Top Items:
Apple:
Apple Updates Consumer Desktop Line — 24-inch iMac Starts at $1,499 — Apple® today announced updates to its iMac® and Mac® mini desktop lines, including a 24-inch iMac that is priced more affordably than ever before and a Mac mini with powerful new integrated graphics.
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Arn / MacRumors:
Apple Announces New iMacs, Mac Minis, AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule — Apple today announced updates to its iMac and Mac mini desktop lines, including a 24-inch iMac and a Mac mini with new NVIDIA integrated graphics. For the same $1,499 price as the previous generation 20-inch iMac …
Discussion:
dot.life blog, eWeek, Ars Technica, Engadget, Macworld, AppleInsider, CNET News, TUAW, Boy Genius Report, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, CrunchGear, Gearlog, Boing Boing Gadgets, Obsessable, The Apple Core, Hardware 2.0, Electronista, Crave and The iPhone Blog
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Apple refreshes desktop lineup: Is the Mac mini irrelevant? — Apple on Tuesday outlined a refresh of its iMac, Mac Pro and Mac mini lineups and the headliners are the Intel Nehalem-based Mac Pro and the iMac 24-inch update. However, perusing the updates you have to wonder if the Mac mini is irrelevant.
Janette Barrios / Apple:
Apple Introduces New Mac Pro — Features Intel “Nehalem” Xeon Processors & High-Performance Graphics — Apple® today introduced the new Mac® Pro using Intel “Nehalem” Xeon processors and a next-generation system architecture to deliver up to twice the performance of the previous generation system.
Discussion:
Engadget, AppleInsider, MacBlogz, Switched, MacRumors, Boing Boing Gadgets, Computerworld Blogs and Obsessable
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Joshua Topolsky / Engadget:
Apple MacBook Pro 15-inchers get quiet CPU spec bump — While pouring over the metric ton of PR this morning, we didn't immediately notice that Apple has turned up the juice ever-so-slightly on MacBook Pro 15-inch models. Instead of coughing up a CPU bump from 2.4GHz to 2.53GHz …
Eric Krangel / Silicon Alley Insider:
Microsoft: You Can Absolutely Run Office 14 On Windows XP — By and large, big business has shunned Windows Vista, and the big question for Microsoft (MSFT) over the next year is: Will the enterprise upgrade to (and buy hundreds of thousands of licenses for) Windows 7, or will they stick it out with XP for years to come?
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Eric Krangel / Silicon Alley Insider:
Microsoft Planning Ad-Supported Model For Office 14 — An ad-supported Microsoft Office 14? — That's what Microsoft Business Division Chief Stephen Elop said was coming at a presentation to analysts at the Morgan Stanley Technology conference today. — It's an anti-piracy initiative.
Brad / Liliputing:
Asus launches Eee PC 1008HA ultra-thin netbook — Asus officially launched the Eee PC 1008HA at CeBIT today. The netbook is just 1 inch thick and weighs 2.4 pounds, which is pretty light by Asus 10 inch netbook standards. — The mini-laptop, formerly known as the Eee PC Shell almost looks …
Discussion:
SlashGear, Crave, The Toybox, Boing Boing Gadgets, EEE-PC.de, UMPCPortal, GPS Obsessed, jkOnTheRun and Electricpig.co.uk
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Chris Albrecht / NewTeeVee:
Amazon VOD Launches on the Roku — After much anticipation, Amazon VOD finally landed on the Roku player this morning, expanding the capabilities of the $99 set-top box beyond Netflix. Roku owners will have access to Amazon's VOD library of more than 40,000 titles, including the ability …
Discussion:
Tech Beat, TechCrunch, last100, Engadget, The Technology Chronicles, Technologizer, Gearlog, Gizmodo, Electronista and Hacking NetFlix
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Seth Rosenblatt / Download.com editors:
Skype announces voice-to-text messaging — Skype plans to announce Tuesday that it will be working with SpinVox to provide its users with voice-to-SMS messaging in four languages. — This adds another option to Skype's messaging notifications for both Windows and Mac …
Discussion:
Mashable!
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Business Wire:
The NPD Group: Despite Recession, U.S. Smartphone Market is Growing — Smartphones gain share against all other handsets in 2008, as prices become more competitive — PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—According to The NPD Group, a leader in wireless industry market research …
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Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:
Suit over $5K netbook 3G data bill; AT&T says “read the TOS” — Oklahoma resident Billie Parks signed up for RadioShack's $100 netbook deal, but didn't think committing to a two-year AT&T data contract would leave her with a $5,000 bill for her first month of service.
Claire Cain Miller / Bits:
Khosla Ventures Goes Retro for New Blood — Pierre Lamond, a Silicon Valley veteran, was planning to retire from Sequoia Capital this year. Instead, the 78-year-old has decided to join Khosla Ventures, the venture firm founded by Vinod Khosla. — “I was really looking at phasing out …
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch UK & Europe:
Rob Williams of Dolphin Music dies in Alps skiing accident — Rob Williams, co-founder of one of the UK's leading online companies Dolphin Music, died in a skiing accident yesterday evening while on holiday in the Swiss Alps. Mr Williams had been part of a group break for UK entrepreneurs in the ski resort of Verbier.
Mark Wilson / Gizmodo:
Eye-Fi Doubles Storage and Adds Video Support — Our beloved Eye-Fis (SD cards that add Wi-Fi to any digital camera) have finally gotten the bump from their 2GB standard. Now Eye-Fi cards hold 4GB of photos and upload videos to YouTube/Flickr. … Essentially, Eye-Fi had a limited edition 4GB card …
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Socialtext Adds Twitter-like “Signals” And a Desktop AIR App — In yet another sign that this will be the year of the activity stream, Socialtext is adding a Twitter-like message stream to its enterprise wiki/workspace service, The new feature is called Socialtext Signals …
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Video: Jon Stewart explains Twitter (or tries to) — Earlier, we posted about Twitter chief executive Evan Williams explaining Twitter to Charlie Rose. Tonight brings perhaps a better Twitter video explanation, compliments of comedian Jon Stewart. — In his Daily Show segment …
Discussion:
TechCrunch, Search Engine Land, Global Nerdy, GigaOM, SiliconAngle, Dealscape, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, p2pnet and Soup
Elizabeth Woyke / Forbes:
LG's Weapon: Netbooks — The company says it will start selling netbooks in the U.S. before July. — SEOUL, Korea—In the U.S., consumer electronics maker LG Electronics is best known for its cellphones and flat-screen TVs. By this summer, the company hopes to make a name for itself in PCs too.
Discussion:
GottaBeMobile.com
Rory Maher / paidContent.org:
Bad Year For Bonuses? Not For Google Execs — Bonuses on Wall Street may be getting slashed, but executives at plenty of other big companies are still getting their year-end payouts—even if, unlike in recent years, they aren't quite enough to buy that Napa winery or mansion in the Hamptons.
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
The Final Day of The Pirate Bay Trial — As The Pirate Bay returns after being offline all night, the lawyers of defendants Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Swartholm, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström present their closing statements to the court. — Apparently, Fredrik (TiAMO) got the site back up from inside the courtroom.
Phone Arena:
Sprint to pay $125 for referrals — Business is so cutthroat among cellular carriers, that we hear that Sprint now offers a plan that will pay $125 for each referral. Now before you get excited and start wearing a sandwich board at the mall, there are conditions and rules that apply.
Joe Fay / The Register:
Asus keyboard PC due May. Or maybe June — Asus' Eee PC Keyboard could appear as early as May the firm's bosses confirmed at CeBit today. — Company chairman Jonney Shih said the firm was shooting for a Q2 launch for the the device, which incorporates a fully fledged PC and touchpad into a standard five-inch deep keyboard.
Darren Murph / Engadget:
Hands-on with MSI's X-Slim X320, X340 and GT725 laptops — We knew MSI's newest X-Slim laptops were ultrathin, but it wasn't until we saw 'em in person here at CeBIT that we truly appreciated the design. These are definitely amongst the sexiest laptops we've seen in some time …
Discussion:
Softpedia News
Reid Hoffman / Washington Post:
Let Our Start-Ups Bail Us Out — President Obama noted last week that “we have lived through an era where, too often, short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity.” As the $787 billion stimulus is sorted out, we should consider not only what's there but also what's missing.
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Sequoia Pumps More Funding Into Search Marketing Startup Kenshoo — Israel-based search engine marketing (SEM) automator Kenshoo has received another capital injection from its existing backers Sequoia Capital and Arts Alliance. — As with the Series A round, this second round …
Elad Blog:
Twitter is to Facebook as Google was to Yahoo! — My friend David King, (former Googler, founder and CEO of Lil Green Patch (# 1 social game on FB) and one of the smartest people I know) came up with an analogy I thought was really interesting to explore. His basic premise:
