Top Items:
Jessica Dolcourt / CNET News:
Skype for iPhone: It's official — Months after teasing us at CES with an announcement of Skype's native VoIP client for the iPhone, the free Skype for iPhone will finally be available to download from the iTunes App Store sometime on Tuesday. We got a chance to sit down with the application's …
Discussion:
NEWSFACTOR, Agence France Presse, GigaOM, Boy Genius Report, Neowin.net, MediaPost, TUAW, Mashable!, The Apple Core, CrunchGear, Business Week, AppleInsider, Datamation, MobileCrunch, SlashGear, iPhone Buzz, Telecompetitor, Local Mobile Search, Silicon Valley Blog, Softpedia News, mocoNews, The iPhone Blog, New York Times, Lifehacker, Skype Journal, dailywireless.org, I4U News, TECH.BLORGE.com, Between the Lines, 9 to 5 Mac, Signal to Noise and Gizmodo
RELATED:
Ina Fried / CNET News:
Microsoft, TomTom settle patent dispute — Microsoft and TomTom have reached a settlement in their respective patent suits, the companies said Monday. — As part of the deal, as TomTom will pay Microsoft for coverage related to mapping patents and file-management patents that Microsoft claimed …
Discussion:
Microsoft Watch, Ars Technica, Epicenter, LinuxWorld.com, iTnews Australia, Silicon Alley Insider, Gearlog, OStatic blogs and Pulse2
RELATED:
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Twitter quakes as San Francisco shakes — Earthquake news and Twitter have long gone hand in hand because of Twitter's instant mass-communication ability. Today, an earthquake shook the San Francisco Bay area (where Twitter's headquarters is located, along with many of its original users), and Twitter traffic went nuts.
Harry McCracken / Technologizer:
Macworld Expo Moves, Accepts Its Nickname — Here's the first hint of how IDG's Macworld Expo will change in the wake of Apple's decision to pull out of the show: It's moving from early January to February 9th-13th (which includes a Saturday-the show has been weekday only).
Discussion:
Macworld, Ars Technica, Silicon Alley Insider, The iPhone Blog, Gearlog, MacRumors and The Apple Core
Joe Wilcox / Microsoft Watch:
Lauren Is Right: Macs Cost More Than PCs — [Editor's Note: This is one of two companion posts about Microsoft's newest “I'm a PC” commercial, featuring computer shopper Lauren. At Apple Watch, “Microsoft Shatters Mac Pricing Myths” explains how the 60-second spot dispels the most common defenses for Mac pricing.]
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Is a Shorter Web Address Worth Big Money? bit.ly Raises $2 Million — Here's another Web 2.0 riddle that seems particularly hard to solve post-Lehman: What's the value of a service that takes a long Web address and makes it shorter? — One answer: Several million dollars.
Darren Murph / Engadget:
Netflix raising rates for Blu-ray subscribers by around 20 percent — Ruh roh. In a move that will undoubtedly cause an incredibly raucous stir, only to fade away as movie renters realize that Netflix is still the best deal going, America's most adored by-mail rental service is hiking the price of Blu-ray rentals once again.
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider, Associated Press, Reuters, Obsessable and techblog.dallasnews.com
Western Digital Hard Drives:
WD ENTERS SOLID-STATE DRIVE MARKET WITH ACQUISITION OF SILICONSYSTEMS, INC. — Western Digital Corp. (NYSE: WDC), a world leader in hard drive storage for computing and consumer electronics applications, today announced that it has completed a $65 million cash acquisition of SiliconSystems …
Dan Sabbagh / Times of London:
Authors fight free books site Scribd for ‘pirating’ their work — Bestselling novels are reproduced without publishers' permission — Publishers and agents representing the authors J. K. Rowling and Ken Follett were battling last night to get free copies of their novels removed …
Kirby Chien / Reuters:
Google launches free, legal music downloads in China — BEIJING (Reuters) - Google Inc on Monday launched free downloads of licensed songs in China, while sharing advertising revenue with major music labels in a market rife with online piracy. — Lee Kai-Fu, president of Google in greater China …
Discussion:
Tech Trader Daily, Ars Technica, ReadWriteWeb, Bloomberg, paidContent.org, Techdirt, Guardian, Electronista, Softpedia News and TheNextWeb.com
Sascha Segan / Gearlog:
Motorola, Cricket Launch QA4 Touch-Screen Phone — Cricket Wireless and Motorola today announced the low-cost carrier's highest-end phone so far, the Motorola Evoke QA4. The QA4 will be Cricket's first touch-screen phone. — The Evoke is a somewhat oval-shaped slider phone (4.25" x 2" …
Discussion:
Motorola Media Center, MobileCrunch, Digital Daily, mocoNews, The Toybox, Boy Genius Report, IntoMobile, Unwired View, InformationWeek and Electronista
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
IAB Reports Internet Advertising Grew 10 Percent Last Year; Outpacing TV — In an upbeat report this morning, the Interactive Advertising Bureau reported that internet advertising in the U.S. grew 10.6 percent to $23.4 billion. (The entire report is embedded below).
Cleve Nettles / 9 to 5 Mac:
What would a new MacBook Mini look like? Is this real? — Thanks to our Russian commenter meguxx, who passed along this little probably-Photoshopped - (but hopefully not) MacBook Mini. Anyone with some Russian wanna break down the specs they list? — Update: We've gotten many more picts here.
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
MySpace Embraces Microsoft Platforms For Mobile And Web Applications — Two Microsoft-related announcements coming from social networking giant MySpace today: the portal is adding support for Windows Mobile-run phones to its new mobile application, due this summer, and bringing …
Stephen Shankland / CNET News:
Yahoo Net service comes to Samsung TVs — Yahoo technology to bring Internet services to TVs has fledged from the demonstration realm to become a available in actual product, Samsung TVs. — Yahoo calls the technology TV Widgets, but Samsung is branding it as Internet@TV.
Discussion:
last100
Omar El Akkad / Globe and Mail:
Meet the Canadians who busted GhostNet — Researchers uncover explosive cyberspy network infecting more than 1,200 computers worldwide — Against the backdrop of humming computers in the underground lab in Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies, a screen flickered …
Discussion:
CircleID
Nathan Fouts / Mommy's Best Games' dev log:
Big fish in a shallow pond — True to their word, Microsoft has provided Community Games sales data by the end of March. The results are, in one word, sobering. — First, let me just reiterate that we have been very upfront about what Mommy's Best is trying to achieve. We want to make kick ass games, full-time.
Erica Sadun / Ars Technica:
Chrome for OS X: State of the Browser — The open source Google Chromium repository now has an OS X Cocoa shell. We downloaded and compiled the latest OS X build of Google's browser, and we talked to the developers to get a sense of how long it will be before Mac users can get their hands on a working beta.
Maggie Shiels / BBC:
‘Open cloud’ plan sparks dissent — A plan by IBM to launch an industry-wide ‘open’ cloud computing strategy has seemingly backfired amid accusations of closed deals. — Google pulled out after signing up and Amazon said it would not get involved. — Microsoft criticised the plan …
John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
Microsoft Acquires Yahoo VP of Ops — Add another name to the list of Yahoo (YHOO) employees defecting to Microsoft (MSFT). Dayne Sampson, Yahoo's VP of Operations for Search and Advertising, has fled the company for its former suitor, Microsoft confirmed to Digital Daily.
Abbey Klaassen / AdAge:
Using Social Media to Listen to Consumers — A Vocal Few Don't Represent the Majority but Could Signify a Larger Issue — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — If the social-media sphere attacks your brand, do “real people” hear the screams? Not likely, according to surveys that indicate marketers …
Mark Walsh / MediaPost:
Journalists Jump Print's Sinking Ship For AOL Jobs — Ex-print journalists appear to have found a new home: AOL. — As a growing wave of newspapers file for bankruptcy, slash budgets or go online-only, the Web portal is snapping up seasoned reporters and editors to staff its expanding roster of niche sites.
Ryan Tate / Gawker:
Times Nukes Itself On Google — The New York Times has been demanding Google welfare, which would artificially promote the newspaper's stories in search results. Yet inept Times webmasters just killed hundreds of thousands of their own Google hits. — The newspaper probably wouldn't need …
John Herrman / Gizmodo:
Opera Mobile 9.7 to Support Flash, Google Gears, Server-Side Compression — Despite being the obvious choice for WinMo browsing, Opera Mobile 9.5 is far from perfect. That said, the next release, due in a few months, might even put the likes of Mobile Safari to shame. — How's that, exactly?
Discussion:
DailyTech
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Apple: Hitch Seen In Potential China Unicom Deal — So, maybe the Apple (AAPL) iPhone won't be shipping via China Unicom (CHU) just yet. — As I've noted in a couple of recent posts, there has been speculation that Apple is nearing a deal for China Unicom to sell the iPhone when the Chinese carrier launches 3G mobile service in May.
David Richards / Smarthouse:
Big PS3 Announcement Tipped This Week — Sony Computer Entertainment is set to make a global announcement this week regarding the PS3 which has witnessed three months of declining sales with Tuesday, March 31 which is Wednesday in Australia set to be the big day.
