Techmeme: Google apology to New Zealanders over Wi-Fi data (Agence France Presse)

1:25 AM ET, December 14, 2010

Top Items:

Joanna Stern / Engadget:

Microsoft to demo new slate PCs, Windows 8 tablet functionality at CES? — The CES 2010 Ballmernote has become something of a black mark for Microsoft — the company's delivered almost nothing in the year after Steve demoed the HP Slate and talked about future Windows 7 Slate PCs …

Discussion: CNET News

Nick Bilton / Bits:

Microsoft to Announce New Slates Aimed at the iPad — A decade ago Bill Gates, founder and former chief executive of Microsoft, presented a new class of computing to the world: a tablet PC that offered a fully functional computer with the “intuitive aspects of pencil and paper.”

John Cook / TechFlash:

Goldman Sachs predicts tough times ahead for Microsoft in 2011 — Goldman Sachs technology analyst Sarah Friar sees challenging times ahead for Microsoft in 2011 as it attempts to address the threat from tablet computers such as the iPad and mobile operating systems such as Android.

Discussion: BetaNews, Between the Lines Blog, Tech Trader Daily, SAI, Hillicon Valley, CNET News, Computerworld, ConceivablyTech and The Microsoft Blog, Thanks:toddbishop

Chris Lambert / Google Mobile Blog:

Introducing the Google Latitude app for iPhone — “Where are you?” — Starting today, you'll never again have to answer (or ask) that question when you're on the go with your iPhone. With the new Google Latitude app for iPhone, you can see where your friends are and now …

Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
Why Google Latitude breaks for me

Discussion: TechCrunch, SiliconANGLE and ReadWriteWeb

Paul Butler / Facebook:

Visualizing Friendships — Visualizing data is like photography. Instead of starting with a blank canvas, you manipulate the lens used to present the data from a certain angle. — When the data is the social graph of 500 million people, there are a lot of lenses through which you can view it.

Discussion: FlowingData, Pluggd.in, Social Medium, The Next Web, ReadWriteWeb, All Facebook, Gizmodo and Mashable!, more at Mediagazer »

Ben Kolada / Inorganic Growth:

Google adds to NFC with Zetawire — Google continues to gobble up startups, and we've just uncovered a deal that supports its near field communications (NFC) ambitions. We've learned that Google recently picked up Zetawire, a Canadian startup focusing on mobile payments transactions.

Discussion: eMoney, Yahoo! News and Electronista

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch: Google Bought Stealthy Mobile Payments Startup Zetawire

Zachary M. Seward / Digits:

The Top 50 Gawker Media Passwords — Readers of Gizmodo, Lifehacker and other Gawker Media sites may be among the savviest on the Web, but the most common password for logging into those sites is embarrassingly easy to guess: “123456.” So is the runner-up: “password.”

Discussion: TechEye

Mike Luttrell / TG Daily:

Samsung unveils $1,000 “Luxury” Galaxy Tab — One of the main draws of Android-based tablets is that they offer a more affordable alternative to the iPad. However, Samsung doesn't see it that way as the company will soon be launching a version of its tablet computer for around $1,000.

Discussion: L.A. Times Tech Blog, PC Magazine, PC World, IntoMobile, Gadget Lab, GigaOM, Pulse2, Softpedia News and Android Community

Austin Carr / Fast Company:

Top Google Engineer: Google Instant Has No Brand Bias — “What we do at Google and what we've done for years is to not inject any subjectivity into these algorithms,” says Amit Singhal, Google Fellow and head of the company's search quality, ranking, and algorithm team.

Discussion: John Battelle's Searchblog

Kevin Allocca / YouTube Trends:

Welcome to YouTube Trends — Sometimes waiting for popular new videos to hit your inbox / chat window / wall / feed / mobile / pager / two-way radio can be frustrating. Sometimes keeping up with the latest YouTube fad can be hard to do. Sometimes you want to know more about what's happening from where it's happening.

Discussion: GigaOM, Softpedia News, Internet Evolution, WebProNews, Digital Inspiration …, Lost Remote, SAI, SocialTimes.com, Pulse2, Laughing Squid, L.A. Times Tech Blog and Pocket-lint, more at Mediagazer », Thanks:beet_tv

Ben Rooney / Tech Europe:

Amazon's WikiLeaks Response Threatens Cloud Computing … Amazon's removal of WikiLeaks from its servers threatens the future of cloud computing and jeopardizes the huge potential growth of its adoption, according to a leading industry figure. — Dr. Joseph Reger, Chief Technology Officer …

Discussion: CloudAve, GigaOM, Data Center Knowledge, Virtually Speaking Blog and DailyFinance

NR Sethuraman / Reuters:

Toshiba plant to make LCD panels for Apple: report — (Reuters) - Toshiba Corp will spend about 100 billion yen ($1.19 billion) to build a factory for making small LCD panels, mainly to supply to Apple Inc's iPhones, the Nikkei business daily said. — The company's wholly owned unit …

Discussion: IntoMobile, AppleInsider, 9 to 5 Mac, TiPb, CNET News, Pulse2, TUAW, iLounge, Electronista, MacStories, MacRumors, SAI, Engadget, iClarified and Edible Apple

John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:

With iPad, Apple Will Claim 12 Percent of PC Market in 2011 — Some 54.7 million tablets will be sold next year and of those, 37.2 million will be iPads. That's the forecast from Goldman Sachs's Bill Shope, who says exploding sales of the device may well make Apple “one of the largest vendors …

Discussion: NBC Bay Area

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

Former Googler Launches Disconnect, Browser Extension That Disables Third Party Data Tracking — You remember Facebook Disconnect, the browser extension that allowed you to remove Facebook Connect functionality from websites? After 50K active users in two weeks and hitting …

Discussion: Pulse2, Techie Buzz, Search Engine Land, SecurityWeek.Com and ConceivablyTech

Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land:

Once Again: Should Google Be Allowed To Send Itself Traffic? — The question of Google's right to refer traffic to its own sites is once again in the center of policy debate. The European Commission is looking at this issue as part of its larger anti-trust investigation against Google.

Discussion: TechCrunch, PC Magazine, Digital Trends, Bruce Clay Blog, WebProNews, Digits, Pulse2, VentureBeat, PC World, Inquirer and Search Engine Roundtable, more at Mediagazer »

Agence France Presse:

Google apology to New Zealanders over Wi-Fi data — WELLINGTON (AFP) - Internet giant Google said sorry to New Zealanders Tuesday for collecting personal data from wireless networks for its “Street View” mapping service, in the latest in a series of apologies.

Discussion: Google New Zealand Blog

Chris Ziegler / Engadget:

Best Buy tells the Nexus S retail story: 8AM online sales, two per customer maximum — Want a Nexus S this Thursday? Yeah, well, welcome to the club, pal — you're not alone, so you're going to want to be armed with the right information to figure out your plan of attack.

Discussion: IntoMobile

Verne G. Kopytoff / Bits:

Yahoo May Cut 5 Percent of Its Staff — Yahoo, the beleaguered Web portal, plans to cut up to 650 jobs as soon as Tuesday, according to sources with knowledge of the situation. — The layoffs come as Carol A. Bartz, Yahoo's chief executive, tries to reduce costs amid sluggish growth in Yahoo's online advertising business.

Discussion: VentureBeat and Wall Street Journal

Daisuke Wakabayashi / Digits:

Japanese Publishers Threaten to Bite Apple — So it turns out that maybe not everyone in Japan loves Apple Inc. — A Japanese consortium of book, e-book, magazine and digital comic publishers issued a stern rebuke of Apple's enforcement of copyrights on its App Store.

Discussion: AppleInsider and The Next Web

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

Bing Adds Natural Language To Flight Search — Bing has just made a small improvement to travel search, adding the ability to add natural language queries to flight search. So instead of selecting your airport, destination, dates or other options to conduct a flight search …

Discussion: Bing

David Yonge-Mallo / Gmail Blog:

Gmail web app for iPhone and Android in 44 more languages — Last year, we launched a new mobile Gmail experience for iPhone and Android-powered devices. Since then, those of us who use Gmail in English could go to gmail.com from our mobile browsers and get most of the same features we're used …

Discussion: Google Mobile Blog, Ubergizmo and IntoMobile

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