Top Items:
Wall Street Journal:
Sony Readies Gadgets to Rival Apple — Threatened by Apple Inc.'s growing stable of portable devices, Sony Corp. is developing a new lineup of handheld products, including a smart phone capable of downloading and playing PlayStation games, according to people familiar with the matter.
Discussion:
Digits, Between the Lines, MacRumors, PC World, CNET News, 9 to 5 Mac, InformationWeek, ChannelWeb, DailyFinance, FierceWireless, Pulse2, TG Daily, Joystiq, John Battelle's Searchblog, Phone Scoop, IntoMobile, Digital Trends, Engadget, Silicon Alley Insider, Techland, CrunchGear, VG247, Edible Apple, Tech Trader Daily, SlashGear, Electronista, Gizmodo, VentureBeat and Kotaku
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John Herrman / Gizmodo:
Confirmed: Microsoft's Project Pink Lives, and It's Coming to Verizon — After the Windows Phone 7 launch passed without so much as a mention of Project Pink, Microsoft's other new phone project started to fade into memory. Today, we can confirm: Pink is coming, and Verizon's the carrier.
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John Herrman / Gizmodo:
First Shots of Microsoft's Secret Project Pink Phone — These are the first photos of Microsoft's Project Pink phones, snatched from deep within the bowels of the Microsoft/Verizon industrio-complex —not the Turtle, but the larger, Sidekick-like Pure. This doesn't look like Windows Phone 7, so what is it?
Discussion:
Technologizer, WMPoweruser.com, MobileCrunch, Electronista, IntoMobile, MobileTechWorld and GeekSmack
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:
BetaNews, Technologizer, Mashable!, The Huffington Post, ReadWriteWeb, TechStartups.com, IntoMobile, Webmetricsguru, CrunchGear, Softpedia News, GMSV, GottaBeMobile.com, Internet2Go, Geek.com, blogs.chron.com, BaltTech, James Fee GIS Blog, Gadget Lab, Pocket-lint, PC World, SlashGear and broadstuff
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Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
YouTube Launches Auto-Captions For All Videos — I'm here at YouTube's office in San Bruno, where the company is holding a press conference to discuss the launch of auto-captions. YouTube Director of Product Management Hunter Walk kicked off the event by discussing some of YouTube's goals through …
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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:
Three Jacks Software, IntoMobile, Erictric, AppleInsider, App Advice, Pocket-lint, Digital Trends and iPodNN
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Nick Bilton / Bits:
An Explosion of Mobile Patent Lawsuits — At first glance, it looks as if we're in the middle of a patent lawsuit Super Bowl party. Nearly every large mobile phone player — with the exception of Microsoft, Palm and, so far, Google — has recently been involved in some sort of patent litigation regarding mobile technologies.
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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:
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Facebook Will Be Worth $35 Billion To $40 Billion When It Goes Public Next Year, Investors Predict — As the WSJ reported in a big page one story today, Facebook will probably go public in 2011, once it's had a year of $1+ billion in sales behind it. (The company expects to do between $1.2 billion and $2 billion in sales this year.)
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Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth / Facebook Engineering's Notes: Working with Zuck — I get asked often what it is like to work …
Jessica E. Vascellaro / Wall Street Journal:Facebook CEO in No Rush To ‘Friend’ Wall Street
Discussion:
TechFlash, Venture Capital Dispatch, DailyFinance, All Facebook, BloggingStocks, Download Squad, Seeking Alpha, BoomTown, Mashable! and Reuters
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:
Google Operating System, PC World, BetaNews, Fast Company, Computerworld, Gadget Lab, eWeek, 901am, InformationWeek, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Techland, Gadgetell, CNET News, Switched, Mashable!, TG Daily, Google Android News …, Pocket-lint, Electricpig.co.uk, Lifehacker, Android Central, FierceMobileContent, MobileContentToday, AppScout, Internet2Go and Silicon Alley Insider, Thanks:mrinaldesai
Joseph Tartakoff / paidContent:
Ballmer: Microsoft ‘Betting Our Company’ On The Cloud — Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is still most closely associated with its desktop software (Windows, Office etc.), but on Thursday CEO Steve Ballmer said Microsoft was “betting our company” on the cloud. About 70 percent of Microsoft employees …
Discussion:
Computerworld, Digits, Venture Capital Dispatch, The Microsoft Blog, CNET News, Gizmodo, Geek In Disguise and Microsoft On The Issues, Thanks:atul
Sam Diaz / Between the Lines:
Google adds free cloud “backup” to Apps, feature that reduces risk of data loss — Google, in its continued quest to lure enterprise customers to switch to the cloud-based Google Apps suite, is upping its offering with a free feature called synchronous replication.
TechCrunch:
In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It. — Editor's note: Richard Wong is a venture capitalist with Accel Partners, an investor in AdMob, GetJar, and SunRun, and a former mobile industry executive. In this guest post he argues that the fragmentation of mobile devices and platforms …
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SiliconANGLE
AndrewM / Yahoo! Mail Blog:
Facebook Friends: Meet Yahoo! Contacts — You might have heard that Yahoo! announced plans in December to integrate Facebook Connect across a variety of our popular sites and services. While we're still early in the partnership, we wanted to let you know about one new thing you can do with Facebook today.
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
TiVo: Appeals Court Upholds Contempt Finding In DISH Case (Updated) — TiVo (TIVO) shares are rocketing higher after a federal appeals court upheld a lower court ruling which found found DISH Network (DISH) and Echostar (SATS) in contempt of a previous ruling which found infringement of TiVo's DVR patents.
Discussion:
L.A. Times Tech Blog, NEWSFACTOR, Reuters, paidContent, PC Magazine, Associated Press, CNET News, BetaNews, Zatz Not Funny!, SlashGear, TiVo, Silicon Alley Insider, Gizmodo and Engadget
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:
Engadget, MSDN Blogs, BBC, eWeek, TechFlash, internetnews.com, All about Microsoft, IntoMobile, SlashGear, Android Central, Unwired View, Erictric, Mashable!, Softpedia News, Fone Arena, Android Community, Silicon Alley Insider, ChannelWeb, Pocket-lint, FierceMobileContent, Electronista and Neowin.net
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 …
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Huffington Post Still Growing Like a Weed — Another step in the Huffington Post's relentless march toward world domination: The company attracted a staggering 40 million unique visitors in the last month. — That's per Huffpo's own numbers, served up by Google Analytics (GOOG).
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider
Lance Whitney / CNET News:
Intel expands Atom to home servers — Intel's Atom chip is moving up in the world, from Netbooks to home and small-office servers. — The chipmaker on Thursday launched its first Atom processor optimized for the SOHO (small office/home office) market. Intel's new platform marries …
Tumblr Staff:
Now testing: Pages — You can now add static pages to your blog, with a few very useful options. Head to your blog's Customize page and click the “Pages” menu to get started. There are currently three types of Pages you can create: — Standard Layout. Create a simple page with a title and body using your current theme.
Douglas MacMillan / Business Week:
VCs Push StartUp Visa Act — A group of investors is in Washington to push for passage of a bill that they say would make it easier for foreign entrepreneurs to stay—and create jobs—in the U.S. — During recent travels abroad, Shervin Pishevar says he witnessed flourishing tech communities …
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:
Bits, panGloss, BBC, Telegraph, Boing Boing, The Register, OUT-LAW News, Tech Eye and ZeroPaid.com, Thanks:mrinaldesai
Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:
Google Chrome Becomes Location Aware — Google just launched the latest developer version of Chrome, which now includes preliminary support for Google's geolocation API. Google's Geolocation API allows developers to pinpoint your computer's location by looking at the WiFi networks around you,
