Top Items:
John Markoff / New York Times:
I, Robot: The Man Behind the Google Phone — A RETINAL scanner emitting a blue glow monitors the entrance to Andy Rubin's home in the foothills overlooking Silicon Valley. If the scanner recognizes you, the door unlocks automatically. (The system makes it easier to deal with former girlfriends, Mr. Rubin likes to joke.
Matt Richtel / New York Times:
Devices Enforce Cellular Silence, Sweet but Illegal — One afternoon in early September, an architect boarded his commuter train and became a cellphone vigilante. He sat down next to a 20-something woman who he said was "blabbing away" into her phone. — "She was using the word 'like' all the time.
Michael Geist Blog:
Gov't Commissioned Study Finds P2P Downloaders Buy More Music — A newly study commissioned by Industry Canada, which includes some of the most extensive surveying to date of the Canadian population on music purchasing habits, finds what many have long suspected (though CRIA has denied) …
Discussion:
The Globe and Mail, TorrentFreak, Newsome.Org, broadstuff, Delicate Genius Blog, rexblog.com, Smalltalk Tidbits … and Digg
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Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
NYTimes Blogrunner v. TechMeme — On Thursday we covered the official launch of the NY Times Blogrunner product. Blogrunner was specifically positioned as a Techmeme-like blog news aggregator, albeit with a human touch to help pick good stories when the algorithm isn't quite up to the task (Techmeme is 100% algorithm based news).
Juan Carlos Perez / Computerworld:
Google to unveil mobile platform; target: iPhone? — Negotiators continued to hammer our deals over the weekend — Google negotiators this weekend continue to hammer out agreements with wireless carriers, handset makers, software developers and hardware providers, as the company prepares …
Sean Michael Kerner / internetnews.com:
Microsoft Denies Nigerian Linux Scam — Microsoft is a tremendous competitor in every market in the world. And according to a letter written by Mandriva Linux CEO Francois Bancilhon, it's so bent on winning that it undercut a deal between the Nigerian government and the Linux vendor.
Andy / AndyDickinson.net:
Video Workload survey results — Posted by Andy survey, newspaper video, multimedia — So, the responses to my second little survey about video have slowed enough for me to put out some results. — I tried to expand on some of the areas from the first survey that had caused debate …
Discussion:
Teaching Online Journalism
Antone Gonsalves / TechWeb:
LCD, Plasma TVs Found Highly Reliable — LCD and plasma TVs require few repairs during the first three years of use, and buyers would be wasting their money during the holiday shopping season if they bought extended warranties on the highly reliable devices, Consumer Reports found in a study released Friday.
Ashlee Vance / The Register:
Living with robots: The $3.5m DARPA Urban Challenge — Diary of a human Well, here I am at the crack of dawn getting ready for DARPA's Urban Challenge - the $3.5m robotic race of the century. — 5:12 a.m.The hard-working hacks, if you will, were up at 4 in the morning for this shindig.
John Cox / Network World:
DARPA looks to adaptive battlefield wireless nets — Advanced software research, commercial hardware are key enablers — A new Department of Defense project is trying to use cutting-edge wireless research to create a tactical radio net that can adapt to keep soldiers linked with each other on the battlefield.
Dan Goodin / The Register:
Masked thieves storm into Chicago colocation (again!) — Think your data's secure. What about your data center? — The recent armed robbery of a Chicago-based co-location facility has customers hopping mad after learning it was at least the fourth forced intrusion in two years.
Brandon Hill / DailyTech:
Best Buy Replaces Backordered $99 Toshiba HD-A2s with HD-A3s — Best Buy brings Christmas early to some customers — Best Buy often gets a reputation of not having the best customer service and looking down on "devil customers" who only come to Best Buy locations to score hot deals.
Discussion:
Neowin.net
Heather Havenstein / PC World:
Apps Already Coming for Google's New OpenSocial — A day after MySpace and Google sent shockwaves through the Web 2.0 world, third-party developers already are announcing plans to build applications using their jointly developed social network APIs. — Recommend this story?
ClickZ:
CEO and Three Top Execs Ousted at WebTrends — Big news rocked the analytics industry for the second time in two weeks as WebTrends's board of directors ousted CEO Greg Drew and three of his top executives. — The dismissals, which WebTrends said were motivated by growth concerns …
