Top Items:
BBC:
US calls for China Google probe — The US has called on Beijing to investigate the recent cyber attacks on Google, which have prompted the search giant to threaten to leave China. — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that companies such as Google should refuse to support “politically-motivated censorship”.
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The Register, Between the Lines, CNN, CNET News, New York Times, Foreign Policy and Wall Street Journal
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New York Times:
China Paints Google Issue as Not Political — BEIJING — The Chinese government is taking a cautious approach to the dispute with Google, treating the conflict as a business dispute that requires commercial negotiations and not a political matter that could affect relations with the United States.
Brad Stone / Bits:
Amazon Cracks Open the Kindle — As Motoko Rich and I report in Wednesday's Times, Amazon.com is finally opening up the Kindle to developers. This has the potential to turn a popular single-purpose device into a more interesting and versatile gadget, limited only by the imagination …
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Amazon.com:
Amazon Announces Kindle Development Kit—Software Developers Can Now Build Active Content for Kindle — Travel books that suggest activities based on real-time weather and current events, cookbooks that recommend menus based on size of party and allergies, and word games and puzzles …
Discussion:
GMSV, Fast Company, Digital Daily, The Mobile Gadgeteer, GigaOM, The Toybox, jkOnTheRun, Regular Geek, Gadgetell, Internet2Go and 9 to 5 Mac
Om Malik / GigaOM:
With New Ovi Maps, Nokia Seeks Location Heaven — In an attempt to ward of competition from the likes of Google, Nokia, the largest maker of mobile phones, has released the latest version of its Ovi Maps software and made the app available for free. Nokia, despite an early start …
Discussion:
VentureBeat, Computerworld, Nokia Conversations, Mashable!, New York Times, Guardian, Reuters, Hardware 2.0, CNET News, eWeek, PC World, Tech Trader Daily, The Nokia Blog, jkOnTheRun, Digital Trends, WCCFtech.com, mocoNews, SFGate, Erictric, Reuters, 901am, Mobile Industry Review, Tech Central, ITworld.com, Neowin.net, Phone Arena, Financial Times, Softpedia News, Electronista and SlashGear
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Melissa Shapiro / The Mozilla Blog:
Mozilla Delivers Firefox 3.6 to Millions of Users — Mozilla, a public-benefit organization dedicated to promoting choice and innovation on the Web, today released Firefox® 3.6, an update to its popular, free and open source Web browser. The latest version of Firefox introduces cutting-edge features …
Discussion:
CNET News, VentureBeat, PC Magazine, Ars Technica, Hardware 2.0, Open Source, ReadWriteWeb, The Register, internetnews.com, Macworld, WebWorkerDaily, Pocket-lint, Lifehacker, Download Squad and Ubergizmo
Peppi Kiviniemi / Wall Street Journal:
EU Clears Oracle to Buy Sun Microsystems — BRUSSELS — After a drawn out investigation, the European Commission on Thursday unconditionally cleared U.S. software giant Oracle Corp. to take over smaller rival Sun Microsystems Inc. in a $7.4 billion deal. — “I am now satisfied that competition …
Discussion:
New York Times, EU Press Room, Between the Lines, GigaOM, Financial Times, Computerworld, Open Source, Reuters, CNET News, GMSV and Softpedia News
Neil Hughes / AppleInsider:
Apple sees tablet as one device shared by the whole family - WSJ — The Wall Street Journal dropped a bombshell of tablet and Apple-related information Wednesday evening. Among the new details: Apple sees its tablet as a device that will be shared by multiple family members — and it might even recognize their faces.
Discussion:
PC World, Computerworld, TUAW, Retrevo blogs, CNET News, Digital Trends, TG Daily, Boy Genius Report, Gawker, Silicon Alley Insider, Wall Street Journal, Engadget, Gamasutra, The Toybox, iLounge, Brainstorm Tech, Mobile Entertainment, Erictric, Apple Gazette, Joystiq, Macsimum News, VG247 and I4U News
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Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Brainstorm Tech:Survey: 18% likely to buy Apple's tablet
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changewaveresearch.com
Emma Barnett / Telegraph:
Spotify now makes record labels money — Spotify now offers the music industry a sustainable revenue model according to a UK record label executive. — Revealing for the first time today how the commercial relationship works between the streaming service and the record labels, Rob Wells …
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Jonathan Heiliger / Facebook Blog:
Breaking Ground on Our First Custom Data Center — We have come a long way from our roots in a Harvard dorm room, when Facebook was only available at some colleges and run on a single server. Now with more 350 million people worldwide and our service and business continuing to grow …
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Michael Mace / Mobile Opportunity:
Google shoots itself in the foot in mobile — I wish I knew the inside story on Google's recent confrontation with the Chinese government. At first Google's announcement looked like a principled, well thought-out stand in a long behind-the-scenes dispute (link).
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Meet The New YouTube: Less Clutter, Easier Search, And No More Stars — YouTube is on a roll. Last night, the world's largest video site rolled out HTML5 support, its first video rentals, and even a nifty music feature called Disco. Today, it's making an even bigger change …
Discussion:
CNET News, Technologizer, Erictric, YouTube Blog, Appletell, Mashable!, New York Times and The Toybox
Joshua Topolsky / Engadget:
Palm Pre Plus (and Pixi Plus) review — It's been about a year since Palm pulled itself back from the brink of imminent destruction with the announcement of webOS and the Palm Pre, and even less time since the products announced actually hit the market. In that time span …
Discussion:
eWeek, Computerworld, Gizmodo, PreCentral.net, MobileCrunch, I4U News, Brainstorm Tech, Gadgetell, jkOnTheRun and EverythingPre
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Brian X. Chen / Gadget Lab:
Man Buried in Haiti Rubble Uses iPhone to Treat Wounds, Survive — U.S. filmmaker Dan Woolley was shooting a documentary about the impact of poverty in Haiti when the earthquake struck. He could have died, but he ultimately survived with the help of an iPhone first-aid app that taught him to treat his wounds.
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Seesmic Look Is A Tablet-Friendly Twitter Client For The Oprah Crowd — A couple days ago we caught wind of a new Seesmic product called Seesmic Look. Today it is launching and we finally get a look at it. As suspected, it is a streamlined Twitter client aimed at the Oprah crowd.
Discussion:
CenterNetworks, VentureBeat, GigaOM, Seesmic Blog, CNET News, Mashable!, Scobleizer, ReadWriteWeb, louisgray.com, TechStartups.com and SheGeeks.net
Katie Marsal / AppleInsider:
Apple again delays 27-inch iMac shipment by 3 weeks — Just when it looked like Apple was putting its 27-inch iMac troubles behind it with a balance in supply and demand, the company has abruptly pushed new direct orders of its big screen desktop machines out by three weeks.
Camille Ricketts / VentureBeat:
AdMob: Apple may break its tie with Nokia for world domination — It's almost like Apple and Nokia are locked in a neck-and-neck game of Risk. The former, with its iPhone OS, is the dominant force in North America, Western Europe, Latin America and Oceania, while the latter, running the Symbian OS …
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Los Angeles Times:
At Hulu, ‘free’ may soon turn into ‘fee’ — The video website, launched by studios to distribute TV shows over the Internet without charge, now is considering ways to draw revenue, including charging for some episodes of popular shows. — Hulu soared to popularity by offering free online viewing of popular TV shows.
Discussion:
Erictric, NewTeeVee, fierceonlinevideo.com …, Silicon Alley Insider, Mashable! and paidContent
Mia / YouTube Blog:
Introducing YouTube HTML5 Supported Videos — A while ago, YouTube launched a simple demo of an HTML5-based video player. Recently, we published a blog post on our pre-spring cleaning effort and your number one request was that YouTube do more with HTML5.
Ashlee Vance / New York Times:
If Your Password Is 123456, Just Make It HackMe — Back at the dawn of the Web, the most popular account password was “12345.” — Today, it's one digit longer but hardly safer: “123456.” — Despite all the reports of Internet security breaches over the years, including the recent attacks …
Discussion:
Help Net Security, eWeek Security Watch, Ars Technica, ReadWriteWeb, The Register, Venture Capital Dispatch, Guardian, Guardian, TechCrunch, Tech Eye, ChannelWeb and PRWIRE
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Netflix Just Gave iTunes A Big Fat Kiss — A new movie came out on DVD this week called The Invention Of Lying. It's co-written, co-directed, and co-starring Golden Globe host Ricky Gervais and looks mildly entertaining enough that I want to rent it. So I load up Netflix to add it to my queue …
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Amazon Promotion Tempts Book Lovers With Free Kindles — Hesitant about ordering an Amazon Kindle? The online retailer is apparently making a very tempting proposition to some of its customers: go ahead and order a Kindle, and if you don't like it, you'll get your money back — and get to keep the device.
