Top Items:
Sarah Lacy / TechCrunch:
Amazon Buys Zappos; The Price is $920m., not $847m. — News has just broken that Amazon.com has purchased hot ecommerce up-and-comer Zappos for 10 million Amazon shares or $880 million. (The Amazon release said it was $807 million, but that was based on a trailing 45-day estimate of its share price.
Discussion:
Guardian, Softpedia News, Gawker, BetaNews, internetnews.com, Search Engine Watch, CloudAve, Mashable!, TheNextWeb.com and digg.com, Thanks:gsharma
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Tony Hsieh / Zappos.com:
CEO Letter — Please set aside 20 minutes to carefully read this entire email. (My apologies for the occasional use of formal-sounding language, as parts of it are written in a particular way for legal reasons.) — Today is a big day in Zappos history. — This morning …
Discussion:
Fast Company, New York Times, the Econsultancy blog, Doc Searls Weblog, Rex Hammock's RexBlog.com, SOMEWHAT FRANK, WebProNews, Webbyist, The Social, Techdirt, Financial Times, Mashable!, ClickZ, Search Engine Watch, AgencySpy, Lockergnome Blog Network, CenterNetworks, AppScout, Gear Live, TechFlash, Traffick and Inc.com, Thanks:gsharma
Alexander Haislip / PE Hub Blog:
Zappos CEO Wanted To Stay Independent, Sequoia Wanted Liquidity—Sources — The decision to sell hot online shoe retailer Zappos to Amazon.com was more in line with the interests of Sequoia Capital than the company's CEO, according to two sources close to the company.
Amazon.com:
Amazon.com to Acquire Zappos.com — Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire Zappos.com, Inc. a leader in online apparel and footwear sales that strives to provide shoppers with the best possible service and selection.
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Getting the Goods: The New Amazon/Zappos Supply Chain Story — Beloved online shoe retailer Zappos has announced it will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon in exchange for almost a billion dollars worth of Amazon stock. Both of these companies are interesting because they have mastered making …
Thanks:phclouin
Brandon LeBlanc / The Windows Blog:
Windows 7 Has Been Released to Manufacturing — I am pleased to announce that Windows 7 has RTM'd! — As I mentioned previously, RTM officially happens only after sign-off occurs. What happens is a build gets designated as a RTM contender after going through significant testing and meeting our quality bar for RTM.
Discussion:
Engineering Windows 7, Softpedia News, TechCrunch, Windows Server Division WebLog, Geek In Disguise, Redmond Pie, ithinkdifferent, Windows Live Community, Windows 7 Center, BrandonLive, geeksmack.net, Global Nerdy, Neowin.net, Technologizer, blogs.ft.com, blogs.chron.com, The Microsoft Blog, Microsoft News Tracker, IDG News Service, Download Squad, PC World, TechFlash, Pocket-lint.com, Seeking Alpha, TechLifeWeb, Engadget, The Tech Report, Maximum PC all, Lockergnome Blog Network, DailyTech, virtualization.info, ChannelWeb, GottaBeMobile.com, All about Microsoft, TechSpot and Guardian
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Walter S. Mossberg / Personal Technology:
For Some, Move To Windows 7 Will Be Tough — On October 22, Microsoft will finally release a new version of Windows that will be as good as the deeply disappointing Windows Vista should have been when it came out in January 2007. The new edition, called Windows 7, is a big improvement …
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
They're soup: Windows 7, Server 2008 R2 released to manufacturing — Windows 7 has been a tightly controlled product from its first days on the drawing board. The last milestone is proving to be no exception: On July 22, at precisely 4:40 p.m. ET, Microsoft announced it had released …
Bryan Lamkin / Yodel Anecdotal:
Xoopit + Yahoo! Mail = Moving beyond that massive digital shoebox — If your email inbox is anything like mine, it's turned into a “digital shoebox” over the years. It's full of hundreds or maybe thousands of special photos that have been shared by close friends and family members, but they're not organized in any particular way.
Discussion:
Softpedia News, The Register, BoomTown, paidContent, VentureBeat, WebProNews, Search Engine Journal, CNET News, MYBLOG by Ouriel, TechCrunch, GigaOM and loose wire blog
Mark Milian / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Friendster founder on social networking: I invented this stuff [UPDATED] — Friendster founder Jonathan Abrams poses in front of the logo for his start-up company, Socializr, at a Lunch 2.0 event in 2007. Credit: Terry Chay … The millions of high school and college kids on Facebook probably …
Jenna Wortham / Bits:
Mobile Internet Use Shrinks Digital Divide — Quick: Picture an Internet aficionado, circa 1995. — The first image that comes to my mind is Dennis Nedry, the embryo thief in “Jurassic Park,” who met his untimely end facing down a dinosaur in a soggy mud pit.
Ellen Messmer / Network World:
America's 10 most wanted botnets — Botnet attacks are increasing, as cybercrime gangs use compromised computers to send spam, steal personal data, perpetrate click fraud and clobber Web sites in denial-of-service attacks. Here's a list of America's 10 most wanted botnets …
Adam Pash / Lifehacker:
Gmail Offers to Automatically Unsubscribe You from Mailing Lists — Ever get an email from a legit mailing list but went ahead and marked it as spam anyway because you just don't want it? Gmail has smartened up to this common behavior, offering to automatically unsubscribe you from certain messages.
Gavin Clarke / The Register:
Microsoft opened Linux-driver code after ‘violating’ GPL — Traded credibility for kudos? — Microsoft was in violation of the GPL (General Public License) on the Hyper-V code it released to open source this week. — After Redmond covered itself in glory by opening up the code …
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Are Ad Networks Coming Back? And is That Good For Web Publishers? — When will the online ad market finally bouncing back? We've yet to see it in Q2 earnings reports from the likes of Google (GOOG) and Yahoo (YHOO). — But one observer says it's already here: Ad optimization firm Pubmatic reports …
Discussion:
Tech Beat
Chris Albrecht / NewTeeVee:
What the Heck Is Going on With Apple TV? — Apple, during its quarterly earnings call yesterday, didn't bring up its stepchild set-top box, the Apple TV. For those who follow the video industry, this is more of a predictable disappointment than a shocker.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Zivity Splits Employees, Execs, Venture Funding Into Two Companies — In a highly unusual transaction, Zivity, a venture funded adult content startup, has spun off the majority of its assets, employees and venture funding into a new company called Top Fans.
Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:
Adobe confirms Flash zero-day bug in PDF docs — Hackers exploiting flaw already in the wild, says iDefense — Computerworld - Adobe is investigating a critical vulnerability in its Flash format that is currently being exploited by hackers using malicious PDF documents …
Discussion:
Symantec, Security Fix, PSIRT, threatpost, Zero Day, CNET News, Security Watch and IDG News Service
Sameer Moidu / Facebook Blog:
Share Photos and Videos Anywhere You Have Email — After you snap a great photo of friends or shoot a fun video on vacation, you want to be able to share it immediately. We've been working on providing more ways to publish those photos and videos whether you're on Facebook.com or not.
internetnews.com:
Microsoft, Red Hat Renew Linux Patent Spat — From the blogs: Microsoft's code contribution doesn't mean it's letting Linux off the hook. — By Sean Michael Kerner: More stories by this author: — A command line view of IT — From the “Can Open Source and Patents Get Along?” files:
Sam Diaz / Between the Lines:
eBay's Q2: PayPal, Skype growth offset by declines at marketplace sites — eBay today reported solid second quarter financial results that were slightly better than Wall Street's expectations but revenue growth of PayPal and Skype was offset, in part, by declines in the Marketplaces business.
Jessica E. Vascellaro / Digits:
Facing Scrutiny, Google Steps Up Lobbying — Google spent $950,000 lobbying lawmakers, regulators and the White House on issues ranging from cloud computing to copyright in the second quarter, according to public lobbying disclosures. — The sum tops the $880,000 it spent in the first quarter …
Chris Dannen / Fast Company:
Rebooting the FCC — Proposed changes to the way the nation's media watchdog does its business will mean more transparency for citizens—and bad news for secretive consumer-electronics companies. — Fix it, or we'll fix it for you: That was the mandate the Senate sent to the FCC on July 20.
Discussion:
Ars Technica
David Berlind / InformationWeek:
Matt Mullenweg And Dries Buytaert Probably Separated At Birth — When it comes to open sourced content management platforms and their creators, there's no question about the celebrity status that WordPress and its young founder Matt Mullenweg have ascended to.
Gillian Reagan / New York Observer:
How The Times' Home Page Gets Made — By most counts, New York Times deputy managing editor Jonathan Landman still considers the front page of the printed newspaper a sacred space, a place where editors and reporters display their best work and uphold the tradition of The Times' quality reporting.
Jonathan Fildes / BBC:
Artificial brain ‘10 years away’ — Professor Markram said he would send a hologram to talk at TED in 10 years — A detailed, functional artificial human brain can be built within the next 10 years, a leading scientist has claimed. — Henry Markram, director of the Blue Brain Project, has already built elements of a rat brain.
J. Nicholas Hoover / InformationWeek:
NSA Using Cloud Model For Intelligence Sharing — New system will run the Hadoop file system on commodity servers and include search, discovery, and analysis tools. — The National Security Agency is taking a cloud computing approach in developing a new collaborative intelligence gathering system …
Eric Lai / Computerworld:
Forrester: Vista on 12% of corporate desktops, Mac on 3.6% — Windows XP still holds 86%, as grandchild Windows 7 goes RTM — Computerworld - The much-maligned Windows Vista operating system runs on almost one out of eight corporate desktops 28 months after its release, according to a Forrester Research report released today.
