Top Items:
The Official Google Blog:
Transparency, choice and control — now complete with a Dashboard! — Today, we are excited to announce the launch of Google Dashboard. Have you ever wondered what data is stored with your Google Account? The Google Dashboard offers a simple view into the data associated with your account — easily and concisely in one location.
Discussion:
Computerworld, blogs.ft.com, Digital Daily, Mashable!, PC World, GigaOM, Download Squad, Search Engine Journal, The Register, Silicon Alley Insider, TheStreet.com, Google Watch, Bits, GMSV, CNET News, Google Blogoscoped, Technology Liberation Front, TechCrunch, Financial Times, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Search Engine Land, WebWorkerDaily, PreCentral.net, Softpedia News, iTWire, I4U News, gHacks technology news, Tech Beat, Lifehacker, Google Operating System, Pocket-lint.com, Search Engine Roundtable, Telegraph, GottaBeMobile.com, TechVi and Velocity
Walter S. Mossberg / Personal Technology:
Motorola's Droid Is Smart Success for Verizon Users — Verizon Wireless customers tend to love the company's fast 3G network. But many tech-oriented Verizon loyalists gripe about the carrier's high-end smart phones, which haven't matched the cachet and versatility of the Apple iPhone sold by AT&T (T).
Discussion:
eWeek, Tech Beat, AppleInsider, Silicon Alley Insider, CNET News, Brainstorm Tech, 901am, I4U News, Gadgetell, MacDailyNews, The Microsoft Blog and 9 to 5 Mac
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David Pogue / New York Times:
Call It an ‘App Phone’ (A What?) — Last week, I reviewed not one, but three new phones. You'd think that would be enough for a while, but fall is peak season for new mobile devices, and another major release — Motorola's Droid — is upon us this week. — But before we get to today's big review of the Droid, we need a noun.
Discussion:
eWeek, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Business Channel, TECH.BLORGE.com, GottaBeMobile.com, jkOnTheRun and Gizmodo, Thanks:mblumenthal
Adam Lashinsky / Fortune:
The decade of Steve — How Apple's imperious, brilliant CEO transformed American business. — (Fortune magazine) — How's this for a gripping corporate story line: Youthful founder gets booted from his company in the 1980s, returns in the 1990s, and in the following decade survives two brushes with death …
The Official Google Blog:
Introducing Google Commerce Search: Finding holiday gifts faster — The holiday season is right around the corner, so online retailers are gearing up for spikes in traffic. When people go to shop online, search is big part of finding the right product, whether they're looking for a gift or just something for themselves.
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Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Search Til You Drop: Google Launches Hosted Commerce Search For Retailers — Searching retail sites can be frustrating at times. While many retailers try to present product search in a visually appealing way, search can often be slow or difficult to refine.
Discussion:
CNET News, eWeek, AppScout, L.A. Times Tech Blog, VentureBeat, internetnews.com, Mashable!, Google Blogoscoped and silicontap.com, Thanks:atul
Taylor Wimberly / Android and Me:
Has the T-Mobile HSPA 7.2 rollout begun? Yes! Confirmed. — Earlier today we reported that T-Mobile's HSPA 7.2 upgrade was still on track for 2009. One of our readers Ted left an interesting comment: HSPA has been lit up in Chicago! I just tested it and got 6.8 Mbps!
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
I Love the Smell of Settlement in the Morning: Skype Founders Set to Get 10 Percent, Option to Buy Three Percent More and Two Board Seats — According to several sources close to the situation, barring any unforeseen delay, a deal to settle the Skype imbroglio is likely to be announced around the time the markets open tomorrow.
Dan Goodin / The Register:
Tech titans meet in secret to plug SSL hole — Web authentication busted on Apache, IIS — Researchers say they've uncovered a flaw in the secure sockets layer protocol that allows attackers to inject text into encrypted traffic passing between two endpoints.
Imad / Moblin Blogs:
Moblin v2.1 project release for netbooks and nettops - it's here — The Moblin™ project steering committee today announces the project release of Moblin v2.1 for Intel Atom* processor-based netbooks and nettops. This project release includes the broadest feature additions …
Discussion:
Softpedia News, MobileContentToday, jkOnTheRun, Netbook Choice, Pocket-lint.com, Linux.com, Liliputing and Ubergizmo
Pew Internet:
Social Isolation and New Technology — This report adds new insights to an ongoing debate about the extent of social isolation in America. A widely-reported 2006 study argued that since 1985 Americans have become more socially isolated, the size of their discussion networks has declined …
Discussion:
Mashable!, ReadWriteWeb, Post Tech, The Blog Herald, Advocate's Studio and Joho the Blog
Dan Goodin / The Register:
Twitter fanatic glimpses dark side of OAuth — ‘Secure’ authentication can be anything but — A mobile enthusiast and professional internet strategist got a glimpse of OAuth's dark side recently when he received an urgent advisory from Twitter. — The dispatch, generated when Terence Eden tried …
Paul Meller / PC World:
EU Breaks Deadlock in Debate Over Right to Internet Access — After months of often bitter debate, European Union lawmakers reached agreement on how to preserve citizen's rights to Internet access in a meeting that ended in the early hours of Thursday morning.
John Cox / Network World:
Verizon confirms Droid tethering option, hefty price tag — Motorola Droid smartphones to match capability of Apple's iPhone — Verizon has confirmed that customers will have the option of connecting a laptop to their new Motorola Droid smartphones, on sale tomorrow, using the phone as a wireless modem.
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DSLreports
Andy Ihnatko / Chicago Sun Times:
iCan't stand by and watch Droid ad smear iPhone — Verizon's ubiquitous “iDon't” commercial has been peppering TV for weeks now. It makes two conventional mistakes in advertising. It's not clear that it's an ad for the Verizon Droid phone, a remarkable new handset made by Motorola …
Twitter Status:
Testing new tweet notifications — We're starting a limited test of notifications on twitter.com for when you have new tweets. So if one of the folks you follow has tweeted since you loaded your homepage, you'll get a little notice saying “1 new tweet” that, when clicked, will display the new content.
Discussion:
Mashable!, TechCrunch, Softpedia News, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, CNET News, Pocket-lint.com, Electricpig and AppScout, Thanks:atul
Zachary M. Seward / Nieman Journalism Lab:
Google CEO Eric Schmidt envisions the news consumer of the future — For all the bluster about Google as an enemy of the news industry, you might be surprised to learn that Eric Schmidt, the company's CEO, is kind of a triumphalist for mainstream media, big newspapers, and print.
Douglas MacMillan / Business Week:
Private Online Shopping Sites Cash In — A Virtual Velvet Rope — The most exclusive club in town may be just a few mouse clicks away. Invitation-only shopping sites with names like Gilt Groupe and Rue La La are gaining popularity online. They're generating millions of dollars in revenue …
Discussion:
901am
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
CrunchPad Dead? Delayed By Higher-Than-Expected Costs? — The CrunchPad, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington's entry into the gadget business, is still missing in action. — Are higher-than-expected costs to blame? — One story we heard from a few people on a recent trip to California …
John Cook / TechFlash:
Plumber vs. Programmer: A face-off over an online directory — For more than 30 years, Evan Conklin has practiced plumbing in the Seattle area fixing broken water heaters, leaky faucets and malfunctioning toilets. And during those three decades, Conklin has seen a lot of crap in the business world.
Discussion:
Screenwerk
Jonny Evans / 9 to 5 Mac:
Dating habits of iPhone users revealed — Hey, fresh this morning from the spurious but strangely amusing iLifestyle desk comes a breakdown of the dating habits of iPhone users.. — According to Retrevo (remember them, they told Apple what to charge for its current fantasy tablet product last week) …
Discussion:
App Advice, Contentinople, Gizmodo, The Register, The iPhone Blog, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Forever Geek, The Huffington Post, TUAW, pocketnow.com and Crave
The Paperboy / Gizmodo:
Microsoft Courier's Swipes, Snips and Scribbles: The Leaked Interface — We've seen slides and videos of Microsoft's Courier booklet in action, but nothing has quite explained how all of these things actually work. This document explains Courier's interface, gestures and features more in-depth than ever before.
Discussion:
PC World, Telegraph, GeekSmack, I4U News, SlashGear, GigaOM, Maximum PC, Liliputing, GottaBeMobile.com, MobileTechWorld and SoftSailor
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
RealNetworks to Lay Off Four Percent of Staff Today — The Seattle area is going to get another jobless jolt today, with RealNetworks (RNWK) planning to lay off four percent of its workforce, sources said. — That's a small number-just about 70 people out of its 1,700-person staff …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Isabella Products and AT&T launch two-way sharing digital photo frames — Isabella Products is announcing Vizit, a two-way interactive digital photo frame that will share photos via AT&T's wireless network. — Most web-connected digital photo frames can display pictures via flash memory cards or receive them over the Internet.
Cory Doctorow / Boing Boing:
Tell the FCC to say no to Hollywood's insane “Selectable Output Control” kill-switch … Yes, you read that right. The studios want the right to randomly switch off parts of your home theater depending on which program you're watching. And the FCC is taking this bats**t proposal seriously.
Greg Kumparak / MobileCrunch:
Leaked AT&T Memo: If Anyone Asks About The Verizon Lawsuit, Just Tell Them We're Awesome — Needless to say, AT&T's none too happy about Verizon's “Theres a Map for That” campaign. AT&T first complained about the ads back in October, saying they were misleading.
Antuan Goodwin / CNET News:
Garmin communicates with your car via ESP — We stopped by Garmin's booth at the 2009 SEMA Show expecting a new GPS device or news of another OEM integration deal, but we stumbled upon something even better. Sometime next year, Garmin's Nuvi GPS devices will gain the ability to communicate with your car through ESP.
Ville Heiskanen / Bloomberg:
Research In Motion May Buy Back $1.2 Billion in Stock — Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) — Research In Motion Ltd., maker of the BlackBerry phone, will repurchase as much as $1.2 billion in shares to compensate investors as its growth slows. — The company will buy as many as 21 million shares …
Discussion:
9 to 5 Mac
Om Malik / GigaOM:
SlingMedia Founder Invests In Clicker, Joins BOD — Ever since Blake Krikorian left Sling Media, the place shifting startup that he sold to Echostar for $380 million in September 2007, he's been lying low. Instead of trying to build yet another startup, he has been spending time trying …
Discussion:
NewTeeVee
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch Europe:
Digital music startup Deezer debuts desktop client, premium offering — [France] Paris-based Deezer is not waiting for Spotify to expand into new territories and is moving forward with its own plans pretty quickly. The French startup recently raised $9.5 million (€6.5 million) …
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Mayumi Negishi / Reuters:
Microsoft CEO eyes Yahoo partnership outside U.S — TOKYO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said on Thursday the company could look to extend its search engine partnership with Yahoo outside the United States, if it gets regulatory approval.
