Top Items:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Google Acquires Aardvark For $50 million — Google has acquired social search service Aardvark, says a source that has been briefed on the deal, for around $50 million. We first reported on the discussions between the two companies in December. Those discussions have now turned into a signed deal …
Discussion:
CNET News, ReadWriteWeb, GigaOM, L.A. Times Tech Blog, paidContent, Search Engine Land, Silicon Alley Insider, Pulse2 and NBC Bay Area
Om Malik / GigaOM:
MySpace, R.I.P — It's not a good idea to speak ill of the dead. It is OK, however, to speak the truth, however harsh it might seem, about the living dead. — Rupert Murdoch's $580 million MySpace purchase has outlived not only its utility, but has also finally hit its expiration date.
Discussion:
Computerworld, internetnews.com, BoomTown, TechCrunch, PC World, Silicon Alley Insider, /message, Daily Patricia and Silicon Valley Watcher, Thanks:atul
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Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
MySpace CEO Van Natta Was Fired by News Corp. Digital Head Miller in Late Afternoon Meeting — The long-running telenovela that has been MySpace over the years took yet another dramatic turn late today when News Corp. Chief Digital Officer Jon Miller fired MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta …
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, Silicon Alley Insider, Guardian, Beyond Search, Telegraph, Gawker and John Battelle's Searchblog
Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:Owen Van Natta Out As MySpace CEO (NWS)
Discussion:
TechCrunch, Guardian, Tech Eye, Music Ally, paidContent, NBC Bay Area, MediaMemo, The Register, PE Hub Blog, The Social, Fast Company, TechFlash and AppScout
Brent Schlender / Perspective:
Bill Gates Joins the iPad's Army of Critics. Steve Jobs Couldn't Care Less. — With the sudden ridicule of Steve Jobs' new do-everything media player, Apple has abruptly become a ripe target for those who would like to take it down a notch. The tsunami of criticism is probably excessive …
Discussion:
CNET News, The Seattle Times, Gadget Lab, MacRumors, AppleInsider, Erictric, CrunchGear, Edible Apple, InformationWeek, DailyTech, TG Daily, TiPb, GottaBeMobile.com, Telegraph, Digital Daily, 9 to 5 Mac, Gearlog, thinq.co.uk and MacDailyNews
Mark Mentovai / The Official Google Blog:
Bringing extensions to Google Chrome for Mac — As thousands of Mac fans and developers gather in San Francisco for this week's Macworld conference, we're particularly delighted to announce a new beta release of Chrome for Mac. Today's release includes some of our most requested features …
Philipp Lenssen / Google Blogoscoped:
On Potential Privacy Problems With Gmail Buzz Exposing Email Contacts — Nicholas Carlson of Business Insider calls Gmail Buzz's (apparently default-settings) exposure of some of those you are in contact with - by auto-suggesting people to follow, and displaying that list on your public profile - a “huge privacy flaw”:
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Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:WARNING: Google Buzz Has A Huge Privacy Flaw (GOOG)
Discussion:
Google Blogoscoped, Google Operating System, eWeek, Irregular Enterprise, Tech Broiler, GMSV, Fred Stutzman, techPresident, The Register, Enterprise Irregulars, Collaborative Thinking, Tech Eye, Computerworld, Security Bytes, ChannelWeb, Twittercism, iGeneration, GottaBeMobile.com, CNET News, Zatz Not Funny!, Techtonic Shifts, Gizmodo, AccMan, 1001 Noisy Cameras, InfoWorld, TechCrunch, Social Business, Techdirt, Between the Lines and Giles Bowkett
Declan McCullagh / CNET News:
Feds push for tracking cell phones — Two years ago, when the FBI was stymied by a band of armed robbers known as the “Scarecrow Bandits” that had robbed more than 20 Texas banks, it came up with a novel method of locating the thieves. — FBI agents obtained logs from mobile phone companies corresponding …
John Herrman / Gizmodo:
Office For Mac 2011 First Look: Ribbons, Sharing, and... Outlook? — Preemptive apologies to those of you who read Gizmodo to get away from work: Sorry! Now pay attention: The next version of Office for Mac is on its way, and we've got a sneak peak. — There's been a funny disconnect …
Discussion:
Macworld, All about Microsoft, CNET News, The Microsoft Blog, Brainstorm Tech, MacRumors, O'Grady's PowerPage, Geekword and PR Newswire
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Garmin-Asus nuvifone A50 runs Android, knows where you are turn-by-turn — The long rumored Nuvifone jump to Android is here just as we get set to kick off Mobile World Congress next week. Garmin and ASUS claim that the A50 brings “more location technology than any other smartphone” …
Stephen Chapman / MSFTKitchen:
Windows 8 to be “Completely Different” and “Mind-Blowing” — Over the course of the past week and a half, a couple of individuals from Microsoft have commented about Windows 8 in a rather excited manner. First, there was a blog entry on January 31, 2010 (which has since then been deleted) …
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Zynga Buys Social Gaming Startup Serious Business — Zynga, the heavily-funded social gaming company, today announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire Serious Business, fellow creators of social games on Facebook. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed …
Discussion:
Inside Social Games, Inside Facebook, alarm:clock, VatorNews, VentureBeat, Digits, paidContent and silicontap.com
Sean Michaels / Guardian:
Google shuts down music blogs — Bloggers told they have violated terms without further explanation, as years of archives are wiped off the internet — In what critics are calling “musicblogocide 2010”, Google has deleted at least six popular music blogs that it claims violated copyright law.
Anna Richardson / YouTube Blog:
Speed Matters - Introducing the YouTube Video Speed Dashboard — Your YouTube video speed can mean the difference between a fast and fun video viewing experience, or a slow and frustrating one. That's why, today, we're launching a YouTube video speed dashboard to make the speed information available to you.
Bloomberg:
Microsoft Said to Be Among Suitors for Facebook Games Startup Crowdstar — Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) — Microsoft Corp. is among companies in talks to buy CrowdStar, the creator of games for social- networking site Facebook, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Kelly Hodgkins / Boy Genius Report:
Motorola has an oopsie, Android 2.1 update for the DROID not rolling out this week? — Potentially bad news for DROID owners as word out of Motorola's support forums suggest that the Motorola DROID will not see the rumored 2.1 update drop this week. According to Matt, forums manager over at Motorola …
Wall Street Journal:
IPad Magnifies Apple's Flash Feud — Apple Inc. and Adobe Systems Inc. used to be cozy partners, but they have become increasingly estranged since the computer maker unveiled its iPad tablet late last month. — While Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs announced that the iPad will revolutionize Web surfing …
Discussion:
NewTeeVee
Olga Kharif / Business Week:
FCC May Pay Broadcasters for Airwaves — To relieve the strain on mobile networks caused by smartphones, the agency is considering a plan to pay broadcasters to vacate some of their airwaves — The Federal Communications Commission is considering a plan to pay broadcasters to vacate airwaves …
Discussion:
VentureBeat, DSLreports, AppleInsider, dailywireless.org, FierceWireless and Silicon Alley Insider
Jonny Evans / 9 to 5 Mac:
Shazam for iPhone gets Last.fm, ticketing and more... Shazam has added Last.fm integration, geolocation and concert ticket purchasing features to the company's high-end music identification and discovery products. — The move means iPhone and iPod touch users can get tour and gig ticket info …
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
300,000,000 Downloads Later, OpenOffice Ships Version 3.2 — The OpenOffice.org Community this morning announced the release of the latest version (3.2) of its personal productivity suite, and simultaneously announced that the software has been downloaded an impressive 300 million times in total since its public debut in April 2002.
Ben Parr / Mashable!:
PayPal and Bebo Founders Invest in Mixpanel — Mixpanel, a real-time web analytics and analysis service for understanding how users behave with web apps, has just announced a $500,000 angel investment round coming from three of the web's most successful entrepreneurs: Max Levchin …
Matt Burns / CrunchGear:
TiVo schedules a March 2nd NYC event and we'll be there — We've known that TiVo was cooking up something tasty for a bit now. It could be the Premiere that leaked a few weeks back or something entirely different. We really don't know at this point. But what we do know is that we'll …
Discussion:
Zatz Not Funny!
Tricia Duryee / mocoNews:
Skyfire Acquires kolbysoft To Create Browser For Android Handsets — Mobile browser-maker Skyfire has acquired kolbysoft for its expertise in creating browsers for the Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Android operating system. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. — Kolbysoft currently has a browser available on Android called Steel.
New York Times:
The Cost of an E-Book Will Be Going Up — In the battle over the pricing of electronic books, publishers appear to have won the first round. The price of many new releases and best sellers is about to go up, to as much as $14.99 from $9.99. — But there may be an insurgency waiting to pounce: e-book buyers.
Tom Warren / Neowin.net:
Pirate Bay co-founder launches social payments system - Flattr — Peter Sunde, co-founder of the popular BitTorrent tracker site The Pirate Bay, has launched a new service this week aiming to revolutionize how people pay and get paid for content on the internet.
Al Sacco / CIO.com:
RIM Unveils Official Twitter for BlackBerry App: Image Walkthrough — Get an early look at RIM's official BlackBerry Twitter application, which offers all the basic functionality expected in a mobile Twitter app along with cool, new “push” notifications for near-instant delivery of direct messages.
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Microsoft to push new piracy-detection update to Windows 7 users — Microsoft is planning to push to Windows 7 users a set of anti-piracy updates before the end of February. — Called the Windows Activation Technologies Update for Windows 7, the Windows Genuine patch is designed to detect …
