Top Items:
Devin Coldewey / CrunchGear:
MacBook AirHead: why Apple's new laptop is basically useless — First, let me just say that the Air is an extremely impressive piece of technology. The miniaturization, the optimization of space, the blatant disregard for current standards — it's everything a revolutionary machine should be.
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John Markoff / New York Times:Enhancing Its Hits, Apple Adds Movie Rentals, Ultralight Laptop
Discussion:
WebProNews, p2pnet, Los Angeles Times, Podcasting News, NewTeeVee, Macworld and Portfolio.com
Eliot Van Buskirk / Wired News:Apple Reinvents Film Biz With iTunes Movie Rentals
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Cult of Mac
Duncan Riley / TechCrunch:Air: The Only Thing Left In Your Wallet After You Buy Apple's New Laptop
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Seeking Alpha, Elliott C. Back, Techdirt, CenterNetworks, Podcasting News and The Utube Blog
Jonathan Schwartz / Jonathan Schwartz's Blog:
Helping Dolphins Fly — We announced big news today - our preliminary results for our fiscal second quarter, and as importantly, that we're acquiring MySQL AB. — If you're interested in the financial details for the quarter, tune in to our conference call (see details on sun.com) today …
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CNET News.com
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Zack Urlocker / InfoWorld:
Sun Shines on LAMP — This morning we announced that Sun Microsystems has signed a definitive agreement to acquire MySQL. Having spent the last four plus years working on making MySQL into a strong independent company, this is a bit of a change of strategy, but from my perspective it's all for the good.
Tim O'Reilly / O'Reilly Radar:
Sun To Acquire MySQL — Sun Microsystems announced this morning that it has agreed to acquire open source database leader MySQL AB for $1 billion in cash and assumed stock options. (Disclosure: I am on the board of directors of MySQL, and O'Reilly co-produces the MySQL User Conference with MySQL.
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Sun acquires MySQL; Adds to its software stack — Sun Microsystems is taking the plunge into the database market with the purchase of open source database developer MySQL for $1 billion. — With the move, announced Wednesday, Sun takes a big leap into the $15 billion database market …
Discussion:
Sun Microsystems
Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
Why we're going to FastCompany.tv — Ahh, Andy Plesser broke my career news again (he was the guy who broke my news about leaving Microsoft too). Louis Gray got the story first, though, I think, although I told dozens of people at the BlogHaus last week at CES.
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Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:
Robert Scoble to Launch Online Video Network At Fast Company — Robert Scoble, who pioneered tech videoblogging at Microsoft with Channel 9 and produced hundreds of segments during his tenure at PodTech, is launching a new business television network for Fast Company.
Discussion:
Podcasting News, Fast Company, Fast Company Now, TechCrunch, Mashable!, Dembot and louisgray.com
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Surprise! Oracle buys BEA Systems — The clumsy courtship between Oracle and BEA Systems is over. Oracle said Wednesday that it will acquire BEA for $19.375 a share in cash. — The offer puts the value of BEA at roughly $8.5 billion. — It was a strange courtship to say the least.
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Wall Street Journal:
Oracle to Pay $8.5 Billion for BEA — Oracle reached a deal to acquire BEA Systems in a $8.5 billion deal, three months after BEA turned down an Oracle takeover offer as too low. BEA investor Carl Icahn endorsed the deal.
BBC:
Facebook asked to pull Scrabulous — Facebook has been asked to remove the Scrabulous game from its website by the makers of Scrabble. — The Facebook add-on has proved hugely popular on the social network site and regularly racks up more than 500,000 daily users.
Tony Ruscoe / Google Blogoscoped:
iGoogle Themes Directory Launched — In October last year, I asked whether we should expect to see an iGoogle Themes Directory Coming Soon. Today, Peter Dawson noticed that the Themes Directory is now live! — Not only does the directory allow you to view and select themes …
Discussion:
Mashable!
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Jesse Shieh / Google Code Blog:
iGoogle Themes API — Recently, on a trip to Shanghai, I snapped a bunch of incredible street photos for my friends and family back home. When I logged into my iGoogle page and was greeted by my iGoogle theme, I suddenly wished I could create my own theme out of my Shanghai pictures and share …
Discussion:
Google Operating System
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Stevenote In 60 Seconds — Too lazy to watch the entire Stevenote video stream on CrunchGear, or read Duncan's real time notes from the event? No worries. Mahalo's Veronica Belmont distills all the important stuff down into just sixty seconds. — See all of our coverage from Macworld here and at CrunchGear.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Application Developers: Don't Be Surprised If Facebook Changes The Rules When You Do Something That Hurts Users — We saw early on that Facebook was willing to change policies and their API in order to protect users against clearly black hat/spammy applications, or ones that break the terms of use with users.
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Alec Saunders .LOG
Josh Jones / DreamHost Blog:
Um, Whoops. — Hello.. how's your morning going? — I hope it's been a little better than mine. — We had a teensy eensy weensy little billing error last night... my first clue something was up when I saw this morning's daily billing report (so far): $7,500,000.
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Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:Dreamhost Overbills Customers $7.5 Million; Uses Homer Simpson To Deliver Apology
Discussion:
Demand Satisfaction!
