Top Items:
Eric Eldon / Inside Facebook:
Facebook Begins Rolling Out New Home Page Design — Facebook is now fully launching the long-planned redesign, with 80 million users getting it tonight — that's 80 million of the now-400 million people using the site, the company says. The new design is basically what we've been examining …
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Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook Blog:
Six Years of Making Connections — Today we're celebrating our sixth birthday, and this week there will be 400 million people on Facebook. Just one year ago we served less than half as many people, and thanks to you we've made great progress over the last year towards making the world more open and connected.
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Facebook Begins Rolling Out Latest Redesign (Pics) — Facebook has just started rolling out a new homepage design to a small number of users, and will be deploying it on a wide scale in the near future. The design takes the navigational elements that have previously been tucked under the …
Discussion:
VentureBeat, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Erictric, Computerworld and Silicon Alley Insider, Thanks:mrinaldesai
Dick Brass / New York Times:
Microsoft's Creative Destruction — AS they marvel at Apple's new iPad tablet computer, the technorati seem to be focusing on where this leaves Amazon's popular e-book business. But the much more important question is why Microsoft, America's most famous and prosperous technology company …
Discussion:
internetnews.com, Gizmodo, PC World, TechCrunch, Engadget, TechFlash, broadstuff, GigaOM, Electronista, Lockergnome Blog Network, The Tech Report, Boing Boing, eWeek, New York Times, deal architect, Maximum PC, ChannelWeb, Technologizer, Windows 7 News, MacDailyNews, All about Microsoft, Neowin.net, The Microsoft Blog, DailyTech, Edible Apple and GottaBeMobile.com
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Frank X.Shaw / The Official Microsoft Blog:
Measuring Our Work by Its Broad Impact — Former Microsoft employee Dick Brass has an op-ed in the NYT arguing that our better days are behind us, ("clumsy, uncompetitive innovator" . . . ouch!) and using examples from his tenure to make the point that the company can no longer compete or innovate.
Avner Ronen / Boxee Blog:
Boxee responds to NBC's Jeff Zucker — Congress held a hearing today examining the proposed acquisition of NBC Universal by Comcast. Speaking before the committee were Brian Roberts, Chairman and CEO of Comcast and Jeff Zucker, President and CEO of NBC. — During the hearing the Chairman …
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Daniel Maurer / New York Magazine:
Steve Jobs in Secret New York Meeting With Top Times Execs — Bonus Buster: Bank of America Execs Acted Out Of Self-interest, Greed, And Hubris — When Apple recently booked the cellar dining room at Pranna for a talk with 50 top executives from the New York Times, even restaurant higher-ups didn't know who their VIP guest would be.
Discussion:
Gawker, AppleInsider, Silicon Alley Insider, The iPhone Blog, 9 to 5 Mac, Macsimum News, MacRumors and Edible Apple
Jason Boog / GalleyCat:
Macmillan NYT Ad: “Available at booksellers everywhere except Amazon” — In that full-page New York Times advertisement today, Macmillan took a more aggressive stance in the ongoing debate with Amazon over eBook pricing. — The advertisement for Atul Gawande's new book, “The Checklist Manifesto …
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MacNN:
Apple prohibits App Store devs from using location-based ads — Apple has notified App Store developers that they will be prohibited from using location-based information for mobile advertising. The company claims the GPS data can only be used to provide “beneficial information.”
Discussion:
9 to 5 Mac, mocoNews, Apple Developer Connection, ReadWriteWeb, CenterNetworks, Gizmodo, Mashable! and iLounge
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:
Google Maps To Add “Google Store Views” — I received a tip from a New York retailer named Oh Nuts, that Google came to their store to take pictures for a new Google Maps product named “Google Store Views.” I was told that they took pictures of the inside of the store, every 6 feet, in all directions.
Mark Wilson / Gizmodo:
Apple Paying Out 15% On Broken 27-Inch iMacs — Still think that widespread iMac problems don't exist? After we reported Apple giving UK customers 15% refund bonuses with 27-inch iMac returns, we've heard from quite a few readers that Apple is doing the same thing in the US. UPDATE — 15%.
Discussion:
Ars Technica, The Next Web, SlipperyBrick.com, SlashGear, Erictric, AppleInsider, Digital Trends, Macsimum News, Walt Mosspuppet and CNET News
David Sarno / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Department of Justice objects to revised Google Books settlement — In a brief filed late Thursday, the Department of Justice said it still had objections to the lawsuit settlement between Google and a group of authors and publishers, despite changes made to the settlement by the parties.
Jenna Wortham / Bits:
A Personal Assistant on Your iPhone — The pop-culture record shows that most artificially intelligent assistants don't work out too well for their human masters. — There's the comically co-dependent — and largely unhelpful — duo from Star Wars, C-3PO and R2-D2.
Discussion:
VentureBeat, Engadget, Mashable!, ReadWriteWeb, GigaOM, TechCrunch, ProgrammableWeb and louisgray.com, Thanks:hisiri
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Seesmic's Latest Android Build Is Dare I Say, iPhone-Like — Perhaps the main problem I have with Android is that the apps (aside from the excellent Google-built ones) are simply not as good as the apps on the iPhone. Nowhere is this more apparent then with Twitter apps, since there are so many for both platforms.
Brad Stone / Bits:
AT&T Gives Green Light to Sling TV Over 3G — Remember the Great Sling Spat? — A year ago, Sling Media, a subsidiary of EchoStar, introduced a nifty application for the Apple iPhone that allowed users with a Slingbox at home to watch and control their home television signal from their handsets.
Discussion:
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Jay Yarow / Silicon Alley Insider:
Apple Tells A Developer To Erase Android Mention From App Description (AAPL, GOOG) — Apple has improved its app approval process, but that doesn't mean it's entirely cured of quirks. — Apple sent an email to Tim Novikoff, founder of flash card app, Flash of Genius, asking him to delete …
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Cult of Mac
Paul Boutin / VentureBeat:
A pretty chart of top apps for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry — Mplayit, maker of the mobile app catalog that lives inside Facebook, will release a report later today that lists the top games in their collection. Tetris, The Sims 3, and Wheel of Fortune are among the winners. So are Tap Tap Revenge and Rock Band.
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
IBM hits graphene transistor breakthrough — IBM Research on Friday will announce that it has demonstrated a radio-frequency graphene transistor with the highest frequency (100 GigaHertz) so far. — Graphene is a special form of graphite, consisting of a layer of carbon atoms packed in honeycomb lattice.
Emil Protalinski / Ars Technica:
Microsoft warns of IE flaw, turns PC into public file server — Microsoft has issued Security Advisory (980088) to address a publicly disclosed vulnerability in Internet Explorer that may allow information disclosure for Windows XP users or for users who have disabled Internet Explorer Protected Mode.
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Betty Goes Boop: Cc: Betty To Be Reborn As Threadbox — As a product, Cc: Betty was a good idea. Fundamentally, the goal was organize group email threads in a way that makes them more manageable. From an execution perspective, it left a bit to be desired. And from a naming perspective, it left a lot more.
Discussion:
VentureBeat
Ross Miller / Engadget:
Samsung E61 e-book reader outed, brings physical QWERTY keyboard to lineup — The pair of Samsung-borne e-book readers we espied at CES just became a trio. E6 and E101, please give a round of applause your new on-screen brother, the E61 (pictured next to Kindle).
Emil Protalinski / Ars Technica:
Buy Office 2007, get 2010 free? Microsoft posts, pulls deal — Microsoft has accidentally posted details about a promotion it will be running for those who buy Office 2007 a few months before and after the release of Office 2010 in June 2010. It is called the “Microsoft Office 2010 …
Discussion:
TechFlash
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Disney: “No Decisions Have Been Made” on Hulu Premium — So, when's that Hulu Premium service we heard about last fall going to show up? — If Disney EVP Kevin Mayer knows, he's not telling. But for the record, he says, “no decisions have been made” about what kind of pay models …
Eliot Van Buskirk / Epicenter:
Locking Music to ISPs Could Earn ISPs Hundreds of Millions: Study — Consumers call it “choice,” but service providers have a different term for when a customer leaves one and joins another: “churn.” — Internet service providers lose an average of 1.4 percent of their customers each month …
Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:
AOL Media Boss Bill Wilson Leaving, Replaced By Googler (MEMO) (AOL, GOOG) — AOL (AOL) media boss Bill Wilson is leaving the company, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong told employees in a memo today. — He'll be replaced by former Googler David Eun. — This is a shocking development for AOL watchers.
Todd Bishop / TechFlash:
NSF, Microsoft offer researchers free access to Windows Azure — One of Microsoft's strategies in recent years has been to offer free access to its software and other technologies for selected audiences, such as early stage startups, aiming to encourage longer-term adoption of its products.
