Top Items:
Vic Gundotra / The Official Google Blog:
See where your friends are with Google Latitude — How often do you find yourself wondering where your friends are and what they're up to? It's a pretty central question to our daily social lives, and it's precisely the question you can now answer using Google Latitude.
Discussion:
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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 …
Discussion:
ReadWriteWeb, Ars Technica, Search Engine Land, Associated Press, Digits, Alexander van Elsas's Weblog …, Mark Evans, Smartphones and Cell Phones and Gadget Lab, Thanks:mrinaldesai
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Google enters the location-based networking fray with Latitude
Google enters the location-based networking fray with Latitude
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider, AppleInsider, PC World, eWeek, Download Squad, TECH.BLORGE.com, PSFK, 9 to 5 Mac, The Register, p2pnet, Electronista and Bits
Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land:
Yahoo Starting To Roll Out “Search Pad” Feature — Formerly known as “Research Assistant” Yahoo is starting to introduce (to selected users) what it's now calling “Search Pad,” an application that automatically collects sites and content as users conduct online research.
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Yahoo! Search Blog:
Search Pad: Making Online Research Easier — If you've ever used a search engine as a tool to help plan a vacation, research a purchase, or find health information on an illness, you know how difficult it is to keep track of the relevant websites and notes you find.
Rafael / Within Windows:
Windows 7 auto-elevation mistake lets malware elevate freely, easily — As you probably know by now, Windows 7 introduces some new in-between modes for User Account Control (UAC). By default, Windows 7 (beta thus far) ships with UAC configured at the “Notify me only when programs try to make changes to my computer.” level.
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Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Microsoft's worst nightmare: Windows 7 deemed less secure than Vista — While Microsoft officials won't say it (at least not publicly), one of Windos 7's main selling points is likely to be that it's the “anti-Vista.” It will be faster, smaller, more reliable and... less secure?
Discussion:
Gizmodo
Zach Epstein / Boy Genius Report:
Sprint EOL list reveals target Palm Pre launch, plenty more — Sprint customers, have you found yourself wondering what Hesse & Co. have in store for you this year beyond the illustrious Palm Pre? Don't worry, you're not alone. While we can't post the list itself, one of our ninjas came through …
Discussion:
Crave, techblog.dallasnews.com, Engadget, CrunchGear, Gizmodo, IntoMobile, SlashGear, GPS Obsessed and Electronista
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
How Harvard Law threw down the gauntlet to the RIAA — Inside one Harvard Law professor's bid to turn his students into cyberactivists and to force the music industry to face the future in the process. — In retrospect, Harvard's eventual involvement was obvious.
Business Wire:
Time Warner Cable Reports 2008 Full-Year and Fourth-Quarter Results — NEW YORK—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE: TWC - News) today reported financial results for its full year and fourth quarter ended December 31, 2008. — Time Warner Cable President and Chief Executive Officer Glenn Britt …
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Amol Sharma / Wall Street Journal:
AT&T Seeks Verizon Wireless Assets — In the bidding for the roughly $3 billion in wireless assets Verizon Wireless must divest as part of its purchase of Alltel Corp., one strong but controversial contender is emerging: AT&T Inc. — The Dallas-based telecommunications giant …
Hiroshi Suzuki / Bloomberg:
Panasonic Will Cut About 15,000 Jobs as First Loss in Six Years Looms — Feb. 4 (Bloomberg) — Panasonic Corp. the world's largest consumer-electronics maker, will cut about 15,000 jobs and predicted its first loss in six years as the deepening recession hurts demand for televisions and cameras.
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Stephen Shankland / Webware.com:
The ‘Twitter Effect’: Possibilities and limits — Is there a “Twitter Effect,” by which the rapid spread of information through the microblogging service can crush a Web site with traffic? As I see it, the answer is yes, but it's not as simple as it might appear at first blush.
Agence France Presse:
RIM reaches settlement on options backdating — MONTREAL, (AFP) - Research in Motion, the Canadian maker of BlackBerry smartphones, announced it had reached a settlement with the Ontario market regulator, which had mulled record fines against the firm's executives.
The Boy Genius / Boy Genius Report:
One of Acer's Mobile World Congress' handsets gets pictured — So, here's the deal... One of our infamous ninjas just sent us a shot of an unreleased and unseen Acer handset. They told us it would be announced by Acer at MWC in a couple weeks, and that it is “pretty awkward.” We agreed.
Discussion:
MobileCrunch, Gadgetell, pocketnow.com, Gizmodo, Unwired View, Android Phone Fans, wmpoweruser.com, SlashGear and I4U News
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Google Asks Time Warner for a $250 Million AOL Refund-Or Something Else? — Here's another eye-poke delivered to Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes (pictured) from Google CEO Eric Schmidt: The search company has asked the media giant to refund the money it invested in AOL three years ago.
David Chartier / Ars Technica:
iLife suite quietly going Intel-only, PowerPC owners cry — iLife '09 contains plenty of new features to convince current Mac owners to upgrade from iLife '08, but there is one unfortunate deterrent for those still on PowerPC-based machines. GarageBand '09 is the first iLife component …
Times of India:
$10-laptop proves to be a damp squib — Text: — TIRUPATI: The much-touted laptop for the masses said to have been built by students of Vellore Institute of Technology that would cost a mere Rs 500 actually turned out to be only a computing device. — Making this clear at the inauguration …
Discussion:
The Hindu, Gizmodo, Obsessable, pluGGd.in, Mobile Computer, SlashGear, MediaNama and CrunchGear
Chris Pendleton / Virtual Earth, An Evangelist's Blog:
Virtual Earth Imagery Release, January 2009 — The engine has been churning for a few months and we've finally pumped out another imagery release - a massive ~100TB worth of data!!! Here's where you can see the latest and greatest including our first use (and a HUGE amount) …
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Apple 2.0:
The great iPod migration — How will Apple (AAPL) persuade 100 million iPod users to trade up to an iPhone? That's the problem Bernstein Research's Toni Sacconaghi tackles in a report to clients Wednesday. — His answer: Make an iPhone that comes without a data plan — currently $30 a month in the United States.
Joanna Stern / LAPTOP Mag:
ASUS Eee PC 1000HE Arrives Boasting a New Keyboard and Intel Atom N280 Processor — ASUS announced yesterday the upcoming availability of its its new $399 Eee PC 1000HE, and lo and behold this morning the netbook stork dropped off the newest addition to the Eee family.
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Facebook at 5: Remembering the Early Years, and Measuring Up Against Google — Happy Birthday, Facebook! You're 5 years old today, and that's pretty cool. But the party you're throwing yourself? Not much fun. — How about this instead: Some brief reminiscing, via …
Wilson Rothman / Gizmodo:
Garmin and Asus Join Mobile Forces, Launch Co-Branded Nuvifone Line — Forget Eee Phones: Garmin and Asus have created a strategic alliance to design, build and sell co-branded Nuvifones, starting with the original one—now called G60—and moving towards Windows Mobile and Android.
Discussion:
PC Magazine, Associated Press, pocketnow.com, Maximum PC all, Android Phone Fans, IntoMobile, Boy Genius Report, Engadget and Electronista
Ryan Kairer / PalmInfocenter:
Donna Dubinsky Resigning from Palm's Board — Donna Dubinsky, former Palm CEO and one of the original founders, is planning to resign from her seat on Palm's board of directors. Elevations recent additional $100 million equity deal also included the right for the investment group to appoint …
David Kaplan / paidContent.org:
NYT's Keller: We're Looking For Ways To Charge For Online Content Again — In a Q&A with readers concerned about the precarious financial state of the newspaper this week, NYT Editor Bill Keller was asked if the paper would consider charging for online content again. Keller says that the company isn't making any new plans.
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider
Arn / MacRumors:
New Snow Leopard Build (10A261) Seeded to Developers — Macitynet.it reports that Apple has seeded developers with a new version of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. The latest build is said to be 10A261. The prior version of Snow Leopard delivered to developers was in December (build 10A222).
Eric Krangel / Silicon Alley Insider:
Electronic Arts: We're Focusing On The Wii (ERTS) — Electronic Arts' (ERTS) earnings yesterday disappointed again: The company posted earnings of only 56 cents a share against an analyst consensus estimate of $0.88 EPS. — So what's the plan to recover? For one, cut expenses, to the tune of 12 studio closings and 1100 layoffs.
Discussion:
Boy Genius Report
Reuters:
Orange fails in bid to resurrect French iPhone deal — * Paris Appeal Court confirms suspension of deal with Apple — * Orange could lose 200 mln eur in 2009 revenue says analyst — * France Telecom to take case to highest court — France's leading mobile operator Orange failed …
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Google & The Big Ideas — Sometimes, a tweet is just a tweet. Occasionally it is just a start of a healthy debate! — Earlier today, when I read about Google launching a mobile version of Tasks, I was amazed by the attention being focused on what is essentially a to-do list web site.
Michael Calore / Epicenter:
Christians Bailing on GoDaddy Due to ‘Immoral’ Advertising — GoDaddy's famously risque Super Bowl ads always pull lots of eyeballs, but the company's latest spots may have resulted in a little too much attention of the wrong kind. — Entrepreneur Brian Harrell, who manages hosting services …