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 …
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Bits, Macworld, Venture Capital Dispatch, alarm:clock, SocialTimes.com, Guardian, Tech Trader Daily, GigaOM, BoomTown, VentureBeat, ChannelWeb, VatorNews, ReadWriteWeb, Epicenter, CNET News, Pulse2, NBC Bay Area, lalawag, bub.blicio.us, Mashable!, John Battelle's Searchblog, InformationWeek, Search Engine Journal, Tech Eye, Search Engine Watch, paidContent, Technology Review, The Next Web, Search Engine Land and L.A. Times Tech Blog
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Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Veoh Finally Calls it Quits: Layoffs Yesterday, Bankruptcy Filing Soon — Veoh, one of several well-funded startups that have tried and failed to cash in on the Web video boom, is finally calling it quits. The company let go of the remainder of its workforce yesterday …
Discussion:
Podcasting News, NewTeeVee, paidContent, NBC Bay Area, PE Hub Blog, Xconomy, The Next Web and Mashable!
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T3.com News:
Microsoft hints at Office for iPad — Microsoft has revealed to T3 that it may be ready to unleash a version of Office for Mac for the Apple iPad. — The Seattle-based company let slip the possibility of a suite for the new tablet during a demonstration of the brand new Office for Mac 2011 …
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Tech Trader Daily, TechFlash, App Advice, MacRumors, Technologizer, GottaBeMobile.com, TiPb, EverythingiCafe and TUAW
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John Herrman / Gizmodo:Office For Mac 2011 First Look: Ribbons, Sharing, and... Outlook?
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PC Magazine, Macworld, AppleInsider, All about Microsoft, PR Newswire, eWeek, BetaNews, 9 to 5 Mac, CNET News, The Microsoft Blog, Brainstorm Tech, O'Grady's PowerPage, Geekword and MacRumors
Andrew Munchbach / Boy Genius Report:
Palm orders halt on production of Palm Pre, Palm Pre Plus, and Palm Pixis? — According to an OTR Global report, three different sources have confirmed that all future orders of the Palm Pre and Palm Pre Plus are being suspended as of Wednesday. One of the sources said, “The decision is very sudden …
Discussion:
InformationWeek, FierceWireless, Boing Boing, Electronista, PreCentral.net and MobileCrunch
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Nilay Patel / Engadget:
Debunk: Palm not halting Pre / Pixi production, just on hold for Chinese New Year — Oh boy. Research firm OTR Global is making some waves today with a report claiming that Palm ordered all Pre and Pixi manufacturing to be halted, but apparently they didn't look at a calendar — or, you know, call Palm.
Jay Yarow / Silicon Alley Insider:
Google Paying Apple More Than $100 Million Annually For iPhone Search Deal (AAPL, GOOG) — The rumor that Apple is building its own search engine “isn't credible,” according to a source familiar with Apple's operations. — Our source tells us “there's too many options” for search on the market …
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 …
Dharmesh Shah / HubSpot Company Product News Blog:
One Lesson From The Twitter Grader Screw-up: OAuth Rocks — Most days, I lead a pretty happy existence. I write code. I meet with folks at HubSpot. I talk to fellow entrepreneurs and generally try to spread goodwill and love. Today, however, it sucks to be me.
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Evgeny Morozov / Foreign Policy:
Wrong kind of buzz around Google Buzz — The launch of Google Buzz has set various parts of the technology blogosphere afire — and for all the right reasons: it does introduce a number of interesting social features that could make our email experience much more social (whether it has to be more social is a different question).
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Philipp Lenssen / Google Blogoscoped:On Potential Privacy Problems With Gmail Buzz Exposing Email Contacts
Discussion:
Lifehacker, Fred Stutzman, Silicon Alley Insider, ReadWriteWeb, The Precursor Blog and Irregular Enterprise
Bing / Search Blog:
Spatial Search: The Next Frontier — Have you ever thought about all the content and media out there on the Web? Information that we use daily to help make decisions, like reviews of the best restaurant for chicken parmesan or the t-shirt shop perfect for a vintage G&R t-shirt?
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 …
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.
Discussion:
Podcasting News, Epicenter, Mashable!, 901am, TechCrunch, The Business Of Online Video and ReadWriteWeb
Bloomberg:
Microsoft Said to Be Among Suitors for Facebook Gaming 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.
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:
BoomTown, TechCrunch, Daily Patricia, Computerworld, Online Dating Insider, PC World, internetnews.com, Silicon Alley Insider and /message, Thanks:atul
Opera browser:
You have never browsed this fast before — Introducing Opera 10.50 beta for Windows — Opera today released the beta of Opera 10.50 — the latest and the most advanced version of its cutting-edge desktop Web browser. Besides being the fastest Web browser, Opera 10.50 beta also offers a minimalist …
Discussion:
Download Squad, GigaOM, eWeek, OSNews, Webmonkey, Web Browsers, Pocket-lint and my.opera.com
Jeremiah Owyang / Web Strategy:
Web Strategy Matrix: Google Buzz vs Facebook vs MySpace vs Twitter (Feb 2010) — Lack Of Signal In A Sea of Noise — There's an incredible amount of media and blogger noise about social networks, yet there are few viewpoints that are looking at the networks objectively minus the “killer app” hype.
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.
Discussion:
The Register, Blogger Buzz, GigaOM, Mashable!, p2pnet, Softpedia News, PlagiarismToday and Techdirt
Gregg Keizer / InfoWorld:
Windows patch cripples XP with blue screen, users claim — Angry customers blame MS10-015 for Blue Screen of Death and XP reboot hell — Tuesday's security updates from Microsoft have crippled Windows XP PCs with the notorious Blue Screen of Death (BSOD), users have reported on the company's support forum.
Joseph Tartakoff / paidContent:
Yahoo Founders To Sell Shares — Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) founders Jerry Yang and David Filo (pictured, in 1998) are cutting back their holdings in the company. In a filing with the SEC, Yang said he is selling three million shares via a blind trust, which was set up in April and is set to expire …
Discussion:
Tech Trader Daily
Roman Loyola / Macworld:
Macworld Expo 2010 Best of Show winners — When it comes to Macworld Expo, there's one question that Macworld editors are asked without fail: What are the most interesting products at the show? And that's the idea behind the Macworld Expo Best of Show awards—to highlight the products that stand out at the show.
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 …
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Motorola to split into two independent companies in 2011 — Motorola on Thursday said it will split into two separate companies in the first quarter of 2011, roughly a year from now. — The company had initially planned to spin off the mobile devices unit on its own.
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Dell's acquisition of KACE: A smart move — Dell on Thursday acquired KACE, which makes systems management appliances, for an undisclosed sum and the deal adds up on many fronts. — Andrew Nusca has the breakdown of the deal and Dell's statement outlines the following:
Wall Street Journal:
Apple Is in TV-Pricing Talks — Apple Inc. is in discussions with television networks to lower the price of downloaded TV shows when the company begins selling its new iPad tablet computer, people familiar with the talks said. — One of these people said Apple has already been testing a price of 99 cents …
Discussion:
Digital Daily, The Next Web, Geek.com, Digital Trends, I4U News, TheAppleBlog, Electronista and SlashGear
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 …
Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:
Email as Identity: Google Turns on WebFinger — If you've been on the Internet for long enough, you may remember the old UNIX finger command. With finger, you could just type in a command like finger email@readwriteweb.com and the email server would return more information about this person.
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