Top Items:
Joseph Menn / Financial Times:
US experts close in on Google hackers — US analysts believe they have identified the Chinese author of the critical programming code used in the alleged state-sponsored hacking attacks on Google and other western companies, making it far harder for the Chinese government to deny involvement.
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, BBC, PC World, GigaOM, CrunchGear, Erictric, Between the Lines, Mashable!, Guardian and Telegraph
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David Barboza / New York Times:
Hacking Inquiry Puts China's Elite in New Light — SHANGHAI — With its sterling reputation and its scientific bent, Shanghai Jiaotong University has the feel of an Ivy League institution. — The university has alliances with elite American ones like Duke and the University of Michigan.
Discussion:
Reuters, Digital Daily, FierceCIO News, The Register, Linux.com and Voices on All Things Digital
Charleneli / Altimeter Group:
Google Buzz and Kids - Parental Control Nightmare — Like many parents, I try to take steps to keep my kids safe online, making sure that they understand not to share personal information online, or even to use their real names. They know how to write appropriate emails …
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James Temple / San Francisco Chronicle:Privacy, complexity seen as Google blind spots
Discussion:
broadstuff
Neal Mohan / The Official Google Blog:
The next generation of ad serving for online publishers — Today, we're announcing the next generation of ad serving technology for online publishers — DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP). — For the past few years, we've been investing in a suite of solutions — AdSense …
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David Kaplan / paidContent:
Google Gives DoubleClick An Upgrade; Increased Focus On Smaller Online Pubs — It's coming up on two years since Google (NSDQ: GOOG) acquired DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, and the search giant's latest step in building its display businesses involves the promise of greater simplicity as it aims for smaller publishers.
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider
Brian Stelter / New York Times:
Networks Wary of Apple's Push to Cut Show Prices — If Apple cut the price of each TV episode in half — to 99 cents, from $1.99 — would sales on iTunes increase enough to offset the price drop? — Experiments are under way to find out, and the head of the nation's No. 1 television network …
Brian X. Chen / Gadget Lab:
Microsoft's Challenge With Windows Phone 7 Is Wooing Developers — Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers. Recruiting a ton of them to create a rich app experience for Windows Phone 7 Series is going to be Microsoft's toughest challenge if it wants to get its groove back in the mobile space.
Motoko Rich / New York Times:
Textbooks That Professors Can Rewrite Digitally — Readers can modify content on the Web, so why not in books? — In a kind of Wikipedia of textbooks, Macmillan, one of the five largest publishers of trade books and textbooks, is introducing software called DynamicBooks …
Esther Schindler / IT Expert Voice:
Why You Can't Pry IE6 Out Of Their Cold Dead Hands — Among the barriers to Windows 7 deployment is the need to upgrade users (and their applications) from IE 6 to IE 8. But too many of those users apparently refuse to give up the older Microsoft web browser. Here's what's holding them back.
Discussion:
BetaNews
Janko Roettgers / NewTeeVee:
FSF Urges Google to Kill Flash — Turns out we're not the only ones speculating about what Google might do with ON2 Technologies, the video encoding company it finally acquired late last week after months of negotiations with shareholders. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) …
Ashlee Vance / New York Times:
For Chip Makers, the Next Battle Is in Smartphones — The semiconductor industry has long been a game for titans. — The going rate for a state-of-the-art chip factory is about $3 billion. The plants typically take years to build. And the microscopic size of chip circuitry requires engineering …
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Reply.com Files For $60 Million IPO — Local cost-per-click marketplace Reply.com wants to raise $60 million in an initial public offering. The company filed its offering statement with the SEC this morning. — Reply.com is a cost-per-click ad network which targets ads for local businesses.
Barb Dybwad / Mashable!:
Seesmic's Web App Now Does Threaded Twitter Conversations — Fans of the popular Seesmic Twitter client's web-based interface have some good news today. A major update to the web interface brings in a brand new contact manager, drag-and-drop full Twitter list management, photo uploads with geotagging …
Dieter Bohn / PreCentral.net:
webOS 1.4 to Arrive Feb 25th? — While Sprint may have been ready for webOS 1.4 since the 15th, actual roll-out of the OS hasn't happened yet. That's not too surprising - we've seen internal dates from Sprint slip in the past. But Palm promised a February release and time is quickly running out.
Discussion:
Boy Genius Report, Erictric, DeviceMAG, SlashGear, SoftSailor, Gizmodo, PhoneNews.com and Go Rumors
Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
Coming soon: the disruptive molecular age of information — Now we've seen what Google has had up its sleeve with Google Buzz. I expect this is the last tool of the atomic age. No, not the energy field, the real-time content field. — “Huh?” — Before I start, tomorrow I'm giving …
Discussion:
Loic Le Meur Blog
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
MySpace's Hail Mary Strategy: “Discovery” — MySpace's new slogan, and the theme of their new product strategy, will be “Discover and be Discovered,” we've confirmed from multiple sources. This will be their differentiating factor from Facebook, execs told employees at an all hands meeting last Thursday.
Tehseen Baweja / Techie Buzz:
Hey Apple! Workout Clothes Are Overtly Sexual and PlayBoy Is Not? — Apple has been constantly criticized for their app store's policies by developers and bloggers alike. Earlier it was the mysterious process of rejecting apps for almost stupid reasons and now it is the removal of over 5000 apps without any prior notice.
Discussion:
AppleInsider, Download Squad, Bits, MacRumors, Hardware 2.0, DailyTech, Tech Eye, Telegraph, EverythingiCafe, App Advice, AppScout, Chillifresh and techeblog.com, Thanks:tehseenbaweja
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Iron Mountain Buys Up Email Archiving Company Mimosa Systems For $112 Million — Information management company Iron Mountain has acquired Mimosa Systems for a cool $112 million in cash. Mimosa Systems provides an enterprise-friendly archiving system for email, SharePoint data and files.
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Why we don't trust Devil Mountain Software (and neither should you) — Ed note: We were going to publish this investigation Monday morning after buttoning down a few more key facts. Given the fact that IDG just severed ties with Randall C. Kennedy over having an alter ego …
Discussion:
Slashdot, Guardian, HotHardware.com News, Digital Society, TomsTechBlog.com, Lockergnome Blog Network, iKnerd.com and CNET News, Thanks:edbott
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Olga Kharif / Business Week:
Yuri Milner: DST Has $1 Billion for Social Media — Digital Sky Technologies, investor in Facebook and Zynga, intends to make big investments in social Web startups over the next five years — In early 2009, as Russian investor Yuri Milner scoured the social media landscape for possible targets, he didn't wait for Facebook to call.
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Broadband Fans, We Have an Innovation Problem — Google last week said it plans to build an experimental fiber-to-the-home network that would deliver speeds of up to 1 Gbps. And this week FCC chairman Julius Genachowski outlined a goal of delivering 100 Mbps broadband to 100 million homes as part a …
Discussion:
DSLreports
Owen Fletcher / PC World:
China's President Skips Twitter, Opens State-tied Microblog — Chinese president Hu Jintao has opened a microblog, adopting the technology despite his government's work to stifle free speech by microblog users in China. — Twitter has been blocked in China since last year and authorities …
Discussion:
Fast Company
Rafat Ali / paidContent:
Guinness World Records Acquires Bragster.com — London-based Bragster, a site for people to make bets with each other on various “stunts”, has been acquired by Guinness World Records, for an undisclosed sum. The site allows users to upload videos of their dares and “bragging” feats.
