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Jessica Dolcourt / CNET News:
Skype for iPhone: It's official — Months after teasing us at CES with an announcement of Skype's native VoIP client for the iPhone, the free Skype for iPhone will finally be available to download from the iTunes App Store sometime on Tuesday. We got a chance to sit down with the application's …
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Ina Fried / CNET News:
Microsoft, TomTom settle patent dispute — Microsoft and TomTom have reached a settlement in their respective patent suits, the companies said Monday. — As part of the deal, as TomTom will pay Microsoft for coverage related to mapping patents and file-management patents that Microsoft claimed …
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Ars Technica, Microsoft Watch, iTnews Australia, Epicenter, eWeek, Silicon Alley Insider and Pulse2
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Joe Wilcox / Microsoft Watch:
Lauren Is Right: Macs Cost More Than PCs — [Editor's Note: This is one of two companion posts about Microsoft's newest “I'm a PC” commercial, featuring computer shopper Lauren. At Apple Watch, “Microsoft Shatters Mac Pricing Myths” explains how the 60-second spot dispels the most common defenses for Mac pricing.]
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Twitter quakes as San Francisco shakes — Earthquake news and Twitter have long gone hand in hand. Because it's an instant mass communication medium, it is simply one of the best way to find about breaking information quickly. Today, an earthquake shook the San Francisco Bay area …
Harry McCracken / Technologizer:
Macworld Expo Moves, Accepts Its Nickname — Here's the first hint of how IDG's Macworld Expo will change in the wake of Apple's decision to pull out of the show: It's moving from early January to February 9th-13th (which includes a Saturday-the show has been weekdays only).
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
Copyright And Libel Questions Hit The Twitterverse — A few weeks back, someone pointed me to a Twitter message where one Twitter user was (jokingly) accusing another of copyright infringement for repeating a message. While the situation was amusing, you knew it was only a matter of time until the question became more serious.
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The Independent
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Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Is a Shorter Web Address Worth Big Money? bit.ly Raises $2M — Here's another Web 2.0 riddle that seems particularly hard to solve post-Lehman: What's the value of a service that takes a long Web address and makes it shorter? — One answer: Several million dollars.
Western Digital Hard Drives:
WD ENTERS SOLID-STATE DRIVE MARKET WITH ACQUISITION OF SILICONSYSTEMS, INC. — Western Digital Corp. (NYSE: WDC), a world leader in hard drive storage for computing and consumer electronics applications, today announced that it has completed a $65 million cash acquisition of SiliconSystems …
Kirby Chien / Reuters:
Google launches free, legal music downloads in China — BEIJING (Reuters) - Google Inc on Monday launched free downloads of licensed songs in China, while sharing advertising revenue with major music labels in a market rife with online piracy. — Lee Kai-Fu, president of Google in greater China …
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Techdirt, Ars Technica, ReadWriteWeb, Bloomberg, paidContent.org, Softpedia News, Guardian, Electronista and TheNextWeb.com
Dan Sabbagh / Times of London:
Authors fight free books site Scribd for ‘pirating’ their work — Bestselling novels are reproduced without publishers' permission — Publishers and agents representing the authors J. K. Rowling and Ken Follett were battling last night to get free copies of their novels removed …
Sascha Segan / Gearlog:
Motorola, Cricket Launch QA4 Touch-Screen Phone — Cricket Wireless and Motorola today announced the low-cost carrier's highest-end phone so far, the Motorola Evoke QA4. The QA4 will be Cricket's first touch-screen phone. — The Evoke is a somewhat oval-shaped slider phone (4.25" x 2" …
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
IAB Reports Internet Advertising Grew 10 Percent Last Year; Outpacing TV — In an upbeat report this morning, the Interactive Advertising Bureau reported that internet advertising in the U.S. grew 10.6 percent to $23.4 billion. (The entire report is embedded below).
Cleve Nettles / 9 to 5 Mac:
What would a new MacBook Mini look like? Is this real? — Thanks to our Russian commenter meguxx, who passed along this little probably-Photoshopped - (but hopefully not) MacBook Mini. Anyone with some Russian wanna break down the specs they list? — Update: We've gotten many more picts here.
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
MySpace Embraces Microsoft Platforms For Mobile And Web Applications — Two Microsoft-related announcements coming from social networking giant MySpace today: the portal is adding support for Windows Mobile-run phones to its new mobile application, due this summer, and bringing …
Erica Sadun / Ars Technica:
Chrome for OS X: State of the Browser — The open source Google Chromium repository now has an OS X Cocoa shell. We downloaded and compiled the latest OS X build of Google's browser, and we talked to the developers to get a sense of how long it will be before Mac users can get their hands on a working beta.
Abbey Klaassen / AdAge:
Using Social Media to Listen to Consumers — A Vocal Few Don't Represent the Majority but Could Signify a Larger Issue — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — If the social-media sphere attacks your brand, do “real people” hear the screams? Not likely, according to surveys that indicate marketers …
John Cook / TechFlash:
Ignition sets up offices in Seattle — Four partners from the Bellevue venture capital powerhouse Ignition Partners have set up offices in downtown Seattle, operating under the name of Ignition Capital. The partners — Jon Anderson, Robert Headley, John Zagula and Rich Tong …
Darren Murph / Engadget:
Netflix raising rates for Blu-ray subscribers by around 20 percent — Ruh roh. In a move that will undoubtedly cause an incredibly raucous stir, only to fade away as movie renters realize that Netflix is still the best deal going, America's most adored by-mail rental service is hiking the price of Blu-ray rentals once again.
Omar El Akkad / Globe and Mail:
Meet the Canadians who busted GhostNet — Researchers uncover explosive cyberspy network infecting more than 1,200 computers worldwide — Against the backdrop of humming computers in the underground lab in Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies, a screen flickered …
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CircleID
Jeffrey Burt / eWeek:
Sun, Intel Optimize Solaris for Nehalem — Sun Microsystems and Intel two years ago entered a joint development and marketing agreement to offer performance, scalability, power management and virtualization enhancements in Solaris on x86 systems. Sun officials say that while some advancements already …
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VentureBeat
Ryan Tate / Gawker:
Times Nukes Itself On Google — The New York Times has been demanding Google welfare, which would artificially promote the newspaper's stories in search results. Yet inept Times webmasters just killed hundreds of thousands of their own Google hits. — The newspaper probably wouldn't need …
Maggie Shiels / BBC:
‘Open cloud’ plan sparks dissent — A plan by IBM to launch an industry-wide ‘open’ cloud computing strategy has seemingly backfired amid accusations of closed deals. — Google pulled out after signing up and Amazon said it would not get involved. — Microsoft criticised the plan …
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CircleID
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Twitter Hiring A Concierge To Pamper Celebrities. Requires Schmoozing. — I don't care much for the celebrity culture, but clearly I'm in the minority judging by the amount of people who read gossip magazines and websites in order to get updates on every move their idols make.
