Top Items:
Gmail Blog:
Gmail Labs graduation and retirement — We launched Gmail Labs over a year and a half ago as a playground where engineers can come up with new features and let your input help decide which are good ideas and which don't quite work out. Any engineer at Google can come up with feature …
Rachel Donadio / New York Times:
Larger Threat Is Seen in Google Case — ROME — Three Google executives were convicted of violating Italian privacy laws on Wednesday, the first case to hold the company's executives criminally responsible for the content posted on its system. — The verdict, though subject to appeal …
Discussion:
Silicon Valley Watcher, Wall Street Journal, fierceonlinevideo.com …, Tech Trader Daily, Gawker and YouTube Blog, Thanks:ritubpant
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Kim-Mai Cutler / VentureBeat:
Google real-time search adds status updates from Facebook Pages — Facebook status updates from Pages will start showing up in Google's real-time search results today. — It's the first time the search giant has indexed content from the world's largest social network in its real-time results.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, Search Engine Land, Erictric, All Facebook, Inside Facebook, Search Engine Journal and Mashable!
Greg Kumparak / MobileCrunch:
Sprint to launch 4G network in at least 8 major markets this year — If you're reading this, chances are pretty good that you're not on a 4G connection. Why? Because outside of a handful of cities, 4G connections just don't exist yet. — Take Sprint's WiMax network, for example …
Jolie O'Dell / ReadWriteWeb:
An In-Depth Look at Microsoft's Spy Guide — We recently reported that a watchdog site, Cryptome, was removed from the Web for refusing to take down a copy of a Microsoft document. — This document, called the Microsoft Online Services Global Criminal Compliance Handbook, or “spy guide …
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Robert Quigley / Geekosystem:Site Leaks Microsoft Online Surveillance Guide, MS Demands Takedown …
Discussion:
Neowin.net, Gawker, GamePolitics News, Gizmodo, Fast Company, ReadWriteWeb, Silicon Alley Insider and The Spam Diaries
Marc Benioff / TechCrunch:
The Facebook Imperative — Editor's note: This guest post is written by Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com. In it, he explains why enterprise software should take its cues from Facebook and become more social. I quit my job at Oracle in 1999 because I couldn't stop thinking …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Nintendo's Cammie Dunaway shows off the large-screen DSi XL (video) — The new Nintendo DSi XL arrives in the U.S. on March 28. But Cammie Dunaway, executive vice president at Nintendo of America, showed me the product up close today during our interview in San Francisco.
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Engadget
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Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Yelp Hit With Class Action Lawsuit For Running An “Extortion Scheme” — Two law firms, Beck & Lee from Miami and The Weston Firm in San Diego, have filed a class action lawsuit in Los Angeles federal court alleging unfair business practices by local business review and rating website operator Yelp.
Craig Grannell / Cult of Mac:
Is Apple Preparing To Add An ‘Explicit’ Section To The App Store? — Over the past few days, Cult of Mac has closely followed Apple's divisive decision to remove “overtly sexual” apps from the App Store. Some apps caught in the purge (such as videogame Daisy Mae and swimwear retailer Simply Beach) …
Discussion:
Gizmodo, MobileCrunch, The Register, Kotaku, eWeek, TiPb, TUAW, Macworld, GottaBeMobile.com, Fast Company, bub.blicio.us, App Advice, ithinkdifferent, TG Daily, Mobile Industry Review, MacRumors, Silicon Alley Insider, AppleInsider, Go Rumors, DVICE, Recombu, broadstuff, Neowin.net, 9 to 5 Mac, The Huffington Post, SlashGear, EverythingiCafe, iLounge, LOOPRumors, Mashable! and TeleRead
Jason Goldberg / fabulis:
citibank is so not fabulis — Hi everyone. Jason Goldberg here, founder and ceo of fabulis. — In a bit of strange and disturbing news, fabulis discovered today that someone(s) at Citibank had decided arbitrarily to block fabulis' bank account due to what was described to us on the phone as “objectionable content” on our blog.
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MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Foursquare's First Television Commercial Airs Tonight On Bravo [Video] — First Google, now Foursquare. Hot on the heels of Google's first Search television ad (run during the Super Bowl, no less), the location-based social network Foursquare is gearing up to do the same thing tonight.
Chris Velazco / MobileCrunch:
Android's “Blapkmarket” pirated app repository goes down hard — Now, before we enter the breach, I think it bears repeating that MobileCrunch and indeed the rest of the TechCrunch network in no way condone software/application piracy. Developers work too hard for responsible members …
Mark Doherty / FlashMobileBlog:
Battery Performance with Flash Player 10.1 on Nexus One — It appears that there has been some confusion from the community at large surrounding battery performance. This was caused by my colleague Michael Chaize publishing an amazing video of Flash Player 10.1 demos on Vimeo.
Discussion:
Softpedia News, Engadget, Android and Me, Phones Review, Electronista, Gizmodo and Recombu, Thanks:sjespers
Greg Sandoval / CNET News:
Lady Gaga generates 25 percent of Vevo's traffic — It's hard to measure just how big a cultural force singer Lady Gaga has become but Vevo, the start-up music-video site took a stab at it on Wednesday. — Ted Mico, executive vice president of digital for Interscop, Geffen …
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Facebook Checks-In On Loopt — Facebook has been doing background checks, known as due diligence, on the location-based social network Loopt, a source with knowledge of the talks tells us. Generally speaking, due diligence of this kind is only performed when a company is in acquisition or fundraising talks.
Walter S. Mossberg / Personal Technology:
Mac Quicken Gets Deductions for Iffy Upgrade — Despite all of the success Apple (AAPL) has had with its Macintosh computers, the Mac has lagged behind Windows in personal-finance software. — The most popular program in the category, Intuit's Quicken, comes in a Mac version.
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Hot And Bothered: Walmart Shutting Down Vudu's Adult Section — When it was announced that retailer Walmart would buy streaming movie startup Vudu a couple days ago, a number of sites wondered what it would mean for Vudu's adult content. Here's what it means: bye bye.
Discussion:
paidContent, fierceonlinevideo.com …, Shooting at Bubbles, Download Squad, Between the Lines, TUAW, BloggingStocks and Gizmodo
Dave McClure / More Startups. More Jobs.:
Senators Kerry & Lugar Introduce the Startup Visa Act in Washington, DC — We are thrilled to announce Senators John Kerry (D-MA) & Richard Lugar (R-IN) today introduced The Startup Visa Act in Washington. — The full text of the proposed legislation is here.
Graham Cluley / Graham Cluley's blog:
This you???? : Phishing attack hits Twitter users — There is another widespread phishing attack hitting users of Twitter today. — Messages asking “This you????” followed by a link are being sent via the system to unsuspecting users. If you click on the link you are taken …
Discussion:
Mashable!, GeekSugar, The Seattle Times, USA Today, Techmamas, Switched, techeblog.com, CNET News, The SocialToo Blog and Pulse2
Eric Zeman / InformationWeek:
Skype Yanks Windows Mobile App From Site — For some unknown reason, Skype is no longer making Skype and Skype Lite available to the Windows Mobile platform. Skype's support page says, “We felt that Skype Lite and Skype for Windows Mobile were not offering the best possible Skype experience.”
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MobileContentToday
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Brainstorm Tech:
Apple iTunes: 10 billion songs later — Seven years after Apple began selling music a la carte, what have listeners bought? — Image: Apple Inc. — The odometer that has been counting song downloads on Apple's (AAPL) iTunes Store for the past week and a half hit the 10 billion mark shortly …
Discussion:
PC World, Erictric, Boy Genius Report, The Loop, Neowin.net, Edible Apple, AppleInsider, Digital Daily, 901am, TUAW, Mashable!, 9 to 5 Mac, Engadget, MacRumors, L.A. Times Tech Blog, MacDailyNews and The Tech Herald …
Kelly Jackson Higgins / darkREADING:
Attack Unmasks User Behind The Browser — Researchers develop proof-of-concept that exploits social networking patterns to ‘deanonymize’ online users — A group of researchers have discovered a simple way to reveal the identity of a user based on his interactions with social networks.
Steven Musil / CNET News:
Report: Teen gets 15 years for Facebook blackmail — A Wisconsin teenager convicted of using Facebook to blackmail classmates into sex was sentenced to 15 years in prison, according to an Associated Press report. — Anthony Stancl, 19, plead no contest in December to two felonies …
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JSOnline
Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
Are TV ads obsolete in the online world? — The topic that provoked the most heated argument at the Beet.TV's online video roundtable in San Francisco today was the format of online advertising. Initially, everyone focused on the nitty grity of delivering “pre-roll” video ads that run …
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Internet Addiction Might Actually Get Recognized By The Official Book Of Mental Disorders? — Over the last decade or so, there's been something of an... well... addiction to calling any sort of overuse of a product an addiction. So we've seen email addiction, web addiction, online porn addiction …
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Chris Pirillo
Juan Carlos Perez / InfoWorld:
PayPal to open app store for developers — The move is part of a full-court press by the online payments giant on Web developers — PayPal will open an applications store this year where developers can offer their wares, the latest step in the company's multi-pronged strategy to deepen its relationship with external programmers.
