Top Items:
Miguel Helft / Bits:
Who Walked, Google or Yelp? — One thing is certain about the Google-Yelp courtship: After turning hot as recently as Friday, a bitter chill has spread over the relationship, and for now, the mating dance is definitely off. — But why things fell apart after the two sides had virtually agreed …
RELATED:
The Official Google Blog:
The meaning of open — Last week I sent an email to Googlers about the meaning of “open” as it relates to the Internet, Google, and our users. In the spirit of openness, I thought it would be appropriate to share these thoughts with those outside of Google as well. — At Google we believe that open systems win.
Discussion:
Lifestream Blog, Scripting News, Softpedia News, Android Central, Mark Sigal's Blog, Howard Lindzon, Beyond Search, GigaOM, CNET News and Google Operating System, Thanks:mgcreed
Brian Garner / AppleInsider:
Apple's TV subscription plan gains potential partners in CBS, Disney — Both CBS Corp. and Walt Disney Co. have shown interest in offering content for Apple's TV subscription proposal slated for roll out sometime in 2010. — Walt Disney Co. and CBS Corp. are considering participating …
Discussion:
New York Times, 9 to 5 Mac, Engadget, Electronista, Computerworld, bizjournals and DisplayBlog
RELATED:
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Apple May Be On The Verge Of Kneecapping The Cable Industry. Finally. — The cable companies suck. All of them. Some suck less than others. But they all suck. We need someone to whip them into shape. And that someone may be Apple. — Apple may be on the verge of gaining …
Clive Thompson / Wired News:
Learn to Let Go: How Success Killed Duke Nukem — On the last day, they gathered for a group photo. They were videogame programmers, artists, level builders, artificial-intelligence experts. Their team was — finally — giving up, declaring defeat, and disbanding.
Discussion:
4 color rebellion, Gizmodo Australia, SEO BlackHat, Kotaku, Rock, Paper, Shotgun and GMSV
Lars Backstrom / Facebook Blog:
Facebook Memology: Top Status Trends of 2009 — Status updates on Facebook help people understand their friends and the people around them—how they're feeling, what they're doing and what they're thinking. In the United States alone, people on Facebook are sharing hundreds of millions of words every day …
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Twitter Captures A Nexus One Unboxing And Another Video — A number of pictures have hit the web now showing the Nexus One, aka the Google Phone, in the flesh. But there haven't been too many showing its packaging, and it getting unboxed. Today, some Twitpics shared by one user show those.
Discussion:
Telegraph, Engadget, The Next Web, Pocket-lint.com, Fone Arena, Mobile Whack, Erictric, TmoNews, Android Central, Techie Buzz and Gizmodo
Seth Weintraub / 9 to 5 Mac:
Hurry up and download an NES emulator that slipped into the App Store — Update: It has been pulled, you'll have to jailbreak to get an NES emulator now. — We're not sure how this one slipped through, but Nescaline, a Nintendo Entertainment System emulator is in the App Store as we speak.
Tricia Duryee / mocoNews:
The U.S. Can Look To Europe To See What The iPhone's Future Will Be Here — Fed up with only having AT&T (NYSE: T) to choose from if you want the iPhone in the U.S., many consumers can't wait until Verizon or another carrier gets a hold of the device. But if you look at the UK …
Mia / YouTube Blog:
Make Way for youtu.be Links — It's all the rage: link shorteners to ensure that those useful URLs you're sharing don't take up too much precious character count while also giving you an inkling of what you're about to click on. Well, we've just launched youtu.be as a shortener for YouTube video links …
Discussion:
TechCrunch, Erictric, Download Squad, Pocket-lint.com, Search Engine Journal, ReadWriteWeb, NewTeeVee, Mashable!, The Next Web, Search Engine Watch and Gizmodo
Roberto Mateu / Opera Labs:
Opera 10.5 pre-alpha for Labs — Today we are releasing Opera 10.5 pre-alpha for Labs. This pre-alpha is based on the Evenes branch and includes Windows and Mac builds, with an UNIX/Linux version coming later. — As you may know, we don't typically open to user-testing this early in the development cycle.
RELATED:
Wilson Rothman / Gizmodo:
Our 2009 12-City 3G Data Mega Test: AT&T Won — Given carrier reputation and our own iPhone call drops, we were pretty surprised to discover, through careful testing in 12 markets, that AT&T's has pretty consistently the fastest 3G network nationwide, followed closely—in downloads at least—by Verizon Wireless.
Discussion:
SFGate, VentureBeat, Maximum PC, Electronista, Lifehacker, DSLreports, ClipperHouse and Technologizer
Softpedia News:
Windows Live Wave 4 Leaks: Mail, Photo Gallery, Writer Build 15.0.2403.826 — Screenshots available — Microsoft continues to keep mum on the next iteration Windows Live, but silence should be in no way mistaken for inactivity. The most recent Windows Live Wave 4 leaks come to confirm …
Ed Bayley / Electronic Frontier Foundation:
An E-Book Buyer's Guide to Privacy — As we count down to end of 2009, the emerging star of this year's holiday shopping season is shaping up to be the electronic book reader (or e-reader). From Amazon's Kindle to Barnes and Noble's forthcoming Nook, e-readers are starting to transform …
Jason Hiner / Between the Lines:
Backupify drops paywall; backs up your data from Twitter, Facebook, and Gmail — One of the best parts of keeping your data in the cloud is that you don't have to worry quite as much about doing your own backups. If your computer crashes or your hard drive dies, you won't lose all of the messages …
Discussion:
GottaBeMobile.com
Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed:
Netscape, Yelp, and the Tech IPO Boom of 2010 … Yelp may have just turned down a half-billion dollar takeover offer from Google. Zynga does a crazy-big $180m funding. Not long ago, Twitter took another $100-million in financing, and now we learn it's ... profitable.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Voice May Join Google's Enterprise Lineup — GrandCentral, which Google acquired in 2007, relaunched as Google Voice way back in March. It's still technically in private beta, but invitations aren't all that hard to find. — From what we've heard, Google is very seriously planning to add …
Discussion:
Rakesh Agrawal's Blog
Dennis Fisher:
Attackers Buying Own Data Centers for Botnets, Spam — The malware writers and criminals who run botnets for years have been using shared hosting platforms and so-called bulletproof hosting providers as bases of operations for their online crimes. But, as law enforcement agencies …
David Sancho / TrendLabs:
Microsoft Virus Scanning Recommendations Bring Risks — We have recently received queries from customers about the official exclusion list recommendations from Microsoft. It seems that they have published a Knowledge Base entry that lists down recommendations to improve performance in Windows when running antivirus scanners.
Miguel Helft / New York Times:
The Science of Managing Search Ads — MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Cyber Monday had gone swimmingly for Tiny Prints. — Despite the economic downturn, customers streamed into the Tiny Prints online store on the Monday after Thanksgiving, called Cyber Monday because it is one of the busiest days of the year for Web retailers.
Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
80legs sets its web crawler free — When 80legs launched its web crawling service at DEMO (a conference co-produced by VentureBeat) last fall, chief executive Shion Deysarkar told me he wanted to place tools previously exclusive to web giants within the reach of smaller companies …
Connie Guglielmo / Bloomberg:
Hewlett-Packard Reviews Claim That Its Facial-Tracking Software Is Racist — Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) — Hewlett-Packard Co. is looking into the facial-tracking software used in its personal computers, after a customer calling himself “Black Desi” said the program was racist because it was unable to follow his movements.
Discussion:
PC World, Maximum PC, New blog articles …, NBC Bay Area, The Daily What, Gizmodo, The Consumerist, Computerworld, Fudzilla, Mashable!, p2pnet, Pulse2 and CrunchGear
Chloe Albanesius / PC Magazine:
Sony Adds Content from 16 Pubs to 3G E-Reader — Sony has struck content deals with 16 additional publishers to make the newspaper's stories available on its new Daily Edition 3G e-reader. — In addition to a previously announced deal with News Corp., Sony has also secured content …
BBC:
BBC net TV plan gets green light — The BBC Trust, the corporation's governing body, has given a provisional go-ahead for a project which could kick-start demand for internet TV. — Project Canvas is a partnership between the BBC, ITV, BT, Five, Channel 4 and TalkTalk to develop a so-called Internet Protocol Television standard.
