Top Items:
Jessica Guynn / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Google likely to face FTC complaint over ‘Search Plus Your World’ — A privacy watchdog group probably will complain to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that a new Google search feature raises privacy and antitrust concerns. — Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy …
Discussion:
SiliconFilter, Gizmodo, Computerworld, Interactive Marketing, Andy Beard, CNET, TechCrunch, TechFlash, Between the Lines Blog, WebProNews, Marketing Land and SlashGear
RELATED:
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Real-Life Examples Of How Google's “Search Plus” Pushes Google+ Over Relevancy
Discussion:
@amac, PC World, Daring Fireball, Marketing Land, TechCrunch, ReelSEO Online Video …, @dannysullivan, SiliconFilter and memeburn
Jim Dalrymple / The Loop:
Apple announces special event in New York on Jan. 19 — Apple on Wednesday sent out an invitation to The Loop and other media outlets to attend a special event being held in New York City next week. — Apple says the event will be about an education announcement and will take place on January 19 at the Guggenheim Museum.
Discussion:
AllThingsD, T3 News, Pulse2, The Verge, Neowin.net, TUAW, MacRumors, Redmond Pie, VentureBeat, PhoneArena, ZDNet, Macgasm, iPhone, Apple Bitch, everythingiCafe, BGR, MacStories, TechCrunch, Engadget, 9to5Mac, Between the Lines Blog, Mercury News, eCampus News, Gizmodo UK, The Next Web and Electronista, Thanks:kevinmcelligott
RELATED:
Nick Wingfield / Bits:
Apple Aims to Take On the Textbook Market — Apple is expected to begin a much-anticipated foray into the textbook market at an event in New York next week. — The company sent invitations to reporters on Wednesday for an event at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York on Jan. 19.
Discussion:
Digital Trends, The Register, Mashable!, MacRumors, The Digital Reader, GottaBeMobile, Digits, App Advice, WebProNews, Epicenter and Media Decoder, Thanks:nickwingfield
John Paczkowski / AllThingsD:
Nokia Could Sell 37 Million Windows Phones This Year — If 2011 was the year of Windows Phone's slow slog to market, 2012 may be the year of its breakout. — With a decent selection of handsets in the marketplace — including Nokia's newly announced LTE device, the Lumia 900 …
Discussion:
BGR, The Verge, CNET, The Next Web, WMPoweruser, Neowin.net, BetaNews, PhoneArena, Communities Dominate Brands, My Nokia Blog, IntoMobile and www.pocketgamer.biz
RELATED:
Farhad Manjoo / Slate:
The Year of Microsoft — How the former tech giant can reclaim its throne in 2012. — The old conventional wisdom about Microsoft was that you could never count it out. Sure, the company would always break into new markets with products that looked dead on arrival …
Discussion:
Geek News Central, Nokia Conversations and BrianMadden.com
Dina Bass / Bloomberg:
Microsoft Said Planning Marketing Shakeup — Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) is making plans for a companywide restructuring of its marketing operations, a move that may include hundreds of job cuts, according to people familiar with the matter. — The plans haven't been settled and could change …
Discussion:
TechFlash, Neowin.net, GeekWire, LiveSide.net, All about Microsoft Blog and Tech Trader Daily
RELATED:
Matt Rosoff / Business Insider:
Hundreds Of Microsoft Employees Could Be Getting The Axe Soon
Discussion:
Computerworld, Google Enterprise Blog, WebProNews and @asymco
Yinka Adegoke / Reuters:
Exclusive: Microsoft Web TV subscription plan on hold — (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp has put its talks with media companies about an online subscription service for TV shows and movies on hold, according to people familiar with the discussions. — The technology giant had been in intense talks …
Discussion:
Home Theater Blog, VentureBeat, TechFlash, TechSpot, MediaFile, Engadget, SlashGear, Electronista, The Verge, VG247, Neowin.net and Business Insider, more at Mediagazer »
Facebook:
Bringing Facebook Comments to Mobile — Today we're launching the Comments Box plugin for mobile to make it easier for media sites to engage people across the web and mobile devices, and for people to comment on news regardless of where they're reading it. — If your website has the Comments Box …
Discussion:
VentureBeat, Friending Facebook Blog, Inside Facebook, TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, All Facebook, WebProNews and The Next Web
Chris Ziegler / The Verge:
Motorola's Sanjay Jha: 'Verizon and AT&T don't want seven stock Android devices on their shelves' — At CES this week, we sat down in a session with Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha who covered a wide range of topics ranging from the company's newly-announced phones to Webtop and everything in between …
Discussion:
paidContent, Hardware 2.0 Blog, PhoneArena, SlashGear, Android Phone Fans, eWeek, atmaspheric and Daring Fireball
RELATED:
John Biggs / TechCrunch:
Why Samsung Is The Next Apple — For most of the ten years I've been coming to CES, every presentation, every booth, has had one goal: to create an ecosystem in order to encourage consumer to lock in. Year after year, presentation after presentation, someone has come out to show how the phone …
Discussion:
MacStories, Macgasm and Business Insider
Devindra Hardawar / VentureBeat:
Sony is bringing its Music Unlimited streaming service to iOS soon — Sony's Music Unlimited streaming music service has been available on Android devices and PCs for some time now, but iOS users have been left out — until now. — The electronics company will offer a free iPhone and iPad app …
Discussion:
TechCrunch, CNET, The Verge, MacRumors, PhoneArena, SlashGear, iDownloadBlog.com, MacNN and AllThingsD
David Rowan / The Kernel:
It's time to place the web in safer hands — David Rowan, editor of WIRED magazine, launches a fearsome broadside against the internet's global domain registry ICANN, concluding the organisation is no longer fit for purpose. — Sorry, internet: it's time to place your custody in safer hands.
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
U.S. PC Shipments Slip 6 Percent In Q4, While Apple's Jump 21 Percent — The PC industry is in decline. Or hadn't you noticed? According to Gartner, PC shipments in the U.S slipped 5.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011. (Microsoft also warned earlier this week that Q4 PC shipments were down).
Discussion:
IDC, Gartner, Computerworld, Between the Lines Blog, MacRumors and Electronista
Alex Wilhelm / The Next Web:
Microsoft investigating threatened mass suicide at Foxconn factory — When several hundred workers reportedly threatened to commit mass suicide if their pay requests went unmet, one of the darker sides of capitalism reared its head. The employees, who work on building Microsoft's Xbox 360 console via …
Discussion:
CNET, CNN, Seattle Times, Neowin.net and WinBeta
Mat Honan / Gizmodo:
Fever Dream of a Guilt-Ridden Gadget Reporter — I trudge past several million dollars worth of 3DTVs, looking for a good place to take a s**t. The toilets are all filthy. CES attendees are overwhlemingly men. Men are filthy, especially when they've been drinking too much coffee and eating Vegas buffets.
Discussion:
Macgasm
Jon Mitchell / ReadWriteWeb:
Google+ Hangouts Add Screen Sharing to List of Collaboration Tools — Hangouts, the versatile video chat that continues to be the standout feature of Google+, got a visual and functional update today. The primary video feed is now bigger and better emphasized.
Discussion:
VentureBeat, Christopher Johnson, Techie Buzz, 9to5Google, SlashGear and Lifehacker
Ryan Kim / GigaOM:
Shazam launches new app to replace iOS music player — Shazam has gotten a lot of mileage out of its music tagging application, which has been snapped up by 165 million users since launching in 2008. But now the company is rolling out its first new app called Shazam Player …
Discussion:
The Verge, 9to5Mac, TUAW, VentureBeat, Lifehacker, The Next Web and Fast Company
Kit Eaton / Fast Company:
What's Behind Intel's Expensive Ultrabook Push? — Intel is in the news thanks to CES, its new Ultrabook, and an incredibly ambitious—not to mention pricey—marketing push. But the real news isn't the ad campaign for Ultrabooks. A more interesting consideration is why Intel feels the need to do this at all.
Discussion:
DigiTimes
Christian Zibreg / 9to5Mac:
Pegatron and Foxconn reportedly begin assembly of iPad 3 with Sharp display, launching in early-March — According to the Japanese blog Macotakara (which can be accurate with Apple rumor reporting), Apple's contract manufacturers Foxconn Electronics (also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry) …
Discussion:
english.etnews.com, CNET, Patently Apple, AppleInsider, MACé" blog, TUAW, VentureBeat, Softpedia News, GigaOM, PadGadget, Apple Bitch, Electronista, Business Insider and MacRumors
Mark Hosenball / Reuters:
Homeland Security watches Twitter, social media — (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's command center routinely monitors dozens of popular websites, including Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, WikiLeaks and news and gossip sites including the Huffington Post and Drudge Report, according to a government document.
Discussion:
Boing Boing
Zack Whittaker / Between the Lines Blog:
Symantec accused of using ‘scareware’ tactics to sell full-version products — Summary: Anti-virus maker Symantec is charged in a lawsuit with misleading users into purchasing full versions of its software by peddling ‘scareware’ tactics. — Security firm Symantec is being taken to court …
Discussion:
The Firewall, Computerworld, Reuters, PC World and Inquirer
Ingrid Lunden / paidContent:
Research: Small Screens Better For Content; Bigger Screens For Productivity — The tablet market is still in its relative infancy and has been largely dominated up to now—both in sales and basic concept—by the iPad from Apple (NSDQ: AAPL). But that could be changing in the year ahead …
Discussion:
In-Stat
Eric Savitz / The Tech Trade:
CES Live: FCC Chair Genachowski Wants Ubiquitous Broadband — If you turned off the Internet, virtually every single product on the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show would be worthless. — FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski made that comment Wednesday in a talk …
Discussion:
PC World, AllThingsD, VentureBeat and Forbes
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Comcast — Owner Of NBC Universal — Admits That DNS Redirects Are Incompatible With DNSSEC — Well, well, well. Here's something interesting. Comcast, who owns NBC Universal (one of the main forces behind SOPA/PIPA), is officially a SOPA/PIPA supporter.
Discussion:
Network World and DSLreports
Ann Bednarz / PC World:
IBM Wins Most Patents for 19th Straight Year — IBM retained its patent crown for 2011, topping the list of patent winners for the 19th year in a row. The only other U.S. company to make the top 10, Microsoft fell from third place to sixth place, according to data from IFI Claims Patent Services.
