Top Items:
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Apple Pulls the Plug on TV Rentals — Last year, Apple pushed hard to get the TV networks to rent their shows at cut-rate pricing through its iTune store. Now it has bailed on TV show rentals altogether. — Apple has completely removed customers' ability to rent shows from iTunes …
Discussion:
SplatF, New York Times, PC Magazine, Engadget, Ars Technica, GigaOM, mocoNews, The Business Insider, TechCrunch, 9to5Mac, Daring Fireball, Neowin.net, GottaBeMobile, SlashGear, TiPb, MacStories and Gizmodo
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Neil Hughes / AppleInsider:
Apple abandons 99-cent TV show rentals for Apple TV — Apple has removed the ability to rent TV shows from both iTunes and its Apple TV, taking away what was just last year one of the major advertised selling points of the $99 streaming-centric set-top box.
Discussion:
CNET News, Between the Lines Blog, parislemon, MacStories, MacRumors, Macworld, Apple Bitch, TUAW and The Next Web
Jordan Golson / MacRumors:
Apple Awards Tim Cook 1,000,000 Shares of Stock as CEO Bonus to Stay Until 2021 — Apple filed a form 8-K with the SEC because of the changes in corporate leadership at the company. An 8-K is the “current report” companies must file with the SEC to announce major events that shareholders should know about.
Discussion:
TUAW, L.A. Times Tech Blog, AppleInsider, Daring Fireball, Bits, GeekWire, CNET News, AllThingsD, parislemon, 9to5Mac, MarketWatch, The Next Web, Mashable!, TiPb and @parislemon
Alistair Barr / Reuters:
Facebook ending Deals product after four-month test — (Reuters) - Facebook is getting out of the daily deals business after four months of testing, a move that may ease some competitive pressure on industry leaders Groupon and LivingSocial. — “After testing Deals for four months …
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MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Facebook Kills Daily Deals, But Keeps Check-In Deals — After quietly announcing they were killing off their nascent Deals product this afternoon, Facebook caused some confusion. You see, with the decision to kill off Facebook Places earlier in the week, everyone wondered what it meant …
Discussion:
paidContent
Arnold Kim / MacRumors:
iPhone N94 Prototype Back Cover - Is This Actually the iPhone 5? — Right on the heels of our “iPhone 4S” antenna photos, comes even more pieces to the puzzle. This image from MacPost.net offers the first look at the back cover of an upcoming iPhone. This prototype part is labeled “EVT” …
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Arnold Kim / MacRumors:
‘iPhone 4S’ Casing Resembles iPhone 4 with Some Antenna Changes
‘iPhone 4S’ Casing Resembles iPhone 4 with Some Antenna Changes
Discussion:
iPodNN, I4U News and Computerworld
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
Photos of iPhone 4S/5 Logic Board Suggest A5 Processor
Photos of iPhone 4S/5 Logic Board Suggest A5 Processor
Discussion:
AppleLeaks, iLounge and MacPost
Mikko / F-Secure Antivirus Research Weblog:
How we found the file that was used to Hack RSA — RSA was hacked in March. This was one of the biggest hacks in history. — The current theory is that a nation-state wanted to break in to Lockheed-Martin and Northrop-Grumman to steal military secrets.
Discussion:
The Register, Ars Technica, Network World, SC Magazine US, eWeek, Dennis Fisher, Softpedia News and Help Net Security
Christian Zibreg / 9to5Mac:
Salesforce CEO: Why I gave Apple the ‘App Store’ trademark in exchange for great advice from Steve Jobs — Bloomberg television has an interesting video up of Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff who shares an anecdote on how Apple chairman Steve Jobs helped him out with his unique insights on Enterprise Software (!!):
Discussion:
Bloomberg, The Next Web, Pulse2, The Loop, VentureBeat, @ldignan, iClarified, TUAW, App Advice and PC World, Thanks:jordankahn
Zach Epstein / BGR:
Upcoming Amazon tablet to undercut Apple's iPad — Amazon's upcoming Android tablet will soon launch for “hundreds less” than Apple's $499 entry-level iPad 2 tablet, the New York Post reported on Thursday. According to the report, which cites an anonymous source, Amazon will launch …
Discussion:
Shiny Objects, New York Post, Liliputing, Electronista, Technologizer, 9to5Google and PhoneArena
Justin Shaffer / Facebook Blog:
Bigger, Faster Photos — With over 250 million photos uploaded each day, sharing pictures is one of the most popular activities on Facebook. We are constantly working on making Facebook Photos better and today we're introducing some improvements to the way you experience photos.
Discussion:
Inside Facebook, Mashable! and PetaPixel
Matt Rosoff / The Business Insider:
HP Finds A Fall Guy For Last Week's Fiasco — Hewlett-Packard's series of earnings and strategy announcements last Thursday was a communications fiasco. — But at least HP knows there was a problem: the company has “reassigned” its communications head, Bill Wohl, according to a memo leaked to PRWeek and confirmed by AllThingsD.
Discussion:
PRWeek US, AllThingsD and Electronista
Tom Simonite / Technology Review:
IBM Builds Biggest Data Drive Ever — The system could enable detailed simulations of real-world phenomena—or store 24 billion MP3s. — A data repository almost 10 times bigger than any made before is being built by researchers at IBM's Almaden, California, research lab.
Discussion:
DailyTech, ExtremeTech, Engadget, PC World, Techland, TechCrunch, SlashGear, Electronista, TG Daily and Softpedia News
Slide Blog:
Update on Slide's products and our commitment to our users — We wanted to give you all advance notice that in the coming months, a number of Slide's products and applications will be retired. This includes Slide's products such as Slideshow and SuperPoke!
Discussion:
All Facebook, MediaPost, Bits, Inside Facebook, L.A. Times Tech Blog, SlashGear, IntoMobile, SiliconANGLE, Between the Lines Blog, paidContent, NBC Bay Area and App Advice
Brooke Crothers / CNET News:
A6 chip to reach iPad 3 later in 2012, says analyst — Apple's latest chip technology won't appear in the next-generation iPad until June 2012 at the earliest, according to a firm that tracks the mobile processor industry. — An ARM Cortex-A9 quad-core design—which the Apple A6 processor is based on.
Discussion:
DigiTimes, Shiny Objects, 9to5Mac, The Next Web, MacDailyNews, Electronista, AppleInsider and MacRumors
Rachel King / Between the Lines Blog:
Groupon traffic drops by half while LivingSocial surges — Summary: Groupon's website isn't exactly seeing the same amount of traffic it used to as its rival continues to gain momentum. — As Groupon continues with its planned IPO and goal to raise $750 million, it's probably going to need …
Discussion:
Hitwise Intelligence, Dow Jones Newswires and ZippyCart Blog E-Commerce News
Ben Kuchera / Ars Technica:
Razer bucks trends with $2,800 gaming laptop, complete with innovative UI — Razer took out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal refuting the idea that PC gaming is dead, and reaffirming the company's love for PC games. The company also promised an announcement today …
Discussion:
LAPTOP Magazine, Kotaku, CNET News, Engadget, SlashGear, PC World and This is my next
Rosie Gray / Runnin' Scared:
City Websites Are All Down; Why Is There So Little Info On Evacuation Procedures? — There's a lot of talk of evacuation right now in light of the impending arrival of Hurricane Irene. The city has already released a map of evacuation zones and evacuated the “most vulnerable” …
Discussion:
O'Reilly Radar, Gov 2.0, Search Engine Land, Laughing Squid, FiveThirtyEight, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, @brianstelter, @cpen, ZDNet and @rachelsterne
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Stephen Chapman / Between the Lines Blog:
Windows 8: Two new 3rd party apps using the new Metro UI — Summary: With most developers around the world having to wait until BUILD to find out how to develop for Windows 8, some companies are already cranking out Windows 8 apps! See two of them here. — So far, all we've seen …
Discussion:
WinRumors, TechSpot, SlashGear, Electronista and Techland
Pew Internet:
65% of online adults use social networking sites — Fully 65% of adult internet users now say they use a social networking site like MySpace, Facebook or LinkedIn, up from 61% one year ago. This marks the first time in Pew Internet surveys that 50% of all adults use social networking sites.
Discussion:
MediaPost, PC Magazine, Bits, Pew Internet, SFGate, Technology Review, VatorNews, Signal News, techPresident, scribbal.com and Between the Lines Blog
Stephen Shankland / CNET News:
Mozilla chair defends rapid-release Firefox — The Firefox rapid-release program has caused some corporate indigestion, but Mozilla Chair Mitchell Baker believes it's worth it. — She acknowledged that companies can have problems with the approach, in which new browser versions arrive every six weeks …
Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
YouTube Downloader Site Sued By World's Biggest Music Labels — YouTube is without doubt one of the greatest sites ever to grace the Internet. In its library it has countless videos, many accompanied by music, and for millions of web users its a site to visit every single day.
Discussion:
TechCrunch and Penn-Olson, Thanks:arjo