Top Items:
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Google And The Monopoly Paradox — We've been over this. A lot. And this story is going to continue for some time to come. It sure looks like Google is almost asking for an inquiry into potentially anti-competitive practices (and it's coming). Which is insane. So the next logical question is why?
Discussion:
Marketing Pilgrim, iCrossing, parislemon, Daring Fireball, The Next Web and Poynter
RELATED:
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:
eWeek, The Register, Computerworld, Fast Company, Washington Post, ITProPortal, Techland, WebProNews, Gizmodo, Beyond Search, Scripting News, SiliconFilter, PC World, CNET, Interactive Marketing, Andy Beard, ZDNet, paidContent, TechCrunch, TechFlash, Marketing Land, Between the Lines Blog and SlashGear
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Real-Life Examples Of How Google's “Search Plus” Pushes Google+ Over Relevancy — The new Google “Search Plus Your World” feature — which I'm now simply calling “Search Plus” — has just gone live for me. Huge debate erupted yesterday over whether it somehow favors Google+.
John Battelle / John Battelle's Search Blog:
Compete To Death, or Cooperate to Compete?
Discussion:
Softpedia News, Business Insider, Mashable!, Search Engine Land, WebProNews, Ben Parr's Entrepreneurial … and TechCrunch
Eric Eldon / TechCrunch:
Google+ Search = A Way To Call The Feds In On IPO-Bound Facebook (?)
Discussion:
CNET, the Econsultancy blog, Daring Fireball and The Huffington Post
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft Blog:
LG signs Android, Chrome OS patent deal with Microsoft — Summary: LG Electronics is the latest Android vendor to license Microsoft patents in order to head off potential legal issues. — It's been a couple of months since Microsoft has touted any new Android/Chrome OS vendors agreeing to license its patents.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, Engadget, BGR, GigaOM, 9to5Google, Microsoft, LiveSide.net, AllThingsD, FOSS Patents, Business Insider, TechCrunch, The Tech Trade, @fxshaw, MobileSyrup.com, PhoneArena, WMPoweruser, @tim_stevens, The Next Web, SlashGear, Softpedia News, Techie Buzz and ZDNet
RELATED:
Miyoung Kim / Reuters:
LG in talks on phone partnerships: executive
Discussion:
PhoneArena, paidContent and Mobilized
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
If SOPA's Main Target Is The Pirate Bay, It's Worth Pointing Out That ThePirateBay.org Is Immune From SOPA — In looking over Eric Goldman's excellent “linkwrap” of a bunch of recent SOPA/PIPA stories, it pointed me to a News.com article from last month, about how SOPA was really about going after one single site: The Pirate Bay.
Discussion:
ExtremeTech, WatchingTV Online, PC Magazine, The Register, DSLreports and TorrentFreak
RELATED:
E.D. Kain / Forbes:
Time Is Running Out For SOPA Opponents Congressmen Warn At CES 2012 — Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) showed up at CES 2012 in Las Vegas to issue a stark warning: we're running out of time to stop legislation aimed at cracking down on copyright infringement.
Discussion:
Techdirt, AllThingsD, Fox Business, The Register and NBC Bay Area
Stephen Rosenman / Seeking Alpha:
Apple's Foreign Cash Hoard — Apple (AAPL) is piling up boatloads of cash: just not here. — Those boatloads are increasing becoming docked in Apple's foreign subsidiaries and cannot be repatriated without incurring additional hefty U.S. taxes. A whopping $54 billion of Apple's $82 billion cash …
Discussion:
Techie Buzz, TUAW and PhoneArena
Alex Wilhelm / The Next Web:
Microsoft: Windows Phone will not battle Android on specs, will instead fight for ‘quality’ — In an interview today at CES, Microsoft's Joe Belfiore told The Verge that Windows Phone will not fight the Android ecosystem of handsets on a specification by specification basis.
Discussion:
The Verge and WMPoweruser
RELATED:
John Paczkowski / AllThingsD:
Nokia Could Sell 37 Million Windows Phones This Year
Discussion:
PC World, Gadget Lab, The Appside, SlashGear, The Verge, NBC Bay Area, Pulse2, BGR, CNET, My Nokia Blog, Communities Dominate Brands, PhoneArena, IntoMobile, BetaNews, www.pocketgamer.biz, Neowin.net, WMPoweruser and PalmAddicts
Farhad Manjoo / Slate:
The Year of Microsoft — How the former tech giant can reclaim its throne in 2012.
Discussion:
Guardian, Nokia Conversations and BrianMadden.com
Cade Metz / Wired Enterprise:
Google's Data Center Engineer Shares Secrets of ‘Warehouse’ Computing — Luiz Barroso, one of the minds behind the Googlenet. Photo: Google — Luiz André Barroso doesn't see Google's data centers as data centers. He sees them as computers the size of warehouses.
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:
paidContent, Macgasm, MacStories and Business Insider
Gregory Lyons / iCrossing:
Facebook to Hit a Billion Users in the Summer — Last summer we took a look at Facebook usage around the world, and with Facebook recently announcing that they're currently at over 800 million active users we thought it would be interesting to extrapolate their current grown rate and estimate …
Discussion:
The Next Web, Mashable!, FT Tech Hub, memeburn, Friending Facebook Blog and The Sociable
Seth Weintraub / 9to5Mac:
The MacBook Air Samsung SSD is about to get twice as fast — I had a chance to meet with Samsung Storage solutions at CES 2012 this week and got the low down on its new OEM SSDs that Apple tends to buy in large numbers. Samsung and Toshiba are the OEMs that provide the SSDs in MacBook Airs.
Discussion:
SlashGear
Julie Bort / Business Insider:
Amazon Web Services Now Available Without That Messy ‘Web’ Part — Data doesn't have to travel over the messy, dangerous public Internet to use Amazon's cloud. — Amazon today expanded its AWS “direct connect” service to Northern California and three other global locations.
Discussion:
Computerworld
Wall Street Journal:
Google Renews Push in China — Two Years After Censorship Clash, Company Renews Push to Expand in World's Biggest Internet Market — Google Inc., which pulled its Web-search engine out of mainland China two years ago after a confrontation with Chinese authorities over censorship …
Discussion:
CNET, Computerworld, Business Insider, TechEye, The Next Web, Forbes and Media Decoder, more at Mediagazer »
Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
EMI Sues Irish State For Not Implementing Piracy Blocking Provisions — The place where breaking news, BitTorrent and copyright collide — EMI Sues Irish State For Not Implementing Piracy Blocking Provisions — After failing last year in its attempt to force a local Internet service provider …
Discussion:
TechEye
John Paczkowski / AllThingsD:
Grab Your Cash and Warm Up the Wagon — ICANN Domain Rush Kicks Off Tomorrow — The domain name landgrab begins tomorrow. — That's when the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers — the organization charged with managing the Internet's domain name system …
Discussion:
CNET, CircleID, Guardian, Inquirer, ICANN, Reuters, Softpedia News, The Domains, Bloomberg and The Kernel
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:
The Technium, SplatF, Boing Boing, The Wirecutter, Gadget Lab and Macgasm
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:
The Register, Softpedia News, Neowin.net, All about Microsoft Blog, Pulse2, Tech Trader Daily, LiveSide.net, GeekWire, TechFlash and Business Insider
Ashlee Vance / Business Week:
Steve Ballmer Reboots — Cooler tech, more energy, higher profit—the Microsoft CEO is out to prove Steve Jobs wrong and make Redmond relevant again — They had his dining room waiting. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive and one of the richest men in the world …
Discussion:
AllThingsD
Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:
First numbers: How successful are Spotify's apps? — Are Spotify's new apps the missing piece to the social music puzzle, or merely gimmicks that are ignored by the majority of the company's users? It's been a month this week since Spotify rolled out its app platform to all of its users …
