Top Items:
Business Wire:
eBay Inc. Signs Definitive Agreement to Sell Skype in Deal Valuing Communications Business at $2.75 Billion — eBay to Receive Approximately $1.9 Billion in Cash; Retain Approximately 35 Percent Stake — SAN JOSE, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY - News) …
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider, Financial Times, Mark Evans Tech, Mashable!, PC World, New York Times, Digits, The VAR Guy, GigaOM, HipMojo.com, VoIP & Gadgets Blog, GMSV, Pulse2, Contentinople, Download Squad, The SiliconANGLE, bub.blicio.us, FierceVoIP, paidContent, ReadWriteWeb, MediaMemo and Screenwerk
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Josh Silverman / Skype Blogs:
A new chapter — Today, Skype begins a new chapter. We're spinning off from eBay to become an independent company once again. This is very exciting news for all of us here at Skype, and I want to give all of you a brief overview of what's happening. — A small group of venture capital funds …
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Skype Sale Nears: Why eBay Shareholders Should Be Mad — If you're an eBay shareholder, it's time for you to get mad about the sheer incompetency of the management. First they paid top dollar for Skype back in 2005, making billionaires out of Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis.
Discussion:
paidContent, Venture Capital Dispatch, TechCrunch, eWeek, MediaPost, Computerworld, blogs.ft.com, The Register, Between the Lines, PC World, Silicon Alley Insider, Dealscape, Mashable!, Guardian, Alec Saunders SquawkBox, Skype Journal, Digits, MarketingVOX, Electronista, DailyFinance, Daring Fireball, Deal Journal, Gadgetell, TheStreet.com, Reuters, Maximum PC all, The Next Web Blog, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, VatorNews and PE Hub Blog
Stephanie Ferguson / The Windows Blog:
Windows phones are Coming on October 6th! — In just five weeks, you'll have a bunch of new Windows phones to choose from. But before we show you some of the cool, new phones that will be coming out, I want to explain how we're trying to make phones even better with Windows.
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Microsoft:
Microsoft to Deliver New Generation of Windows Phones on Oct. 6 — Leading mobile operators and phone manufacturers worldwide prepare to introduce an array of sleek new Windows phones. — Microsoft Corp. today announced that Windows® phones will be widely available at retail stores worldwide on Oct. 6, 2009.
Discussion:
Beyond Binary, Seattle Times, mocoNews, TechSpot, SlashGear, Windows Connected, Mobile Roar, InformationWeek, Engadget Mobile and Pocket-lint.com
Google Enterprise Blog:
Waving hello to Google Apps — Google Wave has been generating lots of interest among Google Apps users since we unveiled it in May at Google I/O, our annual developer conference. Today we're pleased to announce that we'll be opening up access to Google Wave for some schools and businesses as part of the preview this fall.
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Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb: Google Wave Will Slowly Open Its Doors to Google Apps Users This Fall
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten / The Next Web Blog:
Google, Gmail experiencing downtime around the world — *Update: Gmail/Google Apps Email is currently down, more details at the foot of this post* — Several users are complaining on Twitter that Google, Gmail and Doubleclick (owned by Google) are down. — Dutch news service NU.nl briefly …
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Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Brainstorm Tech:
Munster: Steve Jobs will host next week's Apple special event — Steve Jobs, Oct. 2008. Photo: Apple Inc. — Apple hasn't confirmed it — and not every analyst agrees — but Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster seems pretty certain that Steve Jobs himself will introduce a new line of iPods next week.
Discussion:
BusinessWeek, PC World, AppleInsider, Gawker, The Apple Core, GMSV, 9 to 5 Mac, Softpedia News, Gearlog, MacRumors and TUAW
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Rob Hof / Tech Beat:
Consumer Groups Call for Online Consumer Privacy Guarantees — A group of 10 consumer and privacy watchdog groups this morning called for Congress to clamp down on online tracking of people's behavior to target advertising to them as they traverse the Web. In a letter to Representatives Henry Waxman …
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Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:
IE tumbles, Firefox regains market share mojo — IE6 numbers take a nose dive; Firefox reaps nearly all the benefit — Computerworld - Last month, Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer posted its largest market share loss since November 2008, while Firefox reaped nearly all the benefit, Web metrics company Net Applications said today.
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
Google Chrome OS to Feature Single Sign-On for Chrome Browser — ...but What About the Other Web Browsers? — We don't know much about the upcoming OS from Google, Chrome OS, so most of the news we read about it involves speculation or, sometimes, rather terrible attempts at faking some supposedly official screenshots.
Discussion:
NEWSFACTOR, Download Squad, Matt Cutts, Microsoft Watch, I4U News, jkOnTheRun, bub.blicio.us, TechCrunch and Open Gardens
Clearwire News Room:
Clearwire Introduces CLEAR(TM) 4G WiMAX Internet Service in 10 New Markets — Super Fast Mobile Internet Service is Available Today in Boise, Idaho; Bellingham, Wash.; and Eight Texas Markets, Including Abilene, Amarillo, Corpus Christi, Killeen/Temple, Lubbock, Midland/Odessa, Waco and Wichita Falls
Joe / joestump.net:
Pass the lubricant as we're getting f**ked by Apple too — Stories of developers being absolutely bent over the barrel and f**ked hard aren't new, but I've got no other recourse so I'm throwing Blunder Move's story into the ring. What makes our story different? I'm lucky enough to personally know people at the iTunes store.
Zach Epstein / Boy Genius Report:
Palm's location-based advertising patent likely sheds light on background location reporting in webOS — Remember last month when a developer revealed some hidden functionality in webOS that periodically reports a user's location back to Palm? Well as it turns out, the reasoning behind …
Chris Mellor / The Register:
EMC co-founder kills himself — Street kid, entrepreneur and ambassador — Obituary Richard Egan, the colourful and vigorous co-founder of EMC, went into a linen cupboard of his home at the Four Seasons condominiums on Boylston Street, Boston, and shot himself in the head with a shotgun on Friday …
David Kaplan / paidContent:
The News is NowPublic: Cit-J Site Sold To Anschutz's Examiner.com; Price Around $25 Million — You're reading it here first: After several months of trying to get the deal done, Citizen-J site NowPublic is about to be sold to a non-traditional buyer: local news network Examiner.com …
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Jim Breyer's Midas Touch. Two Acquisitions in 24 Hours (Marvel And BBN) — Investor Jim Breyer of Accel Partners is having a very good day. In the past 24 hours, two companies where he is an investor and board member have been acquired for big bucks: Marvel Entertainment …
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Chris Davies / SlashGear:
iriver Story ebook reader revealed — Images of iriver's new ebook reader, the Story, have emerged, together with partial specifications for the 6-inch E Ink device. As well as having a full QWERTY keyboard and a memory card slot content with up to 32GBs, the Story is compatible with PDF …
PE Hub Blog:
Khosla Ventures Announces New Funds, Partners — Khosla Ventures has closed two new funds with more than $1 billion in capital commitments. Khosla Ventures III was targeted at $750 million, and will focus on early and mid-stage venture investments in the cleantech and IT spaces.
Harry McCracken / PC World:
Opera 10: It's Final. And Worth Trying — Opera 10 Web browser packs new features including Turbo mode that spees up browsing on sluggish Net connections. — Recommends — Opera 10, the newest version of the browser that's arguably the most venerable one going, is now available in its final version.
Discussion:
Opera Press Room, eWeek, ReadWriteWeb, CNET News, TechCrunch, internetnews.com, Download Squad, TUAW and GottaBeMobile.com
AT&T:
AT&T Strengthens 3G Wireless Coverage in New York and New Jersey Areas — Deployment of 850 MHz Spectrum for 3G in the Metro NY, NJ Areas Substantially Improves In-Building Wireless Coverage, Adds Capacity to Support Surging Demand for Mobile Broadband
Lionel Laurent / Forbes:
Nokia Delays U.S. Music Launch — The unlimited-download service won't be released this year in the U.S. as planned. — LONDON — After promising earlier this year that a 2009 U.S. launch for the service was in the works, Nokia told Forbes on Monday that it has now been pushed back to 2010.
Discussion:
Gadget Lab, MobileCrunch, PC World, Softpedia News, InformationWeek, Reuters, DailyTech, Mobile Roar, Electronista, AppScout, mocoNews and FierceMobileContent
Justin Smith / Inside Facebook:
Facebook Testing New Direct Response Home Page Ad Unit — While Facebook has created a variety of home page “engagement ad” units for big brands, Facebook is now testing a new kind of home page ad unit that doesn't drive users to a brand's Facebook Page, but rather prompts users to complete a direct response form.
Xeni Jardin / Boing Boing:
Did Google Street View spot rapist/kidnapper Garrido? — A followup on this earlier BB post about the wacko blog and gadget hallucinations of kidnapper/rapist (now also a murder suspect) Phillip Garrido. — Weighing in on that post, an astute BB commenter noticed that if you do a Google Maps search …
