Top Items:
Google Mobile Blog:
Finding places “Near me now” is easier and faster than ever on Google.com — Last month, Vic Gundotra, VP of Engineering, demonstrated at the Computer History Museum the ability to search by using your location as the query. Starting today, you can try this yourself by going to Google.com …
Discussion:
CNET News, Google Watch, Download Squad, PC World, App Advice, GottaBeMobile.com, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Rev2.org, Phone Arena, The Next Web, IntoMobile, Invisible Inkling, MobileContentToday, Pocket-lint.com, Search Engine Watch, Ubergizmo, Search Engine Journal, Mashable!, Lost Remote, Search Engine Land, Google Maps Mania, Silicon Alley Insider and Mashable on Tumblr, Thanks:atul
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Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Google's Near Me Now is Live & Good Enough to Replace Yelp — One month ago Google unveiled five big new technologies in one day - and then launched real-time search that afternoon. One of those five was something called Near Me Now, and it just went live moments ago.
Will Oremus / Mercury News:
Apple plans new prototype store in downtown Palo Alto — Apple is quietly preparing to move its downtown Palo Alto store to a new, larger space just a block away on University Avenue, The Daily News has learned. — There it will build an Apple Store that project developers referred …
Tony Smith / The Register:
Ion add-on to equip iPhone with full Qwerty keyboard — iType turns you handset into a Sinclair Z88 — CES 2010 Ion, a company best known for its USB turntables and cassette decks, has introduced a Qwerty keyboard add on for... the iPhone. — Ion's iType: fast text entry on the iPhone
Joshua Topolsky / Engadget:
Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus first hands-on (video)! — We just had a chance to play around with the new Palm Pre Plus (and Palm Pixi Plus), and we must say — they've made some solid improvements to these devices. We're going to focus on the Pre, since it's really had the bulk of the changes.
Discussion:
PC World, Fone Arena, The Toybox, Gearlog, MacRumors, Gizmodo, MobileCrunch, GottaBeMobile.com and Tech Trader Daily
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Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Microsoft already setting a high expectation bar for Mobile World Congress — After the no-show (and no mention) of Windows Mobile 7 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week, Microsoft officials have begun touting the Mobile World Congress (MWC) event in mid-February in Barcelona …
Discussion:
Softpedia News, WMPoweruser.com, LiveSide.net, The Microsoft Blog, The Register, BetaNews, istartedsomething and Microsoft
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Brad Stone / Bits:
Behind the Warner Bros. and Netflix Accord — Earlier this week, Netflix cut a deal with Warner Bros. that will delay the availability of new Warner movies to Netflix subscribers by almost a month, but expand the number of older Warner films available for digital streaming.
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Agam Shah / Computerworld:
Intel CEO shows first Moorestown smartphone — IDG News Service - Intel on Thursday showed the first smartphone based on its upcoming Moorestown platform for mobile devices. — The GW990 smartphone will be made by LG Electronics and ship during the second half of the year …
Discussion:
Engadget, VentureBeat, GottaBeMobile.com, Electronista, The Register, dailywireless.org, internetnews.com, BetaNews and Digits
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Cade Metz / The Register:
Google open-source boss comes clean on Android — ‘We could do better,’ DiBona tells devs — Google open source guru Chris DiBona has acknowledged that the company's freewheeling approach to building a mobile operating system can cause a few headaches for developers …
Discussion:
Download Squad
John / THINK / Musings:
charting the real time web OR the curious tale of how TechCrunch traffic inexplicably fell off a cliff in December — For a while now I have been thinking about doing a post about some of the data we track at betaworks. Over the past few months people have written about Twitter's traffic being up …
Thanks:atul
Sam Oliver / AppleInsider:
Greenpeace ranks Apple as greenest electronics maker — After falling prey to harsh criticism from Greenpeace over its use of toxic chemicals in products for years on end, Apple was honored this week with the environmental advocacy group's top ranking as the greenest electronics maker.
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Apple Seizes 16 Domain Names From A Guy In One Fell Swoop — When you own domain names associated with the trademarks of a large company, more often than not, they're going to file a complaint with the ICANN UDRP (Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy). And more often than not, they're going to win control of the name.
Richard Barley / TweetDeck's posterous:
TweetDeck For iPhone Gets A New-Year Update — Happy New Year TweetDeckers! We hope you all had a great festive season and that 2010 is off to a good start for you. — We are kicking our new year off in fine form with a feature-packed update to the TweetDeck iPhone app, which is available now from the App Store.
Brian Womack / Bloomberg:
Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz Gives Herself B-Minus Grade for First Year on Job — Jan. 8 (Bloomberg) — Carol Bartz gives herself a B-minus in her first year as chief executive officer of Yahoo! Inc., saying she could have moved faster to reorganize the company and strike a Web-search agreement with Microsoft Corp.
SciTeDaily:
Google's Book Scanning Technology Revealed — Google was awarded a patent for a device to rapidly scan high-quality of images of books last March, as reported by NPR and CNet. However, no one has been able to get a glimpse of how the system works in practice, until now.
Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
Surprise, surprise: HTC's Euro-spec Nexus One does multitouch — Alright, Google, we get it: you hate America. That's the only conclusion we can reach for why the company's last two Android version hero devices — the Droid for 2. and the Nexus One for 2.1 — have mysteriously opted …
David / Wolfire Games Blog:
Why you should use OpenGL and not DirectX — Often, when we meet other game developers and say that we use OpenGL for our game Overgrowth, we're met with stares of disbelief — why would anyone use OpenGL? DirectX is the future. When we tell graphics card representatives that we use OpenGL …
Jolie O'Dell / ReadWriteWeb:
TwitAlbums: Private, Collaborative Content Sharing Via Twitter — Have you ever wanted to share a set of memories with some of your Twitter friends, keeping the content private while still allowing for collaboration between certain folks? — It's not anything we thought we wanted, either …
Lauren Goode / Digits:
CES: Mark Cuban on 3-D, HD, LSD — Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban is in Las Vegas to take a look at all the technology that's being showcased this week at CES. He sat down with The Journal to talk about which gadgets he's looking forward to seeing, why he thinks 2-D-to-3-D video processors are a …
Marguerite Reardon / CNET News:
Local TV could spur mobile TV adoption — LAS VEGAS—Mobile TV may finally hit the mainstream when cell phones throughout the U.S. are able to access local TV for free. — The Open Mobile Video Coalition, an organization made up of consumer electronics companies, broadcasters …
Amit / Digital Inspiration:
China Blocks IMDB Movie Website — Amazon owned IMDB.com, a popular web database of movies and actors, is no longer accessible from China. — Why China Blocked IMDB — While there has been no official comment on why the IMDB site was blocked inside China, rumors on Twitter suggest …
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Yahoo BOSS To Survive Microsoft Deal In Some Form; Details Still Hazy — After months of silence, Yahoo's BOSS team is opening up to frustrated third party developers about the future of the powerful search platform. A few hours ago, Yahoo's Ashim Chhabra left a post on the BOSS group forum …
Discussion:
Search Engine Land
Vladislav Savov / Engadget:
LG GW990 hands-on video — You'll know this device as the 4.8-inch revolutionary intent on making us fall madly in love with MIDs all over again (or should that be for the first time?). Good thing then that we now know it as the device that bears a thousand Engadget fingerprints.
Tom Krazit / CNET News:
Google muses about ads in Street View — It might have been just a trial balloon, but last year Google floated the idea of putting ads in Street View. — Could virtual billboards one day show up in Google Street View? — A few months ago, Google gave a presentation to marketing …
Timothy B. Hurst / ecopolitology:
USGS Develops Twitter-Based Earthquake Detection System — Seismologists say Twitter is the fastest way to get information out of an earthquake area, especially in those less densely populated. — People love to tweet about what's going on around them, especially when that something is exciting or otherwise newsworthy.