Top Items:
Kevin Michaluk / CrackBerry.com blogs:
Exclusive: First Real Photos of the BlackBerry 9630! — FINALLY!!!!! What you're looking at above are the first real photos of the BlackBerry “Niagara” 9630. As you can see, this CDMA full-QWERTY BlackBerry is looking sweet and very much has the appearance of the BlackBerry Curve 8900 and BlackBerry Bold morphed into one.
Discussion:
Mobile Roar, Boy Genius Report, Daily Mobile, BlackBerry Cool, Unwired View, SlashGear, IntoMobile, MobileCrunch, Gizmodo, BB Geeks, BerryReview.com, Ubergizmo and Engadget
John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
Perhaps if They Think of Their Win Mobile Devices as Broken iPhones... What an uncomfortable moment for Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at the CIO Summit Wednesday. Fielding questions at Microsoft's annual event for government and education sector IT workers, Ballmer was asked how best …
Discussion:
The Register, 9 to 5 Mac, mocoNews, iLounge, WMExperts, The iPhone Blog, TechFlash and Neowin.net
Rick Aristotle Munarriz / Motley Fool:
Game Over for GameStop? — GameStop (NYSE: GME) probably doesn't see Toys “R” Us as much of a competitor in video game retailing, but that is about to change. — Toys “R” Us is starting to buy and resell used games in a few test stores, according to Forbes.
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Stephanie Condon / CNET News:
Obama names D.C. official as federal CIO — Updated 5:52 a.m. with details from the official announcement. — President Obama on Thursday named Vivek Kundra, Washington, D.C.'s chief technology officer, to the position of federal chief information officer.
Discussion:
The Register, Digits, The White House, Electronista, Computerworld, Between the Lines, Silicon Alley Insider, techPresident, ReadWriteWeb and Jobwire
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Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
It's Time To Start Thinking Of Twitter As A Search Engine — At a dinner tonight with a friend the conversation turned to Twitter. He just didn't get it, and he's certainly not the first person to tell me that. Specifically, my friend didn't understand the massive valuation …
Discussion:
Search Engine Watch, Regular Geek, SiliconAngle, the Econsultancy blog, Microblink, SheGeeks and Mashable!
Justin Smith / Inside Facebook:
When Will Facebook Open Up the Public Timeline? — Facebook announced yesterday that it is merging user profiles and fan profiles starting now and allowing users to make their updates public if they so choose at some point in the (presumably not too distant) future. — One major possible result of these changes?
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Arik Hesseldahl / Business Week:
At DEMO, VCs Have Stern Advice for Startups — With less money available to entrepreneurs and with fewer startups being bought, VCs are pushing portfolio companies to focus on frugality — Watch the Video... Venture capital investor Christine Herron has a bit of advice for technology startups …
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch UK & Europe:
Sky News realises news breaks first on Twitter, not TV - Creates a Twitter Correspondent — TechCrunch has been saying for a long time - at least since November last year - that Twitter is an emerging source of news. Recent tragic events have only served to emphasise this.
David Pogue / New York Times:
It Rings, It Shoots, It Stumbles — I'll never forget the time I visited a Riverwalk restaurant in San Antonio and ordered risotto: rice that's been stirred in broth until it's rich, creamy and perfect. — But what the waiter brought to the table wasn't risotto. It was just rice.
Discussion:
Electronic Pulp
Raju Vegesna / Zoho Blogs:
Zoho Writer 2.0 launches with fresh look — Refreshing changes don't come often. Today, we are launching a new major version of our word processor - Zoho Writer 2.0 - with a fresh and elegant user interface & significant improvements. This important upgrade comes with hundreds of improvements, mostly on the user interface.
Discussion:
ReadWriteWeb, Between the Lines, SiliconAngle, Webware.com, TechCrunch, Lifehacker, RotorBlog.com and Mashable!, Thanks:zoho
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Samsung's Nano-powered Q1EX UMPC loses its QWERTY, gains 4.5-hour battery at the FCC — Meet the latest iteration of the Samsung Q1 handheld: the NP-Q1EX. First spotted at CES in January, Sammy's going back to its UMPC roots by ditching the split QWERTY in favor of a clean …
Discussion:
DailyTech, CrunchGear, Mobility Site, NaviGadget, SlashGear, DisplayBlog, jkOnTheRun, UMPCPortal, GottaBeMobile.com and The Toybox
Monica Hesse / Washington Post:
Offbeat Name? Then Facebook's No Friend — What Caitlin wanted did not seem that hard. She had signed up for Facebook after she married, as Caitlin Shaw. Now, to make it easier for old friends to find her, she wanted to add her maiden name. Her maiden name is Batman.
Rebecca Buckman / Forbes:
VC View From The Rockies — Tough sledding for most Colorado venture firms. — AVON, Colo.—Even in this dismal economy, venture capitalist Chris Onan can spot lots of high-quality start-ups he'd like to fund. There's only one problem: Onan's firm, Appian Ventures, doesn't have any cash in its pockets.
Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
Google Chrome, Bundled with RealPlayer — If you try to install RealPlayer, a media player available at real.com, you'll notice that the setup downloads Google Chrome. The option to install Google's browser is enabled by default and I assume that most people will not bother to disable it.
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Juicing the BlackBerry: RIM wants back-end money from new apps — Research In Motion (RIM) is set to launch its application store for the BlackBerry, now dubbed “App World,” at the end of this month. For third-party developers on the outside, it may sounds like a very enticing proposition …
Discussion:
Apple 2.0, NEWSFACTOR, Electronista, IntoMobile, BlackBerry Cool, Digital Daily and FierceMobileContent
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Kevin Michaluk / CrackBerry.com blogs:$2.99 Minimum Paid App Price at BlackBerry App World!
Discussion:
PC World, Download Squad, Gadget Lab, All About Symbian, CNET News, InformationWeek, jkOnTheRun, VentureBeat, The iPhone Blog, Edible Apple, TECH.BLORGE.com, AppScout, MobileCrunch, Gizmodo, Boing Boing Gadgets, RyanSpoon.com, Smartphones and Cell Phones, Engadget, BlackBerryNews.com, p2pnet and CrunchGear
Douglas MacMillan / Business Week:
Amazon's Apple Deal: Kindle Cannibal? — Customers may have less incentive to buy a Kindle, now that they can download e-books onto the iPhones and iPods they already own — A new tool that lets consumers download digital books onto Apple devices could spur demand for some of the 240,000 …
Business Week:
Twitter Has Potential Buyers Atwitter — As the microblogging service explodes in popularity, the suitors are lining up. Facebook has already made a play—others will likely follow — The microblogging service Twitter has caught on with everyone from celeb Ashton Kutcher to CEOs.
Colby Ranger / The Official Google Blog:
Tipping points — Ideas are everywhere, but how do we know which ones actually work? At Google, we put a lot of stock in both the wisdom of crowds — the idea that lots of people responding to a given question can collectively find the best answer — and the value of community.
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Enthusiasts keep pushing Smule's Ocarina iPhone app to higher numbers — Ge Wang, the quirky Stanford assistant music professor who co-founded iPhone music app maker Smule, delivered an update yesterday on his company's growth since starting out just eight months ago.
Stuart Dredge / Music Ally:
The Beatles: Rock Band confirmed for 09/09/09 release date — Harmonix has confirmed that its Beatles-themed music game will be released on 9 September this year, and will be called The Beatles: Rock Band. An official site has gone live today inviting gamers to sign up for alerts when pre-ordering begins.
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider, Contentinople, Ars Technica, VentureBeat, Epicenter, Crave, Dolphin Music, Engadget, MacDailyNews, Electronista and Gearlog
Paul Biba / TeleRead:
Fictionwise acquired by Barnes & Noble for $15.7 million in cash — Fictionwise has been acquired by Barnes & Noble, said to be the world's largest bookseller, for $15.7 million in a stock deal that TeleRead revealed earlier today. — I spoke with Scott Pendergrast of Fictionwise at 7:20 …
John Battelle / John Battelle's Searchblog:
Seen In the Wild — I was reading a piece on Venturebeat, on Kutano. And this ad was at the bottom. — This is an ad? — Yep. Innaresting. Four years ago (God, yes, I've been writing for more than that, er, ummm....22 years, in fact...) anyway, I wrote this about Google and the need to market its products:
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider
Heather Hopkins / Hitwise Intelligence:
Yahoo! Mail More than One Third of Yahoo! Traffic — Tuesday, Yahoo!'s new CEO, Carol Bartz spoke to analysts and one comment in particular caught my attention. According to an article on ZDNet, she said “Yahoo Mail is becoming increasingly critical to the company.
Monica Chen / DigiTimes:
Asustek evaluating Qualcomm platform Eee PCs — Asustek Computer is evaluating the possibility of developing Eee PCs that adopt Qualcomm's platform, however the company currently does not yet have any mass production plans for non-Intel Atom-based Eee PCs, according to Samson Hu, general manager of Eee PC business at Asustek.
Sara Silver / Wall Street Journal:
Motorola, Ex-CFO At Odds on His Exit — The circumstances behind the sudden departure of Motorola Inc.'s chief financial officer became unclear after a regulatory filing from the company provided an explanation that differed from Motorola's original account of the dismissal.
