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:
Wall Street Journal, Tech Beat, mocoNews, CNET News, Bits, Mashable!, Between the Lines, TechCrunch and Silicon Alley Insider
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Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
What's Up Next For Yahoo? Better Search, Customizable Content (How Fluffy Do You Want Your News?) — Yahoo showed off a couple of new upcoming features during my briefing today on the new home page to launch tomorrow. — The first is a tool, called Customizable Content for now, to dial how “fun” or “serious” you like your news.
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.
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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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 …
Discussion:
Smalltalk Tidbits …
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
Discussion:
Network World, PC World, IDG News Service, Ars Technica, The Register, Computerworld, Port 25, The Seattle Times and Lockergnome Blog Network
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:
Engadget, CrunchGear, Boy Genius Report, SlashGear, MobileContentToday, Ars Technica, jkOnTheRun, Unwired View, TUAW, TheAppleBlog, Computerworld, BlackBerry Cool, RIMarkable, BusinessWeek, CNET News, IntoMobile, InformationWeek, Mashable!, Macworld, Silicon Alley Insider, Obsessable, AppScout, The iPhone Blog, 9 to 5 Mac, TheNextWeb.com, The Mac Observer, Phone Arena, Gizmodo, CrackBerry.com blogs, Phone Scoop, PalmAddicts and BerryReview.com
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 …
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Search Engine Watch
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.
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.
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
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.
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.”
Kristen Nicole / The Social Times:
3121 is LinkedIn, Just for Congress Members — National Journal, a site for nonpartisan reporting on current politics, has teamed with New Media Strategies and JESS3 in order to provide an exclusive networking community for members of congress and their staff.
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:
WebProNews, Altimeter Group, CNET News, Fresh Inc., Global Neighbourhoods, The Social Times, AdAge, ReadWriteWeb and the Econsultancy blog
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 …
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.
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!
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.
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 …
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.
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.”
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:
Gadgetwise, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Fast Company, TheNextWeb.com, TidBITS, Download Squad and Technosailor.com
Bloomberg:
Intel Plans to Sell $1.5 Billion in Debt, Raising Money for Share Buybacks — Intel Corp., the world's largest chipmaker, plans to sell $1.5 billion in debt, using the money to buy back shares. — The bonds, which would be convertible into shares, will mature in 2039, Santa Clara …
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:
Venture Capital Dollars Stabilize in Second Quarter at Mid-1990s Levels — Venture capital dollars going to startups in the U.S. stabilized in the second quarter at $3.7 billion, according to the latest MoneyTree Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association.
