Top Items:
Zach Epstein / Boy Genius Report:
Microsoft and Verizon reportedly cooking up an iPhone competitor — Just what the world needs... Another iPhone killer. If the Wall Street Journal's report is to be believed, it looks like that USA Today story may have omitted a relatively important detail regarding Verizon's “iPhone” offering — it might not be an iPhone at all.
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Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Microsoft Planning iPhone Rival — Microsoft (MSFT) can finally stop denying its plans to get into the cellphone business. The company is working with Verizon Wireless to launch an iPhone rival early next year, the WSJ reports. — There's a good chance this will flop …
Brier Dudley / Seattle Times:
Microsoft debuts Vine in Seattle: Twitter+Facebook on steroids — It's been awhile since Microsoft introduced a game-changing social Web application, but Vine — a service that's debuting today with a beta test in Seattle — could be a contender. — Vine is a hyperlocal, personalized message and alert system.
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Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:Microsoft Vine To Connect Family, Friends When Crisis Hits
Discussion:
Channel 10, webmonkey, Ubergizmo, Silicon Alley Insider, AppScout, Pulse2, ithinkdifferent, SlashGear, dailywireless.org, VentureBeat and TechFlash, Thanks:mrinaldesai
Ola Rosling / The Official Google Blog:
Adding search power to public data — Earthquakes are not the only thing that can shake Silicon Valley. After the dot-com bubble burst back in 2000 the unemployment rate of Santa Clara county went up to 9.1%. During the last couple of months, it has gone up again:
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Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:
Google Launches Public Data Search & Charts During Wolfram Alpha Demo — During the Wolfram Alpha demonstration today, the Google Blog announced the launch of their own structured data search feature that allows you to find and compare public data. — Searches such as [unemployment rate new york] …
Discussion:
Wolfram
Security Research & Defense:
AutoRun changes in Windows 7 — As some of our readers are well aware, Conficker and other malware is taking advantage of the AutoRun functionality as a spreading mechanism. Furthermore, over the last couple of months, there has been a significant increase of this threat, as more malware is abusing this functionality.
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Softpedia News:Windows 7 Pirates Will Be Kept Safe and Cozy by Microsoft
Discussion:
The Windows Blog
Randall C. Kennedy / Randall C. Kennedy's blog:Windows 7's ‘XP mode’: Right idea, wrong technology
Discussion:
Hardware 2.0
VentureBeat:
Verizon flirts with Apple, but Android is already girlfriend material — There's been lots of speculation that Verizon, the largest U.S. phone network, is flirting with Apple, with the idea of introducing an iPhone on Verizon's network next year. — Verizon is building out a new fourth …
Discussion:
CNET News, TechCrunch, Tech Check with Jim Goldman, paidContent.org, Digital Daily, FierceWireless, Gadgetell, InformationWeek and NEWSFACTOR
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Rajen Sheth / Google Enterprise Blog:
What we talk about when we talk about cloud computing — Recently, McKinsey & Company published a study on cloud computing as part of a symposium for The Uptime Institute, an organization dedicated to supporting the enterprise data center industry. We share McKinsey's interest in helping …
Microsoft:
Office Service Pack 2 A Significant Stability, Performance and Interoperability Upgrade — Q&A: Group Program Manager Jane Liles talks about the enhancements now available through Service Pack 2 for the 2007 Microsoft Office system. — As part of its efforts to continually improve …
Jenna Wortham / Bits:
Apple iPhone Owners Favor Personal Uses, Not Business — Do you treat your iPhone as a guilty pleasure? You're not alone. — A new report from Compete surveying the behavior of 600 smartphone users found that 73 percent of iPhone owners used their mobile devices primarily for personal reasons, such as entertainment.
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Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Mint Turns Personal Finance Into A Game. It's Better Than It Sounds — Mint, the popular personal finance site that won 2007's TechCrunch40, is launching a new feature called “Financial Fitness” which, strange as it may sound, adds an element of gaming to the service.
Discussion:
Venture Capital Dispatch, Gadgetell, Lifehacker, AppScout, The Social Times, Webware.com and Raph's Website
Chris Davies / SlashGear:
Upcoming Averatec 10-inch netbook may use Android — Averatec are developing a new netbook that is “a merger of cellphone and PC technology”, prompting speculation that the company will use Android as the budget ultraportable's OS. Company CEO Tae-Hyun “Tiger” Cho has described the OS as …
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Jason Chen / Gizmodo:
Palm's Casting a Pre Viral Video Right Now, Hints At Pre Release Date — If you're a male in Seattle from the age of 24 to 34, you may have the chance to star in a Palm Pre viral ad. Update — Funny, cool and nerdy. Is that you? If so, contact your agent and ask him to get you in.
The Boy Genius / Boy Genius Report:
BlackBerry Tour hitting Verizon Wireless in July? — BlackBerry Tour? Oh yeah. Now that that's been confirmed, we're on to bigger and better things — release dates! The latest information we've heard is that the BlackBerry Tour is shaping up to be released on Verizon in the month of July.
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
The Pirate Bay verdict goes English, and we dish the dirt — The Pirate Bay ruling has been translated into English, and it's full of little surprises. Ars dives in to answer the big questions: who possessed those Klomifen tablets, how much did the state pay to defend The Pirate Bay admins …
Robert / Wakoopa blog:
The State of Apps - Q1 2009 — I'm happy to announce the release of the inaugural edition of our quarterly software trends report, named The State of Apps. — Since we started with Wakoopa, we've acquired over 525 million hours of software usage data from 75,000 members.
Brian Womack / Bloomberg:
Facebook Has Enough Money to Survive Web Advertising Slump, Sandberg Says — Facebook Inc. has plenty of money to overcome the economic slump and is adding new forms of interactive advertising that will boost sales 70 percent this year, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said.
Amol Sharma / Digits:
Report: iPhone Users Spend 9.6 Minutes per App — Greystripe, an ad network for mobile applications and games, has a new report showing how consumers are using free iPhone applications. — Associated Press — A Macworld poster touting iPhone apps — Among the interesting findings:
Thanks:atul
Matt Buchanan / Gizmodo:
Dell Studio 19 Multitouch All-in-One Arrives in US of A for $699, No Signs of Swine Flu — Six weeks after Dell's multitouch Studio 19 all-in-one hit Japan, it's finally coming to the US. Despite my penchant for mocking Dell's designers, if you're looking for a non-iMac all-in-one, it's worth a shot.
Discussion:
Softpedia News, DailyTech, Incremental Blogger, Boing Boing Gadgets, Electronista, Obsessable and Engadget
Raju Vegesna / Zoho Blogs:
Introducing Zoho Mobile — Over the past year or two we have had some initiatives on mobile capabilities for selected Zoho applications. With Zoho Mobile, we are aggregating all our previous initiatives with consistent user interface and extending it to multiple applications and mobile platforms.
Discussion:
Technologizer, The Download Blog, jkOnTheRun, Ubergizmo, Download Squad, VentureBeat and All things Indian Startups …, Thanks:blogfisher
Camille Ricketts / VentureBeat:
Coming soon: A new, smarter Google News? — Google may be working on a new, intelligent news distribution system, according to Sharon Waxman, a reporter for Hollywood newsblog TheWrap. She approached chief executive Eric Schmidt at a soiree thrown by Arianna Huffington last week …
Nicole Loux / The Mozilla Blog:
Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 now available for download! — Editor's note: Mozilla released Firefox 3.5 beta 4 on Monday, April 27, 2009 at 5:22 pm PT. Check out the Mozilla Developer News announcement reposted below for more details. — Please note: Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 is a public preview release intended …
Discussion:
iTnews Australia, ReadWriteWeb, LinuxWorld.com, Mozilla, Gizmodo, jkOnTheRun and BetaNews
Mike Musgrove / Washington Post:
Mixx Looks to Go Beyond the News — New Service ‘Sifter’ to Pair Companies With Online Users — The McLean-based news site Mixx.com is hoping to persuade consumer product developers to draw on the wisdom of the Web as it launches a service today that pairs its online community of news junkies …
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Socialthing Starts Spreading Across 75 AOL Sites — A couple weeks ago, I spotted the reincarnation of Socialthing on AOL's country-music Website TheBoot and speculated that it would potentially be rolled out across AOL's other MediaGlow properties as well.
