Top Items:
Kent Walker / The Official Google Blog:
Patents and innovation — The tech world has recently seen an explosion in patent litigation, often involving low-quality software patents, which threatens to stifle innovation. Some of these lawsuits have been filed by people or companies that have never actually created anything …
Discussion:
Digital Trends, VentureBeat, Ars Technica, The Register, GeekWire, BGR, ReadWriteWeb, Mashable!, paidContent, PC Magazine, All about Microsoft Blog, PC World, BetaNews, VoIP & Gadgets Blog, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, Search Engine Land, Engadget, I4U News, Geek.com, Bits, internetnews.com, GigaOM, Mobilized, Erictric, 9 to 5 Mac, Silicon Valley Watcher, Profectio, TechEye, CNET News, Neowin.net, Washington Post, The Huffington Post, Android Phone Fans, IntoMobile, @jlanzone, dailywireless.org, silicontap.com, Electronista, FierceWireless, Download Squad, MobileBurn.com, Tech Trader Daily, Wall Street Journal, WebProNews, RCR Wireless News, Boris Mann's Blog and Slashdot
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Larry Dignan / Between the Lines Blog:
Google bids $900 million for 6,000 Nortel telecom patents — Nortel said that it is selling all of its remaining patents and applications for $900 million to Google. — With the move, Google gets about 6,000 patents covering wired, wireless and digital communications technologies.
Discussion:
Market Wire, Financial Post and NBC Bay Area
Sarah Lacy / TechCrunch:
Milk: Kevin Rose's New Company Aims to Solve Big Problems on the Mobile Web — Well by Silicon Valley standards, that certainly wasn't a long “stealth” period. Just weeks after he quit Digg, Kevin Rose is announcing details of his new startup. Knowing Rose, I can tell why he's so excited to get started.
Discussion:
PC Magazine, VentureBeat and NetworkEffect
Carolyn Penner / Twitter Blog:
Discover new accounts and search like a pro — We've made it easier to find and follow Twitter accounts based on your interests. When you search for a topic, you can now discover accounts that are relevant to that particular subject. (Previously, you would have seen accounts that have the specific term in their name or username. )
Discussion:
PC Magazine, TechCrunch, Engadget, WebProNews and The Next Web
Zach Epstein / BGR:
AT&T confirms early upgrade price changes for iPhone 4, other smartphones — AT&T has confirmed to BGR that it has made changes to early upgrade pricing for its smartphones. The changes impact customers who wish to upgrade to a new smartphone but are not yet eligible for an upgrade at fully discounted two-year contract prices.
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Neil Hughes / AppleInsider:
AT&T increases early upgrade prices for Apple's iPhones by $50
Discussion:
VentureBeat, Electronista, Mobile Marketing Watch, O'Grady's PowerPage, 9 to 5 Mac and iClarified
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:
Android is a mess, say developers — A new survey analyzes the pros and cons of writing for various mobile platforms — On the heels of the debate played out over the weekend between Union Square Ventures' Fred Wilson and Instapaper's Marco Arment about whether it's wiser to be writing apps for Apple's …
Discussion:
Betabeat, SAI, Electronista, Ubergizmo, 9 to 5 Mac, GottaBeMobile, Mobile Entertainment and TNL.net, Thanks:hornokplease
John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
The MacBook Air: A $2.2 Billion-a-Year “Quasi-Tablet” — With all the chatter over the iPad 2, the iPhone 4 and its successor, it's easy to forget that Apple has another ultra-portable device that's doing quite well at market: the MacBook Air. — Nearly six months after it launched …
Discussion:
AppleInsider, MacNN, MacStories, TUAW and iClarified
Georgina Prodhan / Reuters:
FT won't give up subscriber relationship to Apple — (Reuters) - The Financial Times wants to keep selling subscriptions for its digital news directly to readers rather than surrender control of new customers who sign up via Apple's iPad, the managing director of FT.com said.
Discussion:
App Advice, Daring Fireball, Gizmodo, TUAW, MacRumors, MacStories, Electronista, thinq_, MobileBurn.com and iClarified, more at Mediagazer »
Greg Bensinger / Bloomberg:
Sprint Plans Tap-and-Go Payment Service This Year to Get a Jump on Rivals — Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) plans to start a service this year that will allow customers to make purchases with their mobile phones, ahead of a similar initiative from rivals Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc. (T) and T-Mobile USA.
Discussion:
mocoNews, CNET News, MobileBurn.com, PhoneDog.com, Electronista, Phone Scoop, ReadWriteWeb and IntoMobile
Greg Kumparak / MobileCrunch:
10 Things That Simply Need To Be In iOS 5 — WWDC. It's like Christmas for OS X and iOS developers. Each year, they flock to San Francisco's Moscone Center, anxiously awaiting the pair of gifts that Apple annually bestows: the new iPhone, and a bundle of new features upon which they'll build their next big thing.
Discussion:
Technologizer
Adam Satariano / Bloomberg:
Pandora Discloses Privacy-Related Grand Jury Probe of Apps — Pandora Media Inc., the Internet music service, said it had been served with a subpoena in connection with a grand jury probe that may be investigating the information-sharing processes of smartphone applications that run on Apple Inc. and Google Inc.'s Android platforms.
Discussion:
L.A. Times Tech Blog, CNET News, TechCrunch, paidContent, The Loop and Wall Street Journal
Henry Blodget / The Wire:
IT'S OFFICIAL: AOL Fires Freelancers* — A couple of weeks ago, AOL threw its freelance journalists into purgatory: — They were supposed to sit tight and wait to hear from their editors on their roles in the post-merger Huffington Post Media Group. — The freelancers, naturally …
Discussion:
Marketing Pilgrim, WebProNews and Guardian, more at Mediagazer »
Christian Zibreg / 9 to 5 Mac:
After 201 days in review, Apple greenlights iPhone app that unmasks blocked calls (updated with video) — Apple's review process has gone a long way since the early days when every day would bring a new story about a controversial rejection. It's rare nowadays that an app would take longer …
Discussion:
The Next Web, msnbc.com, Softpedia News, App Advice, iClarified and MacNN
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
SB Nation Raids AOL's Engadget for New Tech Content Site — Jim Bankoff, the fomer AOL exec responsible for buying Engadget for the Internet portal, has grabbed eight staffers who had recently left the huge tech site amid tensions, in order to start a new gadget property.
Discussion:
Engadget, SAI, Nilay Patel, VentureBeat, mediabistro.com, TDW Geeks, louisgray.com, Guardian, @danshanoff, broadstuff, everwas, @futurepaul, @dannysullivan, @benhuh, SAI and Geekosystem, more at Mediagazer »
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Arik Hesseldahl / NewEnterprise:
Texas Instruments To Acquire National Semiconductor for $6.5 Billion — Two of the oldest names in the chip business are about to combine. About as long as I've known about electronics, I've known of the names Texas Instruments and National Semiconductor.
Discussion:
PR Newswire, TechCrunch, Tech Trader Daily, DealBook and @howardlindzon
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Sony's Howard Stringer confirms Honeycomb tablet in US by summer — Ready for a taste of a sweet Honeycomb tablet with a Sony twist? You'd better be — Japan's Nikkei is quoting Sony chief executive, Sir Howard Stringer, saying that the company's first Android 3.0 tablet will be on sale by the end of summer.
Discussion:
Digital Trends, CNET News, PhoneArena, Techland, Gadgetell, VentureBeat, The Toybox Blog, MobileWhack, PhoneDog.com, Android Phone Fans, Gearlog, SlashGear, Android Community, Inquirer, The Next Web, Liliputing, Softpedia News, Gizmodo, Gizmodo Australia, NBC Bay Area, MacNN and Phones Review
Tom Warren / WinRumors:
Microsoft may announce Silverlight for Xbox next week … Microsoft may be preparing to announce plans to introduce Silverlight for the Xbox 360, WinRumors has learned. — The software giant looks set to detail its plans at the MIX11 conference next week in Las Vegas.
Discussion:
Electronista and The Next Web, Thanks:tomwarren
Jott Blog:
Jott service ending on May 3rd, 2011 — By now you probably know that we will no longer be offering the Jott service. We have included below the text of an email we sent to our active customers today. — We founded Jott in April of 2006. In the five years that have followed …
Discussion:
Mobilized
Christian Zibreg / 9 to 5 Mac:
iAd rival: Unofficial app store Cydia lands advertising deal with Toyota — Companies are keeping a close eye on the jailbreaking community as at least one big brand demonstrates willingness to advertise on Cydia, the unofficial store for unsanctioned third-party programs which can be installed on jailbroken iPhones, iPods and iPads.
Discussion:
GigaOM, Daring Fireball, Fast Company, MarketingVOX, The Next Web, Phones Review and ZDNet Australia
Tricia Duryee / All Things Digital:
Zynga Appoints DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg to Board — Zynga is beefing up its board of directors by announcing today that it has added Jeffrey Katzenberg, the CEO and co-founder of DreamWorks Animation. — Katzenberg, who created the animation studio along with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen …
Discussion:
L.A. Times Tech Blog, CNET News, Digits, TechCrunch, DealBook, VentureBeat, Inside Social Games, SAI, Hollywood Reporter and @markpinc
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Facebook For iPhone Gets Event Check-Ins, Maps, And Unfriending — A couple weeks ago, after All Facebook spotted the ability to check-in to Facebook events, the social network confirmed to us that the feature would be launching shortly on the iPhone and their mobile-based touch site. Today, here it is.
Discussion:
9 to 5 Mac and MacStories
Christian Zibreg / 9 to 5 Mac:
Untethered iOS 4.3.1 jailbreak is out, supports all devices except iPad 2 and Verizon iPhone — Fans of jailbreaking have long known that Sundays are traditionally reserved for major iPhone jailbreaks. Following yesterday's tweet by a team member MuscleNerd, Dev-team released a set …
Discussion:
CNET News, Dev-Team Blog, ReadWriteWeb, Redmond Pie, PC World, VentureBeat, Engadget, IntoMobile, AppleInsider, BGR, everythingiCafe, PadGadget, Inquirer, Softpedia News, Digital Trends, TiPb, DailyTech, Ubergizmo, Softpedia News, CrunchGear, thinq_, Gizmodo, SlashGear, Download Squad, MobileWhack, Gadget Lab, Shoutpedia, MobileCrunch and App Advice
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Myspace Bake-Off Starts Wednesday and-Despite Reports-No Bidder in Lead (and No Zynga Interest Either) — While no one inside or outside Myspace owner News Corp. expects fireworks and giant piles of money, the tire-kicking for the long-troubled social-networking-turned-entertainment site actually starts Wednesday.
