Top Items:
Walter S. Mossberg / Personal Technology:
A Windows to Help You Forget — In just two weeks, on Oct. 22, Microsoft's long operating-system nightmare will be over. The company will release Windows 7, a faster and much better operating system than the little-loved Windows Vista, which did a lot to harm both the company's reputation …
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Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Ballmer: Testers didn't ring Vista warning bells; Could the same happen with Windows 7? — Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has done his best over the past year-plus to try to dampen expectations around Windows 7. He's doing it again this week during his pre-launch European tour, telling press …
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Twitter Talking Separately to Microsoft and Google About Big Data-Mining Deals — Is there gold in them thar tweets? — Maybe so, because-according to sources familiar with the situation-Twitter is in advanced talks with Microsoft and Google separately about striking data-mining deals …
Reza Ziaei / Google Mobile Blog:
Introducing Search Options for mobile — Finding the exact information you need sometimes requires filtering and refining your search results. Earlier in the year, we launched a collection of tools called Search Options which enable you to easily and quickly do this from a computer.
Discussion:
Google Watch, PC World, Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal, MobileContentToday and ReadWriteWeb, Thanks:atul
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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:
Download Squad, The Register, Softpedia News, Mashable!, PC World, CNET News, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Lifehacker, AppScout, The Next Web, Search Engine Journal and The Web Life, Thanks:mrinaldesai
Joanna Stern / Gizmodo:
Sony Vaio X: World's Lightest Laptop $1300 (Actually Affordable, For a Vaio) — Sony's X comes out from its dark hiding spot. Not only is the 11-inch carbon fiber notebook super slim, but it's actually affordable on the Sony scale of economy, starting at $1,300. (Update: It's got netbook guts.)
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Fred / Electronic Frontier Foundation:
It's My Browser, and I'll Auto-Click if I Want To — Free file hosting provider MediaFire seems to think that, when you follow a link to download a file from its service, it has the right to control your browser. This is yet another example of a web site owner forgetting that it's your computer …
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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.
Discussion:
Hardware 2.0, Computerworld, Softpedia News, I4U News, Lockergnome Blog Network, Maximum PC, Pocket-lint.com, SlashGear, AppScout, Windows 8 News, gdgt, PR News and Gizmodo
Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
BlackBerry Bold 2 to be announced October 21 for T-Mobile, AT&T — We have it on good authority that T-Mobile and AT&T both currently plan on announcing the Bold 2 — also known as the Onyx — on October 21. As a refresher, this would be the touchpad-driven piece with model number 9700 that's …
Discussion:
Boy Genius Report, Gizmodo, IntoMobile, PR News, SoftSailor, Unwired View, TmoNews, I4U News, Electricpig.co.uk and Gearlog
Philipp Lenssen / Google Blogoscoped:
Join the Minimalist Google Homepage Prototype — You might have heard of the new experiment Google is running for its homepage, showing only logo and search box (and apparently search buttons, at times) unless your mouse moves over the page. To join this prototype, you can go to google.com …
Jennifer Vilaga / Fast Company:
FTC Responds to Blogger Fears: “That $11,000 Fine is Not True” — As you've likely heard by now, the Federal Trade Commission is trying to reign in freebie-grabbing bloggers and graft-happy social media users masquerading as unbiased critics. The agency announced an update to the FTC Act of 1980 …
Steve Gillmor / TechCrunchIT:
Ozzie on the realtime wave — In June, I spent several days on the Microsoft campus talking with Microsoft executives about the impact of realtime and the emerging era of cloud computing. My conversation with Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie began with a discussion of the recently unveiled Google Wave …
Discussion:
The Equity Kicker
Rosa Golijan / Gizmodo:
Iomega's StorCenter ix2-200 NAS Has Bluetooth, Time Machine, Chubby Exterior — Iomega's on to something with the StorCenter ix2-200: built-in torrent and Time Machine support, Bluetooth-based uploads from phones, remote access, and lotsa spiffy features wrapped up in an earth-friendly green gadget.
Discussion:
Crave, Engadget, The Mac Observer, internetnews.com, Electronista, TUAW and Softpedia News
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
Best Buy Announces MobileMe Competitor “mIQ” — Earlier this week, electronics retailer Best Buy announced a new mobile backup service called mIQ. Designed to compete with similar services like Apple's MobileMe or Microsoft's My Phone, mIQ offers up to 1 GB of storage space in the cloud for photos …
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 …
Ppk / QuirksBlog:
There is no WebKit on Mobile — Last week I spent a lot of time on WebKit in order to produce a comprehensive comparison of all WebKits. My purpose was to prove there is no “WebKit on Mobile,” and to gain some more insight in the complicated relations between the various WebKits.
Matt McGee / Search Engine Land:
Google Offers A Proposal To Make AJAX Crawlable — It's one of the most common pieces of SEO advice you'll find: Don't build your web site with AJAX if you want it to be crawled and indexed by search engines. AJAX-based web sites are essentially a locked and bolted door when a spider comes crawling.
Greg Kumparak / MobileCrunch:
Yes, Rock Band is coming to iPhone. Here's proof. — A few weeks back, we got a press release from EA's PR company. It was tucked within an attachment titled “Rock Band Verizon iPhone Fact Sheet_V3.docx”. As if seeing “iPhone” behind “Verizon” wasn't strange enough …
Market Wire:
Rogers and RIM Launch the New BlackBerry Curve 8520 Smartphone in Canada — TORONTO, ONTARIO and WATERLOO, ONTARIO—(Marketwire - Oct. 8, 2009) - Rogers Wireless (TSX:RCI)(NYSE:RCI) and Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ:RIMM)(TSX:RIM) today launched the BlackBerry® CurveTM 8520 smartphone.
Matt Asay / CNET News:
Cisco becomes a major Linux server vendor overnight — In the battle for supremacy among the software industry's Big Four, Cisco may be placing the biggest bets and angling for the biggest returns. Some still think of Cisco as a networking hardware vendor, but hardware is simply Cisco's beachhead …
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.
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Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:Google: We're Hiring, and Spending, Again
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider, GMSV, Digits, Gawker, Search Engine Land, blogs.usatoday.com, Digital Daily, Bits, PC World, ResourceShelf, paidContent and 901am, Thanks:atul
Andrew LaVallee / Digits:
IPhone Tethering Still Unavailable, AT&T Says — AT&T subscribers still won't be able to use their iPhones as wireless modems for their computers, despite the carrier's reversed position on Internet-phone applications. … Tethering, the process of using an Internet-enabled mobile device …
Mercedes Bunz / Guardian:
Google's vision of journalism's future — Despite its non-journalistic approach, Google's latest tools could revolutionise both the experience and production of news media — Google's search algorithm works on a simple principle: on the web, sites link to other authoritative sources …
Thanks:mrinaldesai
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Spotify Promises a TV Service (in Sweden, of Course) — Spotify, the streaming music service Americans love talking about but can't actually use, has given us even more to chat about: The company now promises to roll out some sort of TV service, some day. — Where?
Discussion:
TechCrunch Europe
Dan Roberts / Guardian:
Royal Mail loses Amazon contract as postal strikes loom — Threat to deliveries forces major client to pull plug on £25m deal — Royal Mail has lost a crucial contract with its second largest customer, the online retailer Amazon, as a wave of strikes threaten parcel deliveries in the busy pre-Christmas sales period.
Discussion:
The Register
Venture Capital Dispatch:
VC Fund-Raising Drops, Marketing Not Worth ‘Brain Damage’ — Just like their portfolio companies, venture capital firms continue to find it difficult to raise funding compared with last year. — Through the end of the third quarter, 83 venture funds raised $8 billion …
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 …
