Top Items:
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Google: We're Hiring, and Spending, Again — Google CEO Eric Schmidt used the opening moments of a New York City press conference to reinforce a message he's been delivering for a couple months: The worst is over, things are looking up, and Google is spending accordingly.
Discussion:
PC World, TechCrunch, paidContent, Bits, Digital Daily, Digits, Between the Lines, blogs.usatoday.com, Gawker and ResourceShelf, Thanks:atul
RELATED:
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Reviewing Some Bad Google Search Results With Sergey Brin — After today's Google search press briefing, where I raised the issue of some poor quality search results in Google at one point, Sergey Brin asked me to demonstrate a few. My pleasure! Below, what we reviewed and comments from Google's cofounder.
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Schmidt: “We Have Not Yet Found The Evil Room.” — Earlier today, Google's Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt held an informal press conference of sorts (see my live notes), touching upon pretty much everything under the Google sun. One issue that kept on coming up was Google's growing power in general.
Discussion:
Brainstorm Tech
Steven Levy / Gadget Lab:
Kindle Goes International — With a Little Help From AT&T — Although Amazon's Kindle e-reader has become the first major hit in its category — and the best-selling product in Amazon's entire store this year — it does have its drawbacks. One of the biggest is that its wireless connection to the Kindle store works only in the U.S.
Discussion:
Ars Technica, eWeek, DisplayBlog, Boy Genius Report, internetnews.com, BetaNews, Silicon Alley Insider, Obsessable, GottaBeMobile.com, DSLreports, MacRumors, Maximum PC, Crave and The Register
RELATED:
The Official Google Blog:
Quickly view formatted PDFs in your search results — Google search results sometimes include documents that were not originally formatted to be viewed in a web browser, such as PDFs. In the past, the only way to view these documents was to download them and open them in a separate viewer application.
Discussion:
CNET News, Technologizer, The Web Life, The Next Web, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Search Engine Journal and Mashable!, Thanks:mrinaldesai
Andrew Lookingbill / Google LatLong:
Your world, your map — One of the exciting challenges of working on the Geo team at Google is that the physical world is constantly changing, and keeping on top of these changes is a never-ending endeavor. For example, 15,000 miles of roadway are built in the United States each year.
Discussion:
Google Enterprise Blog, ProgrammableWeb, ReadWriteWeb, Mashable!, WebProNews, TechCrunch, James Fee GIS Blog, AppScout, InformationWeek, All Points Blog, Google Maps Mania and Lifehacker, Thanks:atul
Emil Protalinski / Ars Technica:
Microsoft mulling 128-bit versions of Windows 8, Windows 9 — Believe it or not, Windows 7's successor(s) have been in the planning and early development stages for a while now. We haven't posted anything about any of them yet, but we've been watching closely to see if anything really interesting turned up.
Wall Street Journal:
Dell to Build Android Phone for AT&T — Dell Inc. expects to launch a smart phone on AT&T Inc.'s cellular network as soon as early 2010, said people briefed on the plans. — The Dell phone uses Google Inc.'s Android mobile-operating system, said the people briefed on the matter.
RELATED:
Kevin Poulsen / Epicenter:
Google's Abandoned Library of 700 Million Titles — Imagine a world where Google sucks. — It might seem a stretch. The Google logo is practically an icon of functionality. Google's search engine and other tools are the company's strongest, if unstated, argument in favor …
Adam Ostrow / Mashable!:
Drew Carey Raises Bid to $1 Million for @Drew on Twitter — Over the weekend, we reported on Drew Carey's bid of up to $100,000 (if he reaches 100,000 followers by Nov. 9th) for the Twitter name @drew. The name is currently up for auction by Drew Olanoff, who was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year …
Robert Mueller / CNET News:
FBI head banned from online banking after phishing attempt — SAN FRANCISCO—No one is immune from cyberthreats, not even the head of the FBI. — FBI Director Robert Mueller was banned by his wife from doing online banking after he nearly fell for a phishing scam, he said on Wednesday during …
Discussion:
PC World
RELATED:
DigiTimes:
Foxconn said to be tapped to make Apple tablet PC, shipments expected to begin in 1Q10 — Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) will be the manufacturing partner for an upcoming tablet PC device from Apple, according to market sources. The device is expected to hit the market …
Discussion:
GMSV, TUAW, TheStreet.com, AppleInsider, Edible Apple, EverythingiCafe, Gearlog, TG Daily, Gadget Lab, TheAppleBlog, Maximum PC, Mobilewhack.com, Electricpig.co.uk, Digital Daily, ChannelWeb, Gizmodo, Techgeist, CrunchGear, Engadget, MacRumors, HotHardware.com News, Mashable!, SlashGear, Tech Trader Daily, The Apple Core and O'Grady's PowerPage
Tony Dokoupil / Newsweek:
Striking It Rich: Is There An App For That? — Seeking fortune and fame, entrepreneurs rushed to create programs for Apple's App Store. That's not always what they found.
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Buffalo ships world's first USB 3.0 hard disk drives this month — It's fine to announce USB 3.0 gear, but it's another thing entirely to actually put it up for retail. Buffalo's making the boast today that its HD-HU3 series of USB 3.0 hard disks will be the “world's first!!” to ship.
Nilay Patel / Engadget:
Samsung Moment slider coming to Sprint, packing Android (update: official, $179) — Samsung just accidentally leaked a Sprint-bound Android QWERTY slider called the Moment in an otherwise totally boring press release about its OLED handset lineup — it'll have an 800MHz processor …
Discussion:
Gizmodo, MobileCrunch, Android Phone Fans, IntoMobile, Phone Scoop, Pulse2, I4U News, Obsessable, Gadgetell and Electronista
EU Press Room:
Antitrust: Commission market tests Microsoft's proposal to ensure consumer choice of web browsers; welcomes further improvements in field of interoperability — The European Commission will on 9 October 2009 formally invite comments from consumers, software companies, computer manufacturers …
RELATED:
Jennifer Martinez / GigaOM:
NeighborGoods: Craigslist for Your Neighborhood — NeighborGoods, a web site that lets you share stuff with people in your neighborhood, today is launching publicly in its first city, Los Angeles. It's somewhat of a cross between Facebook and Craigslist. For example, if you need to borrow …
Stephen Shankland / CNET News:
Google: Computer memory flakier than expected — Wondering why your computer just crashed again? Its memory might be to blame, according to real-world Google research that finds error rates higher than what earlier work showed. — With hundreds of thousands of computers in its data centers …
Tameka Kee / paidContent:
Personal Web Systems Raises $1.2 Million For Web-to-TV Browser — Ready for WebTV 2.0? Personal Web Systems, a tech firm that's developing a web-to-TV browser add-on, has raised $1.2 million worth of a proposed $1.8 million round of funding, per an SEC filing.
Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
Google Cloudboard — Google tests a service called Cloudboard, an online clipboard that should make it easy to copy data between Gmail, Google Docs and other Google services. The service is not publicly available yet, but there are many references to it. — An internal feedback form …
Discussion:
The Next Web, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Softpedia News, Pocket-lint.com and Lifehacker
Fawn Johnson / Wall Street Journal:
FCC Chairman Commits to Open Internet Rules for Cell Companies — WASHINGTON — Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski told the wireless industry Wednesday that he intends to proceed with Internet openness rules for cellular carriers, despite some of the …
Caroline McCarthy / CNET News:
New report warns of dangers of trashy avatars — If you're running a business that has a presence in a virtual world, market research firm Gartner thinks you might want to make sure your employees' avatars aren't dressed like Lady Gaga at the VMAs. — “Companies with codes of conduct …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
New Google Logo Celebrates The Barcode — Google's new logo is a barcode which, as far as we can tell, says “Google.” Today is the 57th anniversary of the first patent on the bar code. Inventors Norman Woodland and Bernard Silver filed the patent on October 1949, and it was granted, No. 2,612,994 (pdf), on October 7, 1952.
George White / Dealscape:
PE lobbyists throw VCs under the bus — Venture firms and their lobbyists at the National Venture Capital Association were probably jumping for joy on Tuesday after regulatory reform coming out of the House of Representatives exempted them from falling under the tight scrutiny that private equity and hedge funds are soon to endure.
Charles Arthur / Guardian:
Spotify's freemium approach leaves Napster gasping — Only when you put the numbers in perspective does the remarkable nature of Spotify's offering becomes clear. If you're a premium user - paying £10 a month - you can store more than 3,000 tracks offline, to listen to as and when you want …
Discussion:
Music Ally
some blog:
Someecards iPhone app rejected for making fun of celebrities? — Imagine the horror we felt to learn our iPhone app wasn't rejected for some sort of horribly off-color dildo joke. That is, unless the App Store just randomly chose three not-that-objectionable cards as examples of unacceptable content (see below).
