Top Items:
Allen Stern / CenterNetworks:
Is Twitter F'ed? — The question of business model timing seems to come up weekly with regards to some startup. As Twitter usage has grown, have they f'ed themselves out of a real, sustainable business model? And has Pownce done something right by launching with a business model?
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Duncan Riley / TechCrunch:
Now You Can Graph Your Twitter Usage — Twitter has the potential of breaking into the mainstream this year. A lot of what's going on around Twitter is not dissimilar to the earlier days of blogging; we're seeing evangelists, some basic mainstream adoptions, and even some tracking services.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Apple 2.0:
Apple daytrading: How to cash in on the Macworld keynote effect — The buzz among Apple (AAPL) traders today is a thought experiment that Matt Haughey worked up at A Whole Lotta Nothing. He writes … Haughey worked the numbers and the result is the chart above, which he calls the Keynote Index Fund (click chart to view full size).
Wilson Rothman / Gizmodo:
First Hands On: Microsoft Office for Mac 2008 — There's no better sign of Microsoft's increasing acceptance of the Mac population than the latest version of Office for Mac 2008, the first Office with native support for Intel-based Macs. Like its Mac-side predecessors …
InfoWorld:
Qualcomm maneuvers around court's chip set ban — Qualcomm is shipping four new wireless chip sets that do not infringe on a video encoding patent held by competitor Broadcom. Qualcomm expects the WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) handsets containing the chips to go on sale in the U.S. by April, it said Wednesday.
Discussion:
Electronista
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Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Washington Post Flubs Story On RIAA — RIAA Still Not Going After Personal Copies (Yet) — from the who-needs-to-read-the-details? dept — Back at the beginning of December, we helped debunk a story making the rounds claiming that the RIAA was going after a guy named Jeffrey Howell for ripping his own CDs to his computer.
Discussion:
Gizmodo, Podcasting News, InformationWeek Weblog, Gearlog, Gadget Lab and Boing Boing Gadgets
Addy Dugdale / Gizmodo:
Celestron Digital Microscope Rocks Digital Screen and 2-Megapixel Camera — A sub-$300 microscope with 3.5-inch digital screen and built-in camera is being launched at CES 2008 next week. Celestron's LCD Digital Microscope has three magnification levels of 4x, 10x and 40x …
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Sue Dunlevy / NEWS.com.au:
Rudd online porn-free plan questioned — A RUDD Government plan to censor internet pornography and violence could undermine another of its election promises - to speed up our internet access. — The Internet Industry Association has warned the downside of censoring access could be a reduction in the speed of access to websites.
Tom Espiner / CNET News.com:
Wikia Search to offer first peek next week — Wikia Search, a community-driven search engine, will get its first public preview on Monday, according to co-founder Jimmy Wales. — In an e-mail sent to the Wikia Search mailing list on December 24, Wales wrote that he aims to make the initial version …
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Cooking.com Takes Out A $7 Million Loan — Is it me, or are we seeing a lot more venture finance deals these days? Web 1.0 holdover Cooking.com is the latest to jump on this bandwagon. It just took out a $7 million loan from ORIX Venture Finance. The ten-year-old dotcom …
Peter Sayer / InfoWorld:
IBM buys Israeli storage startup — San Francisco - IBM has bought XIV, an Israeli manufacturer of SAN (storage area network) equipment. XIV's main product is Nextra, a storage system based on a grid of standard hardware components. — Nextra's self-healing, self-tuning …
Ian Smith / Download Squad:
The 5 most annoying programs on your PC — Elephantware. That is what we are talking about. Bloated programs that make brand new PCs boot like Pentium 2s with 64 MBs of RAM. — This is software that causes your screen to freeze while it works, consumes enough system resources to display …
Joel Johnson / Boing Boing Gadgets:
Demonic Dismembered Baby Head Theremins — Rich writes: … If that doesn't give you guys Norwegian wood, I don't know this cantankerous, weirdo audience. Even better, it appears the seller has made several different ones, all in the $75 range, so if you want to wave your hands around …
Rachel Rosmarin / Forbes:
Preview: Las Vegas' Greatest Gadgets Show — Kevin Costner, Yoko Ono, Mary J. Blige and Danica Patrick will be hawking products at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week—but they'll hardly be noticed. — As usual, the main attraction at CES will be the blizzard of new gadgets …
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider
Karl / DSLreports:
Uncle Sam Starts Handing Out Digital TV Coupons — Two per family ahead of February 2009 digital transition — By February 17, 2009, consumers will need to buy a digital converter box or new tuner to get their TV fix. Uncle Sam will be giving each American family up to two coupons for $40 …
