Top Items:
David Pogue / Pogue's Posts:
Some E-Books Are More Equal Than Others — This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for—thought they owned.
Discussion:
Boing Boing, VentureBeat, BetaNews, Technologizer, Between the Lines, CNET News, MediaMemo, NPR Blogs, Computerworld Blogs, TechFlash, Cool Rules Pronto, Daring Fireball, GeekTonic, jkOnTheRun, CrunchGear, Techgeist, Gravitational Pull, Gadgetwise, Mashable!, GottaBeMobile.com, ExtremeTech, Joho the Blog, Talking Points Memo and digg.com
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Adam Frucci / Gizmodo:
Amazon Remotely Deletes Legitimately Purchased Books From Thousands of Kindles — Amazon basically guaranteed that I'll never buy a Kindle last night by bending to the wishes of a publisher and deleting every single legitimately-purchased copy of 1984 and Animal Farm from all Kindles remotely.
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Amazon, Why Don't You Come In Our Houses And Burn Our Books Too? — So plenty has already been said about this, but we're going to weigh in too because it's just so ridiculous. Amazon began remotely deleting books from Kindles this morning. Illegal books? Nope.
Thomas Claburn / InformationWeek:
Amazon Says It Will Stop Deleting Kindle Books — By deleting two unauthorized Orwell books from the Kindle devices of readers who had purchased them, Amazon highlighted how poorly real world expectations apply to the digital world. — Amazon on Thursday began e-mailing a few hundred owners …
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Verizon's Handset Concessions Target AT&T, iPhone — Updated: Verizon said today it will offer smaller carriers access to any cell phone model it uses — even those exclusive to Verizon. Carriers who have fewer than 500,000 subscribers will have access to phones after only six months …
Discussion:
Tech Beat, PC World, The Register, iLounge, Techgeist, Boy Genius Report, FierceWireless, MobileCrunch, CNET News, VentureBeat, DSLreports and Tech Trader Daily
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Amy Schatz / Wall Street Journal:Verizon to Limit Exclusive Handset Deals
Discussion:
BetaNews, Bits, mocoNews, IntoMobile, MobileCrunch, Electronista, Between the Lines, Digits, Telecompetitor, Engadget Mobile, GottaBeMobile.com and Phone Scoop
Chris Nuttall / blogs.ft.com:
App stores are not the future, says Google — Apple customers may have downloaded 1.5bn applications from its AppStore in the past year for their iPhones and iPod touches, but the service does not represent the future for the mobile industry, according to Google.
Staska / Unwired View:
Google to monetize Voice via ringback advertising auctions? — The newly announced Google Voice looks like a great service that should ease your communication problems on multiple devices significantly. — And Google is already thinking of the ways of monetizing Voice. In a way it knows best - through advertising.
Ryan Tate / Gawker:
Slouching Toward a Coddled and Toothless Blogosphere — Remember when blogs were going to be fiercely independent firebrands who, purified of old media insidery stench, would pull no punches against traditional power structures? So much for that. Today's laptop media is shaping up to be nothing but lapdogs.
Discussion:
BoomTown, Search Engine Journal, Computerworld, blogs.telegraph.co.uk and Sample the Web
Sleonard / Windows Home Server Team Blog:
Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 BETA - Includes enhancements for Windows 7-based computers — We are pleased to announce the Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 Beta which improves the Windows Home Server experience with Windows 7 and Windows Media Center by providing the following new features …
Jordan Golson / GigaOM:
Fearless Feedback! Tech Workers Dish Dirt on Their Employers — Thinking about making a move to another company? Sure, the economy is in tatters and layoff announcement have become commonplace, but it's always nice to know whether or not people at other companies are as miserable enjoying their jobs as much as you.
IEBlog:
Changes to IE8's First Run — This blog post details a change we're making to IE8's first run experience, previously described in other posts here and here. The goal of the IE setup experience is to put IE users in control of their settings and respect existing defaults.
Tim Stevens / Engadget:
Blockbuster selling Archos 10 netbooks at retail stores, we're not sure why either — Looking for a place to buy a netbook? Have you tried any of the thousands of online shops that offer them? Oh, they don't look quite desperate enough for you? Perhaps you'd rather go somewhere that really needs your money: Blockbuster.
Discussion:
PR Newswire, Electronista, Liliputing, geeksmack.net, Gadgetell, GottaBeMobile.com and Joystiq
Financial Times:
Microsoft-Yahoo talks intensify — Negotiations between Microsoft and Yahoo over an alliance that could reshape the internet search business have intensified in recent days. — However, it is not yet clear if the latest talks will get any closer to a deal than discussions that failed earlier this year …
Discussion:
BoomTown
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MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Did Your Mom Tell You Not To Talk To Strangers? Don't Show Her FlyChat. — I sat down thinking I was going to write about how FlyChat, a new iPhone app, is kind of creepy. Then I realized it's actually a lot like Twitter in some regards. And that's not to say that Twitter isn't creepy in some ways.
Todd Bishop / TechFlash:
Apple's former real estate chief now working on Microsoft stores — Looks like Microsoft will have some very well-informed assistance as it tries to replicate the success of Apple's retail stores. Former Apple real estate chief George Blankenship, who helped lead the early rollout …
Erica Ogg / CNET News:
Slowing down the Netbook train — Cheaper or faster? — That's going to be the burning question for computer shoppers perusing the aisles of electronics retail stores this fall. That's when the new line of notebooks powered by consumer ultra-low voltage (CULV) chips will start appearing in force.
Discussion:
I4U News, jkOnTheRun, Technologizer, Lockergnome Blog Network, bit-tech.net and SlashGear
Noah Robischon / Fast Company:
What Would a Facebook Collaboration With Apple Look Like? It Almost Happened... How would Facebook be different today if its social operating system was built into Apple's OS X? The two companies spent a lot of time collaborating early on. But, as Facebook's senior platform manager …
Michael Jones / TUAW:
App Store Lessons: No promo codes for apps rated 17+ — Developers whose apps meet the criteria for a 17+ rating in the App Store are now running into yet another roadblock, but this time it's not about getting their apps approved, it's about distributing them. Or, more specifically, distributing promo codes for them.
Discussion:
CNET News, Ars Technica, AppleInsider, Marco.org, Macworld, App Advice, MacRumors, The iPhone Blog, SlashGear, www.pocketgamer.biz, Engadget Mobile and digg.com
Josh Lowensohn / CNET News:
Wikipedia's controversial video player coming soon — Wikipedia users will be getting new tools for uploading, editing, and viewing video very soon. According to a Beet.TV interview with Erik Moller, who is the deputy director of the Wikimedia Foundation, we'll see all of these things shortly.
Discussion:
Beet.TV
Javier Espinoza / Forbes:
Spotify Looks For A New Tune — The London online jukebox is launching in the U.S. later this summer. — LONDON — The way Americans listen to music online might be about to change. Music-streaming Web site Spotify, an online software program that gives Internet users instant and free access …
Rory Cellan-Jones / BBC:
Wikipedia painting row escalates — The battle over Wikipedia's use of images from a British art gallery's website has intensified. — The online encyclopaedia has accused the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) of betraying its public service mission. — But the gallery has said it needs …
Discussion:
Wikimedia blog
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch Europe:
Here's how you make money out of Twitter - charge £495 for a search interface — UK entreprenuer Colin Gilchrist has developed Tweetabits, effectively a Tweet-deck style interface layered over Twitter search. — Developed for a franchise with 56 offices across the UK (which he won't name) …
Alexia Tsotsis / Style Council:
Is All of Hollywood the Bitch in Twitter “Sex Tape,” or Just P. Diddy? — Regardless of what you think of Techcrunch founder Michael Arrington's ethics, what has been revealed via the Techcrunch #twittergate is some of the most fascinating information to have hit the mediasphere in a long time.
Michael R. Blood / Associated Press:
Concerns raised as LA looks to Google Web services — LOS ANGELES — Security and privacy concerns have been raised over a multimillion-dollar proposal by Los Angeles to tap Google Inc.'s Internet-based services for government e-mail, police records and other confidential data.
Chris Kanaracus / PC World:
Experts: Oracle Database Option Price Hikes No Accident — Oracle's decision to hike the price of some add-ons for its flagship database by about 40 percent was far from a random act, since the modules are crucial to getting the database to perform at the highest level, a pair of experts said Friday.
Discussion:
ReadWriteWeb
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
How Google Made Its Q2 Numbers: Squeezing Expenses — Google made its earnings numbers yesterday, actually coming in above expectations. Total revenues were $5.5 billion, 3 percent above the same period last year and flat with the first quarter (when sequential revenues actually declined).
Google Chrome Releases:
Stable, Beta update: Bug fixes — Google Chrome 2.0.172.37 has been released to the Beta and Stable channels. This release fixes some minor bugs: — Fix: Solving captcha images broken at orkut.com. (Issue 15569) — Make forward/backward navigation work even when redirection is involved.
Scott M. Fulton, III / BetaNews:
Is Google optimizing Chrome 3 for Windows XP netbooks? — Download Google Chrome 3.0.193.1 for Windows from Fileforum now. — Over the last few weeks, Google has been releasing development builds of its Chrome 3 Web browser in a fast and furious pace. And with each release …
Discussion:
TechFlash
Michael V. Copeland / Fortune:
Cisco's upside potential — When the economy finally gets back on track, the networking giant will play a key role in some of tech's biggest trends. — NEW YORK (Fortune) — There have been a string of tech companies signaling that for their business at least, the worst may be over.
