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Google's Newspaper Ads: Big Hopes For Small Barcodes (GOOG) — Google's efforts to get into the newspaper ad business have yet to yield much. One tool it hopes will eventually change that: Small, square barcodes, like the one at the right, at the bottom of print ads.
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Google TV Will Let Advertisers Select Programs, Produce Own Ads

U2 Manager Says Google And Its Hippie Friends Should Pay The Recording Industry — from the still-haven't-found-what-i'm-looking- for... dept — While the IFPI and the RIAA have been actively pushing for ISP liability for file sharing, it appears some in the industry are taking it even further.
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U2 manager urges ISPs to help fight web piracy — The music industry should shift the focus of its battle with internet piracy towards the technological industries which have “built multibillion dollar industries on the back of our content without paying for it”, according to Paul McGuinness, manager of rock group U2.


Our Tech President Endorsements: Barack Obama and John McCain — It's sadly clear that our current leaders have little understanding of technology and why it's important to our economy and culture. That has to change. — We've been interviewing 2008 presidential candidates for the last few months …
Discussion:
CrunchGear, Business Wire, techPresident, Lessig Blog, 901am, The Open Road and Threat Level
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Motorola may exit its handset business: analyst — LONDON (MarketWatch) — There is a possibility that Motorola, Inc. (MOT:, , ) may exit the handset business and concentrate on becoming an enterprise and government company, Richard Windsor, an analyst with Nomura International, told clients a in note published on Tuesday.
Discussion:
CrunchGear, Gizmodo, Tech Trader Daily, InformationWeek Weblog, IntoMobile, zedgeHeadz, Engadget, All About Nortel, PHONE Magazine and mocoNews.net
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Legal Defense of Free and Open Source Software — The purpose of this Web page is to inform the community of Barracuda Networks' plans to defend itself and the free and open source software (FOSS) community from a patent threat by Trend Micro. In addition, we wanted to share …
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Barracuda defends open-source antivirus from patent attack
Discussion:
InfoWorld

Slashdot Founder Questions Crowd's Wisdom — One of the oldest rivals to the community news site Digg is pointing to recent unrest at the site as evidence that the social news model is flawed. — Last week, frequent users of Digg protested changes in its algorithms that were designed …
Discussion:
Profy.Com

VMware Down 30% As Growth Disappoints; Now What? — VMware (VMW) shares have plunged more than 30% today following the company's announcement late yesterday of both a $5 million revenue shortfall compared with Street expectations in the fourth quarter and a 2008 growth projection that left the Street wanting more.

The Movie Industry's 300% Error — A week ago today, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) issued what had to be a hugely embarrassing news release acknowledging that an aggressively promoted and widely cited research report commissioned by the MPAA in 2005 significantly overstated …
Discussion:
p2pnet

Sprint Revives Clearwire Talks — Sprint Nextel has revived serious discussions with startup Clearwire to form a joint venture that would bring in funding from the likes of Intel, Google and Best Buy to build a high-speed wireless network using WiMax technology.
Discussion:
Electronista, Between the Lines, Ars Technica, Tech Trader Daily, dailywireless.org, Sidecut Reports and Phone Scoop

Wall Street Journal signs up with Microsoft for Contextual and Paid Search advertising — Microsoft will become the exclusive third-party ad provider for the Wall Street Journal network of sites, including The Wall Street Journal Online, Barrons.com, MarketWatch.com, AllThingsD.com and others.

Digg Joins the DataPortability Project — Digg has joined the DataPortability Project, a group of websites cooperating to help you securely use your data however you want. Why? Because you own your data. It's that simple. From the start, Digg has supported the idea that you own your own data.
Discussion:
VentureBeat, ReadWriteWeb, LiveSide, Mashable!, mathewingram.com/work, This Old Network and Voidstar: blog


The True Cost of SMS Messages — I just found out that AT&T (A-fee&fee?) is raising their text message pricing. When I first signed up for AT&T 6 or so years ago it cost 10 cents to send an SMS message, and it was free to receive them. — When AT&T switched to Cingular the price of sending …
Discussion:
Christopher Null, DSLreports, CrunchGear, dailywireless.org, Jeremy Zawodny's blog and Slashdot


Windows 7 = Vista Release 2 — All the kerfuffle over Windows 7 - leaked memos, shaky handheld video clips of leaked builds, equally shaky tentative release schedules - is amusing. I don't have any inside information to offer, only a perspective drawn from 17 years of watching the Windows development process in action.


11 Power Tips for Gmail — Wow, I can't believe how many people commented on my late-Friday night post about desired features for Gmail. If you want to suggest something for Gmail, that thread is the better place to do it. But looking through the comments, I saw a few requests that can already be done today.