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 …
Discussion:
CNET News, Softpedia News, gHacks technology news, Techie Buzz, Pocket-lint, Gizmodo, pluGGd.in and Lifehacker
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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:
thebigmoney.com, broadstuff, Silicon Valley Watcher, Wall Street Journal, fierceonlinevideo.com …, Tech Trader Daily, Gawker and YouTube Blog, Thanks:ritubpant
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Lee Gomes / Forbes:
Google And The Law — Not every Web ruling will be this silly. — BURLINGAME, Calif. — The criminal convictions of Google executives by an Italian court on account of a video posted by a Google user are every bit as inane as commentators all around the world are saying they are.
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:
Help Net Security, Tech Eye, The Register, ReadWriteWeb, Gawker, Neowin.net, Gizmodo, GamePolitics News, Fast Company, The Spam Diaries and Silicon Alley Insider
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:
Telegraph, TechCrunch, Search Engine Land, Softpedia News, Erictric, All Facebook, Inside Facebook, Search Engine Journal, Mashable! and Geekword
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 …
Discussion:
JSOnline
Dave Kellogg / Kellblog:
The Database Tea Party: The NoSQL Movement — Adam Smith's invisible hand never rests. Just five years ago, the database market looked like a static, three-player $10B/year oligopoly where the primary forces were inertia and profit-taking. Today, some five years later …
Vladislav Savov / Engadget:
The titanium iPhone is real, really real (video) — You came, you saw, some of you were not convinced. So what's a gadget blog to do when picture evidence isn't enough? Why get those pictures moving, of course, right up to 30 frames a second. The stunning titanium iPhone 3GS from this morning is back …
Discussion:
TiPb, Gadget Lab, Softpedia News, Gizmodo, displayblog, IntoMobile, TUAW, DVICE and Phones Review
Jesus Diaz / Gizmodo:
Apple Removes Explicit Option From iTunes — The joy didn't last long. According to an iPhone developer, the new “Explicit” option available this morning on the App Store submission software is now gone. He just got off the telephone with Apple, who confirmed the removal.
Discussion:
MobileCrunch, TiPb, Fonehome.co.uk, Macworld, Kotaku, Pocket-lint, Fast Company, bub.blicio.us, Mobile Industry Review, App Advice, MacNN, Phones Review, Silicon Alley Insider, TG Daily, Neowin.net, AppleInsider, Recombu, iLounge, The Huffington Post, MacRumors, TUAW, Cult of Mac, 9 to 5 Mac 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 …
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.
Discussion:
ReadWriteWeb, The Next Web, BIA/Kelsey Blog, Silicon Alley Insider and EveryJoe, Thanks:atul
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.”
Discussion:
jkOnTheRun, WMPoweruser.com, Unwired View, Softpedia News, MobileContentToday and WMExperts
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 …
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 …
Discussion:
Beet.TV
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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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.
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 …
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
LG's first Windows Phone 7 handset shipping as early as September — Our buds over at Engadget Chinese are just reporting back from a sitdown it had with LG Mobile in Hong Kong at a Chinese New Year event. The most tantalizing bit of truth is confirmation of that September launch date rumor …
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.
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.
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.
Computerworld:
Baidu: Registrar ‘incredibly’ changed our e-mail for hacker — IDG News Service - A hacker who took down top Chinese search engine Baidu.com last month broke into its account with a U.S. domain name registrar by pretending to be from Baidu in an online chat with the registrar's tech help, according to a lawsuit filed by Baidu.
Discussion:
Domain Name Wire
Associated Press:
Blockbuster posts 4Q loss of $435M as woes deepen — DALLAS - Blockbuster Inc. suffered a fourth-quarter loss of $435 million as its video rental stores struggled to attract consumers who are increasingly getting their movies through the mail, vending machines and high-speed Internet connections.
Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:
Demand Media Adds Editorial Advisory Board; Includes UCLA, USC Deans, Ex-Lifetime CEO Andrea Wong — It's a tried-and-true tactic: in the face of criticism about quality and methods, enlist an advisory board of experts and/or respected figures in the field.
Discussion:
BuzzMachine
Tim Beyers / Motley Fool:
Google's Secret Plan, Revealed! — If Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) going to take the battle to Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), it may as well strike where the Mac maker is most vulnerable: the living room. — The first sortie? Supply the power that lights up your electronic life.
