Top Items:
Matt Cutts / The Official Google Blog:
Google search and search engine spam — January brought a spate of stories about Google's search quality. Reading through some of these recent articles, you might ask whether our search quality has gotten worse. The short answer is that according to the evaluation metrics that we've refined …
Discussion:
InformationWeek, Digital Trends, Techdirt, PC World, Digits, SAI, V3.co.uk, SmoothSpan Blog, StepForth Web Marketing Inc., Computerworld, ITworld.com, Search Engine Land, Techie Buzz, New York Observer, Trends in the Living Networks, Neowin.net, @codinghorror, Erictric, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, broadstuff, Lifehacker, NewsGrange, Fortune, PC Magazine, TechCrunch, The Atlantic Online, FT tech hub, Search Engine Land, WebProNews, Network World, The Domains, DomainIncite.com, 901am and The Huffington Post, more at Mediagazer »
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Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
Did Google Just Declare War on Demand Media? — Over the past few months, there has been a growing chorus of criticism — much of it anecdotal, but coming from a number of respected technology observers — about Google's increasingly useless search results.
Discussion:
Mixed Media, SAI, WebProNews and BoomTown, Thanks:defrag
Tom Krazit / CNET News:
Google ready for action against content farms
Discussion:
paidContent, more at Mediagazer »
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Facebook Raises $1.5 Billion At $50 Billion Valuation — Facebook has officially announced that it has just raised $1.5 billion in funding at a $50 billion valuation, according to a release issued today (we've embedded the release below). — As stated in the release, the investment was broken into two parts.
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Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
The Clock Is Set For A Facebook IPO By April, 2012 — Today, Facebook announced that it raised a total of $1.5 billion in its latest round, giving the company a valuation of $50 billion. But it also disclosed something else: when it will likely go public.
Discussion:
Mashable and SelectStart
Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
Facebook confirms $1.5B funding, leaves $500M on the table
Discussion:
Communications … and The Huffington Post
Ken Auletta / New Yorker:
Why Is Eric Schmidt Stepping Down at Google? — Was Eric Schmidt pushed or did he jump? Both. According to close advisors, the Google C.E.O. was upset a year ago when co-founder Larry Page sided with his founding partner, Sergey Brin, to withdraw censored searches from China.
Discussion:
The Register, Computerworld, MediaFile, WebProNews, kottke.org, VentureBeat, The Microsoft Blog, SAI, Fortune, Epicenter, SlashGear, TechCrunch, Thoughts from the Sidelines, Socialnomics, DailyFinance, MacDailyNews, Search Engine Watch, MediaPost, Geek.com, The Tech Report, MediaFlect, Mashable, The Atlantic Online, Felix Salmon, L.A. Times Tech Blog, paidContent and TechCrunch
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Charles Arthur / Guardian:
Google shuffle: why Schmidt had to be pushed from the top — After slipups with search, Street View and Android, it's clear that Google needs tighter control at the top - and Eric Schmidt is not the man for the job — Eric Schmidt's departure after nearly 10 years as chief executive of Google …
Ina Fried / Mobilized:
Take That, Cupertino! Toshiba Flashes Insults at Apple in Teaser Site for Its Android Tablet. — Toshiba is taking it straight to the iPad in a new Web site that teases the coming arrival of its Android tablet. — On the site, Toshiba touts the features its tablet has that the iPad lacks …
Discussion:
Android Police, Apple Headlines and Electronista
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Marin Perez / IntoMobile:
Toshiba teases Android Honeycomb tablet
Discussion:
Engadget, Electronista, Android Phone Fans, The Next Web and Phones Review
Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
AT&T offering free MicroCells to top 7.5 percent of customers ‘likely to experience poor in-building coverage’ — We've known that AT&T has been test-marketing free 3G MicroCells to subscribers with particularly awful reception in certain parts of the country since the product launched last year …
Discussion:
Computerworld, WPCentral.com, Gadgetell, Thoughts from the Sidelines, Techland, CrunchGear, Gizmodo, IntoMobile and VentureBeat
Mark Gurman / 9 to 5 Mac:
iPad 2 will have the same cameras as the iPod touch — Oh, hello. We've done some digging in the latest SDK and it looks like Apple's much rumored second-generation iPad will not feature some fancy 5 megapixel camera, but will instead shoot your flicks and take your pics with something close to a 1 megapixels.
Discussion:
Macgasm, IntoMobile, Thoughts from the Sidelines, MacStories, Macworld, Erictric, MacRumors, Gearlog, TUAW, SlashGear, VentureBeat, Engadget, MacNN, iLounge, everythingiCafe, App Advice and iClarified
Brian X. Chen / Gadget Lab:
Open Source Hack Unlocks Apple TV's Potential — Your Apple TV just got a lot less boring with the help of nifty new tools that override its restrictions and add powerful capabilities. — Launched Friday morning, the hack for Apple TV 2 expands the set-top box's multimedia playback …
Discussion:
Ars Technica
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Theuni / XBMC:
You asked for it: XBMC for AppleTV2, iPad, iPhone4.
Discussion:
GigaOM, Geek.com, TUAW, Engadget, Zatz Not Funny!, TiPb, SlashGear, Pocket-lint, MacStories, AppleInsider, Download Squad, Lifehacker, MacRumors, BlogsDNA, GeekTonic, eHomeUpgrade, everythingiCafe and iClarified
Jon Brodkin / Network World:
Ballmer to Hu: 90% of Microsoft customers in China using pirated software — Microsoft CEO raises concerns to Chinese president about intellectual property protection — While Chinese President Hu Jintao knew he'd face some tough questions when he came to the United States this week …
Discussion:
The Microsoft Blog, Inquirer and WinRumors
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Ian Hickson / The WHATWG Blog:
HTML is the new HTML5 — In 2009 we announced that the HTML5 specification at the WHATWG was progressing to Last Call. The plan at the time was to finish the specification this year and publish a snapshot of “HTML5” in 2012. However, shortly after that we realised that the demand …
Discussion:
The Register, Ars Technica, Adactio, Webmonkey, Digital Trends, All about Microsoft Blog, TechSpot, ITProPortal, ZDNet, SAI, PC World, techno.blog, CNET News and ConceivablyTech
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Creator Of Million Dollar Homepage Makes Do Nothing For 2 Minutes — PopJam CEO Alex Tew, the guy behind the internet phenomenon Million Dollar Homepage, has now gone the opposite extreme. Along with developer Ben Dowling, he has created Do Nothing For 2 Minutes, a site whose purpose is pretty self-explanatory.
Discussion:
Between the Lines Blog and GeekSugar
Deborah Gage / Venture Capital Dispatch:
Why Andreessen Horowitz Models Itself After A Hollywood Talent Agency — Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz have raised nearly a billion dollars in the 18 months since they founded their Silicon Valley venture firm, Andreessen Horowitz, even though they've never been venture capitalists before.
Ed Burnette / Ed Burnette's Dev Connection Blog:
Oops: No copied Java code or weapons of mass destruction found in Android — Sometimes the sheer wrongness of what is posted on the web leaves us speechless. Especially when it's picked up and repeated as gospel by otherwise reputable sites like Engadget.
Discussion:
Engadget, Geek.com, Computerworld, Electronista, Guardian, Hardware 2.0 Blog, parislemon, Daring Fireball, ZDNet, PC Magazine, Digital Trends, SlashGear, SAI, Android Central, CNET News, Android Phone Fans and FOSS Patents
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft moves its Chatter-like OfficeTalk toward commercialization — OfficeTalk — Microsoft's enterprise-focused microblogging technology — may soon find a home among the company's product teams and become a shipping product and/or service. — OfficeTalk, one of the projects launched …
Discussion:
ReadWriteWeb, Neowin.net, WinRumors, The Next Web and TechNet Blogs
Horace Dediu / asymco:
65% of Apple's sales came from iOS powered devices — The iPhone and iPad generated $15 billion of revenue last quarter. In addition, iPod touch generated about $2.3 billion, implying that iOS based devices were responsible for sales of $17.3 billion. — To put that in perspective I drew …
Discussion:
Apple Inc. on Quora, Fortune, TUAW, SlashGear, 9 to 5 Mac and The Next Web
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Google Replaces ‘Reader’ Link With ‘Photos’ In Gmail, Users In A Tizzy — More proof that RSS is on its way out, and the apocalypse is nigh: Google has seemingly replaced the top link to its RSS reader product, Google Reader, with a link to ‘Photos’ (Picasa) at the top of the Gmail web interface.
Discussion:
App Advice, Post Tech, Search Engine Land and Geek.com
Romin Irani / ProgrammableWeb:
Wolfram Alpha API Now Free and Open to All — Computational knowledge engineWolfram Alpha has just become more accessible from a variety of applications. Wolfram Alpha has thrown open access to its API to all developers with version 2. of its Wolfram Alpha API, allowing you to integrate …
Discussion:
ReadWriteWeb, Market Wire and Wolfram
Anil Dash:
How should a White House Quora Work? — Summary: The White House is looking to build a web community to get its questions answered, sort of their own Quora, and they're trying to do it the right way. They're asking those who would participate to help shape how the community itself works.
