Top Items:
Ross Miller / Engadget:
Google Voice now lets you port your own phone number (update: option disappears) — We'd be lying if we said we hadn't been waiting on this feature since the service's debut. As one reader just notified us (and verified by a number of staffers), Google Voice now lets you port your own phone number …
Discussion:
SAI, Fortune, TechCrunch, Crave, The Next Web, Gizmodo and Android Phone Fans
RELATED:
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Google Voice Is About To Take Off: Number Porting Coming Soon For $20 — We've been huge fans of Google Voice for quite a while now — it makes screening calls and managing multiple phones a breeze — but there's always been a huge thorn in its side: it didn't allow people to port their existing phone numbers over.
Mark Heynen / Facebook Blog:
A Better Mobile Experience for More People — We want people to have a great mobile experience no matter what type of phone they carry. Smartphones have offered better features for sharing with friends but aren't used by most people around the world. — Today, we're launching a new mobile app …
RELATED:
Stephen Lawson / Computerworld:
Facebook brings mobile app to non-smartphones
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
LivingSocial Hits A Million Amazon Gift Cards Sold, $20 Million In Card Value — LivingSocial has been offering $10 off any $20 Amazon purchase since 5 am this morning and it's been a boon huge for the daily deals company, which Amazon has astutely invested $175 million in.
Discussion:
Bits, Deal Journal, LivingSocial Deals, Digits, TechCrunch, Geek.com, The Huffington Post, Communications …, Mashable!, BetaNews, Pulse2 and SAI
RELATED:
Dan Frommer / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:
LivingSocial CEO: “No Widescale Problem” Of People Buying More Than One Amazon Gift Card — Update: Looks like this isn't actually an issue. — LivingSocial CEO Tim O'Shaughnessy just reached out to us with this explanation: — Just saw your post come through based on Martin Tobias' post …
Discussion:
Deep Green Crystals and Gearlog
Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
LivingSocial Deal Shows the Power of Amazon Partnership
LivingSocial Deal Shows the Power of Amazon Partnership
Discussion:
CenterNetworks, VatorNews, ReadWriteWeb, Kindle Review, Lightspeed Venture …, TechFlash, VentureBeat, eMoney and Black Web 2.0
Mark Gurman / 9 to 5 Mac:
Apple to fight Facebook with iOS 5 and Media Stream? — Ping was Apple's first attempt at the social networking but it pales in comparison to what they have coming. Hidden deep in the iOS 4.3 file system is a new folder titled “Media Stream.” Within that folder is some information about “Photo Streaming.”
Discussion:
SAI, MacStories, Gizmodo, MacRumors, TechCrunch, Apple Headlines, NBC Bay Area, Electronista, Mashable, Gizmodo Australia and iClarified
Andru Edwards / Gear Live:
Leaked: New ATT text messaging plans in preparation for Verizon iPhone — AT&T customers, get ready for new text messaging rates to go into effect starting next week. As the Verizon iPhone approaches, the company is looking to make their plans look a bit more attractive, and not so different from what Verizon will be offering.
Discussion:
SAI, Gadgetell, MacRumors, IntoMobile, Erictric, Geek.com, Techland, TUAW, PhoneArena, DSLreports, Gizmodo, Electronista, Pulse2, Gizmodo Australia, CrunchGear, iLounge and iClarified
RELATED:
Evan Selleck / SlashGear:
Leaked Image Shows AT&T is Changing Messaging Plans on January 23rd
Leaked Image Shows AT&T is Changing Messaging Plans on January 23rd
Discussion:
Gear Live and Gizmodo Australia
Nick Eaton / The Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft nails down Windows Phone 7 data-uploading issue — A third-party application is mostly responsible for a Windows Phone 7 issue that has caused, for some users, megabytes of mysterious data uploading over 3G, Microsoft said today. — Last week, Microsoft said it was investigating claims …
Wall Street Journal:
Nokia Cancels U.S. Launch of X7 Phone — In another setback for Nokia Corp., the Finnish mobile-phone giant has canceled the U.S. release of a smartphone that was slated to launch exclusively this year with AT&T Inc., people familiar with the situation said.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:
Apple's blow-out quarter: The bloggers called it, the Street blew it — In the quarterly battle between outsiders and the insiders, it's the amateurs by a mile. Amateurs in blue, pros in peach. This one wasn't even close. In our ranking of the best and worst Apple (AAPL) analysts for Q1 2011 …
Discussion:
TUAW, Computerworld, Boing Boing, Kevin Burton's NEW FeedBlog and parislemon
RELATED:
Adam Satariano / Bloomberg:
Apple's ‘Underdog’ Analysts Outperform Wall Street From Helsinki, Caracas
Apple's ‘Underdog’ Analysts Outperform Wall Street From Helsinki, Caracas
Discussion:
Deagol's AAPL Model, asymco and Fortune
Jolie O'Dell / Mashable!:
Startup Collecta Shuts Down Its Product, Starts Working on a New One — Collecta, a real-time search engine that launched in June 2009, has quietly shuttered its main product; the team is returning “back into the woodshed,” in the words of CEO Gerry Campbell, to work on new ideas and new directions.
Discussion:
Search Engine Land, ReadWriteWeb and NetworkEffect
Dan Goodin / The Register:
Google gins search formula to favor its own services — Gmail, Maps get free ride — A noted Google-watcher has assembled a convincing argument that the site's search results highly favor Google-owned services, despite repeated company claims that they are algorithmically generated and never manipulated.
Discussion:
Ben Edelman and Beyond Search
RELATED:
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Study: Google “Favors” Itself Only 19% Of The Time
Study: Google “Favors” Itself Only 19% Of The Time
Discussion:
John Battelle's Searchblog
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
HP / Palm tablet to feature Touchstone dock, cloud storage, Beats audio and Tap-to-Share smartphone integration — Now that the kitty's out of the gemstone bag, we're slowly starting to connect the dots that obscure the details of Palm's soon to be announced “Topaz” and “Opal” tablets.
Discussion:
Between the Lines Blog, Yahoo! News, Mobile Magazine, PC World, Techland, Thoughts from the Sidelines, Pulse2, Digital Trends, Gadget Lab, I4U News, IntoMobile, Gizmodo Australia, Gizmodo, LAPTOP Magazine, The Digital Home, SlashGear, PreCentral.net, Electronista, Everything webOS, FierceWireless, Geek.com, Fonehome.co.uk, THINQ.co.uk, Electricpig.co.uk, Computerworld, Newlaunches.com, PhoneReport v2.0, Softpedia News, WebOS Arena, Gearlog, Fudzilla and ITProPortal
RELATED:
Evan Blass / Pocketnow:
What Is the “HP Touchpad”? — Hewlett Packard has just filed …
What Is the “HP Touchpad”? — Hewlett Packard has just filed …
Discussion:
Engadget, MobileWhack.com, SlashGear, PhoneArena, PalmAddicts, Liliputing, PreCentral.net, Electronista, GottaBeMobile and pocketnow.com
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Google Ventures Leads $600K Investment In LawPivot, A Quora For Startup Legal Advice — There's no doubt that the success of startups like Quora have propelled the Q&A space into the spotlight. And there seems to be room for other niche Quora-like sites, such as enterprise-focsued Opzi …
Discussion:
VatorNews, VentureBeat, SAI, GigaOM, Wall Street Journal and Edelman Digital
Jay Yarow / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:
AOL Is Launching A Flipboard-Killer, “Editions” — AOL is getting ready to launch its own iPad magazine called “Editions.” — The tag line for the magazine is “The Magazine That Reads You.” — We don't know much about it, but it sounds like it will be an app like Flipboard, using your interests to figure out what you like.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, The Next Web, App Advice and Electronista, more at Mediagazer »
Oliver Chiang / Forbes:
Twitter Hits Nearly 200M Users, 110M Tweets Per Day, Focuses On Global Expansion — Twitter has reached nearly 200 million users who post 110 million tweets per day as of the January 1, 2011, Twitter spokesperson Carolyn Penner tells me. That's up from 190 million users as of June 2010 …
Discussion:
Seoul Space
Christopher Grant / Joystiq:
Kongregate CEO Jim Greer on getting pulled from the Android Market — Kongregate CEO Jim Greer called Google's swift removal of his company's Kongregate Arcade app from the Android Marketplace “surprising.” Released on the morning of January 19, the app was pulled by that evening.
Discussion:
GigaOM, VentureBeat, IntoMobile, Destructoid, Engadget and ReadWriteWeb
Jonathan S. Geller / BGR:
Apple testing multitouch gestures for iPhone 4 internally? — One of our Apple sources has just sent us over a couple screenshots from what we're told is an internal testing iPhone 4. They are interesting because it looks like Apple is testing multitouch gestures on the iPhone in addition to the iPad.
Discussion:
Engadget, Apple Headlines, TiPb and GeekSmack
David Kravets / Threat Level:
Work E-Mail Not Protected by Attorney-Client Privilege, Court Says — E-mails between a client and attorney are no longer considered privileged and confidential if the client writes the messages from a work e-mail account, a California court of appeals has ruled.
Discussion:
msnbc.com, Techdirt, ReadWriteWeb and Switched
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
One Down: Spotify Signs Sony to U.S. Deal — This doesn't get them into the States, but it gets them a lot closer: Music service Spotify has finally signed with Sony for a U.S. distribution deal. Multiple sources tell me the deal, which has been very close since last fall, is now closed.
Discussion:
The Next Web, ReadWriteWeb and Mashable, more at Mediagazer »
Nilay Patel / Engadget:
iOS 4.3 beta 2 released, iPad multitasking gestures just a developer preview — Apple just dropped iOS 4.3 beta 2 on world, and with it a big sad bomb: those nifty iPad multitasking gestures we discovered in beta 1 won't be enabled when 4.3 ships to customers.
Discussion:
9 to 5 Mac, MacRumors, PadGadget, Macworld, App Advice and iPodNN
Brian Prince / eWeek:
Facebook Spars with Sophos over Security — Sophos and Facebook argue about the extent of the malware threat on the social network. — Facebook is sparring with security firm Sophos over a threat report touching on malware on social networks. — In a report looking back (PDF) on 2010 …
Discussion:
internetnews.com
Larry Magid / CNET News:
Study: Young kids better with tech than ‘life skills’ — A survey of online mothers found that more small children can play a computer game than ride a bike. The Digital Diaries study from Internet security firm AVG said that 58 percent of children aged two to five know how to play a …
Discussion:
Business Wire and Digital Trends