Top Items:
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
“Don't Be Evil” Tool — Backed By Facebook & Twitter — Gets Them Into Google's “Search Plus Your World” — I've written that Google has plenty of public data to allow parts its new Search Plus Your World feature to be inclusive of rival social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
Discussion:
Gizmodo, Inquirer, memeburn, Friending Facebook Blog, Lifehacker, Andy Beard, The New Persuaders, @parislemon, AllThingsD, Computerworld, CNNMoney.com, parislemon, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Digits, Marketing Land, ITworld.com, the Econsultancy blog, Network World, TechCrunch, Mercury News, Forbes, 9to5Google, GigaOM, Pulse2, TechWeekEurope UK, eWeek, ReadWriteWeb, Macworld, Slashdot and WebProNews, Thanks:@blakeross
RELATED:
MG Siegler / PandoDaily:
Evil, Greed, And Antitrust Aren't Google's Real Problems, Relevancy Is — It seemed like this week could finally be the week when Google didn't make headlines for their decision to inject Google+ results right into Search. That hope lasted until Monday. Now the story is back — with a vengeance.
Discussion:
@lukew, Daring Fireball, The Huffington Post, The Next Web, CNET and Techie Buzz
Sarah Lacy / PandoDaily:
Google: Do Yourself a Favor and Just Come Clean Already — The issue over whether Google is giving preferential treatment to its own products is back in the news, and this time the evidence is pretty damning. — I'm not sure how Google will tap dance around it. (See Trevor's reporting about another Google+ tapdance here.)
Chris Dixon:
What's not evil: ranking content fairly *and* letting public content get indexed — Most websites spend massive amounts of time and money to get any of their pages index and ranked by Google's search engine. Indeed, there is a entire billion dollar industry (SEO) devoted to helping companies get their content indexed and ranked.
Discussion:
reDesign, @mathewi and parislemon
Bradley Horowitz / Google+:
Toward a more inclusive naming policy for Google+ — With Google+, we aspire to make online sharing more like sharing in the real world. And during the Google+ signup process, we've asked users to select the name they commonly use in real life. — Since launch we've listened closely …
Discussion:
Softpedia News, Mashable!, CNET, Epeus' epigone, BetaNews, The Next Web, SiliconFilter, TechCrunch, Computerworld, Marketing Land, Neowin.net, SlashGear, Electronista, PandoDaily, NBC Bay Area, GadgeTell, 9to5Google, VentureBeat, Business Insider, WebProNews, Ars Technica, Bits, ReadWriteWeb and Google+ Info
RELATED:
Violet Blue / Pulp Tech Blog:
Pseudonyms on Google Plus? Wrong.
Discussion:
Gawker, Betabeat and The Next Web, Thanks:@violetblue
Kathleen De Vere / Inside Mobile Apps:
Exclusive: Microsoft to discontinue its virtual currency system Microsoft Points — Microsoft's proprietary virtual currency system, Microsoft Points, will be phased out by the end of the year, according to a source with knowledge of the company's decision.
Discussion:
The Verge, SlashGear, GeekWire, VentureBeat, WMPoweruser, VG247, The Next Web, The Escapist, TechCrunch, Neowin.net, www.pocketgamer.biz, Electronista, MCV: Home Stream and Kotaku
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Steve Jobs looked to reinvent Apple's iPhone photography with instant capture system, advanced light-field sensors — “He had three things that he wanted to reinvent: the television, textbooks and photography,” said biographer Walter Isaacson in an interview following the release of his biography on Steve Jobs.
Discussion:
Appboy Blog, PhoneArena, Electronista, MacRumors, PalmAddicts and 1001 Noisy Cameras
Declan McCullagh / CNET:
Judge: Americans can be forced to decrypt their laptops — American citizens can be ordered to decrypt their PGP-scrambled hard drives for police to peruse for incriminating files, a federal judge in Colorado ruled today in what could become a precedent-setting case.
Discussion:
TechEye, The Verge, TechCrunch, Electronista, Gizmodo, The Register, msnbc.com and PandoDaily
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
I'ma Set It Straight, This Watergate — Ed Bott, “How Apple Is Sabotaging an Open Standard for Digital Books”: … I agree with Bott that Apple is being competitive here, but disagree that it's an example of embrace/extend/extinguish. Put another way, over the weekend Bott called the iBooks Author EULA …
Discussion:
The Ed Bott Report Blog, @lessien, SiliconANGLE and Education IT Blog
RELATED:
Ed Bott / The Ed Bott Report Blog:
How Apple is sabotaging an open standard for digital books — Summary: For nearly two years, Apple has wooed digital book publishers and authors with its unconditional support of the open EPUB standard. With last week's introduction of iBooks 2.0, Apple has deliberately locked out that standard.
Discussion:
Daring Fireball, ZDNet, PadGadget, GigaOM and Open Source Blog, more at Mediagazer »
Pui-Wing Tam / Wall Street Journal:
Average Silicon Valley Tech Salary Passes $100,000 — Average annual salaries for Silicon Valley technology workers surpassed the $100,000 mark last year, according to a new survey, pushed higher by the strength of the region's latest boom. — Tech-jobs website operator Dice Holdings Inc …
Discussion:
PhoneArena, Forbes, TechFlash and PandoDaily
Neil Daswani / Dasient Blog:
Dasient Has Been Acquired by Twitter — The Dasient team is excited to announce that we have been acquired by Twitter! Effective immediately, we will be bringing our technology, tools, and team to the revenue engineering team at Twitter. — Since its inception, Dasient has been focused …
Discussion:
TG Daily, TechCrunch, Mashable!, Computerworld, Epicenter, Gizmodo, The Next Web, New Media Age, CNET, PandoDaily and Forbes
Rich Miller / Data Center Knowledge:
Google Spent $951 Million on Data Centers in 4Q — Google invested nearly a billion dollars in its Internet infrastructure in the last quarter of 2011, recording capital expenditures (CapEx) of $951 million. Google's CapEx spending was about $271 million more than in the third quarter of 2011 …
Dan Lyons / Real Dan Lyons Web Site:
Rumor: Apple spent $100 million in its first case against HTC — and got almost nothing — As I reported in this week's Newsweek, Apple's “thermonuclear war” on Android smartphone makers has been fizzling out lately. Most of Apple's legal claims have been tossed out, and the two minor victories Apple …
Discussion:
iDownloadBlog.com, PhoneArena, Android Phone Fans, CNET, 9to5Google, Electronista and MacRumors
Surur / WMPoweruser:
Nokia already nearly 50% of Second Generation Windows Phone market share — Using data available from OccasionalGamer's game collection, who has more than 1 million game installs, it is possible to estimate the relative share of the various Windows Phone 7 OEMs, and as can be reasonably expected …
Discussion:
The Next Web, Neowin.net, IntoMobile and Electronista
Mike Orcutt / Technology Review:
Twitter Bots Create Surprising New Social Connections — Researchers show how simple programs posing as real people can shape interactions on Twitter. — You might have encountered a “Twitter bot” before: an automated program that perhaps retweeted something you wrote because it had particular keywords.
Discussion:
AllTwitter
Benny Evangelista / San Francisco Chronicle:
Sheryl Sandberg - Facebook's grown-up face — To the general public, the face of Facebook is Mark Zuckerberg, the young computer whiz and Harvard dropout who co-founded the social-networking giant. — But since joining Facebook in 2008, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg …
Discussion:
JIMROMENESKO.COM
Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
Google Search, Punctuation Marks and Other Symbols — Google usually ignores punctuation and mathematical symbols from a query because it doesn't index them. They rarely change the meaning of a query and Google's index would have to grow a lot bigger, without improving the results too much.
Discussion:
Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Land, Softpedia News and WebProNews
Neil Hughes / AppleInsider:
64GB iPhone 4S takes 21% of sales, 36% of iPhone buyers come from another platform — A new survey of recent iPhone customers found that 21 percent of iPhone 4S buyers chose Apple's highest capacity 64-gigabyte model, while 36 percent of users migrated from another platform like Android, BlackBerry or Palm.
Discussion:
Electronista, IntoMobile, Redmond Pie, Jims-Empire, WebProNews, Gotta Be Mobile, iPhone and PhoneArena
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Microsoft says botnet kingpin worked for antivirus vendor — Four months after dismantling the nasty Kelihos botnet, Microsoft says it has tracked down the central figure behind it- naming Russian citizen Andrey N. Sabelnikov as a new defendant in its civil case over the botnet.
Discussion:
Inquirer, The Official Microsoft Blog, Krebs on Security, TechFlash, Seattle Times, CNET and WinBeta
Jordan Golson / MacRumors:
Virgin America Names Jet After Steve Jobs — Virgin America has named one of its fleet after Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, emblazoning a popular Jobs quote “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish” on the side of this Airbus A320. — Steve mentioned the phrase in his 2005 commencement address at Stanford University …
Discussion:
CNET, Softpedia News, IntoMobile, NBC Bay Area, NBC Bay Area, PadGadget, iPhone Savior, MacNN, 9to5Mac, The Next Web, Gizmodo and iClarified
Paul Graham / Y Combinator Posterous:
Welcome Garry and Aaron — Y Combinator is pleased to announce two new venture partners, Garry Tan and Aaron Iba. They're both YC alumni, both formidable hackers, and both really nice people. — Garry was one of the founders of Posterous, which we funded in 2008.
Kevin Fitchard / GigaOM:
Nokia Siemens reaches for a $1.6 billion lifeline — With no more money from its corporate parents forthcoming and few remaining businesses to sell, Nokia Siemens Networks has gone to European and U.S. banks for the funding it needs to restructure and survive.
Discussion:
Bloomberg, Electronista and Reuters
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch Europe:
Evi arrives in town to go toe-to-toe with Siri — When Siri arrived on the iPhone 4S I thought to myself, who else could do this? It would need to be a search engine with natural language processing, but also behave in the manner of artificial intelligence and respond to voice recognition.
Discussion:
Android Market, Softpedia News, SlashGear, Pocket-lint, iPhone Savior, Redmond Pie, PhoneArena, Electronista, iPhone Hacks, WebProNews, 9to5Mac, MacRumors and Widgets Lab, Thanks:@mikebutcher
Seth Weintraub / 9to5Mac:
Apple appoints Sony Ericsson Americas President Anderson Teixeira to Head of Apple Latin America — Apple plucked a high-ranking executive from the folding Sony Ericsson Joint Venture, 9to5Mac learned. President of Sony Ericsson U.S. and Head of Region North America Anderson Teixeira will be heading Apple's Latin America region.
Discussion:
IntoMobile and Electronista
