Top Items:
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
Apple Denies Steve Jobs Heart Attack Report: “It Is Not True” — “Citizen journalism” apparently just failed its first significant test. A CNN iReport poster reported this morning that Steve Jobs had been rushed to the ER after a severe heart attack (story and screenshot below).
Justin Scheck / Wall Street Journal:
H-P Plans to Unveil Smart Phone — Hewlett-Packard Co., aiming to grow its device business beyond corporate users, is preparing to release a new smart phone that will also be marketed to consumers, according to people briefed on the plan. The device will debut in Europe, these people say …
Ben Sisario / New York Times:
First Royalty Rates Set for Digital Music — In a decision closely watched by the music industry, a panel of federal judges who determine royalty rates for recordings ruled on Thursday to renew the current royalty rate for CDs and other physical recordings, while setting rates …
Discussion:
Bits, Digital Daily, Wall Street Journal, FierceMobileContent, Gadgetell, MediaBytes with Shelly Palmer and CNET News
RELATED:
beu blog:
Google No Longer Suggests Directory Submission — While Google has condemned buying and selling links that pass PageRank, they've encouraged listing in paid directories like Yahoo for years. It seems that era may have come to an end earlier today. The following bullet points have been removed …
RELATED:
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:Google Removes Directory Links From Webmaster Guidelines
Discussion:
Google Blogoscoped
Lei Zhang / Google Photos Blog:
Picasa 3 (beta) for Linux — We're proud to announce the public beta of Picasa 3.0 for Linux (just a few days past the end of summer :-) — With version 3, Picasa adds improved Linux desktop integration. For instance, it now uses your preferred file manager, and you can use …
Cory Bohon / TUAW:
Apple TV update 2.2 — Earlier tonight, Apple issued a Security Update for Apple TV. According to Apple, this update (version 2.2) fixes a bug in Apple TV that could allow a “maliciously crafted movie file may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution.”
RELATED:
Marguerite Reardon / CNET News:
What's the big deal about WiMax? — Sprint Nextel has made headlines all week as it's started lighting up its first 4G wireless network using a technology called WiMax. But what exactly is WiMax? And how does it fit into the future of wireless? Here's a primer to help you sort it out.
Discussion:
MuniWireless
RELATED:
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:WiMAX networks: we won't single out P2P for punishment
Discussion:
DSLreports
Wall Street Journal:
Google Rethinks Its Aversion to Ads — Since its earliest days, Google Inc. has largely promoted its search engine and search-advertising products through word of mouth and partnerships. — But in recent months some of the Internet company's executives have been pushing for the company to overcome its aversion to paid advertising.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, Search Engine Land, Epicenter, MediaFile, Valleywag, BloggingStocks, WebProNews and Gawker
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Salesforce.com: Worries emerge — Salesforce.com on Friday was downgraded from a buy to a sell by UBS analyst Heather Bellini because software as a service companies are likely to face the same headwinds as larger applications vendors. Meanwhile, Salesforce.com is targeting larger enterprises …
Discussion:
Tech Trader Daily
Mathew / mathewingram.com/work:
Is the link economy really broken? — It happened amid the stream of Twitter messages about the vice-presidential debates between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, so a lot of people probably missed it, but Allen Stern of Centernetworks said something that really caught my eye: “it's clear the link economy is broken.”
Matt Cutler / The Visible Measures Blog:
Microsoft's Viral Video Adventure: Seinfeld/Gates vs. I'm a PC — Microsoft recently went on a marketing offensive, launching a $300 million campaign that was unexpectedly divided into two distinct sections. The first, ostensibly designed as a teaser, featured legendary comedian Jerry …
Jack Ewing / Business Week:
Nokia's Touch Screen 5800 Nods to iPhone — Boasting many of the iPhone's features, the 5800 XpressMusic handset targets the young by offering a year's worth of free music downloads — The new Nokia 5800 XpressMusic handset certainly looks like an iPhone.
RELATED:
Martin Veitch / CIO UK Magazine:
INTERVIEW: Steve Ballmer on the Cloud, Google, data centres and the cult of Apple — Microsoft will out-cloud Google — Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer delivered the keynote speech at his company's London conference “Technologies to Change Your Business: How Customers Are Implementing Tomorrow's Strategies Today”.
RELATED:
Maggie Shiels / BBC:
Obama uses iPhone to win support — US Democratic candidate Barack Obama is set to turn the iPhone into a political recruiting tool with an application aimed at getting the vote out. — The most notable feature is a “Call Friends” option to help organise contacts in swing states.
Jessica Dolcourt / Webware.com:
Flickr's iPhone-friendly (beta) redesign — A great deal of Web companies have long since converted their iPhone-optimized sites into native iPhone apps, but not Yahoo's Flickr. Instead, Flickr is just getting around to tweaking its mobile site, m.flickr.com—in beta—specifically for iPhones.
Matt Asay / The Open Road:
CIOs look to open source to do “more for less” in tough economy — I've been doing an informal poll recently of open-source companies, asking them how the tight economy is affecting their sales. In every single case, these companies are recording record sales.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Big Blogger Pay Cuts At b5Media — Toronto based b5Media is changing the way it pays bloggers in its hundreds-strong blog network, according to an email memo sent out to partners by CEO Jeremy Wright and copied below. — Gone are guaranteed payments of “$100-$200/month” plus bonuses for traffic.
Digital Photography Review:
Photokina Interview Series: Canon — Photokina 2008 Interview: Canon — Dpreview.com met up with one of Canon Inc's most high ranking executives, Director and Chief Executive of Image Communication Products Operations, Masaya Maeda, at Photokina for a wide-ranging conversation about current …
Discussion:
1001 Noisy Cameras
Amol Sharma / Wall Street Journal:
Sprint Finds Bidders for Nextel, but Hurdles Remain — Wireless provider Sprint Nextel Corp., which has been exploring a sale of its Nextel business, has received interest from Latin American carrier NII Holdings Inc. and several private-equity firms, people familiar with the matter say.
Discussion:
GigaOM, Between the Lines, FierceWireless, FierceMobileContent, Electronista and mocoNews.net
Rajat Agrawal / Cellpassion:
Nokia shows off new Communicator concept device, adds touch! — During the just-concluded S60 webcast organised by Nokia, the presentation slide showed a concept device that just blew our minds away! The device seems to be an all-touchscreen phone that converts into a Communicator when the ‘pencil box’ form-factor is opened.
