Top Items:
Harry McCracken / Technologizer:
Lala's Spectacular New Music Service — For a couple of months now, I've been using a music service that's been in a quiet (but open) beta period. It's been kind of amazing. That service is the all-new version of Lala, and it's officially throwing its doors open to the public today.
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Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Lala May Have Just Built The Next Revolution In Digital Music — Call me a skeptic. When Lala came to our offices last week trying to convince me that music was heading to the cloud, and that they were going to help lead the transition, I wasn't convinced at first.
Discussion:
The Equity Kicker, Pulse 2.0, Silicon Valley Watcher, Gizmodo, Coolfer and Maximum PC all
Peter Burrows / Tech Beat:
Lala Plays a New Song. — Tomorrow, Lala Media Inc. will announce an interesting new approach to selling digital music. It's based on a new type of license it secured with the four major labels and 170,000 indie labels, that lets consumers pay a dime to own a song that they can listen …
Paul Boutin / Wired News:
Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004 — Thinking about launching your own blog? Here's some friendly advice: Don't. And if you've already got one, pull the plug. — Writing a weblog today isn't the bright idea it was four years ago. The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis …
John Markoff / New York Times:
Beware the Digital Zombies — REDMOND, Wash. — In a windowless room on Microsoft's campus here, T. J. Campana, a cybercrime investigator, connects an unprotected computer running an early version of Windows XP to the Internet. In about 30 seconds the computer is “owned.”
Discussion:
UMBC ebiquity
Philipp Lenssen / Google Blogoscoped:
Google Uses Public Service Ads to Link to Own Election Page — Google AdSense ads are embedded in websites all across the web. As a webmaster, you have the option to let Google display Public Service Ads when they cannot find a fitting other ad; these ads will not earn the webmaster revenue.
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Tom Lowry / Business Week:The Short List for U.S. Chief Technology Officer
Discussion:
Mashable!, TechCrunch, CircleID, Scobleizer, PC World, DSLreports, Broadband Politics, Computerworld Blogs and Wall Street Journal
Yahoo! Tech:
Palm Treo Pro: A sweet Windows smartphone — San Francisco - The BlackBerry, iPhone, and T-Mobile G1 may be the kings of smartphone cool, but if you ask me, they all share one big shortcoming: They don't run Windows Mobile. — I know that statement puts me in a distinct minority.
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Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Brightstorm Raises $6 Million For Online Video Tutorials — If high-school education is failing in the U.S., maybe Web video can help. Founded last April, Brightstorm is a Web video site that brings bright, talented teachers together with students who need some extra help.
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Chris Morrison / VentureBeat:Brightstorm launches into the booming online education market
Discussion:
Startup Meme
Nick O'Neill / All Facebook:
Scott Rafer: The Facebook Platform is Dead — When speaking at the Facebook developer conference today in Berlin, Scott Rafer declared that Facebook platform dead. He posted statistics including one that I posted that suggests Facebook widgets are dead. Lookery's own statistics …
PBS:
Ctrl-Alt-Del: Did Apple reboot an important product announcement? — Apple last week introduced a pair of very nice notebook computers that, not at all surprisingly, looked like riffs on the MacBook Air. The company in a separate announcement released 600 high-definition television episodes through the iTunes Store.
Chris Morris / Forbes:
Microsoft Xbox: Not Ready For Primetime — There's a new member of the “Not Ready for Primetime Players”: The Xbox 360. — Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) has delayed the launch of “Xbox Live Primetime,” its programmed series of interactive games with real-world prizes, until the spring.
Joanna Stern / LAPTOP Magazine:
ASUS CEO Reveals Eee PC Sales Numbers, Plans for Touch Eee PCs and More Eee Family Products — Earlier this week the ASUS Eee PC celebrated its first birthday (with a full birthday party and cake at LAPTOP Magazine). It was one year ago that the Taiwanese company began selling its first sub-notebook …
Discussion:
Liliputing, Lockergnome Blog Network, jkOnTheRun, Obsessable, Gizmodo, SlashGear and Engadget
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
BeenVerified hopes to make background checks easier and cheaper — BeenVerified is looking to shake up the background-checking industry with cheap and fast solutions that small businesses can afford. — The New York-based company is launching a service today that can perform …
Discussion:
CenterNetworks
Richard MacManus / ReadWriteWeb:
Twine Launches 1.0 Version - Eyes Facebook, Google Reader, Delicious, Digg, ... When Twine announced itself to the world exactly one year ago, it claimed to be “the first mainstream Semantic Web application”. However despite raising millions of dollars in its quest to bring the Semantic Web …
Discussion:
The Semantic Web, Industry Standard, Download Squad, AppScout, Technology Review, Webware.com and VentureBeat
Peter Bright / Ars Technica:
Your privacy is an illusion: UK attacks civil liberties — Last year one of the more troubling provisions of the UK's Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) finally came into effect. This piece of legislation made it a criminal offense to refuse to decrypt almost any encrypted data residing within …
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Steve Rubel / Micro Persuasion:
RSS Adoption at 11% and it May Be Peaking, Forrester Says — Forrester Research today published a new report on the state of RSS. In short, while there are bright spots, it does not paint the picture of a technology that's going mainstream anytime soon. — On a positive note …
Ken Schachter / Red Herring:
Where Congress Puts Its Own Money — Congressional lawmakers are best known as spenders, allocating trillions of dollars for both guns and butter, but they also are investors with an affinity for technology blue chips. — Three of the four most popular investments of the members of the House …
Discussion:
Techdirt
Matt Sedensky / Associated Press:
MediaNews CEO: Outsourcing could help save money — MediaNews CEO says consolidation, outsourcing could help newspapers survive — AVENTURA, Fla. (AP) — Consolidating and outsourcing news operations — even overseas — could help newspapers survive as their revenues continue to shrink …
Discussion:
paidContent.org
Sylvie Barak / Inquirer:
Sony recalls game after music offends Muslims — Allah is not a DJ — SONY IS POSTPONING the release of its long-awaited game LittleBigPlanet, due to concerns that a background song might be offensive to Muslim sensibilities. — Little Big Planet, originally scheduled for release on October 24th …
Sydney Morning Herald:
Spam flood goes on despite bust — Last week's bust of the largest spam operation in the world, which was run by a Queensland resident, has had no measurable impact on global spam volumes. — The spam gang, known by authorities and security experts as HerbalKing, was responsible for one-third of all spam …
Rob Bushway / GottaBeMobile:
Dell and N-Trig: I've Had It — In many ways, the Dell Latitude XT Tablet PC has become one of my favorite Tablet PCs. It is very thin, light, has ample room on the wrist pad for typing, has a scroll wheel, and is generally pleasant to use in portrait mode. It goes to sleep and resumes very quickly.
Claire Cain Miller / New York Times:
Popularity or Income? Two Sites Fight It Out — SAN FRANCISCO — In the aftermath of the dot-com bust, many chastened venture capitalists pledged never again to finance an idea scribbled on a cocktail napkin with no viable business model. Too many poorly conceived companies like Pets.com and Webvan had flamed out.
Amy Thomson / Bloomberg:
Google Being More Careful Amid Slump, Schmidt Says — Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) — Google Inc., owner of the world's most popular Internet search site, will make fewer acquisitions and slow hiring amid the global economic turmoil, Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said.
