Top Items:
Joshua Topolsky / Engadget:
Apple responds on iTunes fraud, vaguely confirms said fraud — Over the weekend we saw reports of what appeared to be fraud occurring in the iTunes system — namely, a rogue developer had somehow managed to snag 42 of the top 50 sales positions in the App Store's “book” category with seemingly bogus content.
Discussion:
PC World, Yahoo! News, L.A. Times Tech Blog, App Advice, Mashable!, Computerworld, PadGadget, Communications …, Geek.com, RCR Unplugged, MobileWhack.com, PhoneDog.com, Erictric, MacRumors, The Next Web, TiPb, Neowin.net, SlashGear, IntoMobile, Pulse2, GottaBeMobile, ZDNet, Covering Web, RazorianFly, 9 to 5 Mac, O'Grady's PowerPage, AppleInsider, Gizmodo, VentureBeat, Lifehacker, I4U News, Voices on All Things Digital, everythingiCafe and iLounge
Todd Bishop / TechFlash:
Microsoft pruning more jobs — Microsoft is preparing to make a new round of job cuts as early as tomorrow, according to people with knowledge of the situation, but the unconfirmed numbers we're hearing are relatively small in the scheme of things — far less than the thousands of jobs cut by the company last year.
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Foursquare Launches Location Layers - This is Big — Looking at life through rose-colored glasses? How about walking through your town and seeing it as the Huffington Post or the Independent Film Channel sees it? IFC announced a new campaign this morning with leading location-based social …
Discussion:
VentureBeat, Enterprise Irregulars, GigaOM, SiliconANGLE, The Next Web, Mashable!, IntoMobile, Mobile Media and MediaPost, Thanks:insightspedia
Matt Buchanan / Gizmodo:
AT&T Is Capping Upload Data Speeds — Uh, this better be temporary. We gush about the iPhone 4's hot new upload speeds, and AT&T takes it away. Upload speeds in several cities, like New York, are capped at 100kbps—1/10th of what iPhone 4's capable of. — That's the reportage …
Discussion:
IntoMobile, Boy Genius Report, AppleInsider, Engadget, GigaOM, Electronista, PC World, CNET News, App Advice, Lifehacker, 9 to 5 Mac, MacRumors, Gadgetell, MobileCrunch, Epicenter, TiPb, Internet2Go, BetaNews, The Next Web, GottaBeMobile, SlashGear, I4U News, Erictric, NYConvergence, Edible Apple and TG Daily
Stephen Shankland / CNET News:
Chrome starts learning which way is up — Google has begun work on a new item on a long list of technologies designed to make applications running on the Web more competitive with those that run natively on a machine's operating system: an interface to know which way is up.
Discussion:
BetaNews, Geek.com, internetnews.com, Google Watch, Engadget, ReadWriteWeb, Electronista and Maximum PC
Mike Beltzner / The Mozilla Blog:
Firefox 4 Beta 1: Tell us what you think! — Firefox 4 Beta 1 is now ready to download and test! This first version gives an early look at what's planned for Firefox 4. Stay tuned, because there is more to come and we plan to release new beta versions every two to three weeks.
Discussion:
VentureBeat, CNET News, Technologizer, Mozilla, Download Squad, The Next Web, Techie Buzz, Webmonkey, Pocket-lint and ResourceShelf, Thanks:atul
Nilay Patel / Engadget:
Amazon Kindle dual-screen e-reader patent granted, Barnes & Noble Nook potentially in trouble — Looks like the battle for e-reader dominance between Amazon and Barnes & Noble could soon expand beyond the recent spate of price drops and into the courtroom as well: the USPTO just granted …
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
AP Not Amused By The Woot Story, Tries To Play The Oil Spill Card — Oh those jokesters over at the AP — the fun never ends! Last night, we wrote a post noting that Woot was (humorously) calling out the AP for not following their own ridiculous rules when quoting from content.
Discussion:
The Consumerist, Woot!, Techdirt, Oddly Together, TeleRead, Lost Remote and ZDNet, more at Mediagazer »
James Kendrick / jkOnTheRun:
Android Helps HTC Sales Jump 63% in Second Quarter — Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC has posted financial numbers for June and the company has realized a 63 percent gain in revenues for the second quarter over the previous year. HTC is the largest producer of Android phones globally …
Discussion:
MediaPost, mocoNews, DigiTimes, Reuters, Engadget, The Seattle Times, Wall Street Journal, Technologizer, IntoMobile, DailyFinance, Phone Arena, VentureBeat, AndroidSPIN, DailyTech, Softpedia News, Android Phone Fans, Pulse2, Daring Fireball, The Next Web, Tech Eye, EuroDroid, Silicon Alley Insider, Big in Japan and 901am
Jesus Diaz / Gizmodo:
AppleCare: The iPhone 4 Update Won't Solve the Antenna Problem — AppleCare has confirmed what we already knew: The incoming software update won't fix the iPhone 4's transmission and reception problems. They acknowledged the antenna problem exists, offering the same solution as before: Buy a case or hold the iPhone differently.
Discussion:
PhoneDog.com, Erictric, Neowin.net, Ward & Ward, PLLC and Gizmodo Australia, Thanks:jesusdiaz
Adam Satariano / Bloomberg:
Apple Studies iTunes Habits to Beat Google — Apple Inc., with a storehouse of billions of music, movie and software downloads, is studying the buying habits of many of its 150 million iTunes users to show more appealing mobile ads and fuel competition with Google Inc.
Discussion:
Macworld, MediaPost, The Register, www.pocketgamer.biz, PhoneDog.com, AppleInsider, MacStories, MacRumors and FierceMobileContent
Dan Reed / USA Today:
Less than 10% of fliers are logging onto Wi-Fi in the air — Wi-Fi connections in the air may not be the magical service capability that some in the travel world had hoped. — Although airlines and providers of the service says they're pleased with consumer response …
David / TmoNews:
Motorola Charm In The Wild, Material Arriving In Stores? — Well what have we here, the very first image of the Motorola Basil/Charm in the wild! Sent via pony express our source was able to get a small hands on last week with the device and came away with one interesting worthy note …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Employees Challenged To Crack Facebook Security, Succeed (Updated) — Apparently Facebook noticed the slap down that the FTC gave Twitter in June because it “failed to prevent unauthorized administrative control of its system.” Shortly afterwards one of the senior engineers at Facebook responsible for SRE …
Discussion:
MediaPost, NBC Bay Area, Softpedia News, Lockergnome Blog Network, Help Net Security, Inc.com and The Huffington Post
Edmund Lee / AdAge:
Google's Display Advertising Plans Include Gmail, YouTube — Proprietary Properties, Third-Party Network and Efficiency Are Search Giant's Strategies for Success — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — For a company that has made a big business of indexing third-party websites, a substantial part …
Discussion:
The Next Web
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Twitter Explains What @EarlyBird Is: It's All About Distributing Advertiser Deals — ReadWriteWeb had a solid scoop last week when it uncovered Twitter was set to go live with an account called @EarlyBird. Well, it has just gone live, with a tweet pointing to this page where the company explains what it's all about.
Discussion:
CNET News, GigaOM, ReadWriteWeb, VentureBeat, Mashable!, Geek.com, Search Engine Watch and Covering Web
Brad Stone / Bits:
Regulators Prepare to Dig Into Google-ITA Deal — Last week, Google announced a deal to acquire ITA, a Boston-based company that makes flight information software. The move will give Google a large foothold in the online travel search market, and control over a critical data source used …
Rob Crossley / Develop:
Sony: Devs to help build the next PlayStation — SCE studio boss confirms work is underway on ‘future platform related activities’ — One of the highest-ranking executives at Sony Computer Entertainment has revealed the company is hard at work on future platform developments.
Daniel Ionescu / PC World:
Sony Is Latest to Cut E-Reader Prices — Faced with competition from Amazon and Barnes & Noble, Sony has slashed the prices of its U.S. Reader electronic e-book readers line. The move comes after Amazon and Barnes & Noble cut the price for the Kindle and Nook, and is the second price cut from Sony this year.
Lex Friedman / Macworld:
Verizon ad mocks iPhone 4's antenna woes — Add one more bullet point to the list of things Droid does: Taunt the iPhone in increasingly public displays of mockery. Verizon placed a full-page ad in The New York Times this week to tease the imminent arrival of the next version …
Discussion:
AppleInsider
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch Europe:
Is Flattr the new Facebook Like, but this time with real money? — Flattr is a new startup with an inovative business model, coming out of Sweden. In fact it's the brainchild of a group of people formerly associated with The [infamous] Pirate Bay, including Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:
iPad not eating Mac sales, says analyst — The slight cannibalization of iPods seen in NPD's data could actually be good for Apple — Piper Jaffray's (PJC) Gene Munster was the first Apple (AAPL) analyst to dissect the domestic retail sales data released Tuesday by the NPD Group.
