Top Items:
Jason Calacanis / The Jason Calacanis Weblog:
Why I employed a felon — Yesterday, I joined one of our Mahalo employees at Federal District Court as he was sentenced to 48 months in jail for crimes related to computer security. — Before my employee John Schiefer was sentenced, a violent career criminal was facing 60 months for beating up a prison guard.
Discussion:
Computerworld, SiliconBeat, The Register, Gawker, Venture Capital Dispatch, The Drama 2.0 Show, Guardian, Threat Level, Ben Metcalfe Blog, SiliconAngle and eWeek
RELATED:
Rafe Needleman / Webware.com:
Mahalo: Our hacker employee is no threat to your privacy — Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis sent an e-mail Thursday to his followers (also posted on his blog, and worth a read) disclosing that his company mistakenly hired a man convicted of computer crimes but who hasn't yet served his sentence.
Discussion:
Venture Chronicles
Saul Hansell / Bits:
The Nation's New Chief Information Officer Speaks — Reforming the entire health care system may be easier than doing everything Vivek Kundra says he wants to do when it comes to reforming the government's computer systems. — Mr. Kundra, the 34-year-old former chief technology officer …
Discussion:
The Caucus, Digits, eWeek, Obsessable, Pulse2, VentureBeat, Washington Post, AppScout, Silicon Alley Insider, techPresident, Digital Daily, GigaLaw.com Daily News and Jobwire
RELATED:
The White House:
President Obama Names Vivek Kundra Chief Information Officer — WASHINGTON, DC - Today, President Barack Obama named Vivek Kundra the Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) at the White House. — The Federal Chief Information Officer directs the policy and strategic planning …
Clearwire News Room:
Clearwire Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2008 Results — Key 2008 Highlights — Completed Combination with Sprint's 4G Assets, Resulting in Largest U.S. Mobile Wireless Spectrum Portfolio — Closed $3.2 Billion Financing Round at $17 Per Share
Discussion:
mocoNews, Engadget, Wi-Fi Networking News, Sidecut Reports, Brier Dudley's blog and PhoneNews.com
RELATED:
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Clearwire: The race between Wimax expansion and cash burn is on — Clearwire on Thursday outlined its Wimax rollout plans for 2010 as it announced a $118 million fourth quarter net loss. The company also outlined its capital spending plan for 2009, which calls for it burning through …
Discussion:
CNET News, Tech Trader Daily, Gearlog, eWeek, Sidecut Reports, MuniWireless, Silicon Alley Insider, TechFlash and Gizmodo
Lidija Davis / ReadWriteWeb:
Twitter Begins Rolling Out Search and Trends — Twitter appears to be in the process of rolling out its integrated search feature with a search box and a trends button appearing on some user profiles today. While the feature is not yet available to all users, our guess is that it's very much on the way - and soon.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Robert Scoble To Leave FastCompany — Super-blogger Robert Scoble is leaving his full time job at FastCompany, he confirmed by phone tonight. He first joined the company nearly a year ago and has been running their FastCompany.tv site. He says he'll continue to write a column for the magazine, but his video work with them is over.
Thanks:atul
Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
Zimbra tops 40M paid users: More popular than Gmail? — We've written glowingly about Yahoo-owned email and collaboration software Zimbra before, but it looks like we're far from being the only fans. In fact, Zimbra announced that has crossed the 40 million user mark. And those are paid mailboxes, not free accounts.
Justin Smith / Inside Facebook:
New Viral Channel: Facebook Launches Chat Invite API for Applications — Facebook has just released a new chat invite API that allows developers to let users send application invitations to their friends via Facebook Chat. — Here's how it works: — After embedding the fb:chat-invite FBML element …
RELATED:
Yukari Iwatani Kane / Wall Street Journal:
Breaking Apple's Grip on the iPhone — Firms Launch Sites Selling Unauthorized Software for Device, Posing Challenge to Official Online Store — Apple Inc. faces a growing threat to its iPhone strategy, as renegade stores spring up online to sell unauthorized software for the device.
Bloomberg:
Pre to Win IPhone Users After Contracts, McNamee Says — Palm Inc.'s new Pre smart phone will lure customers away from Apple Inc.'s iPhone when subscribers' contracts start expiring in June, Palm investor Roger McNamee said. — “You know the beautiful thing: June 29, 2009 …
Mike / Marksonland:
Twitter Ain't Search — The twitter buzz is unstoppable. My wife subscribes to the magazine Entertainment Weekly - I was flipping through it the other day and saw they created a section in there that re-prints select tweets from select celebrities. Yep, Twitter has hit the main stream.
Newsweek:
Browsing The Future — Mozilla's Firefox gave Microsoft a run for its money. What's next? — At least 18 percent of you already know what Firefox is, because you're using it to read this interview. (Or so says the statistics engine behind Newsweek.com, which tracks things like that.)
Connie Loizos / PE Hub Blog:
Lamond Opens Up: “If They Think It's Acrimonious, That's Sequoia's Problem” — Partly in response to a post I'd written last night, famed venture capitalist Pierre Lamond called me a few minutes ago, as he piloted his car down the 280 toward a physical therapy appointment.
Jason Perlow / Tech Broiler:
Microsoft: Litigate on FAT, and you'll be the next Unisys — Remember “Burn All GIFs” from 1999? In 2009, the Open Source mantra of choice could very easily turn into “Destroy all FATs” — If you've been following the news in the Linux community, you've probably heard that Microsoft …
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:
MobileCrunch, tinyComb, Ars Technica, The Register, Homotron.net, mocoNews, The iPhone Blog, iLounge, msmobiles.com and 9 to 5 Mac
Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:
Analyst: Apple turns its back on e-book market — Says Amazon.com's Kindle for iPhone proves Apple thinks 'people don't read anymore' — Computerworld) Amazon.com's release of a free e-book reader for the iPhone proves that Apple is simply not interested in the electronic book market, one expert said today.
Amazon Game Room / Amazon Game Room's Blog:
Amazon.com's Trade-In Store Launches with 1,500+ Eligible Titles — Calling all gamers! Do you have any used games lying around? — Today we are pleased to announce the beta launch of Amazon Video Games Trade-In, www.amazon.com/tradeingames. Amazon Video Games Trade-In is a new service …
The Daily Beast:
The Journal's Smart Bet — A Man More Heroic Than Sully by Lee Siegel — Blogs and Stories — The Wall Street Journal makes millions from its pay website. Here are the secrets to their success—and what other papers can learn from them. — After nearly 15 years of giving …
Thanks:atul
Chicago Breaking News:
Sheriff sues Craigslist as ‘largest source’ of prostitution — Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart announced today that his office has sued Craigslist and has asked a federal judge to ban the Internet company from posting its “erotic services” section, which the sheriff said is a clearing house for prostitution.
Claire Cain Miller / Bits:
Gloomy Forecast for E-Commerce Sites — Annual e-commerce sales will shrink for the first time this year, according to eMarketer. The research firm issued its revised e-commerce forecast Thursday, predicting that shoppers will spend 0.4 percent less online this year than last year.
Thanks:atul
Economist:
Boom in the bust — Despite the recession, the mobile industry is enjoying a promising transformation — WHEN the mobile-telecoms industry recently met in Barcelona for the Mobile World Congress, its biggest global shindig, head and body seemed oddly separated.
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, PC World, Technologizer, Download Squad, Between the Lines, SiliconAngle, RotorBlog.com, Lifehacker, Webware.com, Mashable! and TechCrunch, Thanks:zoho
Economist:
The internet's librarian — Brewster Kahle wants to create a free, online collection of human knowledge. It sounds impossibly idealistic—but he is making progress — FOR a man who has set himself a seemingly impossible mission, Brewster Kahle seems remarkably laid back.
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Google's Tip Jar Uses Crowdsourcing to Help People Save Money — Google is using its Moderator product to help people share ideas on how to save money in recessionary times. Moderator is a tool that helps groups determine which questions should be asked at all-hands meetings, conferences …
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Apple 2.0:
Apple's App Store: 25,000 apps and counting — Other smartphone manufacturers may be rushing out their versions of Apple's (AAPL) App Store — the latest being Research in Motion's (RIMM) “App World” for the BlackBerry, set to open this month — but that hasn't slowed the developers writing programs for the iPhone and iPod touch.
Discussion:
Smartphones and Cell Phones, AppleInsider, NEWSFACTOR and VentureBeat, Thanks:mrinaldesai
