Top Items:
The Official Google Blog:
An update to Google Social Search — Today we're doing a little bit more to bring you all the goodness of Google, plus the opinions of the people you care about. As always, we want to help you find the most relevant answers among the billions of interconnected pages on the web.
Discussion:
L.A. Times Tech Blog, CNET News, Fortune, Bits, GigaOM, Fast Company, paidContent, SAI, Digital Trends, Computerworld, Softpedia News, New York Magazine, MediaFile, Webmonkey, Techie Buzz, Techland, Lost Remote, Tnooz and The Next Web
RELATED:
Matt McGee / Search Engine Land:
Google's Search Results Get More Social; Twitter As The New Facebook “Like” — Your friends' activity on Twitter, Flickr and elsewhere — but for now, not Facebook — will soon be a lot more visible in Google's search results, including having an impact on how pages rank.
Discussion:
SAI, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, ReadWriteWeb, The Atlantic Online, Fortune, NetworkEffect, Mashable!, Logic+Emotion, Electronista and silicontap.com
DigiTimes:
Apple secures 60% of global touch panel capacity, causing tight supply — In order to achieve its internal goal of shipping 40 million iPad products in 2011, Apple has occupied close to 60% of the global touch panel capacity causing tight supply among Apple's competitors, according to sources from upstream component makers.
Discussion:
Digital Daily, App Advice, ConceivablyTech, AppleInsider, IntoMobile, SlashGear, SAI, brian s hall, thinq_, PadGadget, MacRumors, TUAW, Geek.com, RazorianFly, TechEye, 9 to 5 Mac, I4U News, The Apple Core Blog, The Tech Trade, Engadget, iLounge, The Next Web, DisplayBlog and iClarified
RELATED:
Darrell Etherington / GigaOM:
Prepaid Touch Panels Could Be the Secret to iPad's Success in 2011
Matt Rosoff / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:
Sony Exec: We Are Not Abandoning iTunes — Sony has no plans to withdraw Sony Music songs from Apple's iTunes as payback for Apple's decision to block the Sony e-reader app from the App Store. — Sony is launching its own subscription service, Music Unlimited, in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand today.
Discussion:
CNET News, ReadWriteWeb, MacStories, Mashable!, SlashGear, Electronista, TUAW, Apple Bitch, Softpedia News and iLounge
RELATED:
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Sony's Music Service Comes to the U.S., Still Won't Work on the Go
Sony's Music Service Comes to the U.S., Still Won't Work on the Go
Discussion:
Bloomberg, MacRumors, Digital Trends, paidContent:UK, RazorianFly, Engadget, The Toybox Blog and SAI
DSLreports:
FBI To Announce Significant New Wiretap Push - Backdoors Galore In Everything From Skype To BitTorrent — Despite the fact the phone companies now act as part time FBI surveillance analysts with a fleeting regard to law, and dump U.S. citizen data and voice traffic wholesale through NSA listening posts …
Discussion:
Techdirt, Electronic Frontier Foundation and ZDNet
RELATED:
Declan McCullagh / CNET News:
FBI: We're not demanding encryption backdoors — The FBI said today that it's not calling for restrictions on encryption without backdoors for law enforcement. — FBI general counsel Valerie Caproni told a congressional committee that the bureau's push for expanded Internet wiretapping authority …
Greg Weston / CBC News:
Foreign hackers attack Canadian government — An unprecedented cyberattack on the Canadian government, apparently from China, has given foreign hackers access to highly classified federal information and forced at least two key departments off the internet, CBC News has learned.
Discussion:
CNET News, InfoWorld, Computerworld, Zero Day Blog, Post Tech, DailyTech, p2pnet, The Register, Inquirer, The Next Web, Neowin.net and SecurityWeek
RELATED:
Jake Tapper / Political Punch:
Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt and Mark Zuckerberg to Meet With President Obama Thursday in San Francisco — Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who recently took a medical leave of absence from his company, and Google chief executive Eric Schmidt will be among the attendees of President Obama's event …
Discussion:
Digital Trends, VatorNews, All Facebook, CNET News, AppleInsider, SAI, @dannysullivan, Fortune, Computerworld, Between the Lines Blog, Softpedia News, TUAW, Electricpig.co.uk, Black Web 2.0, RazorianFly, Techland, NBC Bay Area, Gizmodo, MacHackPC, MacRumors, Neowin.net, Daily Mail and Covering Web
RELATED:
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Presenting Our National Broadband Map. It's a Start. — The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) unveiled a nationwide broadband map for the U.S. today, and said that “between five and ten percent of Americans don't have broadband.”
Discussion:
DSLreports, CableTechTalk, BetaNews, Post Tech, Hillicon Valley and @gigastacey
RELATED:
Amy Schatz / Digits:
NTIA, FCC Publish New National Broadband Map
Ben Fritz / Company Town:
Redbox digital service will go toe-to-toe with Netflix — Redbox is gearing up to challenge Netflix head-on, the kiosk DVD rental company confirmed Wednesday. — At a meeting with analysts, Redbox President Mitch Lowe said his company's forthcoming digital option will be subscription-based …
Ben Rooney / Tech Europe:
Motorola Executive Defends Tablet Price Tag … Motorola mobility chief Sanjay Jha confirmed that the company's new Xoom tablet will go on sale in the U.S. at $800, a higher price tag than current market leader Apple's iPad. — And in what has been described as the worst kept secret in the tech world …
Jay Yarow / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:
CHART OF THE DAY: The Death Of The Music Industry — Here is a stunning visualization of the collapse of the music industry from Bain. As you can see, the growth of digital sales is not doing enough to offset the death of the CD. — (Chart via Peter Kafka, who spotted it on Flickr.)
Discussion:
Evolver.fm and p2pnet
John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
Mac Growth Outpaces Market for 19th Straight Quarter — The Mac has been on a growth tear for a few years now, outperforming the broader PC market in most every sector. Indeed, December 2010 marked the 19th consecutive quarter that it did so. Mac shipments grew 23.5 percent for the month …
Discussion:
Ars Technica and TUAW
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines Blog:
IBM Watson's next adventure: Healthcare with Nuance — IBM has said its Watson computer would be applied beyond Jeopardy and now is making good on that promise. IBM and Nuance Communications have launched a research program to commercialize Watson for the healthcare industry.
Discussion:
Ars Technica, eWeek, VentureBeat, NewEnterprise, PC World, TechCrunch, eWeek and Between the Lines Blog
Sean Hollister / Engadget:
Dell's 2011 smartphone and tablet lineup leaked: Android Ice Cream, WP7 sliders, and a slate running Windows 8 — Wrigley, Hancock, Millennium, Gallo, Sterling, Rosemount, Silver Oak, Peju and Opus One. What are we rattling off? Oh, just the list of codenames from one of the largest leaks we've ever seen out of Dell.
RELATED:
Jerry Hildenbrand / Android Central:
Gallo, Sterling, Opus One and Silver Oak Android tablets on Dell's leaked roadmap [Exclusive]
Gallo, Sterling, Opus One and Silver Oak Android tablets on Dell's leaked roadmap [Exclusive]
Discussion:
PC World, The Seattle Times, SlashGear, Windows 8 News, WinRumors, Pocket-lint, Fudzilla, Techie Buzz, Softpedia News, gHacks Technology News, Inquirer, PC Pro, The Next Web, Neowin.net, Windows 8 Beta, MobileWhack, AndroidGuys, PhoneArena, Liliputing, Windows Phone Thoughts.com, PhoneDog.com, Digital Trends and SAI
Farhad Manjoo / Fast Company:
Are Silicon Valley's Engineers Underpaid? — Call off the lottery, argues FARHAD MANJOO, and raise the salary bar for all programming talent. — Google's Eric Schmidt must have watched a few late-night infomercials before dashing off a memo to his employees last fall.
Reuters:
Intel says will find new MeeGo partners — (Reuters) - Chipmaker Intel Corp (INTC.O) said it would look for new partners for the MeeGo mobile operating system after partner Nokia chose to focus on Microsoft's Windows Phone platform. — Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini said in a meeting …
Discussion:
Fortune, VentureBeat, Inquirer, SAI and PhoneArena
Shayndi Raice / Wall Street Journal:
Android Big in Barcelona — System Powers Slew of New Devices; Some Fear Market Duopoly With Apple's iOS — A year after wireless carriers gave Google Inc. a testy reception at their big industry conference in Barcelona, the software company's Android operating system has become the star of the show.
Discussion:
Dow Jones Newswires, Android Phone Fans, Mobilized and The Register
Tory Newmyer / Fortune:
Apple, Cisco, others organize for a tax holiday lobby — FORTUNE — Economists, businessmen, and politicians of every stripe have spent months talking themselves hoarse about how to get the roughly $2 trillion in corporate reserves back into the economy. Get ready to start hearing a lot about that sum's international cousin.
Discussion:
DailyTech, PhoneArena, Tech Trader Daily and Electronista
Emily Smith / Inside Ireland:
Google to buy Dublin's tallest office building — Google is set to purchase the Montevetro Building, Dublin's tallest commercial office block, for €99.9m. — The internet giant intends to use the 15-storey, 19,000square-metre block to accommodate new business activities that are currently in development.
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, Press Association, Dow Jones Newswires, Bloomberg and This Is London
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Benchmark Capital Bets On Super-Quiet-Stealth-Shhhh ccLoop — Heard about ccLoop? No, probably not. It's a new stealth startup founded by repeat (and very successful) entrepreneur Michael Wolfe. — The company came out of Wolfe's stint as an entrepreneur in residence last year at Benchmark Capital.