Top Items:
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Yahoo Finally Rolls Out New Homepage to the Masses-and, Drum Roll, It's Good (Plus Screenshots) — Although it's not news that Yahoo has been readying a new version of its homepage and has spent a lot of time doing so-in fact, it's gone all Handy Manny with a whole lot of test renovations …
Discussion:
mocoNews, CNET News, Wall Street Journal, Bits, paidContent, Between the Lines, TechCrunch, Silicon Alley Insider and Mashable!
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Aaron / YouTube Biz Blog:
YouTube myth busting — One of our favorite shows at YouTube is MythBusters, the Discovery Channel's popular science program in which hosts Jamie and Adam bravely attempt to debunk urban legends. For those of us who thought you could jump start a car with a defibrillator, we consider this show a public service.
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Microsoft:
Microsoft Contributes Linux Drivers to Linux Community — Roundtable Q&A: Sam Ramji, senior director of Platform Strategy at Microsoft, and Tom Hanrahan, director of Microsoft's Open Source Technology Center, discuss the company's release of Linux device driver code under General Public License v2.
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Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Pigs do fly: Microsoft unleashes 20,000 lines of Linux code
Pigs do fly: Microsoft unleashes 20,000 lines of Linux code
Discussion:
Network World, PC World, IDG News Service, The Register, Computerworld, Port 25 and Ars Technica
Andrey / Inside BlackBerry:
BlackBerry Desktop Software: Coming Soon to a Mac Near You! — Many of you commented on my “Updating Your BlackBerry Device Software” post back in April saying “...this is great! But what about Mac?” I could not respond to those comments at the time, but I'm happy to say there's some exciting news we can share with you.
Discussion:
CrunchGear, Engadget, Boy Genius Report, Macworld, Mashable!, SlashGear, Computerworld, CNET News, Ars Technica, jkOnTheRun, BusinessWeek, RIMarkable, IntoMobile, Unwired View, BlackBerry Cool, TheAppleBlog, InformationWeek, Macsimum News, The iPhone Blog, AppScout, Silicon Alley Insider, TheNextWeb.com, Obsessable, Gizmodo, 9 to 5 Mac, The Mac Observer, CrackBerry.com blogs, Phone Arena and Phone Scoop
Eliot Van Buskirk / Epicenter:
Apple Preparing iPod Touch With Camera, Microphone: Source — Rumors have swirled about Apple readying a new version of the iPod Touch with a camera and microphone, which, combined with a Skype account, would pretty much obviate the need for a home phone line once and for all.
Fred Vogelstein / Wired News:
Why Is Obama's Top Antitrust Cop Gunning for Google? — “I think you are going to see a repeat of Microsoft.” — Christine Varney's blunt assessment sent a buzz through the audience at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Varney, a partner at Hogan & Hartson and one of the country's …
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Charging for Access to News Sites — John Plunkett, reporting for the Guardian last week, in a story titled “Financial Times Editor Says Most News Websites Will Charge Within a Year”: … I wish them good luck with this, and I mean that sincerely, but I believe this is a fundamentally flawed strategy.
Discussion:
Technovia
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David Simon / CJR:
Build the Wall — Most readers won't pay for news …
Build the Wall — Most readers won't pay for news …
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Search Engine Watch
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
Apple Estimated to Account for 20% of Cellphone Industry Profit — The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) on research from Deutsche Bank analyst Brian Modoff showing that Apple and Research in Motion together accounted for approximately 35% of the cellphone industry's total operating profit …
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Vogue:
Machine Dreams — Before I meet Marissa Mayer, the 34-year-old megamillionaire, Oscar de la Renta-obsessed, computer-programming Google executive who lives in a penthouse atop the Four Seasons, San Francisco, I of course Google her.
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Roundtable:
YouTube Testing 3D Videos (YT3D) — It appears that some time over the weekend, YouTube began experimenting with 3D videos. I spotted a thread at the YouTube Help forum about this, where Googler Pete said he developed this in his 20% time. — He said he is the “developer working on the stereoscopic player as a 20% project.”
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Barnes & Noble partners with Plastic Logic; Opens up; Targets Kindle — Updated: Barnes & Noble has outlined its answer for Amazon's Kindle: A partnership with Plastic Logic, which will launch an eReader in early 2010, and plans to open its e-book sales to multiple platforms.
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
People Are Using Google Reader “Likes,” But Some Hate It. And It's Flawed. — As we expected, the new “like” functionality in Google Reader seems like it's seeing some good usage. Certainly, given that “likes” are fully public, we're seeing much more social activity on feed items …
Discussion:
Shooting at Bubbles
Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
Facebook co-founder's Asana raises funding — from Facebook angels? — We're hearing that the business collaboration company co-founded by Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein (both formerly of Facebook) has raised funding from the same investors who backed the popular social networking site.
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
DRM is ****, RIAA Says — The digital music landscape is evolving continuously. Just two years ago RIAA chairman and CEO Mitch Bainwol defended the use of DRM on digital music because customers would benefit from it. — “DRM serves all sorts of pro-consumer purposes,” he said at the time …
Discussion:
Technologizer, InformationWeek, DailyTech, Maximum PC all, Electricpig.co.uk, Tim Oren's Due Diligence, Electronista, BetaNews, TechSpot, Slashdot, GeekTonic, CrunchGear and TeleRead
Gabriel Snyder / Gawker:
The Management Consultants Who Will End Condé Nast As We Know It — That was quick. Here is the grim memo that Condé Nast CEO Chuck Townsend just sent out announcing that it is bringing in McKinsey & Company to “develop new perspectives on optimizing our approach to business.”
Andy Greenberg / Forbes:
Obama's Unwilling Cyber Czars — By focusing on the economy, the administration may have turned away its top candidates. — America's cyber czar, despite the impressive title, may not be such a coveted job after all. As early as this week, President Obama is expected to appoint …
Peter Parkes / Skype for Mac:
Skype 2.8 Gold for Mac out now — We've just released the final version of Skype 2.8 for Mac - it's ready for you to download now. — Those of you who have already been using the beta version won't notice any new features, but we've fixed a number of bugs. Raul's post on the Garage blog has all the details.
Tiernan Ray / Tech Trader Daily:
Palm: Report Sees Pre Defects Hitting Earnings — Despite being enamored with Palm's (PALM) Pre smartphone, analyst Kevin Dede with boutique investment banker and brokerage Jesup & Lamont this morning initiated coverage of Palm shares with a “Sell” rating. Dede thinks the shares are worth $12.50.
Joseph L. Flatley / Engadget:
Kingston unveils 256GB thumb drive for well-heeled memory fiends — We're sure that it's only a matter of moments before a 256GB thumb drive this bulky is something of a joke — hell, it wasn't so terribly long ago that cramming 256MB into something this size was an accomplishment.
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Launch Wars: Twitcam Beats CamTweet To Live Video Tweets — Ten days ago at our Real Time Stream CrunchUp, Justin.tv demonstrated a new beta product they are working on called CamTweet. It lets you launch a live video broadcast using your computer Webcam, Tweet it out to your followers …
Jason Kottke / kottke.org:
Apollo 11 landing on TV as it aired 40 years ago — Inspired by the ApolloPlus40 Twitter account and We Choose the Moon, both of which are tracking the Apollo 11 mission as it happened 40 years ago, I've built a page where you can watch the CBS News coverage of Walter Cronkite reporting …
Discussion:
Fast Company, Gadgetwise, TheNextWeb.com, TechCrunch, OhGizmo!, TidBITS, Technosailor.com, Download Squad and Gizmodo
Ed Felten / Freedom to Tinker:
Lessons from Amazon's 1984 Moment — Amazon got some well-deserved criticism for yanking copies of Orwell's 1984 from customers' Kindles last week. Let me spare you the copycat criticism of Amazon — and the obvious 1984-themed jokes — and jump right to the most interesting question: What does this incident teach us?
Nick Thuesen / Open:
Announcing the NYT API Tool — A few weeks ago, I was playing with the Facebook API and using the Facebook API Test Console. I thought to myself, “Wow, if we were smart, we'd have something like this for our APIs.” Sadly, it took me another two or three minutes before I remembered I was a developer and could just build it myself!
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Brainstorm Tech:
All eyes on Apple's earnings — Apple (AAPL), one of the most closely watched stocks on the Nasdaq — and one of the engines driving the market's midsummer rally — reports its fiscal third quarter earnings on Tuesday. — None of the three dozen analysts who follow the stock …
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Hang On, It's Going to Be a Bumpy Night: Yahoo Earnings Tomorrow, Microsoft Earnings Thursday — Yahoo and Microsoft are still seriously talking about a search and partnership deal, never-ending discussions that might or might not come to fruition. But most investors will be focused …
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
The Most Engaged Brands On The Web — What big brands do the best job with social media? A new study by analyst Charlene Li of the Altimeter Group and Wetpaint ranks the top 100 brands by social media engagement. You can find the report embedded below or on ENGAGEMENTdb …
Discussion:
Altimeter Group, CNET News, Fresh Inc., Global Neighbourhoods, ReadWriteWeb, AdAge, the Econsultancy blog and The Social Times
Mark Sweney / Guardian:
Google not liable for defamation in search results, rules court — Internet giant Google wins landmark high court libel ruling over forum comment displayed in search results — Google is not liable for defamatory comments that appear in news articles, blogs and forums displayed in its search results …