Top Items:
Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
Why Google's screwup on Google+ brand pages is a big deal — There's been a lot of sound and fury about the way Google has approached branded (i.e., non-personal) pages on its new Google+ social network. Much of it is a symptom of internecine warfare among the big tech blogs …
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Danny Sullivan / Google+:
Open Letter To Google+ On The Subject Of Brand Pages — Hey Google, I'd say I know you're all new to the social game and should be forgiven that you have messed up with how to handle brands here so badly. Except, you're not new. — For one, you know that Twitter and Facebook both support brands …
Discussion:
Danny Sullivan, TechCrunch, Loren Feldman, Epicenter, Bob Caswell, The Blog Herald, broadstuff, Softpedia News and Search Engine Land
Chris Davies / SlashGear:
Google+ Games Stream confirmed — Google's help pages for Google+ have officially confirmed the upcoming Games Stream, a place where results from what will presumably be social-style gaming on the new network will be pulled together. “If you're looking for updates shared from games …
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Tricia Duryee / AllThingsD:
Soon-to-Debut Google+ Games Will Hit Facebook Where it Hurts: The Pocketbook
Discussion:
Digital Media Wire, Company Town, NBC Bay Area, Joystiq, TG Daily, NBC Bay Area, New World Notes and Fast Company
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Apple prepares for iOS 5 launch: iOS 5 beta 4 is the first over-the-air update — As Apple prepares for its official iOS 5 launch in the fall (likely in September), the company has unleashed their latest iOS beta as on over-the-air update. This over the air process will only work for those running iOS 5 beta 3.
Discussion:
BGR, MacRumors, TechCrunch, TUAW, Engadget and Electronista
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Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Apple seeds iOS 5 beta 4 (over the air!), iTunes 10.5 beta 4, Xcode 4.2 Developer Preview 4
Discussion:
BGR, GottaBeMobile and TUAW
Andy Greenberg / The Firewall:
Apple Laptops Vulnerable To Hack That Kills Or Corrupts Batteries — A pile of dead Apple laptop batteries, victims of Charlie Miller's research. — Your laptop's battery is smarter than it looks. And if a hacker like security researcher Charlie Miller gets his digital hands on it, it could become more evil than it appears, too.
Discussion:
The Business Insider, Geek.com, TUAW, MacPost and Electronista, Thanks:forbestech
Melanie Lee / Reuters:
Customers angry, staff defiant at China's fake Apple Store — (Reuters) - Customers at an Apple Store in the Chinese city of Kunming berated staff and demanded refunds on Friday after the shop was revealed to be an elaborate fake, sparking a media and Internet frenzy.
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Don't Hold Your Breath on That Apple Hulu Deal — If you stop by a Subaru dealer and end up kicking the tires on a new Outback, are you in early talks to consider a bid on a new Outback? — Well, sure. But if you drive off the lot and never come back, no one's going to be shocked.
David Yach / Inside BlackBerry:
RIM Welcomes JayCut! — Today we are pleased to announce that JayCut has joined Research In Motion (RIM). We're excited that the JayCut team is bringing their expertise in video editing and cloud-based services to the BlackBerry platform. — JayCut is based out of Sweden and operates …
Discussion:
mocoNews, PC World, IntoMobile, Engadget, AllThingsD, Gizmodo, Reuters, Profectio, Electronista, Between the Lines Blog and N4BB
Stephen Shankland / CNET News:
Mozilla jumps to deal with Google Toolbar demise — Google has canceled its toolbar for the current and future versions of Firefox, and Mozilla is scrambling to help users who might be left in the lurch and postponing their browser upgrades. — The toolbar offers a variety of services …
Zach Epstein / BGR:
T-Mobile says G-Slate is 200% faster than iPad 2, 300% faster than XOOM — A new page on T-Mobile USA's website makes some fairly bold claims about the carrier's premier Honeycomb tablet, the LG G-Slate. In comparing the sleek device to its steepest competition at AT&T and Verizon Wireless …
Discussion:
9to5Mac
Bill Werde / Billboard.Biz:
Spotify Gained 70,000 U.S. Subscribers in First Week: Sources — In my travels last night and in emails this morning I had three distinct label/publisher execs confirm the same number: that @Spotify has right in the ballpark of 70,000 paid Stateside subscribers after only one week in business.
Discussion:
AllThingsD, Between the Lines Blog and Electronista
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
The next-generation iPod touch's white front revealed? — We've received photos of a purported white iPod touch front panel. Specifically, this panel is the digitizer component, according to the iFixYouri iPhone repair shop. We obviously cannot confirm the legitimacy of these photos …
Discussion:
AppleInsider, Gizmodo, Edible Apple, iDownloadBlog, App Advice, Redmond Pie, Pocket-lint, MacRumors, MacPost, iLounge, Apple Bitch, Softpedia News and Electricpig.co.uk
Ina Fried / AllThingsD:
AT&T Customers File Arbitration Cases Seeking to Block T-Mobile Merger — A group of lawyers has filed arbitration cases on behalf of 11 AT&T customers in hope of blocking the company's planned $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA. — The New York-based firm of Bursor & Fisher law firm filed …
Discussion:
PC Magazine, BGR, SlashGear, Electronista, IntoMobile, WPCentral.com, MobileBurn.com and TmoNews
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Ticket To Ride: Uber Testing Reduced Pricing In San Francisco — Let's face it. While Uber is generally awesome and is on track to disrupt the taxi business, the service is still too expensive for many consumers to use on a regular basis. The company dropped its prices in June …
Discussion:
Inside Facebook and Uber Blog
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
Facebook wins dismissal of second Winklevoss case — (Reuters) - Facebook Inc won a dismissal of a second lawsuit by the Olympic rowing twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who have sought to increase their $65 million settlement with the social media company and its founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Discussion:
Digits, CNET News, paidContent, All Facebook, L.A. Times Tech Blog, @shibanijoshi and NBC Bay Area
Sue Megrund / App Advice:
T-Mobile Now Selling iPhone And iPad Compatible SIM Cards — Could T-Mobile USA be hinting at a future iPhone and iPad on their network? There are rumors surfacing that suggest the devices are being tested on Sprint and T-Mobile, and this may be further proof that T-Mobile users may be in luck.
Discussion:
CNET News, iDownloadBlog, Engadget, BGR, Macworld, Gizmodo, MacRumors, TiPb, 9to5Mac and The Next Web
Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:
Oracle gets to depose Google CEO Larry Page for two hours on willful patent infringement, value of Android — Late on Thursday by local time, magistrate judge issued an order according to which “Oracle may depose [Google co-founder and CEO] Mr. Page for a maximum of two hours, excluding breaks …
Amir Efrati / Wall Street Journal:
Google+ Pulls In 20 Million In 3 Weeks — When Google Inc. launched its Google+ social-networking site three weeks ago, executives handed out sailor hats to the hundreds of employees working on the project, symbolizing their year-long journey to that point. — So far, the sailing has been mostly smooth.
Discussion:
Digits, SlashGear, The Next Web, msnbc.com, Venture Capital Dispatch, DailyTech, PC Magazine, PC World, L.A. Times Tech Blog, WebProNews and Neowin.net
Desire Athow / ITProPortal:
iPhone 5 To Use Bluetooth 4.0 Rather Than NFC? — Two months after Apple joined the board of the Bluetooth special interest group, the company launched the first truly mainstream Bluetooth 4.0 devices in the world yesterday, namely the new Macbook Air & Mac Mini 2011 edition.
Discussion:
TG Daily, dailywireless.org, Geek.com, Digital Trends, SlashGear, Network World and Know Your Cell
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Out Of The Blue, Instacolor Forced To Change Name By The “True” Color — Something of a black comedy involving white hot startup Color and still-green-behind-the-ears Instacolor. Red in the face, the developer behind the latter app, which combines the key functions of Instagram and Color …
Dana Wollman / Engadget:
Dell quietly pulls the Streak to perform an update, might bring it back next month? — What Dell can give, it can taketh away. That's the story with the Streak, which has quietly vanished from retail as well as the outfit's online storefront. We first got wind of this when a tipster wrote …
Discussion:
The Toybox Blog, Technology Questions, SlashGear, Geek.com, 9to5Google, Android Phone Fans and WPCentral.com
Patent Arcade:
New Case: Microsoft Sued Over Kinect and Motion Tracking Patent — Impulse Technology Ltd. v. Microsoft Corporation et al — U.S. District Court, District of Delaware — Case No. 11-cv-00586, Filed July 1, 2011 — Impulse Technology, an Ohio-based company, sued Microsoft Corp in Delaware yesterday …
Discussion:
The Loop, Neowin.net and Eurogamer
Greg Sandoval / CNET News:
Jammie Thomas judgment lowered from $1.5 million to $54,000 — A federal court has once again lowered the damages award for Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the Minnesota woman found liable for copyright infringement. — Rasset was ordered last year to pay $62,500 for each of the songs she was accused …
Discussion:
TorrentFreak, MediaPost, Electronista, Digital Media Wire, Ars Technica and @bensheffner
Evan Blass / pocketnow.com:
LG's Remaining 2011 Smartphones Revealed (Images) — LG started off the year with an impressive trio of handsets in the Optimus 2X, Black, and 3D, and is expected to release several more smartphones in the second half of 2011. Besides the true followup to the Optimus One (not Gelato nor Gelato Q …
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Justin Bieber Takes A Picture Of Traffic, Instagram Usage Explodes — A few minutes ago, the Instagram team noticed their servers blowing up. What happened? Were they under attack? DDoS? No. — Bieber happened. — Yes, Justin Bieber just signed up for Instagram.
Discussion:
Techland, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Music Ally, Digital Life, App Advice, TG Daily and msnbc.com
