Top Items:
Sky Canaves / China Real Time Report:
Clearing Up Confusion on Google and China — From Silicon Valley to Zhongguancun, Google's surprise announcement that it may pull out of China has fueled an enormous amount of discussion in recent days, not all of it 100% accurate. Below are some misstatements and misunderstandings we've seen:
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Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:
Chinese authorities behind Google attack, researcher claims — Forensics expert who examined malware believes it's too good to have come from independent hackers — Computerworld - The malware used to hack Google is so sophisticated that researchers brought in by the company to investigate believe …
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
AT&T Matches Verizon With $69.99 Unlimited Voice Plans. iPhone Not Included (But Also Cheaper). — As you may have heard, Verizon made some headlines today by unveiling new, cheaper plans to its customers. Specifically, they cut the price of their unlimited voice plans by $29 down to $69.99.
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Katie Marsal / AppleInsider:
Verizon undercuts AT&T, reduces monthly voice plan by $29 — Competition in the mobile landscape became more intense Friday, when Verizon Wireless announced it has cut its basic voice plan by $29 per month, to $69.99 for unlimited calling. — Verizon also has an unlimited voice and text plan …
Discussion:
MacRumors, CNET News, MarketWatch, Electronista, The Atlantic Business Channel, Gearlog, Wall Street Journal, ChannelWeb and PC World
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Verizon Wireless revamps calling plans; Goes for customer grab ahead of 4G — Verizon Wireless is going on offense as it tweaks pricing plans, pares its device portfolio and markets heavily with its “there's a map for that” ad campaign. The grand plan for Verizon Wireless: Grab customers …
Matthew Moore / Telegraph:
Sarcasm punctuation mark aims to put an end to email confusion — Expressing sarcasm in the written word can be a dangerous business, as anyone forced to apologise for sending a tongue-in-cheek email will confirm. — The SarcMark costs $1.99 to download — Now a US firm has come …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Twitter's Answer To Facebook Connect — Twitter is preparing to launch a new set of tools that will let third party websites easily integrate Twitter features directly into their web sites and services, multiple sources have confirmed. In a nutshell, this is their response to the massively popular Facebook Connect.
Discussion:
GigaOM, Fast Company, SocialTimes.com, Shooting at Bubbles, VatorNews, Silicon Alley Insider, Softpedia News, All Facebook and BaltTech
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Eric Eldon / Inside Facebook:Facebook Connect Appears on MySpace Video Site
Discussion:
901am, Mashable!, TechCrunch, The Web Services Report, bub.blicio.us, Softpedia News, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim and GigaOM
Peter Burrows / Business Week:
Is Apple Ready for Merger Mania? — The company has hired a banker from Goldman Sachs and looks to be in a more acquisitive mode — Historically, Steve Jobs has not been the acquisitive type. Since he returned to Apple (AAPL) as chief executive in 1997, the company has bought only 11 small companies …
Discussion:
Ars Technica, Tech Trader Daily, LAW.com, Digital Daily, 9 to 5 Mac, Silicon Alley Insider, Macsimum News, TUAW, MacRumors, iLounge, The Apple Core, Edible Apple, MacNN, AppleInsider and MacDailyNews
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Noel / Games from Within:
Making A Living (Barely) On The iPhone App Store (aka The Numbers Post) — The App Store is a very hit-driven environment. A few apps sell a large amount of units, and the great majority sell next to nothing. That's somewhat similar to the music industry, except that the audience for music …
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
The Original Tablet — I enjoyed Paul Thurrott's daily coverage of CES last week. A big trade show is a hard thing to capture in prose, and Thurrott got it. — But I chuckled at this piece starting his CES coverage, “Exclusive! Microsoft to Announce Tablet PC Before Apple!”:
Chris Davies / SlashGear:
Nokia 2010 Symbian UI update detailed: built on Qt — Remember the concept mockups of what Nokia envisaged its Symbian S^4 UI might look like after it's reworked in 2010? The company showed off a brief video demo back in early December 2009, and now they're opening up the floodgates …
Discussion:
Gizmodo, Symbian Blog, Electronista, DailyTech, Mashable!, Fone Arena, 901am, Softpedia News, Pocket-lint.com, Electricpig and Ubergizmo
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Yelp Enables Check-Ins On Its iPhone App; Foursquare, Gowalla Ousted As Mayors — When you think of the idea of “checking-in” at a venue in a mobile app, you likely think of Foursquare or Gowalla right now. The two gained significant momentum, funding, and users in the location space in 2009.
Discussion:
Widgets Lab
Todd Shields / Bloomberg:
Broadway Must Vacate Airwaves to Make Room for Verizon, AT&T — Jan. 15 (Bloomberg) — Broadway theaters, churches and other users of wireless microphones were given five months to vacate U.S. airwaves that regulators say are needed for high- speed Web services planned by companies including AT&T Inc.
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Jack Purcher / Patently Apple:
Apple's Media Players will One Day be Both Portable TV & DVR — On January 14, 2010, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals one of the next chapters coming to Apple's Media Players. In Q4 2010, Apple introduced their fifth generation iPod nano …
Discussion:
EverythingiCafe, Engadget, 9 to 5 Mac, Gizmodo Australia, Pocket-lint.com and Electricpig
Gagan Biyani / MobileCrunch:
Patent Reveals Possible Groundbreaking Multi-Touch Features for Apple's iSlate — Now that everyone knows the iSlate is real, the question is: what the hell is this thing going to be like? How will it work? What will wow us about the iSlate that we never really expected?
Phil Wainewright / Software as Services:
Why freemium is bad for business — I've never been comfortable with free products for business use, even though it's difficult to avoid using them if you're a small or one-person business (web analytics, for example, has been all but wiped out as a low-end paid service by Google's free offering).
Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:
AOL To Name An Ex-Googler “Head Of Technology” (AOL, TWX) — Several sources close to AOL (AOL) management tell us the company has hired Jeff Reynar, a former Google engineering manager, to “run overall technology” and report to CEO Tim Armstrong. — Jeff's title will be something like “head of technology.”
Discussion:
TechCrunch
BBC:
Music file-sharer ‘Oink’ cleared of fraud — A man who ran a music-sharing website with almost 200,000 members has been found not guilty of conspiracy to defraud at Teesside Crown Court. — Alan Ellis, 26, was the first person in the UK to be prosecuted for illegal file-sharing.
Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:
Mozilla dumps Firefox 3.7 from schedule, changes dev process — Plans to quicken development pace by adding some features via security updates — Computerworld - Mozilla has made major changes to how it develops Firefox, and plans to drop Firefox 3.7 from its schedule and instead roll …
Dan Fletcher / Time:
Foursquare's Twist on Facebook: A Reward for Checking In — Tweeting was the breakout web term for 2009. The early favorite for 2010? “Checking in.” — That's the basis of the Foursquare, the gorilla in a new wave of location-based social networking sites.
