Top Items:
BIZ / Twitter Blog:
Monday Morning Madness — This morning we discovered 33 Twitter accounts had been “hacked” including prominent Twitter-ers like Rick Sanchez and Barack Obama (who has not been Twittering since becoming the president elect due to transition issues). We immediately locked down the accounts and investigated the issue.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, Technically Incorrect, The Register, Security Watch, Chicago Sun Times, L.A. Times Tech Blog, The Social, Technologizer, Don Park's Daily Habit, unstruc chitchatting …, Computerworld, internetnews.com, SC Magazine US, InformationWeek, Guardian, MarketingVOX, paidContent.org, techblog.dallasnews.com and VentureBeat
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Jenna Wortham / Bits:
Twitter-Savvy Hackers Tweak the Twitterati — Life's not so tweet over at Twitter these days. The microblogging company, which allows users to broadcast short messages to groups of followers, recently found itself the target of a wave of hacking and phishing attacks.
Discussion:
TechCrunch
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Celebrity Twitter Accounts Hacked (Bill O'Reilly, Britney Spears, Obama, More) — My guess is this has nothing to do with the phishing attacks that started on Twitter a couple of days ago. But a few minutes ago the official Fox News Twitter account posted “Breaking: Bill O Riley is gay” …
Greg Sandoval / CNET News:
Sources: Apple to expand DRM-free music, new pricing — Apple has cut deals that will finally enable iTunes to offer songs free of copy protection software from the three largest music labels, according to two sources close to the negotiations. In exchange, Apple has agreed to become more flexible on pricing, the sources said.
Discussion:
AppleInsider, 9 to 5 Mac, VentureBeat, Mashable!, The iPhone Blog, Insanely Great Mac, Boy Genius Report, CrunchGear, Edible Apple, Macsimum News and MacNN
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Michael Rose / TUAW:Rumor watch: AT&T tethering plans may be announced this week
Discussion:
Gizmodo, Gadgetreview, Gear Live, Mobilewhack.com, Boy Genius Report, The iPhone Blog and Infinite Loop
Apple:
Letter from Apple CEO Steve Jobs — For the first time in a decade, I'm getting to spend the holiday season with my family, rather than intensely preparing for a Macworld keynote. — Unfortunately, my decision to have Phil deliver the Macworld keynote set off another flurry of rumors about my health …
Discussion:
VentureBeat, Computerworld, CrunchGear, internetnews.com, L.A. Times Tech Blog, dailywireless.org, Connecting the Dots, Macworld, The Technology Chronicles, Gadget Lab, Wireless Week, Homotron.net, TheNextWeb.com, Coolest Gadgets, Apple 2.0, Tech Trader Daily, CNET News, ParisLemon, ZDNET.com.au, Wall Street Journal, the Econsultancy blog, Neowin.net, OSNews, techblog.dallasnews.com, Cult of Mac, Forbes, MacDailyNews, GMSV and Engadget
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Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:Gizmodo Gets Steve Jobs Macworld Story Right, CNBC Gets It Wrong
Discussion:
Infinite Loop, mathewingram.com/work, The Digital Home, Gizmodo, Gawker, CNET News and Fast Company
Susanna Leng / The Official Google Blog:
Introducing Picasa for Mac (at Macworld!) — Sometimes I find it hard to describe Picasa without sounding like a late-night infomercial for a multi-bladed thingamabob: “It's a photo organizer! A photo editor! A web-savvy photo sharing and management system in just one tiny package!”
Discussion:
Google Photos Blog, Google Mac Blog, Mashable!, O'Grady's PowerPage, Gear Live and Lifehacker
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Michael Calore / Epicenter:
After an Agonizing Wait, Picasa for Mac Finally Arrives — Mac users, you can stop holding your breath. Google announced Monday that Picasa for the Mac, a free desktop application for editing, organizing and sharing digital photos, is now available as a public beta through Google Labs.
Discussion:
Macworld, MacRumors, TechCrunch, Underexposed, InformationWeek, The Mac Observer, Infinite Loop and Google Operating System
Jessica Dolcourt / CNET News:
SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone announced — Six months after announcing its intention to bring SlingPlayer to the iPhone 3G, Sling Media has another announcement to make—just not the one you're wishing for. — SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone isn't ready yet, Sling said on Tuesday, but it is on its way.
Liz Gannes / NewTeeVee:
Time Spent Watching Video Jumps 40% in One Year — One way to think about online video is to consider how big a chunk it takes out of our daily lives. The amount of time U.S. Internet users spend watching video is up an impressive 40 percent year over year.
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Daniel Terdiman / CNET News:
Early returns show strong holiday video game console sales — Updated at 5:28 p.m. to include additional data and analyst perspective. — Though the retail economy suffered what appears to be one of the bleakest holiday seasons in recent memory, it looks as though the video games industry bucked that disastrous trend.
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Alex Pham / L.A. Times Tech Blog:Microsoft: Xbox 360 widens lead over PlayStation 3
Discussion:
Kotaku
Om Malik / GigaOM:
With Microsoft in Sight, Cisco invests in Xobni — Xobni, a San Francisco-based maker of software for email services, has raised $7 million in fresh funding led by Cisco Systems. Existing investors Khosla Ventures, First Round Capital, Baseline Ventures and Atomico also invested in this round of founding.
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Brooke Crothers / CNET News:
New HP ultraportable first to use AMD Neo chip — Another Netbook? No, not exactly. Hewlett-Packard's new Pavilion dv2 is an ultraportable, thank you. And the new Athlon Neo silicon inside from Advanced Micro Devices will try to prove that point. — AMD is introducing new chips …
Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Microsoft elevates server unit, promotes Muglia — Microsoft started off its new-year executive shuffling by promoting longtime Server and Tools unit head Bob Muglia to president, a title he shares with entertainment boss Robbie Bach and business software chief Stephen Elop.
Discussion:
Microsoft Watch, TechCrunchIT, Wall Street Journal, Microsoft Pri0, The Microsoft Blog and Computerworld
Judy Lin / Associated Press:
Ex eBay CEO prepares run for Calif. governor — Former eBay Inc. chief executive Meg Whitman has edged closer to a run for California governor, with a spokesman confirming on Monday that she has resigned from three corporate boards. — Whitman's spokesman, Henry Gomez …
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal
Ina Fried / CNET News:
Microsoft still pushing ‘Apple tax’ notion — With Apple's last Macworld keynote speech just hours away, Microsoft is again talking up the idea of an “Apple tax” that people pay when they opt for a Mac over a Windows PC. — It's a concept that Microsoft started touting in the fall.
Darren Murph / Engadget:
Samsung debuts H-Series of HD camcorders, first with 64GB SSD — You should've known that Canon wouldn't be able to introduce a new family of HD camcorders without Samsung hitting back with a crew of its own, so it's with that in mind that we present Samsung's H-Series.
Dan York / Disruptive Telephony:
Skype 2.8 Beta for Mac OS X provides screen sharing, WiFi access, chat features and Twitter-like mood messages — Tonight out at the “ShowStoppers” event at MacWorld in San Francisco, Skype announced the new 2.8 Beta for Mac OS X. The new version will apparently be available for download tomorrow, January 6, 2009, from Skype's website.
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
VixML: A Revolutionary New iPhone Development Platform For The Masses — The iPhone is the hottest platform around, leading some small-time developers to overnight riches and spawning over ten thousand apps in only a few months. But without knowledge of Objective-C or the intricacies of the iPhone SDK …
Discussion:
SitePoint
Fred Benenson / Creative Commons:
NIN's CC-Licensed Best-Selling MP3 Album — NIN's Creative Commons licensed Ghosts I-IV has been making lots of headlines these days. — First, there's the critical acclaim and two Grammy nominations, which testify to the work's strength as a musical piece.
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
HP unleashes a series of new low-cost computers at CES — Hewlett-Packard is launching a bevy of new products today that show it is designing its products to take into account the lighter pocketbooks and energy usage concerns of consumers. — These products being unveiled this week …
David Kravets / Threat Level:
Top Internet Providers Cool to RIAA 3-Strikes Plan — Two weeks after the Recording Industry Association of America announced it had struck deals with top internet service providers to cut off unrepentant music sharers, not a single major ISP will cop to agreeing to the ambitious scheme …
Discussion:
P2P Blog
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Truphone Brings Skype To iPhone & iTouch — I have been a frequent user of Truphone since it launched its mobile VoIP service over two years ago. What started as a simple VoIP client for Nokia Symbian S60 devices is fast becoming a unified client that does it all.
