Top Items:
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Brainstorm Tech:
Steve Jobs: A man aggrieved — A new theory about why Apple decided to take HTC — and indirectly, Google — to court — Two thirds of the way through a 3,000-word essay on This Apple-HTC Patent Thing, Daring Fireball's John Gruber quotes a tweet by John Siracusa that gets to the heart of the matter:
RELATED:
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
This Apple-HTC Patent Thing — There are two aspects surrounding Apple's patent litigation against HTC that demand further consideration. First, the severe problems with the U.S. patent system as a whole, particularly with regard to software patents. Second, the strategic implications of Apple's decision to file suit.
Nick Bilton / Bits:
An Explosion of Mobile Patent Lawsuits — At first glance, it looks like we're in the middle of a patent lawsuit Super Bowl party. Nearly every large mobile phone player-with the exception of Microsoft and Palm — and, so far, Google, have recently been involved in some sort of patent litigation around their mobile technologies.
John Kennedy / Silicon Republic:
In three years desktops will be irrelevant - Google sales chief — Google believes that in three or so years desktops will give way to mobile as the primary screen from which most people will consume information and entertainment. That's according to Google Europe boss John Herlihy …
Discussion:
PC World, blogs.chron.com, CrunchGear, Gadget Lab, Pocket-lint, broadstuff, SlashGear, Geek.com and Mashable!
Yang Li / Google Mobile Blog:
Search your Android phone with written gestures — As mobile phones become increasingly powerful and can store more data, we've introduced new methods of search to get you to your content faster, such as search suggestions or search by voice. But sometimes, typing to get to the right search suggestion takes …
Discussion:
Mashable!, TG Daily, Lifehacker, Gizmodo, Electricpig.co.uk, Pocket-lint, Neowin.net, MobileContentToday, AppScout, Erictric, Android Central, Search Engine Journal, mocoNews, GottaBeMobile.com, TechCrunch and Phone Scoop, Thanks:mrinaldesai
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Microsoft Launches Its First Android App. Yes, Google's Platform. — In December 2008, Microsoft surprised a lot of people by releasing an iPhone app — Seadragon Mobile. A month later, they ensured the move wasn't taken as a joke or gimmick by launching another app, Tag, into Apple's App Store.
Discussion:
MSDN Blogs, Silicon Alley Insider, BBC, Unwired View, Engadget, Mashable!, SlashGear, Pocket-lint, Softpedia News, Electronista, Android Community, Neowin.net and Gizmodo
Bill Ray / The Register:
Apple yanks Wi-Fi detectors from iTunes — Pretends they were never there — Wi-Fi hotspot detecting applications are the latest on Apple's list of verboten apps, and even developers are being left in the dark as to why. — Wi-Fi detection is something of a niche …
Discussion:
App Advice
Jessica E. Vascellaro / Wall Street Journal:
Facebook CEO in No Rush To ‘Friend’ Wall Street — PALO ALTO, Calif.—Most everyone in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street agrees: The eventual IPO of social-networking site Facebook could make its founder the world's richest twenty-something. — Yet Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, now 25 …
Cedric Dupont / The Official Google Blog:
Stars make search more personal — We've long believed that personalization makes search more relevant and fun. For nearly five years, we've been tailoring results with personalized search. Today we're announcing a new feature in search that makes it easier for you to mark and rediscover your favorite web content — stars.
Scott Gilbertson / Webmonkey:
Microsoft to Double Down on HTML5 With Internet Explorer 9 — With the latest releases of Opera, Google Chrome and Firefox continuing to push the boundaries of the web, the once-dominant Internet Explorer is looking less and less relevant every day. — But we should expect Microsoft …
Discussion:
Softpedia News, Erictric, The Next Web, Neowin.net, The Forrester Blog … and All about Microsoft
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
How Nokia helped Iran “persecute and arrest” dissidents — A new report out of Finland suggests that the country's corporate poster child, Nokia Siemens, has been involved in some pretty tawdry dealings with Iran, dealings that go beyond the company's admitted involvement with the Iranian regime.
Bobbie Johnson / Guardian:
Lords copyright change ‘could block YouTube’ — One of the most contentious parts of the controversial digital economy bill was voted down by the House of Lords last night - only to be replaced by a clause that campaigners say is even more draconian. — The Liberal Democrats forced through …
Discussion:
Tech Eye, Telegraph, The Register, ZeroPaid.com, panGloss, Boing Boing, BBC and Open Rights Group, Thanks:mrinaldesai
Damballa:
Report: The Command Structure of the Aurora Botnet: History, Patterns, and Findings — Overview — Following the public disclosures of electronic attacks launched against Google and several other businesses, subsequently referred to as “Operation Aurora”, Damballa conducted detailed analysis …
RELATED:
Eric Eldon / Inside Facebook:
Bing's Facebook Page Gets 400,000 New Fans in a Day Through Ad Offer in Farmville — In the latest example of brand advertising integrated into social games, Microsoft ran an advertising offer for Bing within Zynga's hit game FarmVille on Tuesday. If users became a fan of Bing's Facebook Page …
Brad Stone / New York Times:
Facebook Ads Strike Some as Off-Key — SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook, the world's biggest social network, is selling more ad spots to big companies like Wal-Mart Stores, Procter & Gamble and PepsiCo. — But the site's pages are also home to countless ads from smaller companies that can be funny …
Thanks:mrinaldesai
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Google Index to Go Real Time — Google is developing a system that will enable web publishers of any size to automatically submit new content to Google for indexing within seconds of that content being published. Search industry analyst Danny Sullivan told us today that this could be “the next chapter” for Google.
Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:
Ubuntu dumps the brown, introduces new theme and branding — Canonical has revealed the style of the new default theme that will be used in Ubuntu 10.04, the next major version of the popular Linux distribution. In a significant departure from tradition, Ubuntu is shedding …
Joanna Stern / Engadget:
ASUS CEO talks tablets, smartbooks and Windows Phone 7 Series phones — Ever wonder about the man behind the insane amount of ASUS products we cover? We do too, which is why we jumped at the chance to sit down with ASUS CEO Jerry Shen here at CeBIT. Our lengthy discussion covered …
Byron Acohido / USA Today:
How cybercriminals invade social networks, companies — SAN FRANCISCO — “Hey Alice, look at the pics I took of us last weekend at the picnic. Bob” — That Facebook message, sent last fall between co-workers at a large U.S. financial firm, rang true enough.
Josh Lowensohn / Webware.com:
Google admits its SEO could use a little work — Google has published a detailed, 49-page report that rates the search engine optimization (SEO) on its various properties including the Google search home page. The result? It's failing in a number of categories.
Devindra Hardawar / VentureBeat:
Netvibes and Orange team up to bring world's largest widget collection to 130M mobile users — Netvibes — one of the leading personalized home page providers — is partnering with Orange — the world's fifth largest telecom operator — to deliver widgets to 130 million mobile users.
Mike Schramm / TUAW:
Valve teases a Mac release of Half-Life, Portal, Team Fortress 2 — Even I was dubious about the rumor the other day of Steam coming to the Mac, but now here's something straight from Valve hinting that it might actually happen. MacRumors got an image of Half-Life's Gordon Freeman via email... with an Apple logo on his chest.
Discussion:
MacRumors, Download Squad, MacNN, Kotaku, *Shacknews* Games, Joystiq, Gizmodo, Mashable!, PubliCola, Switched, The Tech Report, Ars Technica and 9 to 5 Mac
Todd Bishop / TechFlash:
RealNetworks settles RealDVD case, drops product, pays $4.5m — Breaking News: RealNetworks says it has settled the litigation over RealDVD, its software for making copies of DVDs on PC hard drives, agreeing to a permanent injunction against the product and paying $4.5 million in legal costs …
Discussion:
Techdirt, RealNetworks.com, Computerworld, Bits, Ars Technica, Engadget, Digital Daily, CNET News, Slyck, PubliCola, Between the Lines, Electronista, NewTeeVee, BetaNews, Silicon Alley Insider, paidContent and Pulse2
Adam DuVander / ProgrammableWeb:
Technorati API Disappears: No Longer Representing the Technorati — Once the mouthpiece and aggregator of the blogosphere, Technorati lost its luster long ago. And now it's lost its API, too. The developer page promises a new API but also makes one thing clear: the old one is gone.
Thanks:labnol
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Wikia Dell Spat Highlights Divide Between Corporate and Web Computing — Wikia, the service that hosts wikis for any known subject, is quitting Dell servers thanks to both a functional and philosophical disagreement stemming from Dell's new demands that all hard drives …
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
VeriFone Brings Out The Big Guns In Its War With Square: Apple Stores — It's no secret that VeriFone hopes to eliminate mobile startup Square before it even officially launches. Not only did they unveil their PAYware Mobile credit card-reading device just a week after Square made headlines …
Discussion:
Seeking Alpha
