Top Items:
The Official Google Blog:
Here comes Google Voice — We've just started to release a preview of Google Voice, an application that helps you better manage your voice communications. Google Voice will be available initially to existing users of GrandCentral, a service we acquired in July of 2007.
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Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
GrandCentral To (Finally) Launch As Google Voice. It's Very, Very Good. — GrandCentral, a phone management service that first launched in 2006 and was acquired by Google for $50+ million in 2007, hasn't been in the news much lately. Other than a few good natured jabs at their marketing gimmicks and coverage of outages, that is.
Discussion:
The Register, Google Operating System, Google Blogoscoped, CNET News, AppScout, Forbes, Technologizer, SiliconAngle, Tech Trader Daily, Pat Phelan and VentureBeat, Thanks:atul
Miguel Helft / New York Times:
Google's Free Phone Manager Could Threaten a Variety of Services — SAN FRANCISCO — Google stepped up its attack on the telecommunications industry on Thursday with a free service called Google Voice that, if successful, could chip away at the revenue of companies big and small, like eBay …
Discussion:
Venture Capital Dispatch, Silicon Alley Insider, Network World and Computerworld Blogs, Thanks:atul
David Pogue / New York Times:
One Number to Ring Them All — If Google search revolutionized the Web, and Gmail revolutionized free e-mail, then one thing's for sure: Google Voice, unveiled Thursday, will revolutionize telephones. — It unifies your phone numbers, transcribes your voice mail, blocks telemarketers …
Discussion:
Computerworld Blogs
Daniel Ionescu / PC World:
Google Re-Launches GrandCentral Phone Service as Google Voice — Google re-launched its phone management service GrandCentral today renaming it Google Voice. The service keeps most of the original core GrandCentral features and adds voicemail transcripts, conference call functionality, and archived searchable SMS text messages.
Peter Sayer / PC World:
After Gmail, Google Wants to Search Your Voice Mail Too — Google has begun testing a service that will make transcripts of voice-mail messages and make them searchable. — For now, Google will only offer voice-mail transcription to existing customers of GrandCentral Communications …
Maggie Shiels / BBC:
Google introduces phone services — Google has strengthened its mobile services with the debut of a service called Voice that could be a challenge to Skype and other phone firms. — It lets customers make cheap international calls and gives them a speech-to-text feature for voicemail.
Amazon Web Services Blog:
Announcing Amazon EC2 Reserved Instances — Earlier in my career, I thought that innovation was solely about technology. If you wanted to address a new market or to increase sales, writing more code was always a good option. Having gained some wisdom and experience over the years …
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Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Amazon tweaks EC2 pricing; Takes next step in its enterprise evolution — Amazon has tweaked its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) pricing model to be more enterprise friendly. The move is significant enough to sway IT executives to adopt more of Amazon's Web Services-especially when they have tight budgets.
Peter X. Deng / Facebook Blog:
Welcome to Your New Home Page — Last week, we shared our philosophy behind the new updates and changes on Facebook to give you a better understanding of why we make certain product decisions. We explained how we've been mapping out the Social Graph, or the network of connections that exist in the world …
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Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
Spoon feeding: Facebook redesign brings feeds (and ads) to the masses — Facebook began rolling out a new design of its homepage today, with a number of subtle features intended to make feed-based social networking more intuitive to the typical user. When the company first showed off its plans last week …
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Hoops To Go: CBS Streaming March Madness to iPhone — More catnip for the convergence optimists, who dream about to getting to watch anything they want on any device they choose: In addition to streaming all of its March Madness coverage on the Web, CBS is also letting iPhone and iTouch owners watch …
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider
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Jenna Bilotta / Google Reader:
Google Reader is your new watercooler — One of the things that we love best about Reader is the ability to easily share interesting items with your friends. In fact, we like it so much that we've been adding bunches of new sharing features over the last year including choosing friends to share with …
Discussion:
The Official Google Blog, louisgray.com, Search Engine Roundtable, Regular Geek, Lifehacker, ReadWriteWeb, VentureBeat, Google Blogoscoped, TechCrunch, Mashable!, Pocket-lint.com and digg.com, Thanks:atul
Jennifer Kwan / Reuters:
Nortel in talks to break itself up: report — TORONTO (Reuters) - Ailing telecom equipment maker Nortel Networks Corp, which filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this year, is looking to break itself up by selling off major divisions, the Globe and Mail reported on Thursday.
Discussion:
Phone Scoop
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Ronald Grover / Business Week:
MySpace: A Playbook for Beating Facebook — CEO Chris DeWolfe outlines his strategy for expanding profits, luring advertisers with “hyper-targeting,” and keeping MySpace's U.S. edge over rival Facebook — Hunched over a small conference table, MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe is in full spin mode.
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Douglas MacMillan / Business Week:
Mozilla Contemplates a Future Without Google — Mozilla Chair Mitchell Baker says the Chrome browser is making the foundation behind Firefox rethink its reliance on revenues from Google — From the head offices for Mozilla in Mountain View, Calif., executives can see Google (GOOG) in several directions.
Chris Anderson / The Long Tail:
My Two Cents on Charging for Content — Time, the New York Times and others with their back against the economic wall are now reconsidering that whole free thing. — Ann Moore, the CEO of Time Inc, told a British newspaper: … And so on... My take: I actually don't think it matters …
Discussion:
Gawker
Eric Krangel / Silicon Alley Insider:
Worlds.com CEO: We're ‘Absolutely’ Going To Sue Second Life And World Of Warcraft — Worlds.com CEO Thom Kidrin is putting the entire virtual worlds industry on notice: His company claims the idea of a scalable virtual world with thousands of users is its patented intellectual property …
Rob Pegoraro / Washington Post:
Tax-Prep Software Doesn't Add Up — I knew I was doomed about five minutes into this year's tax-prep ordeal. Two different programs — having been fed nothing more than basic personal info and the contents of a pair of W-2s — did not agree on the total tax bill for my wife and me.
Saul Hansell / Bits:
The Broadband Gap: Why Do They Have More Fiber? — This is the third in a series looking at the lessons for the United States from broadband deployment in other countries. Read the first and second posts. — In the paradises of broadband — Japan, South Korea and Sweden …
Discussion:
Broadband Politics
Department of Homeland Security:
Secretary Napolitano Names Philip Reitinger as Deputy Undersecretary of National Protection & Programs Directorate — U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano announced today her appointment of Philip Reitinger as the Deputy Undersecretary of Department's National Protections Program Directorate (NPPD).
John Herrman / Gizmodo:
Multitouch Dell Studio One Just Slightly Too Sexy For American Shores — What's that feeling you get when a beautiful, generously specced, 19" multitouch all-in-one PC from a major manufacturer is reported to be available only in Japan? Ahh, right. Disappointment. UPDATED.
Brooke Crothers / CNET News:
Fusion-io touts ‘fastest’ solid-state drive — Fusion-io also claims Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak as its chief scientist. — Targeted primarily at business applications, such as database servers, capacities range from 160 gigabytes to 640 gigabytes. And by the second half of this year, this will increase to 1.28 terabytes.
Kurt / Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Google Begins Behavioral Targeting Ad Program — Today Google launched its behavioral targeting ad program, which it calls “interest-based advertising.” This move has been widely expected once Google completed its $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick one year ago today.
DigiTimes:
Asustek reportedly considering merger of Eee PC and notebook departments — Asustek Computer is considering consolidating its Eee PC and notebook departments to help increase efficiency and decrease the management costs for the two departments, according to market sources.
