Top Items:
Google Book Search Blog:
1.5 million books in your pocket — Posted by Viresh Ratnakar, Guillaume Poncin, Brandon Badger, and Frances Haugen, Book Search Mobile Team — One of the great things about an iPhone or Android phone is being able to play Pacman while stuck in line at the post office.
Kasper Jade / AppleInsider:
Apple's Snow Leopard to include location, multi-touch tools — Apple's Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard operating system will include tools borrowed from the iPhone that let developers determine the geographical location of Macs, as well as extend additional support for multi-touch to their apps, AppleInsider has learned.
Mike Schroepfer / Facebook Developers:
Next Steps in Openness — Enabling social information to flow through the Web is one of the core goals of Facebook. In the two months since Facebook Connect became generally available, over 4,000 sites and desktop applications have gone live with the service.
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OpenID:
Facebook joins OpenID Foundation Board with a commitment to better user experience — Today we're excited to join Facebook's Mike Schroepfer in announcing that they have joined the OpenID Foundation's board as a sustaining corporate member. — Luke Shepard, a key member of Facebook's Platform …
Katie Marsal / AppleInsider:
Apple planning connected television, Apple TV with DVR - report — Although Apple has publicly denied interest in such markets, investment bank Piper Jaffray said Thursday it expects the company to introduce a networked television in the next two years and update its Apple TV set-top-box with DVR capabilities by year's end.
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Market Wire:
JAJAH Turns iPod Touch Into an iPhone — White Label Solution Enables Any Carrier to Provide High Quality Calls and text Messaging via the iPod Touch — JAJAH, the leading IP telecommunications company, today announced a complete revamp of the iPod touch, turning the device into a fully functioning mobile phone for consumers.
Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Microsoft offers to just ‘Fix it’ — When people encounter a problem with their PC, they often go to the Web and do a search to see if others have had the problem. If they are lucky, someone has found a fix and listed the steps on either a support document or within a user forum.
Douglas Bowman / Stopdesign:
Recreating the button — Until some future version of HTML gives us new native controls to use in a browser, at Google, we've been playing and experimenting with controls we call “custom buttons” in our apps (among other custom controls). These buttons just launched in Gmail yesterday …
Brooke Crothers / CNET News:
Nvidia-based Microsoft smartphone coming? — Nvidia's Tegra chip will be used in an upcoming Microsoft smartphone, according to an analyst at Broadpoint AmTech. — The San Francisco-based research firm also is speculating that Apple will eventually use the Nvidia ARM-based chip in a future iPhone.
Discussion:
GigaOM, GPS Obsessed, techblog.dallasnews.com, EE Times, InformationWeek and dailywireless.org
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Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
Offline Google Calendar — Some Google Apps users noticed a new option in Google Calendar: read-only offline access to the calendars using Google Gears. Mark Mathson has screenshots for the new feature, but it's surprising to see that Google Apps users, who usually received the updates later …
Discussion:
TechCrunch, eWeek, Keenpath, Lifehacker, Epicenter and Download Squad, Thanks:markmathson
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Engineering Windows 7:
Update on UAC — Hi, Jon DeVaan here to talk to you about the recent UAC feedback we've been receiving. — Most of our work finishing Windows 7 is focused on responding to feedback. The UAC feedback is interesting on a few dimensions of engineering decision making process.
Discussion:
The Register, ChannelWeb, SC Magazine US, eWeek, TG Daily, Tim Anderson's ITWriting, Neowin.net, Engadget and All about Microsoft
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David Pogue / New York Times:
So Many iPhone Apps, So Little Time — Who was it who wrote, in March 2008, just after Apple announced its intention to create an online app store for the iPhone, “You're witnessing the birth of a third major computer platform: Windows, Mac OS X, iPhone”? — Oh, right—that was me.
GadgetGirl / Gaj-It.com:
Shush! Samsung Acme i8910 is Leaked — Be the first to hear it here, as we have exclusive leaked photos sent to Gaj-It showing Samsungs latest addition to their eclectic portfolio of mobile phones. This new, but very ‘hush hush’ arrival is the Samsung Acme i8910, however …
Discussion:
SlashGear, WMExperts, PhoneReport v2.0, Unwired View, Gizmodo, Boy Genius Report and Mobilewhack.com, Thanks:patrickaltoft
Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
Meebo launches Facebook chat, officially and securely this time — Instant message service aggregator Meebo is launching the first officially sanctioned version of Facebook's IM service, Chat, to work on another web site. Basically, it lets you IM with friends who are logged into Chat …
Mike Anderiesz / Guardian:
‘We simply have to suffer,’ says Sony — For a man whose employer has just recorded its worst Christmas in years, David Reeves seems surprisingly calm. Indeed, speaking last Thursday, the day Sony announced third-quarter losses of Y18bn (£141m), he sounded more like a corner-man psyching …
Discussion:
Neowin.net, CrunchGear, Gizmodo, PC World, Engadget, TechSpot, Silicon Alley Insider and Joystiq
The Boy Genius / Boy Genius Report:
Verizon Wireless BlackBerry BOGO sale, buy one get one free! — We just got a heads up that tomorrow, Verizon Wireless will start a BlackBerry BOGO sale. What's BOGO mean? Buy One Get One (free)! Here's the breakdown on how this will work, when you'll be able to do it, and what's included …
Will Park / IntoMobile:
Is Apple working on a next-gen iPhone with customized multi-core chips? — By now it's an accepted fact that Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) has loosed a fleet of unannounced iPhones for real-world testing. And, true to Apple's usually secretive ways, the new “iPhone 2,1” feature-set is still a mystery.
Eric Engleman / TechFlash:
Amazon opens up payments platform to all developers — Amazon.com is making its Flexible Payments Service broadly available today. The service, which had been in limited beta, lets third-party developers tap into Amazon's existing payment infrastructure — letting them charge customers using …
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
The Wall Street Journal Lays Off 14; Dow Jones Newswire Untouched — Here are some of those cost-cutting measures Rupert Murdoch was talking about during today's News Corp. (NWS) earnings call: The Wall Street Journal is laying off 14 people in its editorial group, managing editor Robert Thomson announced this afternoon.
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Condé Makes Another Digital Move: Someone to Sell Ads — Another sign that magazine heavyweight Condé Nast would eventually like to start making money from the Web: It's appointed someone to run the sales force of its digital properties. — Condé has tapped former Wired publisher …
Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:
Canadian government eyes open source, asks for feedback — The Canadian government is looking to shave costs wherever it can and is now eyeing open source software as one way to accomplish that goal. — The government of Canada has issued an official Request For Information (RFI) …
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Is Wonderwall Gonna Be the One That Saves MSN? — In an interesting and innovative move compared to what has typically been less-than-hip online programming over the years, Microsoft's MSN service is debuting a slick new celebrity site called Wonderwall today-created, designed and produced …
Discussion:
Zatz Not Funny!, Microsoft, Contentinople, TechFlash, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, PC World, Don Dodge on The Next … and The Social
Gautham Nagesh / Nextgov.com:
Kundra said to be Obama's pick for OMB e-gov chief — The Obama administration plans to announce it has appointed Vivek Kundra, the District of Columbia's chief technology officer to take the top information technology post in the federal government, according to a source.
Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
Google Chrome Will Have Extensions by May — Nicholas Moline noticed an interesting session from Google I/O, a developer conference that will be held in May. — Developing extensions for Google Chrome — “Learn how Google Chrome makes it easy to write extensions using the web technologies you already know.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, Nick.pro, The Open Road, Mashable, Obsessable and OStatic blogs, Thanks:sampad
BBC:
Privacy fears over Google tracker — Google has announced a new feature that allows users to share their locations among a chosen network of friends. — The “opt-in” Latitude service uses data from mobile phone masts, GPS, or wi-fi hardware to update a user's location automatically.
Microsoft:
Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification for February 2009 — Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification issued: February 5, 2009 — Microsoft Security Bulletins to be issued: February 10, 2009 — This is an advance notification of security bulletins that Microsoft is intending to release on February 10, 2009.
Dave Caolo / TUAW:
First Look: Analytics for iPhone — Google Analytics is a popular and quite useful set of tools for monitoring a web site's traffic and performance. Set up is a snap and the reports are easy to read and flexible. You can create goals, monitor traffic and so on. What more could you want?
New York Times:
Digital Pirates Winning Battle With Studios — On the day last July when “The Dark Knight” arrived in theaters, Warner Brothers was ready with an ambitious antipiracy campaign that involved months of planning and steps to monitor each physical copy of the film. — The campaign failed miserably.
Agence France Presse:
MIT researchers make ‘sixth sense’ gadget — LONG BEACH, California (AFP) — US university researchers have created a portable “sixth sense” device powered by commercial products that can seamlessly channel Internet information into daily routines. — The device created by Massachusetts Institute …
Wall Street Journal:
A Makeover for Your Google Results — For years, I winced at what popped up when I Googled my name. — The top result of a search on “Julia Angwin” was an article I wrote for The Wall Street Journal in 2005 after I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was indicted for leaking the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame.
