Top Items:
New York Times:
F.T.C. Looks Into Ties Between Apple and Google Boards — SAN FRANCISCO — The Federal Trade Commission has begun an inquiry into whether the close ties among the boards of two of technology's most prominent companies, Apple and Google, amounts to a violation of antitrust laws, according to several people briefed on the inquiry.
Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:
Researchers hijack botnet, score 56,000 passwords in an hour — The Torpig botnet was hijacked by the good guys for ten days earlier this year before its controllers issued an update and took the botnet back. During that time, however, researchers were able to gain a glimpse into the kind …
Wall Street Journal:
Amazon Plans Kindle for Textbooks — Amazon.comInc. on Wednesday plans to unveil a new version of its Kindle e-book reader with a larger screen and other features designed to appeal to periodical and academic textbook publishers, according to people familiar with the matter.
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Kevin Michaluk / CrackBerry.com blogs:
BlackBerry Curve 8520 Review - First Impressions — A CrackBerry.com Hands-On First Look at the BlackBerry Curve 8520... A New “Low End” BlackBerry That Rocks?! — Rumors of a new BlackBerry with the codename “Gemini” have been running around the interwebs since early 2009, evolving slightly with every new blog post made about it.
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Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
CrossLoop's Screen-Sharing App Comes To The Mac — After nearly five million downloads of its Windows PC client, CrossLoop brings its screen-sharing app and growing pro-am computer support community to the Mac (download here, for Intel Macs running OS X 10.4 or higher).
Wojtek Dabrowski / Reuters:
RIM plans next-gen Storm as it eyes untapped market — TORONTO (Reuters) - Research In Motion is planning a next-generation version of its touchscreen BlackBerry Storm smartphone as part of a continuing push into the retail market, its co-CEO said on Monday.
Discussion:
Electronista, eWeek, NEWS.com.au, BerryReview.com, Crave, Engadget, Boy Genius Report, IntoMobile, Electronic Pulp, Edible Apple and Phone Scoop
John Nack / John Nack on Adobe:
Some thoughts about the PSD format — Here's what I think people want to know: Is Photoshop's PSD format a goofy, antiquated piece of crap, and by extension is Photoshop slow, clumsy, and/or outdated? — No. (Read on for details.) — The questions arise because various Web sites1 …
Discussion:
Imaging Insider
In-Stat:
Web-to-TV Video Streaming Services Will Drive Nearly $3 Billion in Revenue by 2013 — The under-35 adult population in the US has already adopted Web-to-TV video capability, reports In-Stat http://www.in-stat.com. Over 40% of young adult US households view Internet video on the TV at least once per month.
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Sean Bradford / Neowin.net:
Exclusive: Windows 7 RC download goes live — The wait is over folks, Microsoft has published the download page for the Windows 7 RC. As we noted earlier, the download was scheduled to launch tomorrow and was to be available worldwide. Coming straight from the download page, here are Microsoft's notes for the release candidate:
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Yahoo and Microsoft Deal Progress “Meaningful"-Plus the Deal Team Rosters — Recently, BoomTown reported that talks between Microsoft and Yahoo had gotten “hot and heavy.” — That mood seems to be continuing, as many sources close to the situation on both sides said that the pair …
Charles Arthur / Guardian:
Google Chrome on the Mac: what's the holdup? (UpdateD) — Want Google Chrome for Mac? You can have it - though note that there's plenty that's not actually, um, working just at the moment. It's odd how many months it's taking Google to do this port (and how the shine seems to have come off Chrome …
Discussion:
Technologizer
Rohan Seth / Google Mobile Blog:
Do more with Google Latitude! — When we launched Google Latitude a couple of months ago, we were flooded with feature suggestions. One frequent request was to allow you to share your location with even more people and not just your Latitude friends. Today, we're launching two applications that do just that!
Discussion:
The Official Google Blog, Search Engine Land, Webware.com, TechCrunch, IntoMobile, Digital Inspiration, Google Operating System, ReadWriteWeb, WebProNews, Screenwerk, InformationWeek, Mashable! and AppScout, Thanks:blogfisher
Seth Weintraub / 9 to 5 Mac:
New Application Parental Controls to let Apple put adult content on iPhone — Apple will soon have an excuse to slang those controversial potty-mouth NIN apps to all of your kids. In version 3 of the iPhone and in iTunes 8.2 (image below) you can now select parental control for apps and choose the age of the iPhone owner.
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Jason Pontin / Technology Review:
A Manifesto — Newspapers and magazines won't vanish. But they must change. Here's how to save media. — Even a few years ago, Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele, those 18th-century London gallants and the founders of the Spectator, would have recognized the forms and modes of business …
Dave Kansas / Wall Street Journal:
Why Tech Stocks Are on a Tear — The Dow Jones Industrial Average has bounced from its early March lows, but it remains down for the year. The past few weeks have shown the major market measures bickering about whether or not they should head higher or once again retreat.
Adam Hupp / Facebook Blog:
Live Updating the Stream — Since introducing the new home page, we've been working to make it easier for you to stay updated with your friends and connections. Your News Feed, in the center of your home page, offers you an updated stream of what's happening with them. Beginning today, that stream is going live.
Stephen Williams / Gadgetwise:
Consumer Reports Takes a Shine to Apple — Hitting for the cycle is a rare event in baseball, and rare as well in the pages of Consumer Reports. — So when you go three for three—as Apple has in the recent laptop computer-ratings issue—and score highly in other categories, it's worth at least a nod.
Discussion:
AppleInsider, MacRumors, Ars Technica, Macworld, Electronista, The Technology Chronicles, Macsimum News, Geek News Central and Softpedia News
Sean Fallon / Gizmodo:
HyperMac External Battery Gives MacBooks a 32 Hour Boost — A battery that provides 32 hours of continuous MacBook use? Now we're talkin'. Sound's great until you find out that the 222Wh Hypermac external charger costs a whopping $500. — On the plus side, Hypermac is offering …
Nick O'Neill / All Facebook:
Facebook Begins Heavily Promoting Mobile Services — Over the past day or so Facebook has begun heavily promoting their mobile services through ads on the site which all link to a new Facebook mobile landing page. They are trying to alert users to the robust set of mobile features …
Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:
Mozilla ponders policy change after Firefox extension battle — The NoScript Firefox extension faced a major backlash last week when users discovered that it was surreptitiously disrupting the operation of AdBlock Plus. The developers behind the two extensions turned the browser into a battleground as their conflict escalated.
Discussion:
Tech-Ex, OStatic blogs, yardley.ca, InformationWeek, The Register, Technologizer and SEO BlackHat
Alex Pham / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Libraries ask court to monitor Google after book settlement is approved — Google's project to digitize books is garnering objections. Credit: Wonderland via Flickr — Three organizations representing 139,000 libraries today asked the judge overseeing Google's settlement with authors …
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Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
SMSGupShup (India's “Twitter") Grows To 20 million Users, $150,000/month Revenue — SMSGupShup, a Twitter-like service in India, is getting a ton of buzz over here in the U.S., too. In an interview with CEO Beerud Sheth now says the service now has 20 million users (and that's without …
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
The logistics: Windows 7 RC public download to last through July — If you aren't an MSDN or TechNet subscriber, but still want to get your hands on the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC), Tuesday May 5 is the day downloads begin. — But there's no need to rush. (And doing so might lead to server-overload frustrations.
