Top Items:
Wall Street Journal:
Music Industry to Abandon Mass Suits — After years of suing thousands of people for allegedly stealing music via the Internet, the recording industry is set to drop its legal assault as it searches for more effective ways to combat online music piracy. — The decision represents …
Discussion:
CNET News, Engadget, blogs.chron.com, Homotron.net, p2pnet, Electronista, Gizmodo, TG Daily and Slashdot
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Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
RIAA Abandoning Mass Lawsuits In Favor Of Backroom 3 Strikes Policy — from the it's-a-step,-but-a-very-small- one dept — It really was just three days ago that we suggested that if the record labels actually wanted anyone to take them seriously concerning their desire to come …
Discussion:
CNET News
Karl Bode / DSLreports:
RIAA Will Stop Mass Lawsuits - But are closed door deals, flakey filters and piracy taxation better? — The Wall Street Journal this morning reports that the RIAA will be abandoning their strategy of filing mass lawsuits against P2P users, a plan that has targeted some 35,000 people since 2003.
Discussion:
MediaMemo
english.etnews.co.kr:
Samsung Electronics will launch Google Phone in Q2 — Samsung Electronics will release its first Google phone in the second quarter of the next year in North America. — The launch of Google phone by Samsung is regarded as a signal of its plan for increasing the shares in the smart phone market …
Discussion:
IntoMobile, jkOnTheRun, Engadget, Gizmodo, SlashGear, Google Android News … and Pocket-lint.co.uk
Joshua Topolsky / Engadget:
Dell Studio XPS 13 leather-wrapped laptop revealed, Adamo info leaked! — Thanks to a totally amazing Engadget source, we've gotten our hands on photos of the absolutely sick Dell Studio XPS 13, and some new info about the company's forthcoming Adamo. First off, the photos in the gallery …
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Ashlee Vance / Bits:Dell's Mystery ‘Adamo’ Could Be Thinner Than Air
Discussion:
Telegraph, Electronista, Crave, Boy Genius Report, broadstuff, Ubergizmo, Pocket-lint.co.uk, MobileDevicesToday, DisplayBlog, Gadget Lab, Gizmodo, I4U News, CrunchGear, The Toybox and Boing Boing Gadgets
Greg Sandoval / CNET News:
Universal Music seeing ‘tens of millions’ from YouTube — YouTube's traffic machine may finally be turning into a cash machine. — For the first time, there are signs that YouTube is driving significant revenue for itself and some of the video site's partners.
Spencer E. Ante / Business Week:
A Wrench in Silicon Valley's Wealth Machine — A year ago, cash rained on tech startups like Digg. Now their valuations are slipping, and venture capital is drying up — A year ago there were reports that Digg had hired investment bank Allen & Co. to put the popular news aggregation Web site …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Scribd Raises $9 Million So You Can Continue To View PDFs Online — Y Combinator startup Scribd has raised its second big round of financing - $9 million from Charles River Ventures, Redpoint Ventures and Kinsey Hills Group. That comes on top of a $3.7 million Series A round in the middle of 2007 …
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
ComScore: YouTube Now 25 Percent Of All Google Searches — Video search on YouTube accounts for a quarter of all Google search queries in the U.S., according to the latest search engine numbers from comScore. Its monthly qSearch report, which was released on Thursday night, breaks out the number of searches conducted on YouTube.
Discussion:
Independent Street
Neil McAllister / Fatal Exception:
Native Client: Google's craziest idea yet — Is Google's plan to run native x86 code inside browser windows just a disaster waiting to happen? — The browser's role is ever increasing. It already has become far more than a mere tool for accessing information.
Discussion:
Beyond Search
YouTube Blog:
Hi-Definition Rollout and New Landing Pages on YouTube — We have two developments that we would like to share with you: the expansion of our HD player and a test of three new landing pages designed to help you find the news, music and movies on YouTube that matter most to you. — HD on YouTube
Discussion:
Podcasting News, PC World, CNET News, NewTeeVee, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, Search Engine Watch, TechCrunch UK and The Utube Blog
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
European Business Social Network XING Acquires socialmedian (Update: For $7.5 Million) — Hamburg, Germany based XING, a global professional social network that's strong in Europe, has acquired New York based socialmedian for approximately $7.5 million in total, a mix of $4 million in cash …
Discussion:
socialmedian, net.work.xing, Silicon Alley Insider, TheNextWeb.com, ReadWriteWeb, FaceReviews, MediaNama and Regular Geek
Dennis Yang / Techdirt:
Did Burger King Really Just Issue A C&D Through Twitter? — Now that it's legal to serve papers to someone through Facebook, Burger King has apparently sent a cease and desist via Twitter to the user “whoppervirgins” for an unauthorized use of trademark. “Whopper Virgins” …
Discussion:
Baltimore Sun
Kevin Michaluk / CrackBerry.com blogs:
OS4.7.0.83 Leaked for the BlackBerry Storm 9530! — w00t! Whether you're celebrating Christmas, Hannukah, Festivus or anything and everything else this Holiday Season, for you BlackBerry Storm 9530 owners the sweetest gift just arrived... a new update to the 9530 Storm's OS!
Darren Murph / Engadget:
RIM calls the Storm “Verizon's best-selling device” — whatever that means — We're still no closer to determining just how many BlackBerry Storm sales have been reversed by now, but either way, said handset is reportedly Verizon's “best-selling device.” Interestingly, it's up to your best guess …
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Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:BlackBerry Storm Selling Well, As Expected (RIMM)
Discussion:
IntoMobile, Tech Central, PhoneDog.com Cell …, Tech Beat, Between the Lines and Electronista
CNN:
Polaroid files for Chapter 11 — (CNN) — Polaroid Corp. announced it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. — The Minnesota-based company said it is taking itself and its subsidiaries into bankruptcy in order to restructure its finances. — “Our operations are strong …
Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:
Scientific Journal to Authors: Publish in Wikipedia or Perish — Every day, hundreds of articles appear in academic journals and very little of this information is available to the public. Now, RNA Biology has decided to ask every author who submits an article to a newly created section …
Discussion:
UMBC ebiquity
Google Mobile Blog:
Optimized search results pages for Android and iPhone — Whether you're using Google search through the search widget on the Android home screen, the built-in search box of the iPhone's Safari browser, or google.com on either device, you'll now end up with search results optimized for your phone.
Discussion:
Webware.com, Search Engine Watch, Unwired View, IntoMobile, SlashPhone, jkOnTheRun, AndroidGuys, Google Android News …, Phone Scoop and WebProNews
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
NPR Now Lets You Roll Your Own Podcast Feed — National Public Radio (NPR) here in the US has some great audio content and the offering got even better today with the release of a new “mix your own” podcast option. Users enter a list of categories and keywords and the NPR site dynamically generates …
Katie Marsal / AppleInsider:
Apple TV at the center of Apple's latest lawsuit — A wireless set-top-box maker is suing Apple, claiming the company hired away a trio of employees privy to patented technology that would later turn up as part of Apple TV. — The 6-page complaint was filed in an Illinois court on Tuesday …
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Alan Stafford / PC World:
New eBook Reader Undercuts Kindle, Sony Reader Prices — Amazon's Kindle electronic book reader costs $359—but you can't get one until at least February. Sony's PRS-700BC costs $399—also pretty darn costly. But Foxit Software will soon begin shipping an eBook reader that costs only slightly more than half what Sony's reader does.
Todd Bishop / TechFlash:
Microsoft job listings reveal Zune expansion plan, and Musiwave's role — At this point, it's clear that Microsoft plans to expand its Zune initiative beyond the current music device, software and service. The question is how. With the Zune Phone rumors fading into the background …
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Matt Peckham / PC World:
Guns N' Roses Frontman Axl Rose Growls About Guitar Hero — Shame on Activision for poaching Guns N' Roses songs in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. That's band frontman Axl Rose's testy take in a sprawling missive delivered at band fan site Mygnr.com. According to Rose …
Discussion:
Reuters
