresser. Usually seen in T-shirt, jeans, and sandals. — But not here at the World Economic Forum where we walked around downtown Davos …
Thanks:louisgray
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 …
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Google apologizes for killing Bambi's mom — Google recently reported strong earnings despite a weak economy, it continues to gain search market share and its Android platform is set to take the mobile world by storm this year. It doesn't seem so unreasonable to wonder if anything can stop Google.
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
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;.
Discussion:
Mobile Tech Addicts, Technologizer, WMExperts, SlashGear, The Toybox, wmpoweruser.com and CrunchGear
Frank Caron / Ars Technica:
Pandora open-source handheld console inching closer to debut (updated) — The long-awaited Pandora open-source handheld has inched one step closer to completion, as the OpenPandora team has put on display the nearly finalized case design. We review what we know about Pandora to date, and what the project is hoping to accomplish.
Eric Krangel / Silicon Alley Insider:
Rumor: Sony PS4 Plans Leaked, And It Targets Casual Gamers (SNE) — Take this one with a massive dose of skepticism, folks: A site we're not familiar with called gamingfront.net claims to have a leaked report from inside Sony (SNE) explaining the technical specs and thinking behind the so-called PS4, successor console to the PS3.
Thanks:anjrued
Kevin Poulsen / Threat Level:
Fannie Mae Logic Bomb Would Have Caused Weeklong Shutdown — A logic bomb allegedly planted by a former engineer at mortgage finance company Fannie Mae last fall would have decimated all 4,000 servers at the company, causing millions of dollars in damage and shutting down Fannie Mae for a least a week, prosecutors say.
Beatrice Oltean / MSDN Blogs:
Live Search autosuggestions come to Firefox — We're happy to report that we've officially integrated Live Search into Firefox by popular demand. — The Live Search add-on for Firefox gives you auto-suggestions from Live Search right in the browser while you're typing your query.
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.
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 …
Discussion:
ReadWriteWeb
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 …
Colin Barras / New Scientist:
Cheap, super-efficient LED lights on the horizon — Incandescent tungsten-filament light bulbs face a global switch-off as governments push for energy efficient fluorescent lamps to become the standard. But the light could soon go out on those lamps too, now that UK materials scientists …
Michael McWhertor / Kotaku:
Rumor: Layoffs Hit Disney Interactive, Turok Sequel Canceled — Disney is the latest in a long list of companies planning to pare down its workforce, with cuts and consolidations affecting Disney Interactive Studios. Layoffs are said to have already hit Turok developer Propaganda.
Discussion:
Joystiq, GamesIndustry.biz, Virtual Worlds News, Blue's News, videogaming247 and GoNintendo
Stephen Schenck / Obsessable:
Google responds to Chrome clickjacking, seeks group effort to mitigate vulnerability — The company sees the attack, which Chrome has fallen victim to, as a fundamental problem with web standards that needs to be addressed. — While Google's at work putting together a fix …
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
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.
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider
Dave Zatz / Zatz Not Funny!:
Comcast's Crossed Wires — I'm somewhat concerned to learn that the RIAA may be enlisting broadband providers, such as AT&T and Comcast, to police their networks for content theft. While I don't condone software and media piracy, I'm uncomfortable with Comcast tracking my every move online.
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, VentureBeat, MacRumors, TUAW, The iPhone Blog, The Apple Core, TechSpot, AppScout, Insanely Great Mac and TidBITS
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.
