Top Items:
Nova Spivack / Twine:
Wolfram Alpha is Coming — and It Could be as Important as Google — Stephen Wolfram is building something new — and it is really impressive and significant. In fact it may be as important for the Web (and the world) as Google, but for a different purpose.
Discussion:
Wolfram Blog, Between the Lines, TECH.BLORGE.com, bytes|genes, Incremental Blogger, Outside the Lines, ecpm blog and AltSearchEngines
RELATED:
Matt Marshall / VentureBeat:
Wolfram Alpha — it's like plugging into an electronic brain — Scientist Stephen Wolfram has built a new engine, called Wolfram Alpha, that apparently can compute answers to factual questions more powerfully than Google. — Wolfram has just posted about the effort, which has taken years …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Big Music Will Surrender, But Not Until At Least 2011 — I had a surprisingly candid lunch conversation last week with a big music label executive, and a good part of our talk focused on the future of music. I asked the usual question: Why are you guys so damned clueless?
Aidan Malley / AppleInsider:
Would-be iPhone developers “pulling their hair out by the roots” — Apple's ability to process iPhone developer contracts is quickly turning into a minor crisis as what was once a smooth process is rapidly turning into a months-long backlog that threatens to keep new developers out of the App Store.
RELATED:
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes / Hardware 2.0:iPhone developer: You need Apple but Apple doesn't need you
Discussion:
techblog.dallasnews.com
Dave Zatz / Zatz Not Funny!:
Amazon VOD in HD on TiVo - Coming Soon? — After reading my post wondering where Amazon VOD in HD is, multiple sources have confirmed for me that TiVo's implementation is currently in testing. While I still don't have concrete timing details, and suspect we're waiting on Amazon.com at this point …
TheFunded.com:
The VC Apocalypse: Careful with Your Time — PUBLIC: — Fellow entrepreneurs, most VCs are unable to complete capital calls and, therefore, are unable to make new investments. This includes everyone from name brand funds to small funds, and it does not matter if they recently closed a new fund or not.
Discussion:
HipMojo.com
Matt Labash / Weekly Standard:
Down with Facebook! — What nobody bothers to mention about the social-networking site is that it's really dull—mind-numbingly dull. — Look at the outer shell—the parachute pants, the piano-key tie, the fake tuxedo T-shirt—and you might mistake me for a slave to fashion. Do not be deceived.
Discussion:
Gawker
Robert Coalson / Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty:
Behind The Estonia Cyberattacks — In the spring of 2007, a cyberattack on Estonia blocked websites and paralyzed the country's entire Internet infrastructure. At the peak of the crisis, bank cards and mobile-phone networks were temporarily frozen, setting off alarm bells in the tech-dependent country — and in NATO as well.
Bloomberg:
Yahoo Wins Court Approval of Severance Plan That May Aid Buyout Offers — Yahoo Inc., owner of the second most-popular U.S. Internet search engine, won a judge's approval of a settlement mandating changes to the company's severance plan that investors contend will make it easier for Microsoft Corp. or other potential suitors to buy it.
Matt Rosoff / Digital Noise:
More free on-demand audio with Muziic — I love covering music software because the pace of evolution is so fast. I guess everybody's looking for the next billion-dollar business (after iTunes) to help replace declining CD sales. — Last week, I blogged about Spotify …
Robert X. Cringely / I, Cringely:
The Neokast Mystery — What happened to Neokast? It's a mystery to me. But I suspect the answer will surprise us all soon enough. — Neokast, as readers of my old PBS column will recall, was a peer-to-peer live video streaming application developed by graduate students from Northwestern University near Chicago.
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
Company Threatens EFF With Defamation In Response To EFF Trying To Bust Its Patent — Back in January, we noted that the EFF had scored another hit in its ongoing patent-busting project, getting the USPTO to re-examine a patent held by Seer Systems. It appears that Seer Systems …
