Top Items:
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
DISH Wins Bankruptcy Auction, Buys Blockbuster Assets For $228M In Cash — DISH Network this morning announced that it was selected as the winning bidder in the bankruptcy court auction for substantially all of the assets of Blockbuster, which went belly up in September 2010.
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Ryan Lawler / GigaOM:
So Why Did Dish Really Buy Blockbuster? — Dish Network said Wednesday that it it will pay around $320 million to buy embattled movie rental chain Blockbuster out of bankruptcy proceedings which have led to significant store closings and layoffs over the past year.
Discussion:
VentureBeat, DISH Network, DSLreports, 9 to 5 Mac, Wall Street Journal, MediaMemo, mocoNews, Telecompetitor and Electronista
Eric Savitz / The Tech Trade:
Motorola Mobility: Xoom, Atrix Both Duds, Pacific Crest Says — Xoom: No boom, just gloom. — Motorola Mobility (MMI) isn't seeing much love for its current cornerstone smart phone and tablet products, Pacific Crest analyst James Faucette asserts in a research note this morning.
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Jay Yarow / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:
Motorola Xoom A Flop, Just 100,000 Sold So Far — Google's first real answer to the iPad is not exactly blowing the doors off. — According to an estimate from Deutsche Bank, Motorola has only sold 100,000 Xooms thus far. Deutsche Bank got its estimate after looking at the Android developer website …
Discussion:
BGR, Internet2Go, NBC Bay Area and The Huffington Post
Sam Oliver / AppleInsider:
Suppliers delivered 2.4M-2.6M iPad 2 units to Apple in March - report — Perhaps offering an indication of how many iPad 2 units were sold at launch, a new report claims Apple received between 2.4 million and 2.6 million of the hot-selling device from suppliers in the month of March.
Discussion:
BGR
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DigiTimes:
Cover lens supply key for Apple to reach 2Q11 iPad 2 shipment goal, say sources — A sufficient supply of cover lenses for touch panel modules will be the key for Apple and other vendors to reach their shipment goals for tablet PCs in second-quarter 2011, according to sources at upstream touch panel suppliers.
Discussion:
9 to 5 Mac, MacRumors, SAI, Electronista, PadGadget, The Next Web, TUAW, PhoneArena, everythingiCafe, MacStories, MacDailyNews, I4U News, WebProNews and Edible Apple
Mike Melanson / ReadWriteWeb:
LinkedIn's Answer to Facebook's Open Graph — Professional social network LinkedIn has opened up access to a new developer platform today that should bring LinkedIn content, buttons, Twitter-esque “profile summaries” and more to websites throughout the Web. — The platform, though, isn't just for developers.
Discussion:
CNET News, TechCrunch and Between the Lines Blog
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Adam Nash / The LinkedIn Blog:
The New LinkedIn Platform: Help Build the Professional Web
Discussion:
Mashable! and The Next Web
Dieter Bohn / PreCentral.net:
A keyboard-less webOS phone - the Stingray? [Exclusive] — The enterprising tipster who sent us the image of a Verizon Pre 3 has one more device to show you: the above device that by all appearances is a webOS device without a keyboard. Our best guess is that it has a screen resolution of 480x800.
Discussion:
GigaOM, BGR, Softpedia News, MobileWhack, Gizmodo, SlashGear, Fonehome, CrunchGear, Electronista, Engadget, IntoMobile and Pocket-lint
Wall Street Journal:
Lions Gate Finalizing Netflix Deal to Stream All Seasons of “Mad Men” — Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., which produces the hit television series “Mad Men,” has finalized a deal with Netflix Inc. to stream all seven seasons of the critically-acclaimed show about a 1960s advertising agency, according to people close to the situation.
Jon Brodkin / Network World:
Bashing Microsoft ‘like kicking a puppy,’ says Linux Foundation chief — Linux has already defeated Microsoft, Linux Foundation chief says — Two decades after Linus Torvalds developed his famous operating system kernel, the battle between Linux and Microsoft is over and Linux has won …
Fred A. Bernstein / New York Times:
A Corporate Campus Made to Mirror Facebook — MENLO PARK, Calif. — Facebook, which started out in a dormitory at Harvard, transferred to a rented house in Silicon Valley and now occupies a cluster of office buildings in Palo Alto, Calif., is about to make its biggest move yet …
Donald Melanson / Engadget:
Google's new cloud-based Android Music app leaks out — Wondering what Google's answer to Amazon's cloud music player for Android will look like? Then it would seem you now have your answer —the Tech From 10 website somehow managed to receive a developer version of the Android Market …
Discussion:
Pulse2, SAI and FierceMobileContent
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Tim Schiesser / Tech From 10:
The Android Test Market...?
Discussion:
Androinica, Yahoo! News, CNET News, Droid Life, Download Squad, PhoneArena, AndroidGuys, IntoMobile, Techland, The Next Web, Android Phone Fans, Pocket-lint, ITProPortal, hypebot, Phones Review, Geek.com, PC Magazine, Gadgetell, Android Police, Electronista, Neowin.net, iClarified, Download Squad, SiliconANGLE, Android and Me, Android Central, ReadWriteWeb, Softpedia News, Know Your Cell, AndroidGuys, Media Maverick, Android Phone Fans and Gizmodo
John Casasanta / tap tap tap:
Camera+ hits 2 million sales / Revealing details about upgrade numbers and in-app purchase sales — Fresh off the heals of the Camera+ 2.2 release including our killer feature, Clarity, I'm happy to announce that this weekend we've sold our 2 millionth copy of Camera+.
Discussion:
GottaBeMobile, AppleInsider, GigaOM, Inside Mobile Apps and MacStories
Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
YouTube's New Search Options Format — YouTube has a new interface for related searches and advanced search options. Now you can select multiple filters from a category and combine related searches. For example, you can find long-form HD videos that are available in the WebM format.
Discussion:
Mashable!
Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:
Sulzberger: $40 Million Estimate For Paywall Cost Is ‘Vastly Wrong’ — Earlier this year, Bloomberg reported that the New York Times Co. (NYSE: NYT) spent $40 million or more to build the digital paywall that went live late last month. Not so, insists Arthur Sulzberger …
Matt Rosoff / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:
One-Third Of Teens Plan To Buy An iPhone Soon — Teenagers are fickle, but one thing never seems to change. — They love Apple products. — More than one-third plan on buying an iPhone in the next six months, and 20% are planning to buy a tablet — which probably means iPad.
Discussion:
AppleInsider, msnbc.com, MacStories and Between the Lines Blog
Kyle Wagner / Gizmodo:
USB 3.0, Thunderbolt Possible in Future iOS 30-Pin Connectors — For those of you wondering how Apple is planning on supporting next-generation high-speed data port technology for future (and current) iPads, Pods and Phones, you might have your answer. Patently Apple has unearthed …
Discussion:
Digital Trends, AppleInsider, Patently Apple, Appletell, BGR, TUAW, SlashGear, O'Grady's PowerPage, iClarified, The Next Web, IntoMobile, Engadget, CrunchGear, MacRumors, MacNN, GeekSmack, 9 to 5 Mac, MacDailyNews and everythingiCafe
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Estimate: In Two Years, Streaming TV Will Be An $800 Million Business for Netflix and Hulu — By the end of this year, an estimated 2 million households in the U.S. will have abandoned TV for the Web, cutting the cord with their cable companies. This estimate comes from Convergence Consulting Group …
Discussion:
Sramana Mitra and Fortune
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Pixable's Smart iPhone App Aggregates Photos From Facebook, Flickr, And Instagram — We've written about startup Pixable previously because of its sleek web photo creation and categorization tools. Earlier this year, the startup launched Photofeed, a Facebook app and companion iPad app …
Discussion:
Mashable!
Verne G. Kopytoff / Bits:
Intel Unveils Chips for ‘Mission Critical’ Server Tasks — Generating buzz for a new microchip — one that is for servers, no less — is challenging. But Intel gave it a try with its latest line of microprocessors, the Xeon E7, unveiled on Tuesday, by renting a former bank and briefing reporters in the vault.
Discussion:
internetnews.com, Datamation, Engadget, News Stories, Geek.com, HotHardware.com News, TechEye, Neowin.net, TechSpot and Between the Lines Blog
Rip Empson / TechCrunch:
Spanning Cloud Apps Raises $2 Million For Cloud Backup Services — The Austin-based startup Spanning Cloud Apps, a cloud-based app developer, today announced that it has closed a $2 million series A round, led by the Foundry Group, a VC firm based in Boulder.
Discussion:
alarm:clock
Sarah Lacy / TechCrunch:
The Vote Is in and Twitter Gets its Tax Breaks. Now, What about Everyone Else? — We just got word that the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has voted 8-to-3 to approve the Mid-Market incentive plan that would give Twitter- and other companies- a six year payroll tax deferral for net …
Jared Newman / Technologizer:
GameStop Mulls a Tablet, Will Soon Buy Yours — When a brick-and-mortar retailer decides to go digital, one possible strategy goes something like this: Buy a smaller digital company or two, and hope to make them big. — That's what GameStop did last week when it acquired Stardock's Impulse …
Discussion:
1UP.com, The Business Insider, Gamasutra and VG247
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft creates new consumer channels group to be headed by Chris Capossela — A week after Microsoft Senior Vice President of Central Marketing Mich Matthews announced plans to leave, Microsoft announced her replacement will be former Office marketing chief Chris Capossela.
Matt Buchanan / Gizmodo:
The Near-Future of Mobile Gaming Is Going to Be Pretty Epic (But Maybe Not on Android) — The light-spraying, shadow-bending dreamscapes carved out of our noir nightmares made possible by the latest version of the Unreal Engine are the reason why we're always looking for what's next in gaming.
Discussion:
The Business Insider, Kotaku, PhoneArena, Electronista, @mrinaldesai, Android Phone Fans, SAI and AppleInsider
