Top Items:
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Microsoft's Windows 7 line-up: The good, the bad and the ugly — If you were one of those individuals holding out hope that Microsoft might go the way of Apple and move to one or two SKUs for Windows 7, your prayers have gone unanswered. But there still is some good news in what's on tap …
Discussion:
Gizmodo, Geekzone Blog, Ed Bott's Microsoft Report, Electronista, VentureBeat, Ed Bott's Windows Expertise, GMSV, Liliputing, blogs.chron.com, Technologizer, Switched and Hardware 2.0, Thanks:bromano
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Wall Street Journal:
Tracking Friends the Google Way — New Mobile-Device Feature Lets Users Share Their Every Move With Each Other — For the past week, I've been stalking my sister, my boyfriend and my boss. They've also been stalking me, and we still like one other. — All four of us have been using …
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Brian Lam / Gizmodo:
Google Latitude: Friend Finding Maps on Smartphones and PCs — Google's released Latitude, a Maps tool that allows for automatic tracking of friends in real time, using a laptop, Symbian 60, Blackberry, WinMo and soon, iPhone or Android. — Laptops and cellphones (when not using GPS) …
Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook Blog:
Facebook's 5th Birthday — Tomorrow is Facebook's 5th birthday. This is a happy occasion for Facebook, but much more significant to the Facebook team is the fact that over 150 million people around the world are using Facebook to connect with the people in their lives.
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Fred von Lohmann / Electronic Frontier Foundation:
YouTube's January Fair Use Massacre — Privacy info. This embed will serve content from youtube.com. — This is what it's come to. Teenagers singing “Winter Wonderland” being censored off YouTube. — Fair use has always been at risk on YouTube, thanks to abusive DMCA takedown notices sent …
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Mozilla:
Firefox 3 Release Notes — Check out what's new, the known issues and frequently asked questions about the latest version of Firefox. As always, you're encouraged to tell us what you think, either using this feedback form or by filing a bug in Bugzilla.
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Matt Cutts / Gadgets, Google, and SEO:
Google and Big Ideas — I love Om Malik and respect him greatly. I'm hoping to corner him for lunch sometime to pick his brain on ways that Google could improve. But today he happened to do a tweet that caught my attention just as my morning caffeine was kicking in.
getclicky.com/blog:
Google's new Ajax-powered search results breaks search keyword tracking for everyone — Do you run a web site? Do you use a service such as Clicky, Statcounter, AWStats, etc, to monitor the traffic to your web site? Do you find it useful how these services can tell you what search terms are leading visitors to your site?
Discussion:
Search Engine Land, SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog, TheNextWeb.com, Smackdown!, SitePoint and Webmetricsguru, Thanks:schammy
Arn / MacRumors:
Apple to Allow Background Tasks on iPhone? — With the release of iPhone Firmware 2.2.1, many were left wondering what had become of the Push notification system that Apple had announced at the Worldwide Developer's Conference back in June. — While Apple had originally set a September 2008 deadline …
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider, VentureBeat, I4U News, CNET News, Gizmodo, AppleInsider, IntoMobile, GPS Obsessed, Obsessable, Electronista, The Apple Core, iPhone Buzz, Neowin.net and The iPhone Blog
Wall Street Journal:
Google's Clout Grows as Tech Initiatives Take Shape — When a group of chief executives visited the White House last week to talk about stimulus with President Barack Obama, Google Inc.'s Eric Schmidt wasn't hard to spot, perched in a prime seat on the new president's left side.
Microsoft:
Windows 7 Wins on Netbook PCs — Q&A: Brad Brooks, corporate vice president for Windows Consumer Product Marketing, discusses Microsoft's take on netbook PCs and how Microsoft's newest operating system, Windows 7, will support these small computers. — Small, mobile and affordable PCs …
Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:
Exclusive Screenshots Of Bebo 2.0, Launching In February (TWX) — Bebo, the social network Time Warner's (TWX) AOL acquired for $850 million last summer, will launch version 2.0 later this month, Alley Insider has learned in an exclusive. — The biggest addition to Bebo 2.0 will be …
Emil A Eklund / Gmail Blog:
New ways to label with “Move to” and auto-complete — One of the features that makes Gmail different is its use of labels instead of folders. Sure, labels can serve pretty much the same purpose — they can help organize mail or flag messages for follow up.
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Citi Says Amazon Sold 500,000 Kindles Last Year; $1.2 Billion Business Next Year — Amazon is set to unveil Kindle 2.0 next Monday at a New York press event. But how many of the original e-book readers has it sold already? Don't ask Jeff Bezos and company-the Amazon folks delight in keeping …
Discussion:
TechCrunch, AppleInsider, MobileDevicesToday, Roughly Drafted, TechFlash, Electronista, Engadget, Technologizer and Macsimum News
Michael Calore / Epicenter:
Ma.gnolia Using FriendFeed to Restore Users' Data — Necessity is the mother of invention, but it helps to have an open API, too. — Last Friday, social bookmarking site Ma.gnolia suffered a major server meltdown, losing the bulk of its user data as well as its backup.
Thanks:btaylor
Chris Morris / Forbes:
GameFly ‘Shacks’ Up — Online videogame rental company buys Shacknews. — GameFly is buzzing in a new direction. The game-by-mail service has acquired Shacknews, owner of a leading videogame news and community site, along with its sister digital download site for an undisclosed amount.
Discussion:
Big Download Blog
Jeff Hamilton / Google Mobile Blog:
Search with your voice on Android — Don't want to type a long query, like “U.S. economic stimulus plan”, on your T-Mobile G1? Just say it. Or, perhaps you'd like to browse the web without sliding out the keyboard? Well now you can. For those of you with a G1 in the US …
Mark Wilson / Gizmodo:
India's $10 Sakshat Laptop “Announcement” Is a Complete Bust — While we thought that we'd see some incredible unveiling of the India's $10 but really $20 but really $10 laptop, their public announcement today was a complete waste of time and hype. — We know nothing new, save for the name.
Discussion:
Ars Technica, InformationWeek, Electronic Pulp, PC World, Liliputing, GPS Obsessed and Quick Online Tips
Skylar / build.kiva:
Welcome to build.kiva.org! — This is build.kiva.org, our brand-spankin'-new destination for developers wanting to build and extend the microlending platform we've created at Kiva. Over the next few months we plan to shape this into a hub for builders, mashers, and other creative types looking …
Sue McAllister / Mercury News:
Silicon Valley home values plunge at record pace; 20 percent of homes are ‘underwater’ — Against a backdrop of dire economic news and a crumbling stock market, home values in the San Jose metropolitan area dropped more steeply in the fourth quarter of 2008 than anytime in at least 12 years.
Sascha Segan / AppScout:
Motorola: Windows Mobile 7 Coming in 2010 — Motorola had an earnings conference call today with some juicy tidbits embedded in it. Primarily, Moto confirmed that they're losing tons of money and that their handset business is not doing very well at all. So how are they going to turn it around?
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
Fox Demands Site Give Up Fair Use Rights, Run Special Fox Ads, To Do Any Commentary — from the fair-use-doesn't-work-that-way dept — Here's a follow up to our story last Friday about Progress Illinois having its YouTube account restored. The YouTube account had been taken …
Zach Epstein / Boy Genius Report:
BlackBerry Pearl 8130 Flip gets pictured — Well, it's no Curve 8900 and it's certainly no Bold but BlackBerry fans with a need for buttons will be happy to learn that the Pearl 8130 Flip should be landing soon on Verizon shelves near you. This SureType clam shell is probably among RIM's …
Joseph Tartakoff / The Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft launches new product for first time via Webcast — In front of a Web audience of 11,000 and a couple of dozen employees seated in a small Redmond TV studio, Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop launched the latest version of the company's communications offering for businesses Tuesday morning.
Leila Abboud / Wall Street Journal:
SAP Updates Business Software — Giant Takes a Page From Smaller Rivals as It Battles Economy — As it responds to the economic slump, SAP AG plans to imitate the Web-based software makers that have been chipping away at its business. — The German software company will introduce Wednesday …
Tameka Kee / paidContent.org:
Report: Ticketmaster, Live Nation Talking Merger — Ticketmaster and Live Nation (NYSE: LYV) are reportedly in merger talks, according to the WSJ. The deal would create a massive music and entertainment events sales entity—one that would likely garner scrutiny from the DOJ.
Google India Blog:
India Internet Bus Project launches — For the last few years, Google India has worked to increase Internet usage in our country of a billion people via various products such as SMS Search , Voice Search, and Google Map Maker, translating our interfaces into Indian languages.
Mike Harvey / Times of London:
Man killed by ‘exploding mobile phone’ — A man has died after his mobile phone exploded, severing a major artery in his neck, according to reports. — The man, thought to be a shop assistant in his twenties at a computer shop in Guangzhou, China, died after he put a new battery in his phone.
