Top Items:
InfoWorld:
Microsoft, Yahoo agree on buyout price — After much internal debate and industry speculation, Yahoo today agreed to be acquired by Microsoft, adding $2.6 billion to Redmond's original offer of $44.6 billion on Jan. 31. — The agreement was reached near midnight last night …
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Jonathan Skillings / CNET News.com:
All the April Fools' news that's fit to print — The word of the day is “prank.” Unless maybe you're one of the ones who got taken in hook, line, and sinker, in which case it's “doh!” — If you haven't already noticed, today is April Fools' Day, but you probably have, since most pranksters seem to get an early start.
Microsoft:
Microsoft Unveils Smartphone Advancements to Improve Ability to Work and Play With One Phone — Company demonstrates new version of Internet Explorer Mobile with desktop-grade Web browsing, introduces updated Windows Mobile operating system. — Windows Mobile is improving smartphones …
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Matthew Karnitschnig / Wall Street Journal:
Microsoft Unlikely to Raise Yahoo Offer — Microsoft Corp. is preparing to lay a long siege. — Two months after Microsoft made its $44.6 billion offer to acquire Yahoo Inc., the software maker has no plans to raise its bid, people close to the company say.
Discussion:
VentureBeat, Epicenter, Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog, Beyond Binary, Money Out Blog, Search Engine Watch Blog, Digital Daily, HipMojo.com, Tech Tracks, paidContent.org, Between the Lines, CNET News.com, Tech Trader Daily, Silicon Alley Insider, BoomTown, Mashable!, Seeking Alpha, The Mac Observer, BloggingBuyouts, ClickZ News Blog, Tech Ticker, BloggingStocks, Tech Beat and Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim
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Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
More on MicroHoo: Irritated Investors! Angry Arbs! Zen Microsoft? — So, I was making the rounds again of my sources at Yahoo's major institutional investors yesterday and here's the overall 411: Frustration. Confusion. Impatience. — And the bottom line from several of them-if Yahoo does …
John Biggs / CrunchGear:
Sprint Instinct: Could this thing beat the iPhone? — When I first saw the Instinct a few weeks ago I said “Finally.” Finally, someone, somewhere, has created an interface and a device that follows the spirit and ease-of-use of the iPhone without resorting to wholesale mimicry.
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Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Apple 2.0:
Analyst: Apple's U.S. consumer market share now 21 percent — The iPhone gets the most press and the iPod sells in the largest quantities, but it's the Macintosh that really drives Apple's growth, says Gene Munster. — In the second installment of a multipart report on Apple's …
Microsoft:
Ecma Office Open XML Document Format Appears to Win Approval as an ISO/IEC Standard — Final vote appears overwhelmingly in favor; input from 87 national bodies contributed to an improved specification. — After more than 14 months of intensive review, a Joint Technical Committee …
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Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Gmail April Fools Not Very Funny. On the Upside, They Started A Wikipedia War — Right on schedule: Google is releasing their April Fools jokes onto us as the calendars hit April 1 on the east coast (here's last year's efforts). Google Australia got a head start earlier today with the very funny Future Search.
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Owen Thomas / Valleywag:
Gullible journalists agree to prank their readers — Nate Westheimer, a New York entrepreneur best known for holding a Silicon Alley popularity contest, attempted to persuade Valleywag to participate in an April Fools' joke. We said we'd cover it, so here's the story: Right about now …
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Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Flickr's New Friend Finder: Data Portability or Privacy Violation? — Late last night Yahoo! owned photo sharing site Flickr launched a new feature - the ability to search your Gmail, Yahoo! Mail or Hotmail contacts list for people on Flickr so you can add them as contacts.
Discussion:
GigaOM
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Paul Boutin / Valleywag:
YouTube kills rickrolling once and for all — April 1, 2008: The day a meme died. Go to YouTube. Click on any of the Featured Videos entries. Every one of them redirects to the same Rick Astley clip. The gag is called “rickrolling,” a variant of duckrolling.
Caroline McCarthy / CNET News.com:
Live, from New York, it's...Mark Zuckerberg? — In a surprise move that has shocked Silicon Valley, young Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg will guest host an upcoming episode of Saturday Night Live, according to multiple sources. — The mild-mannered Zuckerberg, best-known …
InfoWorld:
Source: Windows XP to get reprieve for low-cost laptops — San Francisco - Microsoft plans to extend the availability of Windows XP for low-cost laptops beyond June 30, with an announcement expected later this week, according to a source familiar with the situation.
Discussion:
Ars Technica, DailyTech, The Register, TECH.BLORGE.com, Microsoft Watch, Brandon Live! and Smalltalk Tidbits …
Jimmy Hsu / DigiTimes:
Lite-On developing BD-ROM drives for Xbox 360, sources say — Lite-On IT is developing built-in Blu-ray Disc-(BD) ROM drives for the Microsoft Xbox 360 game console, according to industry sources. Lite-On declined to comment, citing client confidentiality.
Los Angeles Times:
Firms try working around visa shortage — Some U.S. companies open sites abroad, while others plan multiple filings as H-1B application season nears. — WASHINGTON — Driven crazy by U.S. immigration policy, Microsoft Corp. executives decided to drive some of their employees north.
Josh Lowensohn / Webware.com:
Scribd now offering free document scanning [Update: it's real!] — Update (10:06 AM): The submission process differs from the original plan. If you have the address, please don't send anything there. Please check the updated instructions below. And yes—this is real.
