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:
Wall Street Journal, Voices on All Things Digital, Imagethief, Silicon Alley Insider, New York Times and Guardian
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Agence France Presse:
US to formally ask China for explanation on cyber-attacks — WASHINGTON — The United States said Friday that it will formally ask the Chinese government in “the coming days” for an explanation of China-based cyberattacks on the Internet giant Google. — “We will be issuing a formal demarche …
Bloomberg:
Google Said to Have Tried to Enlist Companies as Allies After Cyber Attack — Jan. 15 (Bloomberg) — Google Inc. approached other companies to seek their help drawing attention to a cyber attack from China last month and was frustrated by their reluctance to come forward, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider
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:
Fast Company, GigaOM, Shooting at Bubbles, SocialTimes.com, VatorNews, Softpedia News, Silicon Alley Insider, BaltTech and All Facebook
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Eric Eldon / Inside Facebook:Facebook Connect Appears on MySpace Video Site
Discussion:
Mashable!, TechCrunch, The Web Services Report, bub.blicio.us, Softpedia News and Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim
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, Digital Daily, LAW.com, Silicon Alley Insider, 9 to 5 Mac, TUAW, Macsimum News, MacRumors, Edible Apple, The Apple Core, MacNN, iLounge, AppleInsider and MacDailyNews
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Peter Burrows / Business Week:Apple vs. Google
Discussion:
Search Engine Watch, AppleInsider, Silicon Alley Insider, VentureBeat, mocoNews, MacRumors, Bloomberg, Electronista, Gizmodo, FierceMobileContent and 9 to 5 Mac
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 …
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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:
CNET News, MarketWatch, The Atlantic Business Channel, Wall Street Journal, ChannelWeb and PC World
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 …
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 …
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).
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?
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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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
Sajid Farooq / NBC Bay Area:
Apple Cofounder Confesses: He Loves the Google Phone — Steve Wozniak admits he's jumped to Google's ship — Steve Wozniak may have once cut in line to get an iPhone. But now he's moved on to a hotter gadget. — The cofounder of Apple — the company that made him millions — told NBC Bay Area a dirty little secret.
Taylor Wimberly / Android and Me:
Google changes pricing options for Nexus One: 100 new reasons to purchase the N1 — Customers who recently paid $379 for the Nexus One will soon be receiving a $100 refund from Google. The refund does not apply to any other customers who purchased the Nexus One.
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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.
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 …
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.
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
OneRiot's Realtime Ad Network RiotWise Now Open To The Masses — OneRiot's recently ventured into the advertising world with RiotWise, an ad format which places content in an emphasized position in their realtime feed. A few weeks ago, the realtime search engine launched a pilot program …
Clint Boulton / eWeek:
Microsoft Exchange Team Fires Back at IBM Ahead of Lotusphere — Microsoft Jan. 15 offered training vouchers to the first 500 Lotus Notes professionals who want to learn to use Microsoft's Office productivity suite, Exchange e-mail server, SharePoint collaboration software, and Office Communications Server platform.
Phone Arena:
Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus to cost $150 and $100 respectively — Published on: Today by PhoneArena Team — It was cool that Palm announced the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus are coming to Verizon at this year's CES; however, it seems that both the manufacturer and the carrier forgot to inform …
