Top Items:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Sweeping Changes At Live.com: It's A Social Network! — Microsoft's Live.com portal will change significantly this evening. No longer will it be a simple search engine with a few other services bolted on. It's now a social network, too, pulling in activity information and content from around the web.
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Microsoft:
Microsoft Introduces Updated Windows Live Services — Leading Web companies work with Microsoft to simplify life online with e-mail, messaging, photo and file sharing, and more. — Microsoft Corp. today announced the next generation of Windows Live, an integrated set of online services …
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:Windows Live Wave 3: Microsoft's kinder and simpler consumer services strategy?
Discussion:
Teching It Easy
Joe Wilcox / Microsoft Watch:Windows Live Gets More Lively
Discussion:
ReadWriteWeb, WebProNews, Lost Remote, VentureBeat, Profy, Mashable!, Technologizer, Search Engine Land and Techland
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Is Apple Building A Search Engine? — We've received multiple (if thin) reports that Apple is working on a search engine of some sort. — At first glance, the rumors make sense. Apple's Safari browser has 6-7% market share, and currently uses Google as the search engine for both the standard …
Discussion:
CNET News, 9 to 5 Mac, AppleInsider, The Toybox, Boy Genius Report, Search Engine Journal, I4U News, MacBlogz, WebProNews, Gizmodo, AppScout and iPodNN
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Google Analyst: “Worst Economic Environment In Our Collective Lifetimes” — Google's stock price closed yesterday at $291, the first time it has dropped below $300 since 2005. It's 44% off of its 52-week high of $725. Most analysts think its cheap and getting cheaper - the average price target is still over $500.
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Fred / A VC:
A Slightly Different Perspective — I've been reading a bunch of posts recently suggesting that the VC model is broken. But guess what? It's always been broken. As Jeff Nolan points out in a short and sweet post: … Jeff's truth has been the story with the venture capital asset class …
Discussion:
metarand
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Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
Zynga's Live Poker brings live social gaming to the iPhone — At first, the social gaming startup Zynga's new iPhone game “Live Poker” seems pretty run-of-the-mill. The interface is intuitive, the visuals make good use of the iPhone's widescreen, but there are dozens of other poker applications available.
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Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Microsoft Trumpets Cashback Successes — Microsoft Live Search Cashback launched with great expectation in some quarters that it would grow Microsoft's search share dramatically. That, so far, has failed to happen. But Microsoft says it is making progress toward its own more realistic goal …
The Boy Genius / Boy Genius Report:
Verizon announces BlackBerry Storm release date, November 21st, $199 — At least y'all will have to wait less, not longer, right? We're finally allowed to publish what the BlackBerry world has been waiting for — the official release date for the BlackBerry Storm. November 21st is the date that shall live in infamy.
John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
Dell Offered Voluntary CTO Separation Plan — If there's one thing to be said about Dell's chief technology officer, Kevin Kettler, it's this: the man knows how to set an example. — It's been nary a week since an econalypse-brutalized Dell (DELL) began offering workers voluntary separation plans …
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The Register
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Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:
Your school chum's not asking about you: Classmates.com sued — “Your former classmates are trying to contact you! Upgrade now to see their messages!” That's the pitch many of us have seen from Classmates.com as a lure to pony up for a subscription. At least one former customer …
Discussion:
Inquirer
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Jennifer L. Schenker / Business Week:
Google's Chrome: The Danish Magic Inside — Danish JavaScript expert Lars Bak is the wizard behind Google's new Web browser, Chrome, which aims to change the way we use computers — A Danish farm nestled just a bike ride away from Aarhus—a small city founded 1,000 years ago by Vikings …
Steve Lohr / New York Times:
3 Flat-Screen Makers Plead Guilty to Trying to Keep Prices High — Prices for the flat screens in televisions, personal computers and cellphones have plummeted in recent years — but the decline would have been even faster if it hadn't been for an international price-fixing cartel, the Justice Department said on Wednesday.
PC Magazine:
EA Debuts Fitness Videogame for Wii — NEW YORK - Electronic Arts Inc unveiled its first personal training product on Thursday, tapping into the growing appeal of video games as fitness systems as seen with Nintendo Co Ltd's hit title “Wii Fit” earlier this year.
Oliver Marks / Collaboration 2.0:
Twitterank Creator Speaks — After my post yesterday afternoon about Twitterank, its creator Ryo Chijiiwa contacted me by email to ask if I'd like to hear his side of the story: I offered him a guest post. Over to Ryo: — I blame the Family Guy. There I was in my hotel room …
Discussion:
Guardian, VatorNews, Mark Evans, Profy, blogs.chron.com, louisgray.com, BrianOberkirch.com, broadstuff, yardley.ca, Microblink, Twitterank and Liquidmatrix Security Digest
Sony Corporation:
Sony Commercializes World's First(*1), Industry Leading Resolution(*1) 12.25 Megapixel CMOS Image Sensor “Exmor(TM)” for Mobile Phones — Also announces 8.11/5.15 effective megapixel CMOS image sensor and lens modules realizing image quality equivalent to compact-type digital still cameras
Discussion:
Gadget Lab, Engadget, Akihabaranews.com, Electronista, Unwired View, Phone Scoop, CrunchGear and MobileBurn.com
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
RED's Digital Still and Motion Camera System now official — After a morning of drip-fed images, RED just went official with its DSMC (Digital Stills and Motion Camera) System. The system starts with your choice of the professional Scarlet or “master professional” EPIC brains …
Kevin Poulsen / Threat Level:
Valve Tried to Trick Half Life 2 Hacker Into Fake Job Interview — After the secret source code for its then-unreleased shooter Half Life 2showed up on BitTorrent in 2003, gamemaker Valve Software cooked up an elaborate ruse with the FBI targeting the German hacker suspected in the leak …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Digitalsmiths raises $12 million for video search and analytics — Digitalsmiths is announcing today it has raised $12 million in a second round of funding for its video search and analytics business. It's not a huge amount of money, but given the current economic climate, it's significant.
