Top Items:
Robert Poe / Wired News:
The Ultimate Net Monitoring Tool — The equipment that technician Mark Klein learned was installed in the National Security Agency's "secret room" inside AT&T's San Francisco switching office isn't some sinister Big Brother box designed solely to help governments eavesdrop on citizens' internet communications.
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Wired News:
AT&T Whistle-Blower's Evidence — Former AT&T technician Mark Klein is the key witness in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's class-action lawsuit against the company, which alleges that AT&T illegally cooperated in an illegal National Security Agency domestic-surveillance program.
Ryan Singel / Wired News:
Court Deals AT&T a Setback — SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge Wednesday shot down telecom giant AT&T's efforts to recover and suppress internal documents that a former AT&T technician says demonstrate the company's collusion in illegal government surveillance.
Brian Krebs / Security Fix:
Blue Security Kicked While It's Down — Hours after anti-spam company Blue Security pulled the plug on its spam-fighting Blue Frog software and service, the spammers whose attack caused the company to wave the white flag have escalated their assault, knocking Blue Security's farewell message and thousands more Web sites offline.
Discussion:
Digital Inspiration, Matt Cutts, Alice Hill's Real Tech News, SiliconBeat and GigaLaw.com Daily News
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Ryan Singel / Wired News:
Under Attack, Spam Fighter Folds — A startup whose aggressive antispam measures drew a blistering counterattack from spammers two weeks ago that brought down the company's servers along with a wide swath of the internet is shuttering its program targeting junk e-mailers.
Jeremy Pelofsky / Reuters:
Silicon Valley backs US wireless broadband plan — WASHINGTON, May 16 (Reuters) - Three Silicon Valley venture capital firms are backing a project to grab a slice of valuable U.S. wireless airwaves to offer nationwide high-speed Internet service, according to a recent regulatory filing.
Discussion:
IP Democracy, Techdirt, Engadget Mobile, dailywireless.org, Wi-Fi Networking News and Werblog
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Om Malik / GigaOM:
M2Z's Wireless Broadband Utopia — M2Z Networks, a wireless broadband start-up backed by Sandhill Road venture capitalists - Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Charles River Ventures and Redpoint Ventures - proposes to build a twin-purpose nationwide wireless broadband network, that will provide the third option for broadband services.
J Mark Lytle / Digital World Tokyo:
Hands-on with Sony's UX50 handheld PC — Sony took the wraps off its Vaio UX50 ultracompact PC at a news conference in Tokyo on Tuesday and our colleague Martyn Williams was blessed with the chance to try out the ever-so-cool looking device. Read on for his verdict.
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Suw Charman / Strange Attractor:
Xtech 2006: Paul Graham - How American are Startups? — Sitting in the Grand Ballroom of the Hotel Grand Krapolinsky Krasnapolsky in central Amsterdam, at yet another conference. This is the third in three weeks, and I'll be glad when next week comes and I don't have to think about writing a presentation.
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Times of London:
Holding the watchdog blogs to account — Bloggers wield increasing power against established institutions, but not all are practising what they preach — This week, the 40 millionth blog will come to life, giving voice to another person we never knew existed.
Discussion:
unmediated
John G. Spooner / eWEEK.com:
Vista Specs: You Have What It Takes? — Be the first to comment on this article — Microsoft wants PC owners to be ready for Vista. — To that end, the software giant will unveil May 18 a campaign designed to help people ensure their PCs can run the forthcoming operating system.
Paul Thurrott / SuperSite for Windows:
Windows Media Player 11 Review — We've been waiting a long time for the Windows XP version of Windows Media Player 11 (WMP 11), which made its first appearance in Windows Vista way back in the October 2005 CTP release (see my review). Well, now it's here, and I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised.
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Nick / Rough Type:
CIOs flee IT — It's always darkest before it gets darker. At its annual symposium in San Francisco this week, Gartner is drawing a bleak picture of the future of the traditional corporate IT function. The research house predicted that, for the fourth year running, IT budgets will grow less than 3 percent this year.
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Cablevision's Machiavellian Move — Free SkypeOut might be putting the heat on Vonage and others, but the flat rate international long distance plan introduced by Cablevision is truly a move befitting Machiavelli. — The company introduced a $20 a month plan which allows subscribers …
David Pogue / New York Times:
May's Treo Leapfrogs Past January's — THE electronics industry operates like a very expensive game of leapfrog. You buy something in April, and then a newer, faster, less expensive version comes out in May. Rats! — On the other hand, you might get lucky; you might not buy in until the better version comes along.
Discussion:
michael parekh on IT
Tim / O'Reilly Radar:
Gentlemen Prefer PDFs — One of the interesting outcomes of our Rough Cuts early access program is some great data on the strong preference of our customers for downloadable PDFs over print books. Based on a little less than 3 months of data, we see that of the customers who've bought Rough Cuts …
Katie Marsal / AppleInsider:
Firm says Macs cost only slightly more than PCs — After forming a comparison of Apple Computer's new iMac and MacBook Pro computers against several PCs from Dell and HP, analysts for PiperJaffray found that the average difference in price for comparable components on a desktop …
