Top Items:
Arn / MacRumors:
Apple Researching Movement-Aware Interfaces for iPhones, Depicts Front-Facing Video Camera — Apple has been conducting ongoing research into how to further improve their mobile device interfaces as evidenced by a couple of patent applications published over the past couple of weeks.
Discussion:
CNET News, 9 to 5 Mac, Obsessable, The Apple Core, Gizmodo, TUAW, I4U News, CrunchGear, The iPhone Blog and digg.com
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Peter Svensson / Associated Press:
Phone company shelves unpopular Internet cap plan — NEW YORK (AP) — Time Warner Cable Inc. is testing a new way of charging for Internet use — by the amount of traffic rather than solely based on download speed. — But now that it's expanding its trial into Rochester, N.Y. …
Discussion:
Stop the Cap!, ZDNet Government, Engadget, DSLreports, Gizmodo, The Register and Ars Technica
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Arik Hesseldahl / Business Week:
Mac vs. PC: What You Don't Get for $699 — A 17-in. PC may cost a lot less than a 17-in. Mac. But you get less, too, including security, multimedia tools, and, some say, satisfaction — I'm a sucker for a well-made TV ad. — Inspired by the Nike (NKE) “Just Do It” and “Air Jordan” …
Farhad Manjoo / Slate:
Do You Think Bandwidth Grows on Trees? — User-generated content may have changed the Internet, but sites like YouTube are suffocating under the costs of storing it. — Everyone knows that print newspapers are our generation's horse-and-buggy; in the most wired cities, they've been pummeled by competition from the Web.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Decision Time For Facebook: Term Sheet Received At $2 Billion Valuation — Facebook has been pitching for a new round of funding these last few months to bridge itself to an IPO sometime in the future. We've known that since October, when (former) CFO Gideon Yu was in Dubai.
Discussion:
Between the Lines, MediaPost, Electricpig.co.uk, Venture Capital Dispatch, Smalltalk Tidbits …, Silicon Alley Insider, AppScout and DealBook, Thanks:mrinaldesai
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Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
Facebook rejects funding at $4 billion valuation, may not raise more
Facebook rejects funding at $4 billion valuation, may not raise more
Discussion:
TechFlash, Epicenter, All Facebook, Silicon Alley Insider, CNET News, Wall Street Journal and Pulse2, Thanks:bobcaswell
Caroline McCarthy / CNET News:
Ning hits 1 million social networks — It launched just over two years ago. — Ning now has 22 million registered users, about 6.1 million of whom are considered active. Out of the million networks, about a fifth are currently active. — While these numbers are still small compared …
Marguerite Reardon / CNET News:
Nokia's net profit falls 90 percent — If you were wondering how bad things have gotten for the mobile handset market, just take a look at Nokia, the world's largest maker of cell phones. — The company on Thursday reported a 90 percent fall in first-quarter net profits as the global recession took …
Discussion:
Nokia, Silicon Alley Insider, eWeek, dot.life blog, Between the Lines, GigaOM, Reuters, dailywireless.org, MobileCrunch, Boy Genius Report and Gearlog
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Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Yelp's New And Improved iPhone App Officially Hits The App Store — Yelp's version 2.0 of its iPhone app has officially hit Apple's App store. We reported on Yelp's focus on the mobile space and its importance here. — As we wrote recently, the new app gives consumers even more ease …
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Sun to IBM: We're willing to talk again; Big Blue not interested — Updated: Sun Microsystems would reportedly be willing to resume takeover talks with IBM if Big Blue says it'll commit to closing the deal. — Bloomberg reports the news based on two people familiar with the matter (Techmeme).
Discussion:
Tech Check with Jim Goldman, Epicenter, CNET News, TechCrunch, Data Center Knowledge, The Register, Electronista and The Tech Report
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Claire Cain Miller / Bits:
Twitter Wants Distribution Deals, Not a Buyout — Yes, Twitter is talking to big Internet companies about forming partnerships with them. No, it is not looking to sell itself. — That is the latest from Fred Wilson, the Union Square Ventures partner who was an early investor in Twitter …
Stephanie Clifford / New York Times:
Video Prank at Domino's Taints Brand — When two Domino's Pizza employees filmed a prank in the restaurant's kitchen, they decided to post it online. In a few days, thanks to the power of social media, they ended up with felony charges, more than a million disgusted viewers, and a major company facing a public relations crisis.
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
Apple's US Market Share Slips in 1Q 2009 — Gartner has released a preliminary report detailing U.S. and worldwide PC shipments for the first quarter of 2009. The report pegs Apple's U.S. market share in fourth place among vendors at 7.4%, down from 8.0% in the fourth quarter of 2008.
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Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Cisco's Unified Server Takes Memory to the Max — A month after Cisco unveiled its Unified Computing System, it has finally released pricing, processing power and memory details. The bottom line is this: the performance of the servers and overall system seem to be in line with competing products …
Rory Maher / paidContent.org:
Price Hikes Dampened iTunes Sales — Last week was the first week of iTunes's new, steeper pricing on some tracks, and consumers voted with their wallets, according to Billboard. Sales figures from iTunes show that tracks that now sell for $1.29, up from $.99, sold 12.5 percent fewer units …
PR Newswire:
Activision Blizzard's March Quarter Net Revenues and Earnings Tracking Ahead of Prior Outlook — Due to the better-than-expected performance of its titles at retail, Activision Blizzard (Nasdaq: ATVI) announced today that its March quarter net revenues and earnings per diluted share are tracking ahead of the company's prior outlook.
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New York Times:
N.S.A.'s Intercepts Exceed Limits Set by Congress — WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year, government officials said in recent interviews.
Discussion:
Threat Level, DSLreports, CNET News, Liquidmatrix Security Digest and Electronic Frontier Foundation
Chris Morris / CNBC.com:
GameStop Wants Cheaper Consoles, Predicts Hot Titles — Consumers hoping for a price cut on video game hardware have a new—and powerful—ally. — While the video game industry has proved relatively resistant to the recession so far, the CEO of GameStop [GME Loading...
Discussion:
paidContent.org, Silicon Alley Insider, Ars Technica, CrunchGear, Joystiq, Gamasutra, Kotaku, VG247, GameBizBlog, GamesIndustry.biz, GoNintendo and Edge Online
Lee Williams / Symbian Foundation Blog:
Symbian on Intel's Atom — There has been a lot of discussion about the potential of Symbian once combined with S60 and completely unleashed. The fancies of the wildest and most pragmatic imaginations are most likely to be limited not by technical limitations, but by business realities.
Discussion:
Engadget Mobile
Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:
Operation Basement Dad: How 4Chan Could Beat CNN & Ashton Kutcher — While Ashton Kutcher and CNN are trying to be the first to hit 1 million followers on Twitter, Joseph Frieschel, an inconspicuous Australian MD, is quickly catching up. Frieschel only opened his Twitter account last night …
CBC News:
Cybercriminals create botnet using Mac computers — A piece of malicious software unwittingly shared over a peer-to-peer network in January was the key tool in what security researchers are saying was the first known attempt to create a botnet of Mac computers.
Jordan Robertson / Associated Press:
Gov't won't classify proxies as ‘sophisticated’ — SAN FRANCISCO - — The U.S. government has dropped — for now — a plan to classify the use of “proxy” servers as evidence of sophistication in committing a crime. — Proxy servers are computers that disguise the source of Internet traffic.
Discussion:
Ars Technica