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
Discussion:
GigaOM, Unwired View, Engadget Mobile, Phone Arena, Tech Check with Jim Goldman, BloggingStocks, Silicon Alley Insider, Newsome.Org, MobileCrunch, Electronista, msmobiles.com, Telecompetitor, Between the Lines, WMExperts, MacDailyNews, AndroidGuys, textually.org, Crave, wmpoweruser.com, Pocket PC Thoughts.com, Phone Scoop, atmaspheric and Mobility Site
Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
First Official Description of GDrive — Brain Ussery noticed an interesting reference to GDrive in a file used by Google Pack. The file includes “localized information which is sent to translators”. — The product category for GDrive is “online file backup and storage” and there are two lines that describe the application:
Thanks:atul
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Brian Ussery / beu blog:
GDrive — “Online file backup and storage... GDrive provides reliable storage for all of your files, including photos, music and documents... GDrive allows you to access your files from anywhere, anytime, and from any device - be it from your desktop, web browser or cellular phone”.
Discussion:
TheNextWeb.com
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
With an official description, Google Drive is more real than ever — Almost everyday now brings a new hint into what Google is planning for its “GDrive” online storage service. Today, a piece of code found in the Google Pack software bundle includes both a product category and description for GDrive.
Discussion:
Digital Inspiration
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 …
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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 …
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 …
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 …
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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.
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 …
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 …
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, The Register, paidContent.org, tinyComb, Andrea on Amazon & …, Business Wire, Tech Trader Daily, VentureBeat, Tech Beat and WebProNews
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.
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
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.
Aaron Patzer / TechCrunch:
The Economy According To Mint — Aaron Patzer is the CEO and founder of Mint.com, a personal finance site that helps 900,000 consumers keep track of their spending. Mint's data is a snapshot of the consumer economy. In the guest post below, Aaron parses the data to tell us what the economy looks like from consumer's eyes.
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
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
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
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, Virtual Worlds News, GamesIndustry.biz, Blue's News, videogaming247 and GoNintendo
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.
mobiledivide.com:
palm pre @ CES '09 (Part 2) — Part 2 of mobiledivide's palm prÄ" interview series from CES '09 is with Peter Skillman. Peter is the VP of Design at Palm, Inc. and naturally our conversation revolved around the design choices he and his team at Palm made with the palm prÄ".
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 …
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.
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 …
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
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.
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
