Top Items:
Michael Liedtke / Associated Press:
Google believes $1B investment in AOL is crumbling — SAN FRANCISCO - In an assessment that could lead to a substantial charge against its future profits, Google Inc. believes its $1 billion investment in advertising partner AOL is souring. — The Mountain View-based company disclosed …
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Rafat Ali / paidContent.org:
Google: AOL's Not Worth $20 Billion Anymore — Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has filed its 10-Q quarterly, and some interesting language about how it continues to value its 5 percent stake in AOL: “We review our investment in AOL (NYSE: TWX) for impairment in accordance with FSP SFAS 115-1 …
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider
L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Apple removes $1,000 featureless iPhone application — Eight iPhone owners have joined an elite clan: Their Apple gadget is running a program that cost nearly $1,000. — When the iPhone first hit the market in June 2007, those who paid the $499 entry price — and signed the two-year AT&T contract — owned a status symbol.
Discussion:
The Apple Core, 9 to 5 Mac, MacRumors iPhone Blog, Dollars and Sense, iPhone Atlas, Between the Lines and Digg
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Tom Krazit / One More Thing:
Much ado about the iPhone's ‘kill switch’ — The discovery of a “kill switch” inside the iPhone 2.0 software prompted much consternation and little fact-finding. — (Credit: Apple) — Apple's iPhone “kill switch” has prompted much hand-wringing, despite the fact that no one knows exactly what it does.
Discussion:
Infinite Loop, PC World, Forbes, Guardian Unlimited, GMSV, iPod Observer, CNET News.com, The Mac Observer and TUAW
Robert Vamosi / CNET News.com:
Black Hat expels reporters in network snooping — Elinor Mills of CNET News co-wrote this story. Updated 6:50 p.m. with more detail. — LAS VEGAS—Three journalists for a French security magazine were kicked out of the Black Hat security conference after they allegedly sniffed the press room computer network on Thursday.
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Brian Prince / eWeek:
How I Got Hacked at Black Hat — A group of reporters from Global Security Mag were kicked out of the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas after stealing password information from another reporter who will remain nameless—we'll call him, me. — LAS VEGAS—So as some of you may have already read by now …
Discussion:
VentureBeat
Jeff Jarvis / BuzzMachine:
The myth of the creative class — As I near the end of writing my book, one lesson that has struck me is about the will of most people to create, and the new possibilities the Google age brings us. — One survey I quote says that 81 percent of us say we have a book in us.
Eliot Phillips / Hack a Day:
Black Hat 2008: FasTrak toll system completely broken — FasTrak is the electronic toll collection system used by the state of California. Motorists can purchase a toll transponder for ~$26 and link the serial number with a debit account to have their tolls deducted automatically.
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Bill Tancer / Hitwise Intelligence:
How Cuil is This? — We received numerous requests to update the daily chart from our last post on Cuil. As expected, as the initial media hype subsided, traffic to the upstart search engine has declined precipitously. — As of this Tuesday, August 5th, Cuil.com ranked as the #1034 …
Wired News:
Watch the Olympics Online — The 2008 Beijing Olympics will happen while most Americans are sleeping. While NBC, the games' official media outlet in the United States, will be providing thousands of hours of content on the web, the only way to truly ensure you won't miss too many record-breaking moments …
Jeff Jarvis / BuzzMachine:
A stake through the heart of the has-been Inquirer — What the hell are they thinking in Philadelphia? Inquirer ME Mike Leary just sent a memo saying they are going to hold all but breaking news for the paper and even restrict bloggers from using their blogs to work on stories in progress.
Kevin J. O'Brien / International Herald Tribune:
Facebook and StudiVZ battle over Germany — BERLIN: When Facebook sued the German leader in social networking, StudiVZ, last month, it contended that the company had illegally copied Facebook's “look and feel” with similar graphics and features. — “A great deal, if not all …
Nick / Rough Type:
“Is Google Making Us Stupid?”: sources and notes — Since the publication of my essay Is Google Making Us Stupid? in The Atlantic, I've received several requests for pointers to sources and related readings. I've tried to round them up below. — The essay builds on my book The Big Switch …
David F. Gallagher / Bits:
Rumor Control: Why I Can't Put ‘Tibet’ in My Hotmail Address — A reader wrote in to say he had heard that Microsoft was not letting people choose usernames with the word “Tibet” in them when signing up for its online services. This turns out to be true, technically speaking.
Discussion:
Computerworld Blogs
Tiernan Ray / Tech Trader Daily:
Google GPhone Delayed By HTC Issues, Global Equities Says — The word from Half Moon bay is that Google's (GOOG) “GPhone” cell-phones, being built by various handset makers, could be delayed from an end-of-year introduction to sometime later in the first quarter of next year, according to Trip Chowdhry of Global Equities Research.
Juan Carlos Perez / PC World:
Google Apps Hit by Prolonged Gmail Access Problem — A technical problem hit an undetermined number of Gmail users, including paying subscribers to the Google Apps hosted software suite, locking them out of their accounts for about 15 hours on Wednesday and early Thursday.
Discussion:
Rev2.org, Technologizer, GigaOM, InformationWeek Weblog, Software as Services, WebProNews, eWeek and The Inquisitr
