Top Items:
Harry McCracken / Technologizer:
Whatever Happened to the Top 15 Web Properties of April, 1999? — As I quietly lamented (or at least noted) the impending death of GeoCities today, I wanted to double-check my memory that it was once one of the very largest sites on the Web. Yup-ten years ago, in April 1999 …
Discussion:
The Technology Liberation …, Rex Hammock's RexBlog.com, Scott Rosenberg's Wordyard, TechCrunch and comScore, Thanks:marieadomingo
Bill Gertz / Washington Times:
Obama's BlackBerry — President Obama will soon get his souped-up, high-security BlackBerry for use in and around the White House and during presidential travel, according to Obama administration officials. The top-secret BlackBerry 8830 is in the final stages of development …
The Official Google Blog:
Try out new features in Google Toolbar Labs — One of the best things about working on the Google Toolbar team is that when someone says “Wouldn't it be great if Toolbar could...,” our answer is usually “Yes! Let's build it!” And then it's just a question of when.
Discussion:
Google Mobile Blog, AppScout, ReadWriteWeb, Gear Diary, MobileContentToday, TechCrunch and Gadgetell
Lee Mathews / Download Squad:
Windows 7 RC (7100) out early on torrent trackers — While the partner page Microsoft put up a few days back announcing the availability of the Windows 7 RC turned out to be another minor slip-up, the results in Mininova's index are a bit more real. — You guessed it - the Windows 7 RC build (7100) has been leaked.
Ted Ullyot / Facebook Blog:
Results of the Inaugural Facebook Site Governance Vote — Today, the Facebook site governance vote ended after a week in which you were able to voice your opinions as to which documents should serve as the foundation for governing the site. On behalf of everyone at Facebook …
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Bill Ray / The Register:
Self-replicating machine replicates — Destroy industry and money and make us all wealthy? Sweet — Free whitepaper - CRM your salespeople will love — Next month will see a new version of the self-replicating RepRap machine, but owners of the existing model won't need to buy a replacement …
Discussion:
MUTR Teaching Resources
Tom Krazit / CNET News:
Apple apologizes for Baby Shaker — Apple issued a statement Thursday apologizing for allowing the “Baby Shaker” application onto the App Store. — Just hours before the App Store offers up its 1 billionth download, Apple was forced to acknowledge that perhaps the most notorious iPhone …
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Owen Fletcher / PC World:
China Pushes Its Own Blue-laser Optical Discs — Chinese manufacturers hope to sell hundreds of thousands of optical disc players for a locally developed next-generation disc format this year, a spokesman for an industry group promoting the format said Friday.
Discussion:
Gearlog
Brad Stone / New York Times:
Software That Copies DVDs to Players Is on Trial — SAN FRANCISCO — RealNetworks says it wants to help increase DVD sales by allowing people to copy their movie discs. Hollywood studios say that idea will only hurt their already struggling business. The two sides square off in a federal court …
Microsoft:
Microsoft Reports Third-Quarter Results — Lower operating expenses narrow revenue gap in difficult economic environment. — Income Statements — Segment Revenue and Operating Income (Loss) — Third Quarter Form 10-Q — View the PowerPoint Earnings Release
Discussion:
Guardian, BoomTown, Gizmodo, BloggingStocks, All about Microsoft, Edible Apple, TechFlash, paidContent.org, SlashGear, Technologizer, New York Times, Silicon Alley Insider, TheStreet.com, VentureBeat, Joystiq, Edge Online, The Microsoft Blog, Pocket-lint.com, Dealscape, Between the Lines, 9 to 5 Mac, Tech Trader Daily and TechCrunch
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Elinor Mills / CNET News:
Conficker infected critical hospital equipment, expert says — SAN FRANCISCO — The Conficker worm infected several hundred machines and critical medical equipment in an undisclosed number of hospitals recently, a security expert said on Thursday in a panel at the RSA security conference.
Saul Hansell / Bits:
Undoing Meg Whitman's eBay — Before voting for Meg Whitman for governor, California residents would do well to consider what has been happening at eBay since she stepped down as chief executive. John Donahoe, her successor, has pretty much disassembled all of her major strategic moves.
Fred / A VC:
Geocities — Yesterday, TechCrunch reported the news that Yahoo! is planning to shut down Geocities. That is sad news on many levels. Geocities was the web's first community and it was my first “mega deal” when it was sold to Yahoo! in 1999 for $3.5bn (including the value of the options Yahoo! assumed).
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
When GeoCities Grabbed the Web's Golden Ticket-A Trip Down Silicon-Valley-Has-No-Memory Lane — In Web years, BoomTown is now officially 143 years old. — Why? Well, I was the one who got to write the big Page One piece in The Wall Street Journal, after GeoCities was sold to Yahoo in January of 1999 for $5 billion in stock.
Gmail Blog:
PowerPoint and TIFF file viewing — A few months ago, we added fast online viewing of PDFs in your browser. As of today, that same viewer now supports TIFF and Microsoft PowerPoint document formats too: you can now view TIFF and PPT files online, directly in your browser …
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes / Hardware 2.0:
SPARKLE packs 2GB or video memory onto GeForce GTX 285 — Taiwanese video card manufacturer SPARKLE Computer has made NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 285 better by packing 2GB of memory onto the board. — The Geforce GTX 285 reference produced by NVIDIA comes equipped with 1GB of video memory as standard.
Discussion:
Softpedia News
Joel Garreau / Washington Post:
Toys — and More — for the 21st Century Make Use of Mind Control Over Matter — What If You Could Move Objects With Your Mind? Well, That Time Has Come. — You slip the wireless headset on. It looks like something a telemarketer would wear, except the earpieces are actually sensors …
Robert McMillan / PC World:
Conficker Hype a ‘problem,’ Says FBI Cyber-chief — Mainstream media hype leading up to the Conficker worm's April 1 software update may have distracted people from legitimate cyber threats, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's head of cyber security said Thursday.
Elinor Mills / CNET News:
Device identification in online banking is privacy threat, expert says — SAN FRANCISCO—A widely used technology to authenticate users when they log in for online banking may help reduce fraud, but it does so at the expense of consumer privacy, a civil liberties attorney said during a panel at the RSA security conference on Thursday.
Discussion:
GigaLaw.com Daily News
Business Week:
The Mad Dash to Digitize Medical Records — GE, Google, and others, in a stimulus-fueled frenzy, are piling into the business. But electronic health records have a dubious history — Watch the Video... Neal Patterson likens the current scramble in health information technology …
Ben Charny / Digits:
Steve Jobs Spends Less Time on His Private Jet — Steve Jobs's private jet has almost been grounded over the last six months. — Getty Images — Steve Jobs at an Apple event in October — Apple says in a regulatory filing that it didn't reimburse the CEO for use of his Gulfstream during …
The Boy Genius / Boy Genius Report:
BlackBerry 9630 is the BlackBerry Tour? — We're seriously going out on a limb here, but we've received word the BlackBerry 9630, the device we all know and love, will make its debut into the world as the BlackBerry Tour. Not even going to comment on the name, we'll leave that up to you.
Christopher Meinck / Everything Pre:
Palm Pre In the Wild, YouTube App — Photos of the Palm Pre in the wild have cropped up today on Twitter (via lo_toney) and have since been removed. The photos show the YouTube videos application and composing an email on the Palm Pre. The YouTube videos application looks similar to the same app that appears on Palm's Treo Pro.
Discussion:
SlashGear, Phone Arena, IntoMobile, Engadget Mobile, PreCentral.net, MobileCrunch and prethinking.com