Top Items:
Prince McLean / AppleInsider:
Apple stores now selling iPhone 3G without a contract — Apple retail stores as of Thursday are selling unrestricted quantities of the iPhone 3G at the full, non-subsidized price of $599 for the 8GB version and $699 for the 16GB models. — The move follows AT&T's plans to sell …
RELATED:
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Apple 2.0:
Has Apple begun clearing iPhone 3G inventory? — Staffers at Apple's (AAPL) flagship Fifth Avenue store in New York City confirm that as of Thursday at 8 a.m., customers are now permitted to buy unlimited quantities of iPhones without an AT&T contract — the very thing the company was working …
Noam Cohen / New York Times:
When Stars Twitter, a Ghost May Be Lurking — The rapper 50 Cent is among the legion of stars who have recently embraced Twitter to reach fans who crave near-continuous access to their lives and thoughts. On March 1, he shared this insight with the more than 200,000 people who follow him …
Staci D. Kramer / paidContent.org:
Could Disney Join Hulu? Sources Say Talks Are Serious — Updated: The Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) Company could wind up with an equity stake in Hulu in exchange for adding ABC programming to the NBC Universal-News Corp (NYSE: NWS) joint venture, a source familiar with the situation tells paidContent.
Aidan Malley / AppleInsider:
Apple developing ‘stealth’ biometric security for iPhone — Apple has developed a new technique that would hide a biometric reader inside an iPhone or a Mac and let owners lock down their systems with fingerprints or even facial recognition — all without ever having to break from their usual routine.
Monica Chen / DigiTimes:
Asustek to launch new Eee PC with built-in ODD in mid-April — Asustek Computer is scheduled to launch its new Eee PC, the E1004DN, which will be the first Eee PC to have an optical disc drive (ODD), in mid-April, and will follow with the 1008HA in May, according to sources at retail channels.
Discussion:
CrunchGear, Liliputing, SlashGear, Boing Boing Gadgets, Gizmodo, Eee PC, Electricpig.co.uk and The Toybox
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
Jeff Bezos Works In Kentucky Distribution Center For A Week — Jeff Bezos is spending this week working in an Amazon distribution center in Lexington, Kentucky (AMZN). He apparently wants to see what it's like to be a rank-and-file Amazon employee. More CEOs should try that once in a while.
Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
Music startup imeem making money, not dying unless the labels kill it — Sure, the music industry — including music startups — are having trouble coming up with significant online music business models, but recent rumors circulating about imeem's money problems appear to be exaggerated.
Brian Stelter / New York Times:
8 Hours a Day Spent on Screens, Study Finds — IN a world with grocery store television screens, digitally delivered movie libraries and cellphone video clips, the average American is exposed to 61 minutes of TV ads and promotions a day. — Some people may think that amount seems excessive.
Discussion:
Gearlog, Obsessable, dailywireless.org, The Toybox, NewTeeVee and researchexcellence.com
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Youth Bloggers Network Acquired By Teens In Tech — Teens In Tech, a blogging network founded by 16 year old Daniel Brusilovsky, has acquired the Youth Bloggers Network (YBN). YBN consists of a network of over 100 young bloggers, and was founded by Patrick DeVivo, who is also a young entrepreneur.
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Reddit's Ad Experiment Is Good News for Condé Nast. Maybe for Digg, Too. — How do you sell ads on a user-generated content site frequented by people who love technology and hate ads? — Sell ads that look exactly like the content itself. — That's the strategy that Condé Nast …
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
The $70 Million Obopay Deal Is More About The UnBanked Than The Banked — When news came out earlier this week that mobile payments company Obopay raised another $70 million, effectively doubling its total funding raised to date, some observers were surprised at the sheer size of the round.
Thanks:mrinaldesai
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Amazon Web Services: No Open Cloud Manifesto for us — Amazon will join Microsoft as two big cloud computing players not signing on to the Open Cloud Manifesto. — The manifesto, which has raised a ruckus following a Microsoft blog post, is set to be released Monday.
Discussion:
Thinking Out Cloud, eWeek, All about Microsoft, InfoWorld, Open Sources, TECH.BLORGE.com, Softpedia News and CloudAve
NVIDIA Press Room:
NVIDIA Files Countersuit Against Intel — Seeks Termination of Intel's License to NVIDIA Technology — FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: — SANTA CLARA, CA. — MARCH 26, 2009 — NVIDIA Corporation today announced that it has filed a countersuit in the Court of Chancery in the State of Delaware …
Discussion:
The Register, InformationWeek, The Tech Report, Engadget, I4U News, EE Times, PR Newswire and VentureBeat
RELATED:
Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
EU Rejects ‘3 Strikes’ for File-Sharers — For the third time in a year the European Parliament has spoken out against tougher anti-piracy legislation that would allow alleged file-sharers to be disconnected from the Internet based on evidence from anti-piracy lobby groups.
RELATED:
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Akamai Data: Internet, Broadband Still Going & Growing — The launch of super high-speed DOCSIS 3.0 cable broadband technology, the increased deployment of fiber and faster DSL lines resulted in a sharp increase in the average speed of broadband connections during the fourth quarter of 2008 …
Discussion:
DSLreports
Rafe Needleman / CNET News:
Twitter still has no business model, and that's OK — Don't let the attention-grabbing headlines elsewhere fool you. Twitter still has not announced a business model. There are no Pro Twitter accounts. There is no TwitterWords advertising program. You still can't buy plush toy Fail Whales from Twitter.
Zach Epstein / Boy Genius Report:
AT&T offering refurbished BlackBerry Bold for free — In the market for a new AT&T smartphone? Don't care if it's refurbished? The BlackBerry Bold is about as good as it gets from AT&T right now, and those of you who haven't pulled the trigger yet are in for a treat. How does free sound?
Thomson IR:
Charter Communications Commences Previously Announced Pre-Arranged Financial Restructuring — Company's debt expected to be reduced by approximately $8 billion; includes $3 billion refinancing and new equity capital — Operations to continue as usual under Pre-Arranged Plan Trade creditors to be paid in full under Pre-Arranged Plan
Discussion:
TechFlash, Tech Trader Daily, DSLreports, Electronista, Greg Galitzine's VoIP …, Associated Press, BetaNews and Telecompetitor
Shawn / Cell Phone Signal:
HTC Magic Passes FCC with T-Mobile USA Branding — Well well well, what do we have here? Today the HTC Magic, showing some sexy pink and gray T-Mobile USA branding and sporting T-Mobile USA 3G bands, passed through the beloved FCC filters. The HTC Magic, codenamed “Saphire,” …
Discussion:
Electronista, Obsessable, FierceWireless, Gizmodo, IntoMobile, Boy Genius Report, Mobility Site, Gadgetell, SlashPhone and Engadget Mobile
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Flickr Founder Launching New Startup, Hunch — We hear that Hunch, Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake's new startup, is launching in beta as soon as today. — NYC-based Hunch is a “consumer decision engine of some sort,” according to this report from Alarm:Clock, which noted two weeks ago …
Spencer E. Ante / Business Week:
Can Venture Capital Come in from the Cold? — Allegis Capital and a handful of boutique firms are eyeing new investments amid a crisis of confidence among Silicon Valley VCs — These days, many venture capitalists resemble mice, afraid to invest in the rough economy.
Thanks:atul
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Roundtable:
Google Releases Major Blog Search Blogroll Algorithm Update — The much awaited update to the Google Blog Search blogroll detector algorithm has finally been pushed through. — An updated Google Groups thread has Googler, Jeremy Hylton saying: … We did expect to see an update …
Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:
Google searches for holy grail of Python performance — Google's Python engineers have launched a new project called Unladen Swallow that seeks to improve the performance of the Python programming language. One of the project's goals is to replace the Python virtual machine with an LLVM-based JIT.
Wendy Davis / MediaPost:
Amazon Sued For Search Ads — A company that sells instructional videos and CD-ROMs has sued e-commerce giant Amazon for trademark infringement stemming from ads on Google. The complaint, filed this week by Lakewood, Colo.-based Video Professor, alleges that Amazon uses the phrase …
Discussion:
MarketingVOX
