Top Items:
Elinor Mills / CNET News:
S.F. subway muzzles cell service during protest — The operators of the Bay Area Rapid Transit subway system asked wireless providers to suspend service last night in four downtown San Francisco stations to interfere with a protest over a shooting by a BART Police officer, a spokesman for the system said today.
RELATED:
Eve Batey / SF Appeal:
BART Defends Decision To Cut Off Cell Service After Civil Rights, FCC Concerns Raised — After rumors of a possible protest intended to disrupt service reached BART officials yesterday, they pursued a number of strategies to ensure that didn't happen. One of those strategies …
Discussion:
Washington Post, Hillicon Valley, SFGate, Gawker, @eff and @jilliancyork, Thanks:violetblue
Sagar Kamdar / Inside Search:
The latest update to Google Social Search: Public Google+ Posts — Back in 2009, we launched Google Social Search, and we've made several improvements since then. And earlier this year we made an update which let you get more information from people you're connected to on other publicly available sites.
Discussion:
The Business Insider, Search Engine Land, SiliconFilter, ReadWriteWeb and Search Engine Journal
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Jeff Bezos wants to put an airbag in your smartphone — Many of us have experienced the problem: We get careless with our mobile phones, they slip out of our hands, and all of a sudden we're back at the store replacing a shattered device. — Well, none other than Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos …
Discussion:
The Register, SlashGear, The Next Web, IntoMobile, Engadget, Tools, Electronista, LAPTOP Magazine, NextBlitz, @marshallk, iClarified, Gizmodo, GigaOM, tag.microsoft.com and MobileBurn.com
Jim Dalrymple / The Loop:
Apple will not hold iPhone 5 event on Sept. 7 — Reports began to surface yesterday that Apple would hold a special event on September 7 to launch the new iPhone, but that's not happening. — According to my sources, Apple will not have an event or launch the next iPhone on September 7.
comScore, Inc.:
14 Million Americans Scanned QR or Bar Codes on their Mobile Phones in June 2011 — Newspapers/Magazines and Product Packaging Most Likely Source of QR Code — QR Code Users Most Likely to Scan Code while at Home or Store — comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world …
Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:
Netflix tests new web UI for kids. First look — Netflix has started to test a separate section for children's content on its website with a UI that is optimized to be used by kids themselves. Select Netflix members have been getting a new tab labeled “Just For Kids” …
Discussion:
Engadget, VentureBeat, ReelSEO Online Video …, Gizmodo, The Consumerist, Mashable! and Pulse2
Zach Epstein / maramine blog:
The Greatest Trick the Devil Ever Pulled Was... Disclaimer: The Devil Doesn't Pull Tricks — It looks like Facebook is finally winning a PR battle. Good for them. — Earlier this week, it was brought to light (again) that Facebook uses several of its smartphone apps to take all of your contacts and store them on its server.
Discussion:
Android and Me, BGR India and TiPb
Sam Odio / Sam Odio's blog:
How to use Jonathan's card to buy yourself an iPad — Jonathan Stark recently released his Starbucks card to the public as a social experiment. It was quickly picked up by CNN, Time, and many others. For those of you who are living under a rock, here's what is going on …
Discussion:
Gizmodo, PE Hub Blog and Mashable!
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Facebook Quietly Updates Platform Policies - Developers, No Linking To Competitors! — Facebook made some noteworthy changes to its Platform policies on the 27th of July 2011, adding a couple of new terms developers need to take into account when building apps for the Facebook Platform.
Discussion:
Inside Facebook and All Facebook
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Clever Girl: Facebook Lets You Export Friends' Email Addresses, But Makes It Opt-In — It's now possible to export your Facebook social graph. Your real social graph, complete with your friends' emails, which means you can leave Facebook and import your social network into a rival site.
Discussion:
Friending Facebook Blog and Inside Facebook
BERNAMA:
South Korean Government Pushes To Phase Out Online Real-Name Policy — In the wake of the country's worst online security breach that compromised the personal information of over two-thirds of the population, the home affairs ministry said Thursday it will push to repeal in phases the online real-name verification rules.
Discussion:
Electronista, The Korea Herald, The Register and MSDN Blogs
Richard MacManus / ReadWriteWeb:
Björk's “App Album” Shows The Way For Musicians — Icelandic musician Björk recently released what she claims to be the world's “first app album.” It's an iPad and iPhone app featuring 10 songs, each song accompanied by an interactive app. The “mother” app is called Biophilia, which is the name of the album.
Discussion:
TUAW and ringtonia.com
Zach Epstein / BGR:
Android steals 20% of tablet market from iPad over past year — Android-powered tablets have taken 20% of the global tablet market from Apple's iPad over the past 12 months according to new data from ABI Research. While Android tablets have collectively managed to make a sizable dent …
Staska / Unwired View:
Compal to start delivery of Windows Phones to Nokia in September. 2 million units ordered for Q4 2011 — We already told you that first Nokia Windows Phones will be made by Taiwanese Compal. Today we have some more info about them. — This has still to percolate to the English speaking part of the net …
Discussion:
@dnystedt, MacNN, The Nokia Blog, PhoneArena, SlashGear, WMPoweruser, The Next Web and WPCentral.com, Thanks:unwiredtweets
RELATED:
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Demand Media's RSS Graffiti Buy Is Good News for a Demand Media Executive — Demand Media's recent purchase of technology company RSS Graffiti is good news for Michael Blend, who owned 40 percent of the start-up. But the deal doesn't mean Blend will quit his day job — working as a Demand Media executive.
Discussion:
@pkafka and The Domains
Jack Purcher / Patently Apple:
New Patents Surface for an iPhone Antenna Clip, Solar Energy and a new Oil Resistant Coating for iOS Devices — A number of interesting Apple patent applications surfaced at the US Patent & Trademark Office yesterday. This report will cover three of them.
Discussion:
Gadget Lab, PadGadget, 9to5Mac, Geek.com and iClarified
David Streitfeld / Bits:
Amazon Cracks Down on Some E-Book ‘Publishers’ — Amazon makes it extremely easy to take a bunch of words and publish them as a book for the Kindle e-reader. And longtime professional writers like Edward Jay Epstein, the author of books on Hollywood, diamonds and the assassination of John F. Kennedy Jr. …
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Chill, Yes THAT Chill, Is A Turntable.fm For Videos — Imagine innocently launching your Facebook app one night and waking up to a bevy of emails saying that Mark Zuckerberg thinks the thing that you built is spamming up HIS precious platform. And let's say that your app is like a DJ interface for videos …
Discussion:
@briannorgard, VentureBeat, Mashable!, The Business Insider, ThisWeekIn and Tubefilter
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
What If Tim Berners-Lee Had Patented The Web? — You may have seen the stories a week or so ago about how it was the 20th anniversary of Tim Berners-Lee putting up the first web page. While many, many people still confuse “the web” with “the internet,” Berners-Lee's creation really did help …
Discussion:
Against Monopoly
Sebastian Anthony / ExtremeTech:
How browsers make money, or why Google needs Firefox — Whenever we write a glowing story about Firefox or Mozilla, the ExtremeTech postbag has a tendency to fill up with letters and missives from concerned readers who are worried about Mozilla's close ties with Google.
Discussion:
@dannysullivan, Thanks:mrseb
Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:
Firefox 8 to block unapproved add-ons — Puts an end to sneaky add-ons installed by other software — Computerworld - Starting with Firefox 8, Mozilla will automatically block browser add-ons installed by other software until users approve them, a company product manager announced yesterday.
Discussion:
CNET News, Mozilla Add-ons Blog, WinBeta and Softpedia News
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google Videos Brings Movie Rentals to Android Phones — Google's Videos app, the official video player for Android Market movie rentals, has been updated to work on Android smartphones. Previously, the app was only supported on Android 3.0 (Honeycomb), the Android tablet operating system.
Kelly Hodgkins / TUAW:
Report: Apple A6 production has begun — A report from the Taiwan Economic News claims Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has started trial production of Apple's next generation A6 processor. The A6 is an ARM-based processor that includes a 28-nanometer process and 3D stacking technologies.
Discussion:
CENS.com, GigaOM, AppleInsider, TechCrunch, 9to5Mac, BGR, AppleInsider, PhoneArena, iThinkDifferent, SlashGear, 9to5Mac, Softpedia News, I4U News, O'Grady's PowerPage, VentureBeat, PadGadget, TG Daily, Edible Apple, MacRumors, iClarified, MacStories, thinq_, Apple Bitch, iLounge and MacDailyNews
