Top Items:
Thai Tran / YouTube Blog:
YouTube Goes Offline — We are always looking for ways to make it easier for you to find, watch, and share videos. Many of you have told us that you wanted to take your favorite videos offline. So we've started working with a few partners who want their videos shared universally and even enjoyed away from an Internet connection.
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Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
Download and Buy Videos from YouTube — YouTube includes a new section for “My Videos”: a list of purchased videos. A YouTube help page has more details about the new feature: … Videos are available to download in the MP4 format and some of them can be downloaded for free and they're …
Discussion:
VentureBeat, Search Engine Watch, WebProNews, Macworld, Pulse2, Lifehacker and Obsessable, Thanks:labnol
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Doomed: why Wikipedia will fail — A cyberlaw professor argues that Wikipedia is doomed. The online encyclopedia will need to choose between being “high quality” and “open,” but both choices are fraught with risk. — Law professor Eric Goldman loves Wikipedia, but he's also convinced …
Gary Allen / ifoAppleStore:
Apple Plans Major Store Space Reorganization — On the heels of an iPhone/iPod display table make-over, Apple plans to entirely reorganize and refocus space within the stores to emphasize customer education, and software over hardware. The change would be the third major interior design for the stores …
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Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
Android Vulnerability So Dangerous, Users Warned Not to Use Phone's Web Browser — Over the weekend at the Schmoocon hacker conference in Washington D.C., security researcher Charlie Miller presented a new vulnerability in Google's mobile OS Android which allows hackers to remotely …
Latest Adrian's Rojak Pot Updates:
The Microsoft Windows 7 Upgrade Program Rev. 2.1 — The Microsoft Windows 7 Upgrade Program — Microsoft issued a draft of the Windows 7 Technical Guarantee Program to their OEM partners on December 10, giving them exactly one month to provide their feedback before Microsoft finalizes the program details.
Discussion:
Engadget, BetaNews, SlashGear, Lifehacker, Maximum PC all, CrunchGear, Boing Boing Gadgets, TweakTown News, Neowin.net and bit-tech.net
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Wall Street Journal:
More Tech Start-Ups Call It Quits — As Funding Dries Up, Fledgling Silicon Valley Firms Are Shutting Down; Fears of Chill on Innovation — The deepening recession is speeding up the shakeout in Silicon Valley, forcing droves of start-ups to shut down or sell themselves at fire-sale prices.
Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:
Don't Click! No Really! Don't Even Think About it! — Twitter is falling prey to a major security flaw right now. The service is getting swamped with messages that say: “Don't Click” and a URL. Apparently, this hack has been around for over two weeks, but it only really took off today.
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Wall Street Journal:
Facebook, Nokia Discuss Alliance — Battle Over Social-Networking Users Extends Into Cellphone Market — Facebook Inc. is stepping up its efforts to integrate its social network into an array of mobile phones, including those made by Nokia Corp., the world's largest handset maker.
Discussion:
Agence France Presse, last100, GigaOM, MediaFile, Mashable!, FierceMobileContent, BoomTown, The Social, SlashGear, paidContent.org, Phone Scoop, Music Ally and Bloomberg
Benjamin Grol / Gmail Blog:
Four changes to Gmail contacts — Over the past few days we've made a lot of small changes to Gmail's contact manager which, combined, should make it easier to organize the contacts you want and get rid of some of the cruft. Here's a quick summary: — 1. Contact merge (and an important caveat about auto-complete)
Michael Liedtke / Associated Press:
Facebook appraisal pegs company's value at $3.7B — Facebook Inc. quickly concluded it wasn't worth anywhere near the $15 billion market value implied in a 2007 investment made by Microsoft Corp., according to confidential information obtained Wednesday from court documents.
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Caroline McCarthy / The Social:Facebook valuation ‘shocker’ another reason to be skeptical of media hype
Nokia Beta Labs blog:
Contacts on Ovi beta database failed - my deepest and most sincere apologies — Written by: Kristian Luoma, Product Manager, Contacts on Ovi. — Hey, — Something bad happened yesterday. A cooler broke down in the hosting center that we run the Chat service in.
Discussion:
The Register, Data Center Knowledge, SlashGear, Unwired View, PrePoint and All About Symbian
John Leyden / The Register:
MS puts up $250K bounty for Conficker author — Zombie masterminds wanted undead or alive — Microsoft is offering a $250,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the virus writers behind the infamous Conficker (Downadup) worm.
Opera Press Room:
Opera unveils turbo-charged browsing at Mobile World Congress 2009 — Just when you thought browsing couldn't get any faster, Opera unveils its latest innovation for better browsing, Opera Turbo. This all-new, turbo-charged way to surf will make its exclusive appearance at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona from February 16-19, 2009.
Wilson Rothman / Gizmodo:
Garmin-Asus Nuvifone M20: A Surprisingly Cute WinMo 6.1 GPS Phone — Garmin-Asus will launch the M20, a Windows Mobile 6.1 phone, sometime this year. True to the name, this cute touchscreen handset comes with car dock and a full set of GPS maps for deep-country use.
Discussion:
Garmin-Asus, Engadget, NEWSFACTOR, CNET News, eWeek, Between the Lines, IntoMobile, The Apple Core, MobileCrunch, Gearlog, Boy Genius Report, Electronista and SlashPhone
Dylan Casey / The Official Google Blog:
Happy trails with My Tracks for Android-powered phones — Today I'm pleased to announce the new My Tracks application for Android-powered phones such as the T-Mobile G1. My Tracks records tracks of outdoor activities using the phone's built-in GPS. It shows these tracks on a map …
Discussion:
Search Engine Land, WebProNews, VentureBeat, InformationWeek and Google Mobile Blog, Thanks:atul
Susan Wojcicki / Traditional Media:
Google Exits Radio but Will Explore Online Streaming Audio — Labels: Announcements, Google Audio Ads — At Google we've never shied away from high-risk, high-reward projects. We believe that making big bets is not only in the best interests of our users and partners, but also important for our long term success.
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Innovative iPhone Developer Smule Raises $3.9 Million — Smule is one of our favorite iPhone developers - besides putting together ridiculously addictive apps like Ocarina (iTunes Link), the team is also especially adept at tapping into the iPhone's network effect, even on something as basic as a virtual lighter.
Discussion:
VentureBeat
Tarmo Virki / Reuters:
Google plans data centre at old Finnish paper mill — * Stora sells old paper plant to Google — * Google says plans to open data centre at site (Releads, adds Google comments) — Google (GOOG.O) said on Thursday it aimed to build a data centre at an old paper mill in southeastern Finland …
Discussion:
TechCrunch, paidContent, Search Engine Land, Stora Enso, Data Center Knowledge, Computerworld, Beyond Search and BuzzMachine
China.org.cn:
China Unicom in talks with Apple over iPhone — China Unicom, one of China's big three telecoms carriers, has started negotiations with Apple Inc. over the launch of iPhone in China, China Business News reported Wednesday. — “Yes, we are in talks with Apple Inc.,” a manager told the newspaper.
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Skyfire integrates an activity stream with Twitter, Facebook and feed support — Skyfire, the mobile browser which touts itself as translating the desktop web browsing experience to mobile phones, has a useful new feature today: Activity streams. The browser now has a default area which allows …
Robin Goad / Hitwise Intelligence:
The Telegraph: how to pick up traffic from Digg — The Telegraph recently ran an excellent story that included our recent Twitter data. While reading the article I noticed the Digg widget illustrated in the picture below on the newspaper's homepage. Launched last October it lists …
Discussion:
WebProNews
TeleNav Press Releases:
TeleNav Launches First GPS Navigation Service for Android-Powered Mobile Phones — TeleNav GPS Navigator™ available later this month on the T-Mobile G1 — Beginning February 24, 2009, T-Mobile G1 customers will have access to full-color, 3D, turn-by-turn GPS navigation from TeleNav.
Discussion:
Crave, Android Community, Boy Genius Report, Gadget Lab, jkOnTheRun, dailywireless.org and Phone Scoop
Dana Blankenhorn / Open Source:
How Mozilla can save Windows Mobile — A small team at the Mozilla Foundation is working on a new version of the Firefox browser, code-named Fennec, and a pre-alpha version is now online for trial. All this was announced on Mozilla's development blog. — The new version, 3.1 …
Arn / MacRumors:
Snow Leopard Adds Minor Often Requested Tweaks: Put Back, Stack Folder Navigation — With the absence of major new user interface features in Snow Leopard, we're left discussing some rather minor (though frequently requested) tweaks found in the latest developer builds of Mac OS X 10.6.
Wendy Davis / MediaPost:
Judge Orders Topix To Reveal Users' ID Info — A judge in Texas has ordered the site Topix to reveal identifying information about 178 anonymous commenters who allegedly defamed two residents online. — The commenters had written about Mark and Rhonda Lesher, a Clarksville …
Chris Albrecht / NewTeeVee:
Lost Finds 1.4 Million Viewers On ABC.com — For the first time, Nielsen has released public rankings of individual TV shows watched on network web sites. Lost was the big winner in December, pulling in more than 1.4 million viewers on ABC.com, followed by Saturday Night Live …
Discussion:
VatorNews
Esteban Israel / Reuters:
Cuba launches own Linux variant to counter U.S. — HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba launched its own variant of the Linux computer operating system this week in the latest front of the communist island's battle against what it views as U.S. hegemony. — The Cuban variant, called Nova …
