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 …
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Austin Startup, Silicon Alley Insider, Telegraph, FierceMobileContent, Screenwerk and L.A. Times Tech Blog
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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 …
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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 …
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NewTeeVee, Wall Street Journal, Gizmodo, Post Tech, Fast Company, Brainstorm Tech, Company Town, Dealscape, GottaBeMobile.com, 24/7 Wall St., TechStartups.com, New York Times, I4U News, fierceonlinevideo.com …, SFGate, Computerworld, Edible Apple, blogs.chron.com, Electronista, Hacking NetFlix, Gizmodo Australia, MacRumors, MacDailyNews, Macsimum News, Voices on All Things Digital, The Huffington Post and AppScout
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
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Mashable!, Macsimum News, InformationWeek, Erictric, Electronista, ResourceShelf and PC Magazine
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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:
TechCrunch, Between the Lines, Lifestream Blog, Brian Prentice, GMSV, OStatic blogs, Seeking Alpha, Android Central, Softpedia News, Mark Sigal's Blog, Howard Lindzon, GigaOM, Beyond Search and CNET News, Thanks:mgcreed
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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 …
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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.
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:
CrunchGear, 4 color rebellion, Blue's News, Gizmodo Australia, SEO BlackHat, Kotaku and Rock, Paper, Shotgun
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 …
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 …
Discussion:
AppleInsider, MacRumors, Apple, TechFresh, Erictric, Macsimum News, I4U News, Mobile Whack and MacNN
Clifford J. Levy / New York Times:
Russians Wary of Cyrillic Web Domains — MOSCOW — The Kremlin has long been irritated by the way the United States dominates the Internet, all the way down to the ban on using Cyrillic for Web addresses — even kremlin.ru has to be demeaningly rendered in English.
Michael Calore / Epicenter:
Vaporware 2009: Inhale the Fail — Take a deep breath and savor the sweet stench of disappointment. It's time for another installment of Wired.com's Vaporware Awards. — This is the 12th year we've offered our annual roundup of the tech industry's biggest, brashest and most baffling unfulfilled promises.
Discussion:
Technologizer
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 …
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 …
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, TUAW, AppScout, Gadget Lab, Appletell, Erictric and App Advice
Anand Lal Shimpi / AnandTech:
Epic Demonstrates Unreal Engine 3 for the iPod Touch/iPhone 3GS — Buy the Apple MC011LL/A iPod Touch 64GB Screen — I got together with Mark Rein last week and he showed me an Unreal Engine 3 tech demo running on a 3rd generation iPod Touch. The same Unreal Engine 3 that powers Gears of War 2, running on an iPod Touch.
Jamie Lendino / Gearlog:
Garmin, Mio, Navigon to Add Mobile TV to GPS Devices — This may not be a U.S. story just yet, but it's worth noting: the Israeli-based Siano Mobile Silicon announced that Garmin, Mio, and Navigon will be sourcing its latest MDTV receiver chips for upcoming mobile TV-capable GPS devices.
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 …
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, VentureBeat, ClipperHouse, SFGate, Maximum PC, Lifehacker, DSLreports, Technologizer, Electronista and dailywireless.org
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, SlashGear, The Next Web, Telegraph, Fone Arena, Android Phone Fans, Mobile Whack, Pocket-lint.com, TmoNews, Erictric, Gadgetell, Gizmodo, Android Central and Techie Buzz
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.
Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
The best and worst thing Twitter did in 2009: RT — A representative tweet from tonight says it all: “how can new RT's be cool? No context, no editing possible.” (TechCrunch's Mike Butcher said that). — The new retweet feature is definitely the worst and best thing Twitter did this year.
Thanks:atul
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 …
Thanks:atul
Lance Whitney / CNET News:
WSJ: FBI investigating Citibank cyberattack — Citigroup denies it, but its Citibank unit was reportedly robbed of tens of millions of dollars, the victim of a cyberattack by members of a Russian criminal gang, says Tuesday's Wall Steet Journal (subscription required).
David Coursey / PC World:
Texting While Driving 6X More Dangerous than Talking — A University of Utah study tells us something we should already know: That texting while driving is six times more dangerous than talking on a handset while driving.This is a message that has eluded many, but we can help.