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 …
Discussion:
Telegraph, Silicon Alley Insider, FierceMobileContent, Screenwerk, L.A. Times Tech Blog, SFGate, GeekSmack, MediaPost and Rev2.org
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Kara Swisher / BoomTown:As Microsoft Warily Eyes Google Buying Spree, Will It Jump …
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Silicon Alley Insider
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:Yelp Is Gone-For Now-But Google Has Plenty of Fish Left to Fry
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider, PC World, Bits, Tech Trader Daily, blogs.ft.com and the Econsultancy blog
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:
Gizmodo, Fast Company, Post Tech, Wall Street Journal, Between the Lines, Technology Liberation Front, EverythingiCafe, Macsimum News, 9 to 5 Mac, SFGate, Engadget, 24/7 Wall St., Edible Apple, Electronista, I4U News, Gizmodo Australia, MacRumors, MacDailyNews, bizjournals, DisplayBlog, Voices on All Things Digital and LOOPRumors
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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:
Blue's News, 4 color rebellion, Gizmodo Australia, SEO BlackHat, Kotaku, Rock, Paper, Shotgun and GMSV
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:
CNET News, cdixon.org, Lifestream Blog, Between the Lines, Softpedia News, Android Central, Mark Sigal's Blog, Scripting News, Howard Lindzon, Beyond Search, GigaOM and Google Operating System, Thanks:mgcreed
Macon Phillips / White House.gov Blog Feed:
Introducing the New Cybersecurity Coordinator — Today the White House announced the President's new White House Cybersecurity Coordinator, Howard Schmidt. — President Barack Obama greets his new White House Cyber Security Chief Howard A. Schmidt in the Cross Hall of the White House, Dec. 17, 2009.
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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.
Discussion:
MobileCrunch, Softpedia News, AppScout, Gadget Lab, App Advice, TUAW, Appletell and Erictric
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 …
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 …
Discussion:
eWeek, Download Squad, Telegraph, Adam Sherk, TechCrunch, Facebook, The Huffington Post, Softpedia News, Erictric, GigaOM, Switched, NBC Bay Area, WebProNews, Maximum PC, Guardian, All Facebook, Pocket-lint.com, AppScout, Between the Lines, Games.com News, Mashable!, The Next Web and ResourceShelf
Jonathan Fildes / BBC:
Firefox for mobile ready to debut — The mobile browser has been in development for the last year and a half — The first mobile phone version of the popular web browser Firefox is “days away” from launch, the head of the project has told the BBC. — The browser, codenamed Fennec …
Marc Flores / Boy Genius Report:
Israeli programmer hacks Kindle, breaks DRM protection — Nothing makes you feel like you truly own your media and content like being able to do almost whatever you want with it. We're already used to DRM for our MP3s and the limitations it puts on device selection and sharing …
Discussion:
AppScout
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:
Engadget, Telegraph, The Next Web, Fone Arena, Android Phone Fans, Mobile Whack, Pocket-lint.com, Erictric, TmoNews, Android Central, Gadgetell, Gizmodo and Techie Buzz
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 …
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.
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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:
MacRumors, The iPhone Blog, SFGate, VentureBeat, Maximum PC, ClipperHouse, Lifehacker, DSLreports, Electronista and Technologizer
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 …
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 …
Jonny Evans / 9 to 5 Mac:
iPhone price wars begin - massive discounts hit France... France is Europe's healthiest iPhone market because the device has been sold there by multiple carriers, driving sales higher - now carriers there are slashing prices on the product, applying steep discounts against the regular price.
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TMCnet
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 …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Flurry and Pinch Media to create mobile analytics powerhouse — Two analytics startups, Flurry and Pinch Media, are announcing a merger today as they try to create a mobile data analytics leader. While Flurry has been focused on e-commerce, Pinch Media was focused on ad optimization.
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
gWallet Reveals Secret Weapon For Virtual Currency Platform: gLTV — We recently wrote about gWallet, a startup that hopes to offer a legitimate virtual currency monetization platform, after OfferPal, and others have recently come under fire (a.k.a. “Scamville") for scamming users of virtual games on social networks.
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, Download Squad, Erictric, ReadWriteWeb, Search Engine Journal, NewTeeVee, Pocket-lint.com, Mashable!, The Next Web, Search Engine Watch, AppScout and Gizmodo
David Diaz / TechCrunch:
Apple Not Liable For Plagued iMac Screens, Updates Firmware Anyway — Apple just dodged a bullet. — A New York federal judge dismissed a potential class action lawsuit which alleged that Apple propagated their popular iMac screens without disclosing certain manufacturing defects to its customers …
Nielsen Wire:
Top Mobile Phones, Sites and Brands for 2009 — The iPhone and various Blackberry handhelds dominated the mobile device market, while Google, Yahoo! and YouTube led the way as far as most accessed sites and brands on the mobile web. — Top 10 Mobile Phones in Use (U.S.) - January -October 2009 RANK Device Embedded Base of
