Top Items:
The Official Google Blog:
Two new improvements to Google results pages — Today we're rolling out two new improvements to Google search. The first offers an expanded list of useful related searches and the second is the addition of longer search result descriptions — both of which help guide users more effectively to the information they need.
Discussion:
L.A. Times Tech Blog, PC World, Tech Beat, paidContent.org, Technologizer, CNET News, ResearchBuzz, eWeek, Search Engine Watch, InfoWorld, Mashable!, tinyComb, AppScout, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, TECH.BLORGE.com, VoIP & Gadgets Blog, Lifehacker, Silicon Alley Insider, InformationWeek, Download Squad, The Noisy Channel and techblog.dallasnews.com, Thanks:atul
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Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land:
Google Implements ‘Orion’ Technology, Improves Search Refinements & Adds Longer Snippets — Google is announcing two changes to search results this morning. The first involves the use of longer “snippets” (text extracts containing the keywords) when users input queries of three words or more.
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Google Changes Could Decrease Downstream Traffic — Google says it gets smarter every day, but today the company made a big enough leap in what it shows to users that an announcement was in order. The company blog post says that today's improvements are intended to “get you to the web page you want as quickly as possible.”
Katie Marsal / AppleInsider:
Apple sued for promoting iPhone as eBook reader — An overseas communications firm is suing Apple for promoting its iPhone handset as a touchscreen digital book reader, a concept it claims to have patented over seven years ago. — In a 7-page complaint filed with a Virginia district court Monday …
Lucy Hornby / Reuters:
“Unafraid” China apparently fears YouTube — BEIJING (Reuters) - China is not afraid of the Internet, its Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday, even as access to the popular video sharing site YouTube was apparently blocked. — YouTube, owned by search giant Google Inc, has been unavailable …
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Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
iPhone Makes Up 50 Percent of Smartphone Web Traffic In U.S., Android Already 5 Percent — The iPhone now accounts for 50 percent of mobile Web traffic from smartphones in the U.S., according to an AdMob Mobile Metrics report released this morning. Over the past six months …
Richard Jones / Last.fm:
Last.fm Radio Announcement — Today we're announcing an upcoming change to the way Last.fm Radio works in some parts of the world. In the United States, United Kingdom and Germany, nothing will change. — In all other countries, listening to Last.fm Radio will soon require a subscription of €3.00 per month.
Discussion:
VentureBeat, Epicenter, Download Squad, ReadWriteWeb, paidContent and Lucas Gonze's blog
Ploth / perceptdev.com:
iPhone Keyboard - no Jailbreaking required, using 2.0 SDK — A number of industrious individuals have achieved what to some is the holy grail of iPhone accessories: an iPhone keyboard. But most have done it in a very hard-to-repeat manner, and few have shared the methods they used.
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Wall Street Journal:
Sprint Looks Beyond Cellphones — As Core Business Slumps, Wireless Carrier Aims to Use Its Network for Dashboard Computers, GPS Devices — Unable to sign up enough new cellphone subscribers, Sprint Nextel Corp. is increasingly trying to use the excess capacity on its wireless network to power other consumer gadgets.
Discussion:
Computerworld, Gadget Lab, InformationWeek, Engadget Mobile, Phone Arena, Electronista, FierceWireless, CNET News, SlashGear, Unwired View and CrunchGear
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Twitter Tweaks Its Title Tags For Better Google Juice — Notice that title tag for my Twitter profile page? — It reads “Robin Wauters (robinwauters) on Twitter” where it used to say “Twitter / robinwauters”. For the TechCrunch Twitter account, it used to read “Twitter / TechCrunch” …
The Boy Genius / Boy Genius Report:
BlackBerry 9630 Review: Part 1 — We've been playing with it non-stop all weekend. We've tastelessly shown it off with a dash of hood on video. But the review is now finally ready. We decided to split this into two parts, one now and one right before launch.
Slash Lane / AppleInsider:
Apple announces Cross Border ordering to 20 countries — Apple on Tuesday quietly introduced its new Cross Border campaign, which allows US-based customers to make purchases for recipients located in Mexico, 15 countries across Europe, and 4 countries in Southeast Asia.
Discussion:
Macsimum News
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Skype, Now the Largest Long-distance Phone Company — TeleGeography says that cross-border telephone traffic grew 14 percent in 2007 and is estimated to have grown 12 percent in 2008, to 384 billion minutes. Falling prices and rising popularity have flattened the revenues (see graph below the fold).
Discussion:
Internet Evolution
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Mark Ghuneim / MediaPost:
Twitter: How Small Interface Changes Are A Big Win For Everyone — At first glance, Twitter's recent interface changes seem to be relatively minor — a “Featured Users” option within “Find People,” a “Search Now” box, and a new “Trends” section. Yet, after a more in-depth examination …
John D. Sutter / CNN:
No joke in April Fool's Day computer worm — (CNN) — A computer-science detective story is playing out on the Internet as security experts try to hunt down a worm called Conficker C and prevent it from damaging millions of computers on April Fool's Day. — The anti-worm researchers …
Discussion:
Domain Name News
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
MySpace Music Announces Executive Team (Internal Memo) — MySpace Music, the joint venture between MySpace and the major labels to provide free streaming music to users, is announcing its executive team this afternoon. The president of the company, Courtney Holt, was announced late last year.
BBC:
Call to ‘shut down’ Street View — Images of 25 cities are viewable via Google Street View — A formal complaint about Google's Street View has been sent to the Information Commissioner (ICO). — Drawn up by privacy campaigners, it cites more than 200 reports from members of the public identifiable via the service.
Discussion:
paidContent.org, CNET News, Privacy International, PC World, TechCrunch Europe, twopointouch, Softpedia News and Electricpig.co.uk
Nicole Loux / The Mozilla Blog:
Mozilla and the Kronos Group Announce Initiative to Bring Accelerated 3D to the Web — Today Mozilla and the Khronos Group announced that Mozilla will be leading an initiative to bring accelerated 3D to the Web. Mozilla will work with the Kronos Group to extend the exploration process …
Discussion:
Vladimir Vukievi, CNET News, Christopher Blizzard, Google Code Blog and Macsimum News, Thanks:arpitnext
Roi Carthy / TechCrunch:
Face.com Brings Facial Recognition To Facebook Photos (We Have Invites) — If there is one feature on Facebook which delivers “social utility” magic even to the most average of users, it's Photos. In fact the feature is so popular that by Facebook's own account 1 billion photos are uploaded every month …
AppleInsider:
Apple switches on iTunes Genius for videos — Apple this week flicked the switch on its iTunes Genius recommendation engine for movies and TV shows, a feature it originally planned to introduce alongside the release of iTunes 8.1 earlier this month. — First introduced with the release of iTunes 8.0 …
Discussion:
MacRumors
Sue McAllister / Mercury News:
More office space, lower leases in Silicon Valley — An ugly economy has affected more than Silicon Valley's residential real estate market; it's pummeling the commercial real estate market as well. — About 8.7 million square feet of Silicon Valley office space was vacant in the fourth quarter of 2008 …
Jenna Wortham / Bits:
Do TV Buyers Dream of Electric Sheep? — The most popular clip on YouTube this week isn't a music video, sports blooper or a comedy skit. — It's a three-minute short featuring Welsh shepherds wrangling hundreds of sheep draped with LED jackets into formations that resemble a game of Pong, a fireworks display and even the Mona Lisa.
Seth Weintraub / 9 to 5 Mac:
Woops! China Unicom post iPhone Page - Guess who is bringing the iPhone to China? — They don't get any better than this! It looks like the biggest mobile market in the world will be served the iPhone by China Unicom - unless there is something very shady going on.
Stuart Miles / Pocket-lint.com:
Samsung Papyrus: touchscreen ebook debuts … Samsung is too launch a touchscreen ebook reader to take on the Amazon Kindle Pocket-lint has learnt. — The new model called Papyrus will launch in Korea in June with the aim to eventually launch in the UK and US a spokesperson for Samsung told Pocket-lint.
Peter Parkes / Skype Blogs:
Skype 3.0 Beta for Windows Mobile — For those of you reading this in an RSS reader, you can watch the video here. You can also grab the embed code if you want to use this video in your own blog. — Just over a month ago, I mentioned on this blog that we were gearing up to launch Skype 3. Beta …
Jason Chen / Gizmodo:
Apple Falls to Third Place in Reliability Report, Loses to Asus and Lenovo/IBM — Apple, the previous champ in RESCUECOM's consumer reliability 2008 report, just got demolished by Asus in an almost 3 to 1 score for Q1 2009. It even loses to Lenovo. — Asus scored a 972, compared with Lenovo's 348 and Apple's 324.
Ilinca Nita / Unwired View:
Acer F1 may come in September powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon CPU — Acer F1, one of the smartphones said to come with Windows Mobile 6.5 on board, will apparently be launched in September 2009. — What's more interesting is that, according to AllAboutPhones.nl, which participated …
