Top Items:
Caterina.net:
Hunch! — We've started sending out invitations to friends and people who signed up on Hunch. We're going to be launching the full public site in the coming months, but for now — invitations! — What is Hunch? — Look. Decision-making is difficult, and decisions have to be made constantly.
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider, TechCrunch, CNET News, SiliconBeat, paidContent.org, The Noisy Channel and Gawker, Thanks:atul
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MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
After trying it out, I have a good feeling about Hunch — I am an extremely indecisive person. This sometimes frustrates other people, but it frustrates me even more because I absolutely hate wasting time. And being indecisive means I sit there thinking about decisions for far too long.
Phil Glockner / ReadWriteWeb:Flickr Co-founder Unveils Her New Startup: Hunch
Discussion:
VentureBeat
Kasper Jade / AppleInsider:
AT&T stores now offering early upgrade pricing on iPhone 3G — In the latest move aimed at helping Apple clear inventory of iPhone 3Gs ahead of new models anticipated this spring, AT&T retail stores are now offering some customers early upgrades to the Apple handset at subsidized pricing.
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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 …
Discussion:
Boy Genius Report, IntoMobile, Engadget, Mobilewhack.com, TheStreet.com, DisplayBlog, Obsessable, MobileContentToday, geeksugar, VentureBeat, Silicon Alley Insider, TUAW, FierceWireless, Macsimum News, The iPhone Blog, TheAppleBlog, Mobility Site, MacNN, DSLreports, O'Grady's PowerPage, iLounge, MacRumors and Gearlog
Andru Edwards / Gear Live:
Exclusive: Twitter integration coming to OnStar — OnStar users, look out—Twitter is about to become a part of your experience. How so? Well, being an owner of a couple of Cadillacs with OnStar built-in, we sometimes receive surveys or phone calls asking us how we are liking things.
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Jason Chen / Gizmodo:
Dell Latitude 2100 ‘Welch’ Netbooks Leaked — A tipster just leaked these Dell Latitude 2100 ‘Welch’ laptops to us, which have a 10-inch display and are aimed under $600. The best part are the names: School Bus Orange and Red Apple. — Here are the details: they're a new Latitude notebook design branded …
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
When every student has a laptop, why run computer labs? — Only four freshmen showed up at the University of Virginia in 2007 without a computer of their own, and the school has decided that it's no longer worth the expense of running campus computer labs. — What's the point of running …
Discussion:
Technologizer
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Amazon Web Services: No Open Cloud Manifesto for us — Update: 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 with IBM as the ringleader.
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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.
Discussion:
CNET News, Electronista, Macworld, DVICE, NewTeeVee, Silicon Alley Insider, SlashGear, MediaFile and AppScout
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?
Discussion:
Technologizer, IntoMobile, InformationWeek, The Toybox, CrackBerry.com blogs, FierceWireless, Gizmodo, CrunchGear, Gearlog and Engadget
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Facebook “Definitely” Raising Capital This Year; Google Considered Acquisition — Last October we wrote about how Facebook's breakaway growth combined with a declining advertising market was forcing the company back to the capital markets. — The company has been all over the place …
Chris Foresman / Ars Technica:
JavaScript to get 3x speed boost in iPhone OS 3.0 — Regardless of whatever new hardware Apple might introduce this summer, existing iPhone users will see an average 300 percent speed increase in JavaScript performance in Mobile Safari. The increased speed will be helpful for iPhone-specifc web apps …
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.
Discussion:
Coolest Gadgets, Gizmodo, Mobilewhack.com, IntoMobile, CrunchGear, The iPhone Blog, Engadget, Electricpig.co.uk and Engadget Mobile
Joshua Topolsky / Engadget:
Meizu M8 unboxing and hands-on! — Yes, folks — things are about to get really real. We have managed, through a series of delicate negotiations, to get our hands on an honest-to-goodness Meizu M8 — heretofore the stuff of pure legend. At first glance, the build quality of the phone …
Brooke Crothers / CNET News:
Intel to refresh laptop chips Monday — Intel will refresh its lineup of chips for ultraportable laptops on Monday. — The new dual-core processors—targeted at Apple MacBook Air-class laptops—include the 2.53GHz SP9600 priced at $316 with 6MB of cache memory and a thermal envelope rating …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
The Sorry State Of Music Startups — Online streaming music startups are in one very sorry place. On demand streaming rates range from .4 cents to 1 cent per stream - this is what the startups pay to the labels every time they play a song for a user. Add bandwidth and storage costs on top of that …
Nikki Finke / Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily:
Digital Changes For News Corp: Ex-AOL'er Jon Miller Becomes Digital Media CEO, FIM Prez Peter Levinsohn to “Big Studio Job” — EXCLUSIVE & UPDATED: Sources tell me that former AOL CEO Jon Miller has agreed to join News Corp in a newly created role as CEO, Digital Media.
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:
PC World, Maximum PC all, CrunchGear, jkOnTheRun, Boing Boing Gadgets, Liliputing, Gizmodo, SlashGear, TechSpot, Eee PC, Electricpig.co.uk and The Toybox
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Is Facebook Purposefully Lowballing Its Official User Numbers? — Facebook updates its official user numbers periodically on a statistics page that currently says 175 million users. They say that they update it every 25 million users, but many of us have long suspected that they may trail by much more than that.
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
Facebook, Google, and the data design disaster — These days, in this world of IKEA and Target and “Project Runway,” we like to think we know about design. We also like to think that the biggest names in Silicon Valley know what they're doing design-wise.
Thanks:atul
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:
Screenwerk, Gearlog, dailywireless.org, The Toybox, Obsessable, NewTeeVee, researchexcellence.com and Gawker
Chris Pendleton / Virtual Earth, An Evangelist's Blog:
Virtual Earth Imagery Release, March 2009 — Another huge addition to the digitization of our planet just hit the web last night - 21TB - all ortho imagery launched into Microsoft Virtual Earth, powering Live Search Maps (and other Live Search properties). Now, this one isn't huge in terms …
Discussion:
LiveSide
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Lawsuit Forces TheFunded To Shutter Service (or early April Fools joke) — TheFunded, a website that rates venture funds based on first hand experiences from readers, is shutting down on April 2, according to a notice posted on the site today. — This very well may be an April Fools joke …
Brooke Crothers / CNET News:
Intel details future graphics chip at GDC — On Friday, Intel engineers are detailing the inner workings of the company's first graphics chip in over a decade at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco—sending a signal to the game industry that the world's largest chipmaker intends to be a player.
David Meyer / CNET News:
‘Jaunty Jackalope’ Ubuntu springs into beta — The next version of the Ubuntu Linux distribution, code-named Jaunty Jackalope, went into beta phase late Thursday. — Ubuntu 9.04, as it is more properly known, includes a range of enhancements over its predecessor, Intrepid Ibex, or Ubuntu 8.10.
Denise Dubie / Network World:
IBM layoffs incite backlash — Business decision spurs negative sentiment toward Big Blue — IBM's news that it will shed some 5,000 North American jobs and potentially send more positions overseas has stirred up some bad sentiment toward Big Blue as the economy continues to languish.
