Top Items:
Oprah.com:
Oprah's Favorite New Gadget — This page requires Flash 9. Download it here. — This summer, Oprah received a gift that she says changed her life. “I'm telling you, it is absolutely my new favorite thing in the world,” she says. — Meet the Amazon Kindle&trade …
Discussion:
TeleRead, InformationWeek, Epicenter, TechFlash, Andrea on Amazon …, GMSV, Gearlog, VentureBeat, Slashdot and Technology Questions
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Chris Nuttall / blogs.ft.com:Oprah likely to kindle big interest in digital books
Discussion:
GigaOM, Mike Cane 2008, TECH.BLORGE.com, Guardian, The Register, CrunchGear, Tech Trader Daily, Gizmodo, Epicenter, The Puget News, TeleRead and Voices
Mike Nash / Windows Vista Team Blog:
Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Beta — Hi there, Mike Nash here. — As you know we are getting ready to talk about Windows 7 at the PDC next week. Before we do that, I thought I would give you an update on our latest work for Windows Vista. — We are committed to continually improving Windows …
Michelle Quinn / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Apple donates $100,000 to fight same-sex marriage ban* — Apple is contributing $100,000 to fight Proposition 8, the California ballot measure that would define marriage as only between a man and a woman. The company's announcement today came as the fight over Prop. 8 grows hotly contested …
Discussion:
CNET News, AppleInsider, MacRumors, The Technology Chronicles, Cult of Mac, TomsTechBlog.com, MacUser, Valleywag, Gizmodo, MacDailyNews, Macworld, MacBlogz, Gearlog and TUAW
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Mike Swift / Mercury News:
Google co-founders Brin and Page among large donors to campaign to defeat Prop. 8 — Silicon Valley hasn't been a prominent player in the pitched fundraising battle over whether to ban same-sex marriage in California — until now. — Google co-founder and president Sergey Brin …
Discussion:
TECH.BLORGE.com
Will Park / IntoMobile:
Box.net iPhone application for FREE on AppStore — Well that sure was fast. Just the other day I sat down with Sean from Box.net to discuss the online data storage service's plans for the mobile space. In talking about how Box.net was gunning to cover the mobile, desktop …
Brian Shih / Google Reader:
Reading The Guardian, full-text style — We've always used Reader to keep up to date on news and current events and today it just got a little easier: The Guardian just moved all of their RSS feeds from partial to full-text. They are the first major newspaper in the world to do so, and this is, well, great news.
RELATED:
Danny Coleman / PR Newswire:
Hop-on Will Launch Its Google Android Alliance Phone at 2009 International CES — Hop-on (Pink Sheets: HPNN) will be launching its new open “Android Platform” device at the Consumer Electronic Show, in Las Vegas January 2009. This phone will be sold for under $200.
Discussion:
Boy Genius Report, Gadgetell, Android Phone Fans, Android Community, Gadget Lab, MobileCrunch, Engadget Mobile, AndroidGuys and Phone Scoop
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Miguel Helft / Bits:
A New (Fighter) Jet for Google's Founders? — A company controlled by Google's top executives, including billionaire founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, appears to have added a new plane to its well-equipped fleet: a fighter jet, or more precisely a Dornier Alpha Jet.
Discussion:
The Register, TG Daily, Industry Standard, mv-voice.com, InformationWeek, Search Engine Land, Gizmodo, Valleywag, GMSV and SEO BlackHat
Brian X. Chen / Epicenter:
Apple Is Ready to Take a Bite of Silicon Valley — Comments from Apple CEO Steve Jobs this week suggested that the cash-rich computer and phone maker might be in a good position to start snapping up struggling tech companies. — During Apple's earnings call Tuesday, Steve Jobs proudly reported …
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
What's Up at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference (Hint: Cloudy With a Chance of Amazon Pain) — Next week in Los Angeles, Microsoft will kick off its Professional Developers Conference, a place the software giant likes to unveil all kinds of news in a big launchtastic flourish.
Michael Learmonth / AdAge:
Sarah Palin ‘SNL’ Online Clips Soon to Eclipse TV — Among the Top ‘Most Popular’ Shorts on Hulu.com — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's appearance was very good for “Saturday Night Live,” bringing the show its best ratings in 14 years.
Jim Goldman / Tech Check with Jim Goldman:
What's Apple Really Worth? — That's the $150 billion question and the crux of a simmering debate between Apple fans, Apple customers, Apple investors and Wall Street. — This all hit a head earlier this week when Apple released its fourth quarter earnings and while earnings per share handily beat the Street, revenue came up light.
Discussion:
The Mac Observer
Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:
The New York Times Readies HD Online Video Channel As Part of New Brightcove Implementation — The New York Times has launched a new HD-format video player with a 16:9 wide-screen frame. Other new features include a redesigned video library, a “Most Viewed” rank, and tools to share videos to social sites like Facebook and Digg.
Discussion:
Contentinople, TechCrunch, Business Wire, Digital Media Wire, The Universal Desktop and NewTeeVee
Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Yahoo discontinues Vista-optimized IM program — Yahoo Messenger for Vista, now discontinued, offered richer graphics that took advantage of Vista's Windows Presentation Foundation engine. — (Credit: Yahoo) — One of the first applications designed to run only on Windows Vista has been discontinued.
Alex Patriquin / Compete Blog:
The Undiscovered Best: How Yahoo! Actually Leads Paid Search — When Microsoft made an uninvited bid for Yahoo! last February, Yahoo! mounted a “No Sacred Cows” takeover defense and explored all options, even the once unthinkable: outsourcing some search ads to once arch-rival Google.
Discussion:
SitePoint Blogs
John Boudreau / Mercury News:
Q&A with Peter Chou, chief executive and co-founder-HTC — TAOYUAN, Taiwan — HTC used to be a “discreet” mobile device maker, says Chief Executive Peter Chou. Not anymore. — The 11-year-old company is now the maker of the world's first Google phone. With Wednesday's launch of the T-Mobile G1 …
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
19,683 Tech Layoffs And Counting — This has been a brutal month or so for tech layoffs. According to our Layoff Tracker, there have been 19,683 job eliminations at tech companies announced since mid-September, and we're not even counting the 24,600 people at Hewlett-Packard who are being eliminated …
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Don't Be Evil? Google Uses Shady Ad Tactics To Edge Out Competitor — Two weeks ago we wrote about Yamli, a powerful transliteration engine that allows users to use their Latin keyboards to type in Arabic text. The service has gotten rave reviews (see the comments), and serves a very large audience that has largely been neglected.
Mark Hendrickson / TechCrunch:
Live: Yahoo Previews Its New Application Platform — I'm here at Yahoo Brickhouse in San Francisco for an event where Yahoo will preview its new Application Platform for developers, the latest effort in an ongoing strategy to be more “open” that was announced last April.
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
How The New York Times (NYT) Can Save Itself — The New York Times (NYT) is now running on fumes. S&P has downgraded the company's debt to junk, and Moodys is about to do the same. The stock has fallen to $10 $9, and is being propped up primarily by the company's non-news assets.
Discussion:
Recovering Journalist
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
AOL Begins Shutdown Of AOL Pictures, BlueString And Xdrive — In July we wrote about AOL's plans to shutter a number of services based on an internal email from EVP Products and Marketing Kevin Conroy. — Next week, AOL says, they'll begin to communicate the news to consumers around …
Will Park / IntoMobile:
Sony Ericsson: UIQ is dead — What's this? Sony Ericsson, a champion of the UIQ mobile OS, has apparently seen the last days of the Symbian-based OS. Sony Ericsson's Patrick Olsen said at the Symbian Smartphone Show that his company's mobile OS of choice just “didn't make it.”
Discussion:
Crave
