Top Items:
Brandon LeBlanc / The Windows Blog:
General availability for the Windows 7 Beta to end — First off: thank you for your interest in beta testing Windows 7! As we near January 24th, we wanted to update everyone again on the next steps for the Windows 7 Beta. The amount of feedback we have received has been amazing and continues to pour in.
Discussion:
Download Squad, Obsessable, Neowin.net, Gizmodo, Boy Genius Report, Lifehacker and Beyond Binary
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Why Twitter's New Security Solution Could Pave the Way to a Future Web of Mashups — Microblogging service Twitter's habit of playing fast and loose with user passwords may be coming to an end, if a technical trial started today can be successfully implemented by its development team.
Discussion:
Twitterrati
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Chris Messina / FactoryCity:
Twitter can has OAuth? — Twitter API lead Alex Payne announced today that Twitter is now accepting applications to its OAuth private beta, making good on the promises he made on the Twitter API mailing list and had repeated on the January 8 Citizen Garden podcast (transcript by stilist).
Discussion:
CenterNetworks
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Surprise! VC Funding Fell Off a Cliff in Q4 — As expected, the venture industry is seeing the fallout from the economic crisis, with fourth-quarter investments dropping to a total of $5.4 billion invested in 818 companies, according to a report from PricewaterhouseCoopers …
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John Resig:
OCR and Neural Nets in JavaScript — A pretty amazing piece of JavaScript dropped yesterday and it's going to take a little bit to digest it all. It's a GreaseMonkey script, written by ‘Shaun Friedle’, that automatically solves captchas provided by the site Megaupload.
Discussion:
Ajaxian
Loïc Le Meur / Loic Le Meur Blog:
The New Twhirl (preview release) for Team Seesmic-Twhirl — We are as excited as you are about Twhirl and are happy to announce a new version today which we will be circulating as a preview to get your help and feedback. We are gathering a “circle of friends” for Twhirl and Seesmic …
Digital Music News:
ASCAP Targets “Copy Left / Free Culture” Enemy... Performance rights organization (PRO) ASCAP is now pondering ways to defuse the influence of non-traditional copyright thinkers, according to correspondence shared Thursday with Digital Music News. According to an invitation mailed …
Michael Liedtke / Associated Press:
Others could follow Google's move to reset options — SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google Inc. is showing its love for its employees by giving them a second chance to profit from their wilting stock options. But the move irked shareholders still stuck with agonizing losses on their investments.
Noam Cohen / Bits:
Wikipedia May Restrict Public's Ability to Change Entries — Stung by criticism after vandals changed Wikipedia entries to erroneously report that Senators Edward Kennedy and Robert Byrd had died, Wikipedia appears ready to introduce a system that prevents new and anonymous users …
Discussion:
Drew B's take on tech PR
BBC:
Britannica reaches out to the web — The Encyclopaedia Britannica has unveiled a plan to let readers help keep the reference work up to date. — Under the plan, readers and contributing experts will help expand and maintain entries online. — Experts will also be enrolled in a reward scheme …
Nina Shen Rastogi / Slate:
Will President Obama have a personal computer? — Barack Obama completed his first full day as president on Wednesday. Pictures of the historic occasion showed Obama sitting at a gleaming Oval Office desk. Will all that empty space eventually be filled by a personal computer?
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Ben Kuchera / Opposable Thumbs:
Exclusive: Microsoft to get Resident Evil 5 bundle, red 360s — “Do you really have to go?” my wife asked. It was late, and the night was still. I put on my press hat, grabbed my notebook and, after a moment's hesitation, my revolver. — “Yes. He always gives me good information, and the Mole-signal is lit.”
Devin Coldewey / CrunchGear:
YouTube officially enables HQ in embedded videos — YouTube has officially enabled High Quality in embedded videos. The new embedded player sports a little HQ button in the expanded menu, which is strangely absent from YouTube's on-site player. Hacking the code is no longer necessary …
