Top Items:
Justin Smith / Inside Facebook:
Facebook's “In-House Sociologist” Shares Stats on Users' Social Behavior — The famous Dunbar number, or “theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships”, is generally accepted to be about 150. However, in a recent interview with The Economist …
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Economist:
Primates on Facebook — Even online, the neocortex is the limit — THAT Facebook, Twitter and other online social networks will increase the size of human social groups is an obvious hypothesis, given that they reduce a lot of the friction and cost involved in keeping in touch with other people.
Michael V. Copeland / Fortune:
Hearst to launch a wireless e-reader — The publisher plans to introduce a large-format device this year based on electronic-ink technology. — NEW YORK (Fortune) — Against a backdrop of plummeting ad revenue for newspapers and magazines, and rising costs for paper and delivery …
Discussion:
Gizmodo, MediaMemo, Silicon Alley Insider, Electronista, Mobilewhack.com, Electricpig.co.uk, Engadget and techblog.dallasnews.com
Brian X. Chen / Gadget Lab:
Why the Japanese Hate the iPhone — Apple's iPhone has wowed most of the globe — but not Japan, where the handset is selling so poorly it's being offered for free. — What's wrong with the iPhone, from a Japanese perspective? Almost everything: the high monthly data plans that go with it …
Discussion:
SiliconAngle, Boing Boing Gadgets, The Register, Smalltalk Tidbits …, Slashdot and digg.com
Sachi Izumi / Reuters:
DoCoMo halts BlackBerry Bold sales due to overheating — TOKYO (Reuters) - NTT DoCoMo Inc, Japan's biggest mobile phone operator, said on Friday it has halted sales of Research In Motion's BlackBerry Bold because the phone can overheat while the battery is being recharged.
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Bret Taylor / Bret Taylor's blog:
How FriendFeed uses MySQL to store schema-less data — Background — We use MySQL for storing all of the data in FriendFeed. Our database has grown a lot as our user base has grown. We now store over 250 million entries and a bunch of other data, from comments and “likes” to friend lists.
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
Pirate Bay Witness' Wife Overwhelmed With Flowers — Professor and media researcher Roger Wallis appeared as an expert witness at the Pirate Bay trial yesterday. He was questioned on the link between the decline of album sales and filesharing. Wallis told the court that his research …
Hiroko Tabuchi / New York Times:
Sony CEO Takes Over Company's Presidency — TOKYO — Sony Corp. said Friday that Howard Stringer, its chief executive officer, would replace Ryoji Chubachi as president in a move to give the CEO a freer hand in restructuring the struggling electronics giant.
Discussion:
Contentinople, Digital Daily, I4U News, Wall Street Journal, Silicon Alley Insider, PC World, DailyTech, paidContent.org, Financial Times, Kotaku, VG247, Gizmodo, Engadget and Gearlog, Thanks:mrinaldesai
Kit Eaton / Fast Company:
Amazon Kindle 3 Rumors Surface: Bigger, Better (Of Course) — The ink has barely dried on the new production Amazon Kindle 2 e-readers and now there's a hot rumor surfacing about the Kindle 3. Among the speculation is one interesting suggestion: The Kindle version 3 may actually arrive on the shelves before Christmas.
DigiTimes:
Asustek to launch Eee PC Shell ultra-thin netbook in April, says paper — Asustek Computer plans to launch its second ultra-thin netbook with a 10.1-inch panel, the Eee PC Shell, in April this year. The netbook will have a higher specification than the Eee PC S101, will be easier to carry …
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
How Much Would You Pay to Read Newsday.com? — Zilch. That's the snap consensus from the Web pundits, who are baffled by Cablevision's plan to start charging for access to the online version of Newsday, the Long Island daily it overpaid for last year. — And it's not as if Cablevision …
Discussion:
CNET News, Dealscape, paidContent.org, Tech-Ex, Silicon Alley Insider, AppScout and techblog.dallasnews.com
Erica Sadun / Ars Technica:
Apple issues App Store-wide Emoji take-down order — Apple has issued an App Store-wide take-down of all Emoji-enabling iPhone applications. There may be a few reasons for this decision, ranging from the gray area of how developers are switching on Emoji support to possible licensing issues.
Discussion:
The iPhone Blog
James Kendrick / jkOnTheRun:
Psion responds to Intel/ Dell trademark scuffle- we still sell the Netbook Pro, it's not abandoned — Psion has responded to us with regards to the ongoing “netbook” trademark fight that Intel and Dell most recently kicked up a notch. In case you have been living under a rock …
Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Downturn could be Microsoft's bonding moment — REDMOND, Wash.—It takes a lot to get different parts of Microsoft to really work together. But the current economic turmoil might just be the thing to do it. — At least that's the working theory for Stephen Elop, the former Macromedia CEO …
Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:
Want to waive copyright? Creative Commons has a tool for you — The Creative Commons has launched an official tool to guide content creators through the process of publishing their works under the highly permissive CC0 license, which enables them to waive all rights.
Neil McAllister / Fatal Exception:
Gazelle: The browser that thinks like an OS — A new browser prototype from Microsoft Research offers a glimpse at the next stage of computing's evolution — Without question, Web-based applications are one of the most important developments in modern computing.
Rik Ferguson / TrendLabs:
A Second Rogue Facebook Application in Just a Week? — In a second attack, extremely reminiscent of the one that took place this weekend, Facebook users have once again been victimized by cybercriminals. Reports started surfacing this afternoon of yet another rogue Facebook application posting notifications …
Saul Hansell / Bits:
CBS Beams ‘Star Trek’ Episodes to iPhones — CBS is taking the iPhone where no iPhone has gone before. — Today, it released an iPhone application for its TV.com site that can play full episodes of TV series, ranging from “C.S.I.” to the original “Star Trek.”
Liz Gannes / NewTeeVee:
The Shakeout Begins! Video Startups in Play — It didn't take long after the credit crunch last fall for waves of layoffs to hit online video startups. But surely all those tweaks and cuts didn't successfully revive every single company's fate. And now, we're seeing the ensuing wave …
Discussion:
Dealscape
Rich Miller / Data Center Knowledge:
Google: Stalled Data Centers Will Be Built — Google (GOOG) isn't abandoning the data center projects where it has slowed or halted construction due to the slowing economy, the company said this week. In a presentation at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco …
Sramana Mitra / Forbes:
India: Where Angels Fear To Trade — The country's innovation eco-system suffers from a lack of seed funding and mentors. — India has come a long way in building a global reputation as a technology industry to reckon with. The country, however, is still struggling to find its stride …
Discussion:
Sramana Mitra on Strategy
Robert Weisman / Boston Globe:
TripAdvisor adds flight, fare search — TripAdvisor LLC went live last night with a search engine that will pull together flight and fare data from multiple airlines and online travel agencies, a move that will put the Newton website in competition with Kayak.com and others in the lucrative fare search space.
Claudine Beaumont / Telegraph:
Survey reveals parents ‘concerned’ about content of video games — Almost three quarters of British parents are concerned about the content of video games, and want to see the industry independently regulated, according to new research from the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC).
Thanks:zagstruck
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Cell Phones: Demand Is Even Worse Than You Think — How bad is the market for cell phones? Really bad. Worse than really bad. — RBC Capital's Mark Sue this morning cut his Q1 forecast for global handset unit demand to 230 million, from 248 million, which would mean a sequential drop of 25%.
Cory Doctorow / Guardian:
You shouldn't have to sell your souljust to download some music — The activities that are restricted by download licence agreements range from the ridiculous to the dubious — Here's the world's shortest, fairest, and simplest licence agreement: “Don't violate copyright law.”
Jens Roland / TorrentFreak:
How To Kill The Music Industry — According to Per Sundin, CEO of Universal Music, the decline in music revenues in the past 8 years can be fully attributed to (read: blamed on) illegal file sharing. If this were actually true, many of us might even respect his decision to go after pirates …
Discussion:
digg.com
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Facebook Pages Redesign Coming — Facebook launched Facebook Ads in November 2007 to give brands and businesses a way to create a presence on Facebook and interact with users. Starting next week, says a source with knowledge of the new product, those pages will be substantially redesigned.
Thanks:mrinaldesai
