Top Items:
The Boy Genius / Boy Genius Report:
Magnetometer in next iPhone confirmed? — We just got a couple images from one of our Apple ninjas and it appears to show a compass option in one of the debugging menus. Our source says this is obviously for a built-in magnetometer in the upcoming iPhone hardware revision and with what's already been reported, we'd have to agree.
Jia Lynn Yang / Fortune:
Google: A ‘natural monopoly’? — The search giant says competition is “a click away.” So what if it hasn't materialized? — NEW YORK (Fortune) — For the second week in a row, reports have surfaced that government regulators are closely eyeing Google. — The Justice Department is taking …
RELATED:
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:Apparently Google's Lawyers Were Prepped For Google/Apple Antitrust Inquiry
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:Google: Schmidt Hasn't Considered Quitting AAPL Board
Discussion:
New York Times, Associated Press, Digital Daily, Macworld, The Register, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Reuters, Guardian, The Mac Observer, Bits and Tech Beat
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.
RELATED:
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Google: Looking over shoulder at Wolfram|Alpha? — Google's Sergey Brin, co-founder and president of the search giant, on Thursday delivered the company's annual “Founders' Letter” and apparently is keeping a watchful eye on Wolfram|Alpha. — If you recall, Wolfram|Alpha …
Elizabeth Woyke / Forbes:
Nokia's Gigantic App Store — Nokia is preparing an app store second in size only to Apple's. — Nokia is about to shake up the app store world. — The Finnish company is planning to roll out an online store for mobile applications later this month. Though Apple ( AAPL - news …
Percy Cabello / Mozilla Links:
Multi-processor support coming for Firefox — Mozilla has started a new project to make Firefox split in several processes at a time: one running the main user interface (chrome), and another or several others running the web content in each tab. Like Chrome or Internet Explorer 8 …
Matt Asay / The Open Road:
Microsoft search to be powered by open source — Microsoft for years has been warning the world not to use open-source software. Apparently, its Kumo search team didn't get the memo. — Kumo will weigh heavily on open source. — (Credit: Screenshot by Ina Fried/CNET)
Discussion:
The Register
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) …
Jessica Dolcourt / CNET News:
Facebook's official Windows Mobile debut (at last!) — Back in March, Microsoft promised the world, and especially Windows Mobile 6 owners, a native Facebook application for Windows Mobile phones. On Thursday, Redmond delivered. OK, so Facebook for Windows Mobile 6 was forecast for April instead of May …
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:
Tim Arango / New York Times:
The President's Name Trips Up a Would-Be Voice of the News — The Amazon Kindle, an electronic reader, has been lavished with praise by hopeful newspaper and book executives who say they believe it has the potential to do for newspapers and books what the iPod did for music.
Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
Facebook platform developers could see $500M in revenue this year — A growing number of game makers on Facebook are making money from virtual goods — from poker chips to virtual clothes that users can buy or earn while playing gaming applications with their friends on Facebook.
Discussion:
TechCrunch
Eric Woodward / the blog of ejw:
Them There URLs — I was interviewed for this NY Times story on potential URL shortening business models about three weeks ago, shortly after the bit.ly investment was announced. I was a little disappointed to see that it is basically fluff. I thought I would fill in some the missing key points based …
Thanks:atul
Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog:
The Favicon Marks Your Spot — Yahoo! tests favicons with popular search ad results — It's good for everybody when a user searching for your website can quickly identify that your ad belongs to you. That's why we're rolling out a new icon that helps searchers spot your site at a glance.
Drew Cullen / The Register:
UK gov squeezes ‘best pricing’ pledge from MS — One licence for all our rulers — Free whitepaper - Deploying high-density zones in a low-density data center — Buying Solutions, the procurement arm of the UK government, yesterday proclaimed a new, better licensing deal with Microsoft.
Discussion:
Microsoft UK Government Blog
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
AT&T and Verizon: Is the smartphone growth train slowing? — J.P. Morgan analyst Mike McCormack raised a bit of a ruckus with a downgrade of AT&T and Verizon largely based on “on deteriorating wireless fundamentals, specifically in the higher value postpaid subscriber base of each company.”
Aron Trimble / TUAW:
Breaking News: No new app submissions unless they run on OS 3.0 — iPhone OS 3.0 beta 5 was only released for general consumption yesterday, and already Apple is rocking our collective faces off with big news. While a cool new feature being uncovered would be great, what Apple has in store …
Discussion:
The Loop Blog, Ed Burnette's Dev Connection, TechCrunch, Macworld, Engadget, TheNextWeb.com and The iPhone Blog
Tiernan Ray / Tech Trader Daily:
Nintendo's Mysterious Caution on FY '10 — Here's a puzzle: Why does Nintendo (NTDOY.PK) expect dramatically fewer software titles to sell for its Wii and DS game machines this year? — This morning, Tokyo time, the company announced results for its fiscal year ended in March …
Discussion:
L.A. Times Tech Blog
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
The iPhone Is Accelerating Music Sales For Pandora — Pandora is a company that mainly makes its money through advertising deals on its streaming Internet radio service. But a growing portion of the business is also affiliate downloads of songs that users hear on Pandora and want to buy on either iTunes or Amazon's MP3 service.
CNN:
Murdoch: Web sites to charge for content — (CNN) — Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch expects News Corporation-owned newspaper Web sites to start charging users for access within a year in a move which analysts say could radically shake-up the culture of freely available content.
Discussion:
Guardian
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.
Thunder / Mozilla Labs:
Identity in the Browser — The current state of identity on the Web is not so great. — Much of the ongoing discussion and efforts around user identity on the Web focuses on tying identities to new or existing networks and using various protocols for federating it.
Matt Asay / The Open Road:
SugarCRM CEO Roberts replaced by board member — John Roberts on Wednesday resigned from his post as CEO of open-source CRM vendor SugarCRM, leaving board member Larry Augustin to assume the role of interim CEO while the company conducts a formal search for his replacement. — John Roberts
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Happiness In Slavery: NIN iPhone App Approved With No Changes — Well, apparently if you speak loudly enough on the web with enough swear words, Apple does listen. After initially rejecting an update to Nine Inch Nails' iPhone app, Apple has relented and accepted it back into the store.
Robert Andrews / paidContent:
Why Raising The Pay Wall May Be An Impossible Dream — The worsening advertising climate is forcing many publishers, facing only modest online gains after a decade of digital investment, to consider charging for content. News Corp is considering a strategy that may involve e-readers …
Discussion:
Techdirt
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.
