Top Items:
New York Times:
Banks and WikiLeaks — The whistle-blowing Web site WikiLeaks has not been convicted of a crime. The Justice Department has not even pressed charges over its disclosure of confidential State Department communications. Nonetheless, the financial industry is trying to shut it down.
RELATED:
Dave Winer / Scripting News:
Can we use S3 and EC2 to host free speech? — As far as I know the issues around Amazon's decision to evict WikiLeaks from EC2 have not been discussed in the tech blogosphere. If I've missed the discussion, please post pointers in a comment on this post. I want to read what has been said.
Discussion:
The Atlantic Online
Walt Mossberg / Mossblog:
Mossberg's Best and Worst Products of 2010 — This week on WSJ Digits, Walt shared his thoughts on his best and worst reviewed products for 2010. Taking Walt's top spot this year was none other than Apple's iPad. For a 1.0 product, the iPad was amazing.
Discussion:
AppleInsider, Electronista, 9 to 5 Mac, MacDailyNews and Edible Apple
Steve Kovach / The Business Insider:
Score A Kindle This Morning? Here's How To Load It With Free Google Books — E-Readers like the Nook and the Sony Reader automatically give you access to the thousands of books in Google's online library. But for devices like the Kindle, you need to work around a few obstacles before you can gain access.
Michaela Schiessl / Spiegel Online:
Nokia Looks to Recover the ‘Magic Dust’ — For years, Nokia effortlessly dominated the cell phone market. But then Apple and Google muscled in on its turf and changed the game forever. The Finnish company is pinning its hopes on a new operating system, but it might be too little, too late.
Discussion:
parislemon
Ryan Flinn / Bloomberg:
IBM Expects to See Holographic Phone Calls, Air-Powered Batteries by 2015 — By 2015, your mobile phone will project a 3-D image of anyone who calls and your laptop will be powered by kinetic energy. At least that's what International Business Machines Corp. sees in its crystal ball.
Discussion:
IntoMobile, AfterDawn.com, eWeek and TG Daily
Brooke Crothers / CNET News:
Dell drops ultrathin Adamo 13 to $899 — A lower-priced Adamo 13 has popped up on Dell's Web site. The Adamo page is now showing the price of the aluminum-clad ultrathin laptop at $899—and this discount comes with an unexpected bonus, too. — The Adamo is a slick …
Discussion:
Electronista, Examiner and Engadget
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Theopeninter.net, A Visual Guide To Net Neutrality — With Theopeninter.net, web designer Michael Ciarlo has given you the holiday gift of being able to explain to the less web savvy members of your friends and family what net neutrality means (simply, and with visuals) …
Mike Elgan / Cult of Mac:
Gulliver's Travels to be One Giant Apple Ad — The upcoming Jack Black comedy, Gulliver's Travels, which opens Christmas Day, will be one giant Apple ad. — When Gulliver travels to Lilliput, he brings his iPhone, which when used by the Lilliputians appears gigantic.
Discussion:
Examiner
John Boitnott / VentureBeat:
Secret Santa success caps banner year for Reddit — As 2010 comes to a close, social news aggregator Reddit.com is celebrating another success in what has been a year full of them. — A “secret santa” program created by Reddit users expanded to more than four times the size of what it started at last year.
Thanks:rufioho
Julie Bosman / New York Times:
Christmas Gifts May Help E-Books Take Root — The publishing industry used to be afraid of e-books. In 2010 it embraced them. — Publishers expanded their digital divisions, experimented with video-enhanced e-books, worked on digitizing their older titles and made sure that new books …
Discussion:
TeleRead
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
“Evil” D0z.me URL Shortener Facilitates DDoS Attacks — Conceptual hacker Ben Schmidt has combined his interest in the recent spate of DDoS attacks surrounding the WikiLeaks dump as well as what he holds to be the public's increasing over-reliance on URL shorteners and created D0z.me.
Discussion:
Examiner, Help Net Security and CSO's blog