Top Items:
Richard Jones / Last.fm:
“Techcrunch are full of s**t” — On Friday night a technology blog called Techcrunch posted a vicious and completely false rumour about us: that Last.fm handed data to the RIAA so they could track who's been listening to the “leaked” U2 album. — I denied it vehemently on the Techcrunch article …
Discussion:
Download Squad, Neowin.net, blogs.telegraph.co.uk …, Pulse2, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Technovia, Consumerist and digg.com
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Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:
RIAA denies rumors that Last.fm turned over user data — Contrary to recent rumors, Last.fm did not hand over user data to the RIAA after U2's yet-to-be-released album leaked online last week. In fact, no such request was even made, according to both the RIAA and Last.fm.
John Herrman / Gizmodo:
iTunes Concept Shows How iPhone App Management Should Have Worked From the Start — Add, delete, rate, and move—these are your app options on the iPhone. This interface concept, though, puts full app management within iTunes, and makes us wonder why it wasn't there in the first place.
Saul Hansell / Bits:
Surprise: America is No. 1 in Broadband — There is a constant refrain that the United States is falling behind in broadband, as if the speed of Internet service in Seoul represents a new Sputnik that is a challenge to national security. — It's certainly true that in some countries …
Discussion:
GigaOM, Between the Lines, DSLreports, Zoli's Blog, CloudAve, blogs.chron.com, dailywireless.org, CircleID, Gizmodo and New York Times
Katie Marsal / AppleInsider:
AT&T rivals seen driving down cost of iPhone service — Tough macroeconomic conditions are causing wireless carriers like Sprint and T-Mobile to become more aggressive with pricing of their monthly service plans, a move which could ultimately help drive down the cost of owning an iPhone.
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Tim O'Reilly / Forbes:
Why Kindle Should Be An Open Book — Unless Amazon embraces open standards, the Kindle's lead will become a very short story. — SEBASTOPOL, Calif. — The Amazon Kindle has sparked huge media interest in e-books and has seemingly jump-started the market.
Discussion:
TeleRead
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
AOL Socializes Even More With New Lifestream — As part of its ongoing rejiggering of its social-networking offerings, AOL is formally rolling out its expected Lifestream platform today, with a new “timeline” depicting a user's online life in a streaming horizontal calendar called a Lifestory.
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Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
The Yahoo Management Structure: Who Is In and Who Is Out? — On Friday, BoomTown first reported that new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz is likely to be announcing a sweeping new management structure soon, which can only mean the possibility that some existing top execs are likely to be broomed out, even as some new ones are ushered in.
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider, Contentinople, WebProNews, Search Engine Land and Gawker, Thanks:atul
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch UK:
The day iTunes died? Spotify is working on a killer iPhone app — Ever since hot streaming music startup Spotify hired a director of “portable solutions” you just knew they were going to do something cool in mobile. And frankly there is no cooler place to do it right now than on the iPhone.
Stuart Dredge / Music Ally:
iPhone apps for Lady Gaga, Pussycat Dolls and other UMG artists — Interscope Geffen A&M is launching iPhone applications for five of its key artists, through a partnership with mobile firm Kyte. The five are Lady Gaga, the Pussycat Dolls, Soulja Boy Tell 'Em, the All American Rejects, and Keri Hilson.
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Red Dog: Can you teach old Windows hounds new tricks? — It has been four months since Microsoft took the official wraps off its cloud-computing initiative. Yet still relatively little still is known about the Azure platform and plans. — The part of Azure which intrigued …
Wall Street Journal:
Information Wants to Be Expensive — Newspapers need to act like they're worth something. — With newspapers in cities across the country on the brink, an old idea is being resurrected in the hope of saving them: They should charge for access to their journalism on the Internet.
Spencer E. Ante / Business Week:
Startups in a Downturn — Entrepreneurs who helped build their startups into tech stalwarts—companies like Cisco, Oracle, and Google—share lessons on how to thrive during tough times — December 1987 was no time to be raising money for a startup. Computer engineer Len Bosack was trying …
Martyn Williams / Macworld:
IPhone-controlled car to demo at Geneva Motor Show — It can send e-mails, play video, access the Web and snap pictures, but control a car? Swiss automobile design house Rinspeed will unveil a concept electric car controlled by an iPhone at next week's Geneva Motor Show.
Tim Stevens / Engadget:
MSI unveils new X-Slim models ahead of CeBIT — We certainly aren't tired of the X-Slim 320 laptop from MSI, with its Air-like form-factor in less expensive and slightly more practical packaging — it's still many moons away from release, after all. Despite that, MSI felt the need to announce …
Howard Kurtz / Washington Post:
The Social Network Twitter Is Becoming Something of a Hangout for High-Profile TV Anchors — The sun was not yet up when David Gregory checked in with his followers: — “646 am. Just got to NBC. Almost showtime. Betsy just sent me Frank Rich piece. Actually read during night.
Discussion:
Tech President
New York Times:
The Media Baron and His Soft Spot — Rupert Murdoch had an office built for him at The Wall Street Journal within days of buying it 14 months ago, and he has made ample use of it — ordering up a wave of changes in the once-staid paper's content and culture, from the addition of a weekly sports page …
Rac / ubiq_uitous communication …:
Apple wireless keyboard used with an iPhone — Here is a short video showing the interacting devices (Apple wireless keyboard, iPhone, communicating over Bluetooth) in operation. — Feels like getting closer to the “mainstreaming” goal - it uses hardware that comes of the shelf …
Greg Sandoval / CNET News:
Why Web radio faces another crisis — Few people know this but for a little while last year, the music-royalty rates that Web radio stations have complained about for years appeared to be behind them. — In a midtown Manhattan law office last November 6, representatives from Webcasting companies …
Discussion:
p2pnet
Wayne Schulz / Gear Diary:
Mini USB to Micro USB adapter solves BlackBerry charger incompatibility issues - $1.94 — You can explain all you want about how Research in Motion had to switch from Mini USB to Micro USB (comparison photo here) to save space on their new BlackBerry Storm, BlackBerry 8220 and BlackBerry Curve 8900.
GamesIndustry.biz:
Funcom CFO resigns following $23.3m loss — Funcom has reported its financial results for the fourth quarter, revealing an operating loss of USD 23.3 million, caused by a depreciation of USD 22.8 million due to the lagging performance of Age of Conan. — The poor performance is compounded …
Softpedia News:
OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Build 10A261 Highlights — The latest OS X 10.6 build has multiple observable (some intriguing) changes — World of Apple, who usually posts entire sets of release notes / seed notes the instant Apple makes a new move in the Snow Leopard area, has “refrained” …
Discussion:
AppleInsider
Connie Guglielmo / Bloomberg:
Jobs Health Concerns Swirl as Apple Holds Annual Meeting Without Its CEO — Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) — Apple Inc. will hold its annual meeting this week without Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs, his first absence since he reclaimed leadership of the company more than a decade ago.
Discussion:
CNET News, Silicon Alley Insider, Macsimum News, AppleInsider, Softpedia News, 9 to 5 Mac and Gizmodo
Brian Prince / eWeek:
Survey: Axed Employees Often Walk Out with Corporate Data — A study of people who left or lost their jobs in 2008 found close to 60 percent kept corporate data after leaving. The survey, performed by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by Symantec, included more than 900 responses and found …
Discussion:
Computerworld
Byron Acohido / USA Today:
Internet threat: Hackers swarm bank accounts — New and nasty banking trojans are on the rise on the Internet and attacking online bank accounts. — The new trojan programs — which wait on your hard drive for an opportunity to crack your online banking account — are different from traditional …
