Top Items:
Alexander Haislip / PE Hub Blog:
Andreessen Launches VC Fund — Marc Andreessen confirmed that he has launched a venture capital fund with former Opsware executive Ben Horowitz after running an angel fund with him since 2007. — Andreessen, who became synonymous with Internet success programming the browsing software that drove Netscape …
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Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Andreessen on Charlie Rose: “I Am Creating A Fund.” (Full Video) — Marc Andreessen appeared on Charlie Rose last night. (The entire interview is embedded above). He gave Rose a primer on everything from Facebook and cloud computing to the mobile Web. But he also tells Rose: “I'm creating a fund.”
Discussion:
VentureBeat
Jesse / A foot and a half:
Finally, A Use for Twitter — Sean informed me a few days ago that he had been following “The Real Shaq” on twitter. — “You realize that ‘The Real Shaq’ is probably a 5'4 White, 14 year old emo kid who's getting his jolly's from the attention, right?” I asked him. — “I don't know.
Jay Hathaway / Download Squad:
Last.fm not really sharing data with RIAA — Have you torrented the new U2 album? We won't tell, and neither will Last.fm, if those unreleased tracks show up on your listening profile. That's not what TechCrunch is saying, though. Earlier today, they reported that Last.fm turned …
Discussion:
digg.com
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Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:Did Last.fm Just Hand Over User Listening Data To the RIAA?
Discussion:
digg.com
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Cable Guys Plan Their Own Hulus: Anyone Interested in “Authentication” or “Entitlement”? — What's better than Hulu, the video service that lets you watch your favorite TV shows on your laptop? A service that lets you watch even more TV shows on your laptop-if you're a cable TV subscriber.
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Declan McCullagh / CNET News:
Data retention bills to benefit copyright holders — If a new federal proposal announced this week requiring Internet providers and Wi-Fi access points to keep records on users for two years becomes law, police would not be the only ones to benefit. — So would individuals …
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Brian Caulfield / Forbes:
Ditch Your iPhone — With the first wave of iPhone contracts expiring in June, consumers have plenty of other options. — Imagine a smart phone that worked on only one carrier's network. Now add in the cost of a wallet-draining $20 monthly data plan. The thing has no keyboard …
Stuart Foster / The Lost Jacket:
OUT WITH A WHIMPER, NOT A BANG — Way back in August - that's like 8 years for those using the site — Digg went on a banning spree, kicking off users left and right for using scripts that, for the most part, enhanced the Digg experience rather than cheating it. — Many of the users left and never came back.
Discussion:
Invoke
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
OMG! Did Google Earth find Atlantis? — Google is officially denying widespread Internet rumors that its Google Earth software located the mythical sunken city of Atlantis off the coast of Africa. Either that, or Google is totally trying to hide something.
Discussion:
VoIP & Gadgets Blog, Ogle Earth, Press Association, techblog.dallasnews.com, Bits, VentureBeat, Danger Room and digg.com, Thanks:dreamsketcher
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Matthew Moore / Telegraph:Google Ocean: Has Atlantis been found off Africa?
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TECH.BLORGE.com, Gawker, Obsessable, Ogle Earth, broadstuff, GPS Obsessed, Digital Daily, Computerworld Blogs, Google Maps Mania, The Sun and Perceptric Forum
Tim Culpan / Bloomberg:
Asustek May Use Google's Android in Netbooks, in Challenge for Microsoft — Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) — Asustek Computer Inc., which pioneered the market for sub-$500 laptops, may install Google Inc.'s free Android operating system on its low-cost notebooks, challenging the dominance of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows software.
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Twitter slowly turning back on the SMS spigot — Back in November of last year, Canadian Twitter users were outraged when the service had to end its support for inbound SMS (text messages) updates due to rising costs. Today brings good news for some of these users: SMS support is back if you happen to be a Bell Mobility subscriber.
Sarah Lacy / TechCrunch:
Why the Smart VCs Are Boarding their Jets — I started my career as a finance reporter covering wonky subjects like banks, bonds and agribusiness. I ended up in Silicon Valley covering tech, because it was the late 1990s, and I was doing what finance reporters are supposed to do: Follow the money.
Brad Stone / Bits:
EBay Founder Tweets About an Unusual Lawsuit — Leave it to Twitter, the microblogging service, to persuade a stubbornly private billionaire to chronicle his daily activities in short, 140-character bursts. — That is what has happened to Pierre Omidyar, the eBay founder, philanthropist and start-up investor.
Mary Pilon / Digits:
Exploring Twitter Ties — While the world has been a-Twitter over the Shorty Awards, Fashion Week and whether advertisers are going to be charged per tweet, some scholars have been digging in. — Bernardo Huberman, Daniel Romero and Fang Wu of Hewlett-Packard Laboratories …
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Pirate Bay: survey says that 80% of our torrents are legal — Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi took the stand today at his trial and attacked the notion that The Pirate Bay is stuffed to the crow's nest with illegal content. Not true, he said; his own survey of 1,000 torrents suggested that most were legal.
John Cook / TechFlash:
Microsoft's workforce grew in January ... before layoffs — Microsoft's headcount grew during the month of January — that is before layoffs were factored in. The company employed 95,943 employees worldwide in January, meaning it added a net total of 115 workers when compared to December, according to figures released today.
Rex Sorgatz / Silicon Alley Insider:
Can 4chan Turn 300 Million Pageviews Into A Business? — (This interview was originally published on Fimoculous) — Like many successful internet phenomena, 4chan is a shockingly simple idea: an online bulletin board where anyone can post pictures. — This simplicity is deceptive.
Andy Greenberg / Forbes:
Sketching Obama's Cyberplans — The transition team's former cyberguru talks about how Obama will handle the $30 billion Cyber Initiative. — President Obama may be focused on implementing the massive $787 billion stimulus plan he signed earlier this week.
Jenna Wortham / Bits:
Baby Boomers, Luddites? Not So Fast. — It's probably safe to say that Whopper Sacrifice, Burger King's impish Facebook campaign that offered users free burgers in exchange for dropping 10 friends, wasn't aimed at retirees. But maybe it should have been.
Sean Michael Kerner:
Ubuntu's next release: Karmic Koala — From the ‘wacky names r us’ files: — From the great minds that brought us the Hoary Hedgehog, Intrepid Ibex,Dapper Drake and Jaunty Jackalope comes the next wacky name for an Ubuntu Linux release: Karmic Koala. — Ubuntu has always had wacky names and Karmic Koala continues the tradition.
Discussion:
Ars Technica
Aidan Malley / AppleInsider:
Video of claimed next-gen Mac Mini surfaces online — After being challenged over a still image, the source for what seems a leaked future Mac mini has now posted a video that shows the device from all sides. — While its authenticity has been disputed, the mystery system has gained …
