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:
Discussion:
James Fallows, Silicon Alley Insider, Voices on All Things Digital, Imagethief and Wall Street Journal
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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 …
George Kurtz / McAfee Security Insights Blog:
“Aurora” Exploit In Google Attack Now Public — Computer code that exploits the yet-to-be-patched Internet Explorer vulnerability used in Operation Aurora to attack Google and others in December has now been published on the Internet. — McAfee Labs researchers have seen references …
Reuters:
Yahoo knew of attacks before Google, kept mum — SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc knew it had been a target to sophisticated Chinese cyber attacks on U.S. corporations before Google alerted the company to them, a source familiar with the matter said, but chose to remain silent after its bigger rival went public.
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:
Macworld, MacRumors, MarketWatch, The Atlantic Business Channel, Electronista, Crave, Gearlog, Wall Street Journal, ChannelWeb and PC World
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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.
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.
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Gilly / My Microsoft Life:
Bing has its own shortening URL, binged.it — In a tweet I have just seen from Bing's @fareologist I noticed that they used a new URL shortening service by the name of binged.it. I think this is a new URL Bing are using, I certainly haven't noticed this before.
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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 …
Discussion:
Technologizer, CNET News, Maximum PC, iGeneration, broadstuff, Pocket-lint.com and blogs.telegraph.co.uk
Brooke Crothers / CNET News:
Analyst: Apple tablet ‘in full production’ — An analyst at AVI Securities said Friday morning that the Apple tablet is “in full production” and a research note stated that Apple “NAND” flash chip requirements may be increasing because of the tablet. — The Apple tablet information comes from …
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 …
Economist:
The return of the mainframe: Back in fashion — The mother of all computers no longer looks that old — GEEKS may roll their eyes at the news that Namibia is only now getting its first mainframe—a technology that most consider obsolete. Yet the First National Bank of Namibia …
Discussion:
broadstuff
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.
Discussion:
Download Squad, TorrentFreak, Press Association, PC World, Guardian, Mashable!, Threat Level and Techdirt
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?
Jessica Guynn / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Xobni takes over Twitter's old offices — You can measure the success of a start-up in square footage. — Just ask Xobni. — A few weeks ago, Xobni moved into Twitter's old offices in the South of Market area of San Francisco. With 30 employees, it could no longer squeeze into the offices …
Discussion:
Xobni Blog
Prince McLean / AppleInsider:
The inside track on Apple's tablet: a history of tablet computing — Apple's anticipated press event later this month is widely expected to debut a new tabled-sized device as a sibling to the company's Mac, iPod and iPhone product lines. Here's what has led up to the launch, and why the futuristic tablet hasn't taken off so far.
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:
Symbian Blog, Electronista, Gizmodo, DailyTech, Fone Arena, 901am, Pocket-lint.com, Mashable!, Softpedia News, Electricpig and Ubergizmo
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).
Discussion:
broadstuff
New York Times:
Scaling the Digital Wall in China — The Great Firewall of China is hardly impregnable. — Just as Mongol invaders could not be stopped by the Great Wall, Chinese citizens have found ways to circumvent the sophisticated Internet censorship systems designed to restrict them.
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!”:
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:
Engadget, Obsessable, EverythingiCafe, Gizmodo, Pocket-lint.com, Electricpig and 9 to 5 Mac
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
