Top Items:
Catherine Holahan / Business Week:
Sony BMG Lets the Music Play — The last of the major labels finally throws in the towel on DRM, and prepares to fight Apple for valuable download revenues — In a move that would mark the end of a digital music era, Sony BMG Music Entertainment is finalizing plans to sell songs without …
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Ken Fisher / Ars Technica:
Lone holdout in DRMed music recommends DRM circumvention — With three of the big four music labels abandoning DRM, that leaves Sony as the big holdout. That's right, the same company that brought you the Sony rootkit scandal is also the last of the major labels to repent and abandon their DRMed ways.
Discussion:
MacUser
Thomas Claburn / InformationWeek:
Google Patent Imagines Robots Indexing The Grocery Aisle — The two computer scientists behind “recognizing text in images” search technology also worked on Google Street View and Google Book Search. — A patent application filed by Google with the World Intellectual Property Organization …
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wipo.int:
(WO/2008/003095) RECOGNIZING TEXT IN IMAGES — Publication Number: — WO/2008/003095 — International Application No.: — PCT/US2007/072578 — Publication Date: — International Filing Date: — Int. Class.: — G06F 17/30 (2006.01) — Applicants:
Bill Slawski / Search Engine Land:
Googlebot In Aisle Three: How Google Plans to Index the World? — Robots reading cereal boxes in the Supermarket? Googlebot at the Art Museum? Street signs and building addresses snatched from Street View images for local search, image search, and product search?
Fury.com:
Today is My Last Day at Google — After a life-changing four and a half years of working with the most talented group of people I have ever met, I've decided to take the plunge and do it all over again, working for a very small start-up. Today is my last day at the Big G.
Discussion:
Google Blogoscoped, WebProNews, Search Engine Land, Phil Windley's Technometria and Mashable!
Paul Buchheit:
Should Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail block Facebook? — Apparently Facebook will ban you (or at least Robert Scoble) if you attempt to extract your friend's email addresses from the service. — Automated access is a difficult issue for any web service, so I won't argue with their decision — it's their service and they own you.
Discussion:
Insider Chatter, Virtual Economics, WebProNews, All Facebook, Get Engagd, Valleywag, bub.blicio.us, Like It Matters, Todd Watson, MediaVidea, VentureBeat, Marc's Voice and Scobleizer
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John Markoff / New York Times:
Intel Leaves Group Backing Education PCs — SAN FRANCISCO — Intel said Thursday that it had chosen to withdraw from the One Laptop Per Child educational computer organization, which it joined in July after years of public squabbling between Intel's chairman, Craig R. Barrett, and the group's founder, Nicholas P. Negroponte.
Discussion:
Profy.Com, dailywireless.org, p2pnet, Alice Hill's Real Tech News, Engadget and Bloomberg
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Dean Takahashi / Tech Talk with Dean Takahashi:Intel pulls out of One Laptop Per Child group
Discussion:
Engadget, PC World, CrunchGear, Hardware 2.0, Electronista, TeleRead, Digital Trends, Bloomberg, The Register, Between the Lines, CNET News.com, Wall Street Journal, Gizmodo and Ars Technica
Mary Kathleen Flynn / Behind The Money Blog:
Leah Culver, 25, writes the code that powers Pownce — Technorati — Facebook — Digg — How does a 25-year-old computer science major from the University of Minnesota wind up as a co-founder of one of Silicon Valley's most closely watched startups?
Discussion:
CenterNetworks
Associated Press:
U.S. Album Sales Fell 9.5% in 2007 — LOS ANGELES (AP) — Album sales in the United States plunged 9.5 percent last year from 2006, as the recording industry had another weak year despite a 45 percent surge in the sale of digital tracks, according to figures released Thursday.
Xbox.com:
An Open Letter from Marc Whitten about Xbox LIVE this Holiday — Dear Xbox LIVE Members: — During this past holiday season you helped us break a number of Xbox LIVE records. This included our largest sign-up of new members to Xbox LIVE in our 5 year history and just yesterday you broke …
Discussion:
Kotaku, Game | Life, Engadget, Primotech, Joystiq, Windows Connected, Xbox 360 Fanboy and Xbox Live's Major Nelson
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Kyle Bennett / enthusiast.hardocp.com:
GeForce 9800 GX2 Exclusive Pics & Specs — NVIDIA's yet-to-be released 9800 GX2 in the “flesh." We reveal some of the specs and what should be expected. — NVIDIA's yet-to-be released GeForce 9800 GX2 in the “flesh." We reveal some of the specs and what should be expected.
Quentin / Rogue Amoeba:
Live Disc — Every time we exhibit at Macworld Expo, we hand out CDs with trial copies of all our software on them. And every time, we face the same problem, of how best to create these discs such that the software on them is up to date with the latest we have.
Joseph Weisenthal / paidContent.org:
Monster Acquires Affinity Labs, Developer Of Vertical Career Sites, For $61 Million — Online jobs firm Monster Worldwide has acquired SF-based Affinity Labs, a developer of community sites centered around various vocations, for $61 million in cash. Examples of its portfolio include Policelink.com …
Ryan Kim / San Francisco Chronicle:
Mountain View's Meraki proposes free Wi-Fi network for S.F. — San Francisco's plan to provide citywide wireless Internet access, which foundered last summer when EarthLink pulled out, is being revived by a Mountain View company that wants to turn the city into a test site for its vision of a low-cost, community-powered system.
Discussion:
dailywireless.org, VentureBeat, GigaOM, Screenwerk, Wi-Fi Networking News, Webomatica and TechCrunch
Tony Smith / The Register:
Sony confirms Skype coming to PSP — There's no doubt now that Skype is coming to the Sony PlayStation Portable - Sony's own website, updated to preview next week's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, admits as much. — “Call friends, talk trash to fellow gamers or catch …
