Top Items:
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
AT&T Considering $10 Drop in iPhone Monthly Plan Rates? — TheStreet.com reports on comments from analyst Michael Cote suggesting that AT&T is considering reducing the basic monthly iPhone plan from $69 to $59 alongside an announcement of the next-generation iPhone at next month's Worldwide Developers Conference.
Discussion:
eWeek
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Scott Moritz / TheStreet.com:
Tech Rumor of the Day: Apple — AT&T (T Quote) is considering a $10 price cut for the iPhone's monthly service plan when Apple (AAPL Quote) introduces the newest version of the phone next month. — There is a “strong possibility” that AT&T will drop the entry-level price to $59 from $69 …
Discussion:
PC World, CNET News, Ars Technica, Unwired View, DSLreports, AppleInsider, Mac|Life all, 9 to 5 Mac, Gadgetell, SlashGear, TheAppleBlog, MacDailyNews, MobileCrunch, TUAW, Gearlog, Ubergizmo, The Apple Core and World of Apple
Zach Epstein / Boy Genius Report:
Internal Palm memo may reveal Pre launch timing — We're prefacing this by saying we're definitely not 100%, but it looks like Palm could be gearing up for a round of meetings that will lead up to the day we've all been waiting for — Palm Pre launch day. We just received what an anonymous …
Discussion:
Digital Daily, InformationWeek, Electronista, PreCentral.net, I4U News, MobileCrunch, Gizmodo, Palm WebOS, prethinking.com, GottaBeMobile.com and jkOnTheRun
Sergey Brin / The Official Google Blog:
The 2008 Founders' Letter — Every year our founders take turns writing a letter that is included in our annual report. We originally published the 2008 Founders' Letter on our Investor Relations site. Since today is the annual Stockholders' Meeting at our Mountain View headquarters, we wanted to make it more widely available.
Matthew Garrahan / Financial Times:
Hulu agrees international TV deals — Hulu, the US online video service owned by NBC Universal, Fox and Walt Disney, has signed its first batch of content deals with international television producers, the first step towards a full global launch of the service.
Discussion:
PR Newswire, NewTeeVee, Contentinople, MediaPost, Hollywood Reporter, Electronista and AppScout
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
3 Reasons Why Twitter Will NOT Index the Links You Share (Updated) — Techmeme is on fire this morning with discussion of Rafe Needleman's CNet post about Twitter's supposed plans to index the content of links shared over the microblogging service. Ex-Googler turned Twitter exec …
Thanks:atul
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Rafe Needleman / CNET News:Twitter Search to dive deeper, rank results
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VentureBeat, mocoNews, TechCrunch, Macworld, Bits, Gadgetwise, Mashable!, Black Web 2.0, Yahoo! Search Blog, Dealscape, Channel 10, Download Squad, Contentinople, Technology Questions, All Facebook, Search Engine Land, Mark Evans, The SiliconANGLE, Silicon Alley Insider, p2pnet, Fast Company, Network World, Electricpig.co.uk and Search Engine Journal
Frank Reed / Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim:Twitter Plans to Squash Google's Spider?
Discussion:
Traffick
Ryan Tate / Gawker:
David Simon: Dead-Wrong Dinosaur — The creator of the brilliant television series The Wire today asked Congress to legalize monopolistic collusion by newspapers. Only they can really cover City Hall, he said. Apparently he hasn't been there in a while.
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Andrew Clark / Guardian:
Free web news era over, says Murdoch — Current days of free internet will soon be over, says media mogul — Rupert Murdoch expects to start charging for access to News Corporation's newspaper websites within a year as he strives to fix a "malfunctioning" business model.
Ina Fried / CNET News:
Microsoft tweaks antipiracy tech for Windows 7 — With Windows 7, Microsoft is making some subtle changes to the ways it tries to thwart piracy. — As has been the case for some time, Microsoft's strategy hinges on requiring a user to electronically verify their copy of the software …
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John Herrman / Gizmodo:
iPhone Beta 5 Odds and Ends: No More MMS, Better YouTube? — The official script may have minimized it as a maintenance release, but some users are finding out that iPhone Beta 5 contains more than bugfixes. So far: YouTube's improved, and hacked MMS is no more.
Discussion:
Ed Burnette's Dev Connection, Ars Technica, winandmac.com, The iPhone Blog, Mobile Roar, Rev2.org, TUAW and Neowin.net
Katie Marsal / AppleInsider:
Snow Leopard to support native 3G Wireless WAN hardware — Building on evidence that Apple is seeking to hire engineers to test new Macs with 3G Wireless WAN support, people familiar with the company's plans say Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard will incorporate new support for native WWAN hardware.
The Boy Genius / Boy Genius Report:
BlackBerry 8520's hitting T-Mobile in Q4 — We just got some hands on time with the now infamous BlackBerry 8520 (code-named Gemini). Optical trackball? Ooooh yeah. While there hasn't been too much time to play with them, early impressions are definitely fitting in with what CrackBerry reported …
Nick O'Neill / All Facebook:
Facebook Adds New Feed And Friend Filters — Want to view which of your friends recently updated their profile? It is a feature that was lost with the new Facebook redesign, but as of last night, there are new filters which give you greater access to your friends' latest activities.
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Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Google: Schmidt Hasn't Considered Quitting AAPL Board — Speaking to reporters at a press briefing ahead of the company's annual meeting taking place this afternoon, Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt said he hadn't considered resigning from the Apple (AAPL) board in response …
Nick Mediati / PC World:
Speed Test: Windows 7 May Not Be Much Faster Than Vista — Though Windows 7 edged out Vista in our lab tests, you may not notice much of a difference. — Recommends — Improving performance is one of Microsoft's design goals with Windows 7, and many early reviewers (including ours) …
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Warner Music Group Walks Away From Digital Start-Ups Lala and Imeem, Loses $33 Million — It's par for the course for big music labels to boast about their digital music sales as their CD sales tank. And that's just what Warner Music Group (WMG) did that this morning …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Microsoft buys game developer BigPark to beef up Xbox 360 offering — Microsoft has been scaling back its internal staff across the board and in games. But the software giant showed today that it's still willing to invest in the game business by buying BigPark, a game development studio in Vancouver, Canada.
Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:
Microsoft Photosynth Goes to Work: Integrates With Virtual Earth — Microsoft announced today that it will now give its commerical partners the option to mash up Virtual Earth and Photosynth to create immersive 3D photo experiences. In order to facilitate this, Microsoft also announced …
Nilay Patel / Engadget:
MPAA suggests teachers videotape TVs instead of ripping DVDs. Seriously. — So the Copyright Office is currently in the middle reviewing proposed exceptions to the DMCA, and one of the proposals on the table would allow teachers and students to rip DVDs and edit them for use in the classroom.
Connie Loizos / PE Hub Blog:
Skype Cofounders Aim to Raise $266M Venture Fund — Atomico Ventures is ready for blast-off, according to a new regulatory filing. The early-stage venture capital fund spearheaded by Skype cofounders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis is looking to raise the strangely precise amount of $266 million …
Thanks:mrinaldesai
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Intel, Novell stump for Moblin netbook OS — Intel and Novell on Thursday announced a deal to push Moblin, the open source Linux platform designed to work with the chip giant's Atom chip. Intel cooked up Moblin and then handed it off to the open source community. — Among the details of the plan:
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Activision Blizzard beats earnings and revenue expectations — World of Warcraft. Call of Duty. Guitar Hero. Those are the video game brands that are driving Activision Blizzard's revenues and earnings. Today, the company said it beat expectations for both in its first quarter ended March 31.
Discussion:
L.A. Times Tech Blog
Cecilia Kang / Washington Post:
New Firm Mines Its Polling Expertise — Data on Consumers' Political Leanings Used to Help Sell Online Advertising — A bipartisan group including some former senior White House staffers today will take its polling know-how to the Web. — Sara Taylor, who worked as the political director …
Jim Finkle / Reuters:
EXCLUSIVE-Oracle to keep Sun's hardware business — * Oracle to boost investment in SPARC microchips — Oracle Corp (ORCL.O) Chief Executive Larry Ellison dispelled speculation that he will divest the hardware business of Sun Microsystems Inc (JAVA.O), which his company plans to buy for more than $7 billion.
Discussion:
SiliconBeat
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Apple 2.0:
iPhone App Store: 40,000 and counting — Noah's rain lasted 40 days and 40 nights, but the flood of submissions to the iPhone App Store — which hit the 40,000 mark in late April — continues unabated. — The current numbers, as of Thursday afternoon are as follows:
Kevin J. O'Brien / New York Times:
Google's Strength May Be Part of Microsoft Defense Strategy — BERLIN — Microsoft will argue against a European Commission proposal that it promote competing browsers in its Windows operating system on the ground that such a move would strengthen its rival Google's dominance …
