Top Items:
New York Times:
Google Resists U.S. Subpoena of Search Data — SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 19 - The Justice Department has asked a federal judge to compel Google, the Internet search giant, to turn over records on millions of its users' search queries as part of the government's effort to uphold an online pornography law.
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Xeni Jardin / Boing Boing:
DoJ search requests: Google said no; Yahoo, AOL, MSN yes. — Update: Earlier today, I asked a Justice Department spokesperson which search engines other than Google received requests to provide search records. The answer: Yahoo, AOL, and MSN were also asked to supply search records information, and all complied.
Arshad Mohammed / Washington Post:
Google Refuses Demand for Search Information — Government Asked 4 Firms for Data in Effort to Revive Anti-Porn Law — The Justice Department said yesterday that it subpoenaed four major Internet companies for data on what people search for on the Web as part of an eight-year battle …
Jim Brady / washingtonpost.blog:
Comments Turned Off — As of 4:15 p.m. ET today, we have shut off comments on this blog indefinitely. — At its inception, the purpose of this blog was to open a dialogue about this site, the events of the day, the journalism of The Washington Post Company and other related issues.
Discussion:
Susan Mernit's Blog
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Ning - R.I.P.? — What happened to Ning? — It was the perfect service at the perfect time. — Mashups are hot right now. Really hot. David Berlind oversold his MashUp Camp in a week and now has an impressive waiting list forming. And John Musser's list of mashups continues to grow (see Richard MacManus' post on this too).
Discussion:
Susan Mernit's Blog
Greg Reinacker / Greg Reinacker's Weblog:
Image aggregator prototype — The other night, on the way home, an idea came to me...so I pulled up my development environment and decided to write some code. I think my terrified development team is probably locking me out of the source control systems as we speak... ;-) — My thought was this.
Nick / Rough Type:
Porn again — First things first: Google is to be applauded for fighting a subpoena requiring it to turn over data on people's searches to the federal government. The government isn't seeking the data for a criminal investigation; it's on a fishing expedition to build a case for getting an anti-porn law through the courts.
Arik Hesseldahl / Business Week:
Is the New iMac a Cash Machine? — Disassembling the first fruit of the Apple-Intel alliance raises some interesting questions about the model's profit margins — For years the thought of an Intel (INTC) chip going into an Apple computer (AAPL) was enough to make those who love their Macs turn various shades of green.
Dylan Tweney / Wired News:
Screening the Latest Bestseller — Electronic books have traditionally gone straight from the manufacturer to the remainders bin — but the market has never gone away entirely, despite years of tepid sales and failed predictions. — Now a new device from Sony is generating buzz worthy of a Stephen King novel.
Discussion:
TeleRead
Sylvia Carr / silicon.com:
Tesco debuts 'VoIP for all' — "Simple service" to rival Skype — Retail giant Tesco has launched a new voice over IP service aimed at the mass market, which allows customers to place phone calls over the internet via their PC. — The goal is to make it easy enough for anyone - even those who've never heard of VoIP - to use.
RELATED ITEM:
Umair / Bubblegeneration Strategy Lab:
Yahoo 06 — Before reading too much into Yahoo's earnings, you should: — 1) Read the conference call. — 2) Understand why we've been predicting that Yahoo's dominated for a very long time now; because it doesn't have any edge competencies. — 3) Note that one quarter …
Mathew / mathewingram.com/work:
Are media consumers mostly couch potatoes? — Scott Karp, the managing director of research and strategy for Atlantic Media, seems to have a way of writing things that get under my skin. First he said that bloggers have it all wrong when it comes to the "new" media, and that the vision …
Daniel Terdiman / CNET News.com:
Newsmaker: Nintendo's New Year's resolutions — Sometime later this year, both Sony and Nintendo will release their next-generation video game consoles, the PlayStation 3 and the Revolution, respectively. — The new machines offer the promise of state-of-the-art graphics and could leave …
Ashlee Vance / The Register:
Google's botched video store starts coughing up cash — Google has started returning money to those customers screwed by its hapless video service. — Last week, we told you how billionaires Larry and Sergey had taken 99 cents from us and others as a result of their handicapped Google Video store.
Washington Post:
Will Pixar Move In With the Mouse? — Jobs's Animation Shop In Talks With Disney — He created a hip alternative to the once-mighty IBM desktop. He launched a pocket digital music phenomenon. He set the standard for computer-generated animated films.
Discussion:
PaidContent.org
Robert Sinke / dapreview.net:
jWIN JX-MP93 can eat 2GB SD cards — Some of these reps at the CES in Las Vegas were just rude, which is okay as long as there's a valid reason. Something like "No sir, you cannot take pictures of this device because your camera's flash will cause this thing to mutate into some horrific giant sea cucumber …
IT Observer / it-observer.com:
Linux Users May be Violating Sarbanes-Oxley — Companies using Linux for embedded applications may be unwittingly violating the Linux license and even breaking federal securities laws, according to a research published by Wasabi Systems. — The research "When GPL Violations are Sarbanes-Oxley Violations" …
Mark LaPedus / eetimes.com:
U.S. to open WiMAX spectrum — SAN JOSE, Calif. — Looking to stay ahead of Asian and European rivals in broadband deployment, the U.S. is making an aggressive bid to open up spectrum for emerging WiMAX technology, according to a Bush administration official.
Edward Castronova / Terra Nova:
How a Gold Farm Works — Mindy Basi, AKA Kwill of Kwill's Quill and a PhD from University of Illinois (see a summary of her work on race, gender, and MMORPGs in the middle of this page), emailed me about a discussion happening on the EverQuest boards. The thread, here …
Dave Winer / Scripting News:
Six month Mac report — This is my sixth month primarily using the Mac. I still use Windows, but when I travel, the Mac is what goes with me. That goes for trips down the street to the coffee shop, or trips on BART to San Francisco, or United Airlines to Boston.