Top Items:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Jack Dorsey's Square Is (Almost) Open For Business — We've been tracking Twitter founder Jack Dorsey's Square since May when we first got the details on the new mobile phone payment service. — Today the company unveiled its website for the first time, and they continue to test the product in private beta.
Discussion:
blogs.ft.com, Bits, mocoNews, InformationWeek, Mashable!, ReadWriteWeb, Laughing Squid, VentureBeat, Gadgetell, OurielOhayon, Gizmodo, Epicenter, Erictric, The iPhone Blog, IntoMobile, FP Posted, Electronista and The Huffington Post
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Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:
Not All Of Square's “Advisors” Are Hollywood Sexpots — Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey today unveiled his new startup, Square, which lets any iPhone-owning merchant accept credit cards. — Square also announced its “advisors.” Among them: Alyssa Milano, of “Who's The Boss?” fame.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Square Worth $40 Million Before Launch — Earlier today we wrote about Square, the new payment service cofounded by Jim McKelvey and Twitter creator Jack Dorsey. We also interviewed Dorsey and used Square to buy a coffee. — We knew Square had closed a hyper-competitive venture round.
Chris Foresman / Ars Technica:
Steve Jobs intervenes, approves Knocking streaming video app — A persuasive e-mail from an iPhone developer to Steve Jobs helped Pointy Heads Software get its Knocking Live Video—the first official iPhone app capable of streaming live video over 3G and WiFi connections—approved for sale in the App Store.
Discussion:
MacNN, BusinessWeek, TheAppleBlog, 9 to 5 Mac, iLounge, Silicon Alley Insider and Edible Apple
John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
AT&T Ranked Last in Consumer Reports' Best Cellphone Service Survey — The annual survey of wireless customer satisfaction from Consumer Reports hits the streets this week and it doesn't have much good to say about AT&T. In a canvass of more than 50,000 readers spanning 26 U.S. cities …
Discussion:
MacRumors iPhone Blog, PC World, Bits, Mashable!, Pulse2, AppleInsider, PR Newswire, Maximum PC, The Atlantic Business Channel, DailyTech, The iPhone Blog, TmoNews, Electronista, Erictric, EverythingiCafe, The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, Webomatica, FierceWireless, mocoNews, TUAW and DSLreports
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Is YouTube Ready for Primetime? Google Wants to Stream TV, for a Fee. — YouTube, which is already trying out the movie rental business, wants to get into TV too. — Google's video site has been trying to convince the TV industry to let it stream individual shows for a fee, multiple sources tell me.
Discussion:
PC World, VentureBeat, Silicon Alley Insider, Online Media Cultist, AppleInsider, Mashable!, CNET News, NewTeeVee, Maximum PC, NBC Bay Area, Erictric, The Register, EverythingiCafe, fierceonlinevideo.com …, The iPhone Blog, bub.blicio.us, Electronista, Softpedia News, MacRumors and TECH.BLORGE.com
Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook Blog:
An Open Letter from Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg — It has been a great year for making the world more open and connected. Thanks to your help, more than 350 million people around the world are using Facebook to share their lives online. — To make this possible …
Joseph Tartakoff / paidContent:
Huffington To Murdoch: Stop ‘Pointing Fingers’ — Arianna Huffington used her 25 minutes at the FTC's ‘How Will Journalism Survive The Internet Age?’ conference to take News Corp (NYSE: NWS). CEO Rupert Murdoch and his executives to task for their remarks comparing news aggregators to …
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David Faber / CNBC.com:
GE, Comcast Complete Deal Over NBC Universal: Source — The deal between General Electric and Comcast over a majority stake in NBC Universal is complete, and there is nothing left to do but process paper, a source close to the merger told CNBC Tuesday. — A deal is expected to be completed …
Christopher Soghoian / slight paranoia:
8 Million Reasons for Real Surveillance Oversight — Disclaimer: The information presented here has been gathered and analyzed in my capacity as a graduate student at Indiana University. This data was gathered and analyzed on my own time, without using federal government resources.
Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:
Apple, Psystar strike deal in copyright case — Mac clone maker to pay Apple unspecified damages, but may be able to keep selling systems — Computerworld - Apple and Mac clone maker Psystar agreed Monday to settle a 17-month lawsuit that will effectively stop Psystar from preinstalling Apple's Mac OS X …
Discussion:
internetnews.com, 9 to 5 Mac, AppleInsider, Engadget, Digital Daily, NEWSFACTOR, MacNN, Maximum PC, Between the Lines, The Register, DailyTech, p2pnet news, Erictric, CrunchGear, OSNews, TUAW, Gadget Lab, CNET News, Geeky-Gadgets, Macsimum News, Digital Trends, NBC Bay Area, TheAppleBlog, MacRumors, TechSpot and Revelations …
Boy Genius Report:
Apple's iDVD getting refreshed with iTunes LP creation support? — That's what one of our connects are telling us. We've been informed that Apple plans to completely redo their iDVD application (in addition to others in iLife 2010), and besides iDVD not being refreshed in a pretty long time …
Nick Eaton / The Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft says black screens not caused by security updates — Updated 3:09 p.m.: Prevx posts response to Microsoft's statement. — Contrary to reports earlier this week, Microsoft said Tuesday the “black screens of death” some people have attributed to recent Windows security patches are not caused by those updates.
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Adrian Kingsley-Hughes / Hardware 2.0:UPDATED - “Black Screen of Death” problems seem to be little …
Discussion:
internetnews.com, TechFlash, MSRC, Prevx Blog, PC World, eWeek, Lockergnome Blog Network, Erictric, Security Watch, Computerworld and Gizmodo
Todd Bishop / TechFlash:
Microsoft exec: Quitting Google as tough as stopping smoking — There were some great insights at last night's Xconomy Forum on the Future of Search and Information Discovery, and we'll get to those in a moment. But first, the primary challenge facing any company thinking about getting …
Marissa Mayer / The Official Google Blog:
Zeitgeist 2009: the collective consciousness — Curiosity — it's why we search the web. Whether searching for the latest news, a popular holiday gift, a website you've heard about, the latest singing sensation, or the trailer to a blockbuster film, you come to Google with something on your mind.
Discussion:
SortiPreneur, Forbes, internetnews.com, Technologizer, Google, PC World, ReadWriteWeb, TechCrunch, Softpedia News, eWeek, GigaOM, Search Engine Journal, CNET News, matthewbuckland.com, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Switched, InformationWeek, Google Operating System, ChannelWeb, Pocket-lint.com and Seeking Alpha
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Web-based toy maker Smith & Tinker lays off 30 percent of staff — Smith & Tinker had a high-profile launch of its Nanovor toy and accompanying game web site this fall. It was billed as a marriage of toys and online games. — But yesterday the company laid off about 30 percent of its staff …
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Amazon Takes The Top Spot For Cyber Monday — Experian Hitwise just released its Cyber Monday stats, with Amazon reportedly topping the list as the most visited retail website yesterday, seeing a 44% increase in visits compared to 2008. Amazon received 15.53% of the visits among the top 500 online retail sites.
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Sam Diaz / Between the Lines:
Comcast keeps promise, launches data usage meter — Nearly a year ago, Comcast first announced that it would establish a data usage tracking meter to help its broadband customers determine the amount of data being used on their accounts, especially since the company imposed a 250 GB cap on usage last year.
Discussion:
Network World, Gizmodo, The Register, GigaOM, Comcast Voices, CloudAve, Erictric, DSLreports, Electronista and TECH.BLORGE.com
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Brainstorm Tech:
Charlie Wolf: How the Mac roared back — Needham & Co.'s senior analyst explains how Apple outgrew the PC market seven fold — Click to enlarge. — Needham's Charlie Wolf was as surprised as anyone when Apple (AAPL) reported that it had sold a record 3.05 million Macintosh computers …
Discussion:
The Register
Zee / The Next Web:
Introducing twitter's first augmented reality iPhone app with geo-tagging built in. — Twitter 360 is an iPhone app that lets you visually see the flow of tweets from locations nearby, layered on top of your natural “real” environment. — Thanks to to the iPhone's video camera and Twitter's …
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes / Hardware 2.0:
XP's usage share down, Win 7, Firefox & IE8 up — Data released by web metrics company Net Applications indicates that the release of Windows 7 to the general public has put a significant dent into Windows XP's usage share. — For the November period, web usage of XP dropped by 1.45%, while Vista's usage share only dropped by 0.2%.
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Office Web Apps access comes to Windows Mobile, iPhone, BlackBerry and more (with some caveats) — For the past year, Microsoft officials have said repeatedly — without offering any specifics — that Office Web Apps will work on mobile phones. But now that the public beta of Office Web Apps is available …
Discussion:
internetnews.com, ReadWriteEnterprise, The Register, The Microsoft Blog, eWeek, PC World and jkOnTheRun
Alex Petcherski / The Official Google Blog:
Show me the pictures: better format for image results — I love when I get images back in my Google search results. There's no better way to quickly understand the difference between an ocelot and a clouded leopard. But sometimes I want to see more images to really make sure I've identified the right jungle cat.
Discussion:
Search Engine Land
Nathania Johnson / Search Engine Watch:
Ask.com's Top Questions of 2009: Refreshing, Existential and Disturbing — Ask.com gets a lot of their search queries in the form of a question - more so than any other search engine. So, it makes sense that their end-of-the-year list features questions instead of keywords.
Discussion:
ask.mediaroom.com
John Eggerton / Multichannel News:
NCTA Pitches Half-Price Broadband to Middle-Schooler Homes — Announcement Coming With FCC Adviser Blair Levin On Board — The National Cable & Telecommunications Assocation is proposing to offer low-income families with middle school kids half price broadband service and half-price modems for two years, plus free installation.
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Ex-BizWeek Editor John Byrne's New Company Has a Name, but No Product — In the wake of Bloomberg's purchase of BusinessWeek, longtime BW veteran John Byrne is leaving his job running the company's Web site and will start his own thing instead. — What is that thing?
