Amazon.com Help: Lending Kindle Books

Kindle book loaning is live; see the link below for more details.  A small percentage of the books I’d be interested in loaning is available at this point, however.

Eligible Kindle books can be loaned once for a period of 14 days. The borrower does not need to own a Kindle -- Kindle books can also be read using our free Kindle reading applications for PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android devices. Not all books are lendable -- it is up to the publisher or rights holder to determine which titles are eligible for lending. The lender will not be able to read the book during the loan period.

Amazon.com Help: Lending Kindle Books

Motorola: Breaking up | The Economist

Check the article link below for more reasons it’s not likely to be smooth smartphone sailing ahead for . 5 * Motorola

Yet things may get worse before they get better. Many buyers of Droid phones are customers of Verizon, America’s largest mobile-phone operator. It needed Motorola’s smartphones to compete with AT&T, the number two and, so far, the only network to offer the iPhone in America. But Verizon is rumoured to be launching a new version of Apple’s gadget in January; if so, Motorola’s market share is likely to shrink. Since the firm’s handset business also tends to be slow early in the year, Sanjay Jha, its boss, expects a loss in the first quarter.

Motorola: Breaking up | The Economist

Information technology goes global: Tanks in the cloud | The Economist

Excerpted from an Economist cloud computing snapshot

The results suggest that Amazon’s cloud is a bigger business than previously thought. Randy Bias, the boss of Cloudscaling, a IT-engineering firm, did not use these results when he put Amazon’s annual cloud-computing revenues at between $500m and $700m in 2010. And in August UBS, an investment bank, predicted that they will total $500m in 2010 and $750m in 2011.

Information technology goes global: Tanks in the cloud | The Economist

Twins’ Facebook Fight Rages On - NYTimes.com

Maybe they have mistaken assumptions about Zuckerberg’s charitable intentions

The Winklevosses — identical twins and Harvard graduates — say that they, along with another Harvard student, Divya Narendra, had the original idea for Facebook, and that Mark Zuckerberg stole it. They sued Facebook and Mr. Zuckerberg in 2004, and settled four years later for $20 million in cash and $45 million in Facebook shares.

They have been trying to undo that settlement since, saying they were misled on the value of the deal. But it has not been an easy decision.

Twins’ Facebook Fight Rages On - NYTimes.com

Nintendo won’t let young children use 3-D device - The Boston Globe

It would be interesting to know how they determined it’s okay for children older than 6 years old

Nintendo Co. will bar children ages 6 and younger from using the 3-D functions of its new handheld game machine at an introductory event for the device.

“Looking at 3-D images for a long time may harm the growth of children’s eyes,’’ Nintendo said in a note to visitors coming to the event next month, posted on its website. The company’s new 3DS players will be promoted at the three-day event in Chiba prefecture, near Tokyo.

Nintendo won’t let young children use 3-D device - The Boston Globe

Samsung to offer an iPod Touch alternative - The Boston Globe

Expanded competition for Apple

Samsung Electronics Co. will unveil a digital media player next month that can play video, take photos, and connect to the Internet as the company adds another product to compete with Apple Inc.’s touchscreen devices.

The “Galaxy Player,’’ powered by Google Inc.’s Android software, has a front-facing camera that allows users to have video chats and upload photos online using wireless networks, Samsung said yesterday.

Samsung to offer an iPod Touch alternative - The Boston Globe

Groupon eyes $950m in preferred stock sale - The Boston Globe

This will be an interesting test of bubble dynamics

The company amended its certificate of incorporation, allowing it to issue about 30.1 million shares of Series G preferred stock at a price of $31.59 a share, according to a Dec. 17 filing with the state of Delaware. The financing would value Groupon at as much as $7.8 billion, exceeding Google’s offer, according to VCExperts, a website that offers data and analysis for venture capitalists and private equity investors.

Groupon eyes $950m in preferred stock sale - The Boston Globe

Irony: Read Kindle Books On Your Rooted NookColor

B&N would be wise to officially support this scenario, imho; check the link below for more details (it notes, among other things, “The downside however is that as with all hacks, you risk bricking the device and voiding the warranty. You may also lock yourself out of future updates from Barnes and Noble.”)

Just when we thought the NookColor was just a B&N reading device, hackers have rooted the devices and ported the Kindle reading app to the platform, ensuring plenty of migraines around Barnes & Noble HQ this week.

Irony: Read Kindle Books On Your Rooted NookColor

RIM's PlayBook Stock Rally Is Fizzling - BusinessWeek

The only innovative feature I’ve seen in the PlayBook thus far is the use of touch technology in the bezel – so you don’t have to touch the display content to, e.g., scroll content or turn the page of an e-book

Research In Motion's stock (RIM) is up about 37 percent since the start of September, primarily because of its tablet device, due out in the first quarter. Yet the share rally may be overdone. Some analysts are warning that RIM's PlayBook may be late to the tablet race in a market led by Apple's (AAPL) iPad. "It'll be a modest seller, and the iPad will likely do 10 times as much," says Shaw Wu, an analyst at Kaufman Brothers in San Francisco who cut his RIM rating to "hold" in early November. Wu estimates that RIM will ship 1 million PlayBooks in 2011, at most.

RIM's PlayBook Stock Rally Is Fizzling - BusinessWeek

Wi-Fi Overload at High-Tech Meetings - NYTimes.com

I’m guessing the underlying theme here is “slow news day; find an excuse to publish a picture of Steve Jobs”…

Last month in San Francisco at the Web 2.0 Summit, where about 1,000 people heard such luminaries as Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, and Eric E. Schmidt of Google talk about the digital future, the Wi-Fi slowed or stalled at times.

Earlier this year, Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, had to ask the audience at his company’s developer conference to turn off their laptops and phones after his introduction of the iPhone 4 was derailed because of an overloaded Wi-Fi network.

Wi-Fi Overload at High-Tech Meetings - NYTimes.com

Paul Allen Revives Patent Infringement Lawsuit Against Apple, Google, Other Tech Giants | Ina Fried | Mobilized | AllThingsD

The IP lawyer full-employment act continues into 2011

Allen sued Google, Apple, AOL, eBay, Facebook, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples and Yahoo in August, but the case was dismissed earlier this month, with Tuesday set as the deadline for Interval to file an amended complaint. As noted by open source industry blogger Florian Mueller, the new claims include allegations that Android infringes on Interval patents, adding to a growing list of legal claims being leveled in the mobile arena.

Paul Allen Revives Patent Infringement Lawsuit Against Apple, Google, Other Tech Giants | Ina Fried | Mobilized | AllThingsD

Sears gets own brand for movie downloads - The Boston Globe

CBS and IBM probably would have let Sears recycle the Prodigy brand name…

Shares of Sears Holdings Co. rose after the owner of Sears and Kmart stores said it was starting to promote an online movie download service under its own brand. Sears is using Sonic Solutions’ RoxioNow movie service, the same one Best Buy Inc. uses under the CinemaNow brand. Sears will sell the service under the Alphaline brand.

Sears gets own brand for movie downloads - The Boston Globe

Scientists Discover Facebook Center of Brain - The Slatest - Slate Magazine

On a related note, I recommend God Soul Mind Brain; check here for the source Guardian article

The bigger the amygdala, the more Facebook friends somebody is likely to have, a new study in the journal Nature Neuroscience claims. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston have found that the amygdalas of very social people are larger than those of their more reclusive counterparts, with subjects at the bigger end of the spectrum reporting "up to 50 acquaintances," while those with smaller amygdalas listing between five and 15 people as regular contacts.

The most important news and commentary to read right now. - The Slatest - Slate Magazine

Que: Microsoft OneNote: Complementing Other Office Applications > OneNote Integration Options

From the 3rd article in my OneNote article series

OneNote is a robustly useful application for hypertext information management and collaboration. The first two articles in this series (“Exploring Microsoft OneNote, a Content and Collaboration Chameleon” and “Information Item Management in Microsoft OneNote” provided an overview of OneNote and its information item creation and collection capabilities. This article focuses on the complementary fit between OneNote and the currently more widely-used other Office applications.

OneNote is not intended to be a personal productivity panacea or some sort of uber-application. It’s a powerful application for a wide range of information management and collaboration scenarios, but it is not, for example, an attempt to resurrect the general-purpose compound document model envisioned by the designers of Microsoft’s Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) architecture in the late 1980s. Instead, OneNote should be considered more complementary than competitive with the traditional Office applications, a means of more flexibly working with the various types of information items managed by other applications including Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.

Que: Microsoft OneNote: Complementing Other Office Applications > OneNote Integration Options

Que: Information Item Management in Microsoft OneNote > The Fundamental OneNote Model

The 2nd article in my OneNote-focused series for the Que blog (the series started with “Exploring Microsoft OneNote, a Content and Collaboration Chameleon”)

Most people have an overwhelming surplus of digital stuff these days: documents, to-do lists, e-mail messages, diagrams, web page links (or excerpts), and more. While many people think of Microsoft OneNote as a simple note-taking application, the information model and tools embodied in OneNote are useful for a wide range of information item-related tasks.

In this article, we’ll take a quick tour of OneNote’s information architecture; later articles in the series will explain how OneNote’s architecture is also useful for collaboration, web content authoring, and other domains.

Que: Information Item Management in Microsoft OneNote > The Fundamental OneNote Model

Google Pushes Education Software Through App Store - BusinessWeek

Google’s search for additional profitable business domains continues

Software sales for U.S. schools and colleges this year should surpass the 2009 total of $4.6 billion, according to Parthenon Group LLC. That could provide a new growth stream for Google, which gets most of its sales from search advertising. The company works with schools, providing free word processing, e-mail and spreadsheet programs to students and teachers. Now it wants to help outside developers sell applications to educators.

"If we can provide access to education apps to our 10 million users in thousands of schools, then that would be a win all around," said Obadiah Greenberg, Google's business development manager for education.

Google Pushes Education Software Through App Store - BusinessWeek

Bezos Discounts Kindle-Tablet Competition - Digits - WSJ

Win, place, or show

“Customers report using their LCD tablets for games, movies, and Web browsing and their Kindles for reading sessions,” Bezos said in a press release, citing the low weight, long battery life and easy-on-the-eye displays of Amazon’s popular gadget. The current price of the Kindle–which now starts at $139, compared to $499 for the least-expensive iPad–means “people don’t have to choose.”

Forrester analyst James McQuivey says Bezos’s pronouncement isn’t such a stretch. According to the research firm’s surveys, roughly a third of iPad buyers also have or intend to buy a Kindle, he says.

Bezos Discounts Kindle-Tablet Competition - Digits - WSJ

Julian Assange Book to Cover Founding of WikiLeaks - NYTimes.com

More involuntary transparency

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, will release an autobiography next year, having signed publishing deals that he told a British newspaper might be worth $1.7 million.

[…]

“I don’t want to write this book, but I have to,” Mr. Assange told the newspaper, explaining that his legal costs in fighting extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning about allegations of sexual misconduct, have reached more than $300,000. “I need to defend myself and to keep WikiLeaks afloat,” he said.

Julian Assange Book to Cover Founding of WikiLeaks - NYTimes.com

Amazon patents process to block unwanted gifts - The Boston Globe

See the full article for some reasons why this would be beneficial to Amazon as well as gift recipients

Amazon is working on a solution that could revolutionize digital gift buying. The online retailer has quietly patented a way for people to return gifts before they receive them, and the patent documents even mention poor Aunt Mildred. Amazon’s innovation includes an option to “Convert all gifts from Aunt Mildred,’’ the patent says. “For example, the user may specify such a rule because the user believes that this potential sender has different tastes than the user.’’ In other words, the consumer could keep an online list of lousy gift-givers whose choices would be vetted before anything ships.

Amazon patents process to block unwanted gifts - The Boston Globe

You’ve Got to Have (150) Friends - NYTimes.com

Concluding paragraphs from an anthropologist's take on social networking

Our ancestors knew the same people their entire lives; as we move around, though, we can lose touch with even our closest friends. Emotional closeness declines by around 15 percent a year in the absence of face-to-face contact, so that in five years someone can go from being an intimate acquaintance to the most distant outer layer of your 150 friends.

Facebook and other social networking sites allow us to keep up with friendships that would otherwise rapidly wither away. And they do something else that’s probably more important, if much less obvious: they allow us to reintegrate our networks so that, rather than having several disconnected subsets of friends, we can rebuild, albeit virtually, the kind of old rural communities where everyone knew everyone else. Welcome to the electronic village.

You’ve Got to Have (150) Friends - NYTimes.com

Social Networking Gains Among Older Americans - NYTimes.com

Check the full article and related Pew report for more details

Internet users from all age groups increased their use of social networking from December 2008 to May 2010, with use by people 18 to 33 rising to 83 percent, from 67 percent. But those in every generation 45 and older more than doubled their participation. Adults 74 and older who are online quadrupled their social networking presence, and that now stands at 16 percent.

Teenagers, by contrast, cut back on traditional blogging by 50 percent from 2006 to 2009.

Social Networking Gains Among Older Americans - NYTimes.com

Gadgets Bring New Opportunities for Hackers - NYTimes.com

Check the link below for a timely security reality check

“Consumer electronics makers as a class seem to be rushing to connect all their products to the Internet,” said Adrian Turner, Mocana’s chief executive. “I can tell you for a fact that the design teams at these companies have not put enough thought into security.”

Mocana and firms like it sell technology for protecting devices and often try to publicize potential threats. But the Mocana test also illustrates what security experts have long warned: that the arrival of Internet TVs, smartphones and other popular Web-ready gadgets will usher in a new era of threats by presenting easy targets for hackers.

Gadgets Bring New Opportunities for Hackers - NYTimes.com

Apps remind the aging to turn off the stove - The Boston Globe

Sign of the times

That is why I am hopeful about cognitive orthotics, the hand-held gadgets and apps that will remind us to water our plants, shut off our stoves, and guide us home when we get lost in our planned communities.

A new Android app, Tell My Geo, is a fresh entry in this emerging category of tools, which (and I find this a bit troubling) ask us to swap privacy for freedom. The app combines the functions of a medical alert bracelet with those of a personal navigator and can help folks experiencing “senior moments’’ get back on course.

Apps remind the aging to turn off the stove - The Boston Globe

Nation & World | Texting while legislating? iPads OK'd for House floor | Seattle Times Newspaper

Sign of the times

Tucked into new rules proposed by the incoming House Republican majority is one that could fling the chamber — for good or ill — into the 21st century: Members may use an electronic device on the House floor as long as it doesn't "impair decorum."

The new rule would relax the complete ban on the use of gadgets such as the iPad, iPhone or BlackBerry on the House floor. Mobile phones, tablet computers and the burgeoning universe of applications that run on them will be officially available to House members as they conduct business.

Nation & World | Texting while legislating? iPads OK'd for House floor | Seattle Times Newspaper

CIA's WTF to investigate impact of WikiLeaks -- Engadget

Sign of the times

We're not quite sure what's prompted all the hilarious names today, but the CIA has now formed a new group with an acronym of the likes we haven't seen since the days of Nixon's CREEP (or the Committee to Reelect the President). The WikiLeaks Task Force -- yeah, WTF -- has been charged with assessing the impact of the leaked cables on the agency's foreign relationships and operations, and it seems that the acronym has unsurprisingly already become the normal parlance at HQ. No word if the CIA is planning on holding a WTF BBQ to mark the occasion.

CIA's WTF to investigate impact of WikiLeaks -- Engadget

FT.com / Technology - Investor rush for Facebook and Twitter

Interesting times

The implied value of Facebook leapt by 50 per cent in the past five months, while the value of Twitter more than doubled as secondary market investors bid up shares of Silicon Valley’s fastest growing private companies.

[…]

In the past five months, the implied valuation of Facebook, the social networking site, has risen from $26.4bn to as much as $41.2bn. Twitter, the instant messaging service, has more than doubled in value during that time to $3.7bn. The value of Groupon more than trebled to $4.8bn after Google sought to acquire the coupons site.

FT.com / Technology - Investor rush for Facebook and Twitter

On Facebook, Angry People Are More Popular (Plus Other Fascinating Statistical Correlations) - NYTimes.com

An interesting Facebook reality check

In a blog post today titled What's on your mind?, the company disclosed the results of its text analysis of 1 million anonymized messages. Among the findings: Young people swear more than older people, and older people talk about other people more than just themselves. Popular people are more likely to talk about other people, TV and movies, and swear and use religious words. Less popular people are more likely to talk about work, sleeping, eating and thinking. These are but a few of the many observations made by the in-house data team. The biggest question about the data remains unanswered, though: what could a world of independent researchers discover in this data?

On Facebook, Angry People Are More Popular (Plus Other Fascinating Statistical Correlations) - NYTimes.com

Free and Cheap Calls Without Skype - NYTimes.com

I suspect Google Voice was the biggest winner in Skype’s disaster this week

Skype keeps its costs down by sending its calls over the Internet using what’s known as Voice over Internet Protocol – VoIP for short. There are loads of VoIP providers.

To name a few alternatives, Fring is a very similar service that, like Skype, allows for voice calls and video calls, often at a price lower than Skype’s.

If you haven’t signed up for Google Voice, the Internet behemoth’s free phone service, I recommend it. Not only does it give you free and low-cost calls, but it also provides a rich suite of services, like voicemail and call forwarding.

Free and Cheap Calls Without Skype - NYTimes.com

Skype to Refund Paying Customers After Service Outage - BusinessWeek

An unhappy holiday season for Skype (and its users)

Skype Technologies SA, the largest provider of international calls, will offer refunds to paying customers who haven’t been able to use its service because of an outage that lasted more than 30 hours.

About 20 million users, representing 90 percent of the traffic the company would normally expect, are now able to make calls, Chief Executive Officer Tony Bates said today in a blog posting, after an outage yesterday rendered the service unavailable to almost all global users.

[…]

He didn’t say what caused the crash and said the company had ruled out a malicious attack.

Skype to Refund Paying Customers After Service Outage - BusinessWeek

E-Readers Under Christmas Trees May Help E-Books Take Root - NYTimes.com

An e-book market snapshot

E-books now make up 9 to 10 percent of trade-book sales, a rate that grew hugely this year, after accounting for less than half that percentage by the end of last year. Publishers are predicting that digital sales will be 50 percent higher or even double in 2011 what they were in 2010.

January could be the biggest month ever for e-book sales, as possibly hundreds of thousands of people are expected to download books on the e-readers that they receive as Christmas gifts.

E-Readers Under Christmas Trees May Help E-Books Take Root - NYTimes.com

Facebook Photos Cause $505,000 Damage to Navy Copters

A new press/blogosphere sport: blame Facebook (minimally with misleading headlines, as in this instance) for all the stupid things people do and claim they did in some way related to Facebook.  Check the link below, in any case, for a video of a stunt that could have easily earned a Darwin Award…

A Navy investigation into $505,000 of damages to two helicopters found that the pilots had dipped into Lake Tahoe while taking photos for their Facebook page.

Two unidentified Navy pilots were on the return leg of a cross-country tour on September 13 when they attempted to maneuver their helicopters to hover a few feet above the water, according to the investigation.

Facebook Photos Cause $505,000 Damage to Navy Copters

Start using MobileNoter on Android OS! [MobileNoter blog]

One option to consider, if you want to access your OneNote notebooks from an Android device

The first public version of the MobileNoter for Android (0.9 Beta) is now available for download!

If you have a device with Android OS, you can download and use it right now!

Using MobileNoter 0.9 Beta, you can view your OneNote notebooks with preserved formatting and layout, search through them or look through the tags summary.

In future versions of the MobileNoter for Android it will be possible to manage notebooks content, create and edit notes and synchronize the app with PC in various ways.

Start using MobileNoter on Android OS!

Wall St. Computers Read the News, and Trade on It - NYTimes.com

There’s artificial intelligence somewhere in this context…

The number-crunchers on Wall Street are starting to crunch something else: the news.

Math-loving traders are using powerful computers to speed-read news reports, editorials, company Web sites, blog posts and even Twitter messages — and then letting the machines decide what it all means for the markets.

Wall St. Computers Read the News, and Trade on It - NYTimes.com

Skype Details Problems, Says Outage May Take Hours to Fix | Ina Fried | Mobilized | AllThingsD

Skype’s first major outage since 2007 – although I’ve noticed it has been a bit flaky over the last couple weeks, especially when connecting Windows and Mac users

The issue, Skype said, is that its service, unlike a regular phone or even instant messaging service, relies on millions of individual connections, including many especially important computers known as “supernodes.”

“Under normal circumstances, there are a large number of supernodes available,” Skype said in an explanatory blog post on its Web site. “Unfortunately, today, many of them were taken offline by a problem affecting some versions of Skype. As Skype relies on being able to maintain contact with supernodes, it may appear offline for some of you.”

Skype Details Problems, Says Outage May Take Hours to Fix | Ina Fried | Mobilized | AllThingsD

Russian newspaper, WikiLeaks team up - The Boston Globe

A new chapter for WikiLeaks

A Moscow newspaper controlled in part by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev will join forces with WikiLeaks to expose corruption in Russia.

Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, which publishes secret government and corporate documents online, has materials specifically about Russia that have not been published, and Novaya Gazeta will help make them public, the newspaper said on its website yesterday.

Russian newspaper, WikiLeaks team up - The Boston Globe

BBC - Newsbeat - Call of Duty: Black Ops reaches $1billion sales mark

Sign of the times

Call of Duty: Black Ops has broken the $1 billion (£647 million) sales barrier, figures show.

Sales results released by publisher Activision Blizzard suggest it took just six weeks to do it.

In doing so it joins an elite group of entertainment releases to reach the billion dollar mark.

Others include Michael Jackson's Thriller album and James Cameron's 1997 hit film Titantic.

[…]

According to Activision, more than 600 million hours have been logged playing the game since its worldwide launch.

BBC - Newsbeat - Call of Duty: Black Ops reaches $1billion sales mark

A Scientist, His Work and a Climate Reckoning - NYTimes.com

The concluding paragraphs from an extensive update about the world’s most important data analysis domain

On Dec. 11, another round of international climate negotiations, sponsored by the United Nations, concluded in Cancún. As they have for 18 years running, the gathered nations pledged renewed efforts. But they failed to agree on any binding emission targets.

Late at night, as the delegates were wrapping up in Mexico, the machines atop the volcano in the middle of the Pacific Ocean issued their own silent verdict on the world’s efforts.

At midnight Mauna Loa time, the carbon dioxide level hit 390 — and rising.

A Scientist, His Work and a Climate Reckoning - NYTimes.com

Amazon.com Kindle Sales Are Said to Exceed Estimates - BusinessWeek

A happy holiday for Amazon.com

Amazon.com Inc. is likely to sell more than 8 million Kindle electronic-book readers this year, at least 60 percent more than analysts have predicted, according to two people who are aware of the company’s sales projections.

[…]

Shares of Amazon rose $1.46 to $184.75 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. They have gained 37 percent this year.

Amazon.com Kindle Sales Are Said to Exceed Estimates - BusinessWeek

Microsoft to Reveal New Version of Windows - WSJ.com

Dusting off the Windows hardware abstraction layer?…

Microsoft Corp., feeling pressure from hit products like Apple Inc.'s iPad, is crafting a new operating system that deviates from the software giant's heavy reliance on chip technology pioneered by Intel Corp., according to people briefed on Microsoft's plans.

The company next month plans to demonstrate a new version of its widely used Windows operating system that targets low-power devices and adds support for chips based on designs from ARM Holdings PLC as well as the x86 chip technology offered by Intel and Advanced Micro Devices Inc., these people said. Microsoft will discuss the software at the Consumer Electronics Show in early January, though it isn't expected to be available for two years, they added.

Microsoft to Reveal New Version of Windows - WSJ.com

The Hazards of Nerd Supremacy: The Case of WikiLeaks - Technology - The Atlantic

An excerpt from a timely Jaron Lanier reality check

The strategy of Wikileaks, as explained in an essay by Julian Assange, is to make the world transparent, so that closed organizations are disabled, and open ones aren't hurt. But he's wrong. Actually, a free flow of digital information enables two diametrically opposed patterns:  low-commitment anarchy on the one hand and absolute secrecy married to total ambition on the other.

While many individuals in Wikileaks would probably protest that they don't personally advocate radical ideas about transparency for everybody but hackers, architecture can force all our hands. This is exactly what happens in current online culture. Either everything is utterly out in the open, like a music file copied a thousand times or a light weight hagiography on Facebook, or it is perfectly protected, like the commercially valuable dossiers on each of us held by Facebook or the files saved for blackmail by Wikileaks.

The Hazards of Nerd Supremacy: The Case of WikiLeaks - Technology - The Atlantic

Leak bothers founder of WikiLeaks - The Boston Globe

Involuntary transparency is for other people

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is complaining that someone leaked a Swedish police report on his alleged sexual offenses.

In an interview with the British newspaper The Times, Assange complained about reporting in the rival newspaper The Guardian, which is one of several publications that has been helping WikiLeaks edit its trove of secret US diplomatic files in exchange for an early look at them.

Leak bothers founder of WikiLeaks - The Boston Globe

Net Neutrality Ruling: The FCC Splits the Internet in Two - The Daily Beast

A stark reality check from Dan Lyons; read the full piece at the link below

Today’s FCC ruling on net neutrality shifts billions in profits and boils down to one fact: There will soon be a fast Internet for the rich and a slow Internet for the poor.

Net Neutrality Ruling: The FCC Splits the Internet in Two - The Daily Beast

Yahoo: We're not shutting down Delicious - Computerworld

So not dead yet, but not tastefully handled last week

Yahoo will not shut down Delicious and instead is trying to sell it to another company. At least, that's what Yahoo wrote on the Delicious blog Friday, a day after reports circulated that it planned to shut down the social bookmarking pioneer.

"We're actively thinking about the future of Delicious and we believe there is a home outside the company that would make more sense for the service and our users," the blog post says. "We're in the process of exploring a variety of options and talking to companies right now. And we'll share our plans with you as soon as we can."

Yahoo: We're not shutting down Delicious - Computerworld

Google Confronts High Profile Failures in Internet TV and Smart Phone Ventures [WindowsITPro]

Not a fan…  See the link below for more details.

The Nexus S is definitely the less embarrassing of the two. It launched to good reviews, mostly because of improvements in the latest version of the popular Android smartphone OS, which will make its way to other Android phones as well. But the Nexus S is the second generation version of the poorly-received Nexus One phone, which was the subject of so many customer complaints that Google stopped selling the device after just a few months. And Google recently delayed the international release of the Nexus S, and has already dropped the price by a stunning $185 in the UK. And this before the device even went on sale overseas.

Compared to Google TV, however, the Nexus S is a stunning success. Google TV launched to universally negative reviews, and the Sony TV unit I received is so wretched and indecipherable that I ultimately refused to even review it. Google TV is so horrible, so utterly unusable and unfriendly, that Google has taken the unusual step of pulling the product from CES 2011 and telling its hardware partners to hold off on new product announcements. Instead, Google will completely revamp the ill-conceived hardware and relaunch it sometime later in 2011.

Google Confronts High Profile Failures in Internet TV and Smart Phone Ventures

Searching for the Future of Television - Technology Review

A timely and extensive review of the past, present, and possible future of Google TV

Google and the geeks from Silicon Valley aim to revolutionize the 70-year-old TV industry. Conquering the Internet was easy in comparison

Searching for the Future of Television  - Technology Review

The Kno Starts Shipping Tomorrow [TechCrunch]

Just say Kno?  Also see “Kno Thinks Its Tablet is the Answer for Students” (wsj.com; no subscription required)

You probably remember the Kno, either from the original announcement or the demo at TechCrunch Disrupt. The monster 14.1″ screens set it apart from every other tablet on the market, and the customized Ubuntu OS makes it potentially more versatile as well. The impressive technical specs had me doubting whether this device would ever actually see the light of day, or just languish in development hell until the funding ran out.

The Kno Starts Shipping Tomorrow

Augmented Reality on Your Phone - NYTimes.com

Now you can walk into both real and imaginary things while using your mobile device

According to a new report released by Forrester research on Monday, the technology behind augmented reality apps has improved enough so that these apps may well become an integral part of using a mobile phone, augmenting real life with broad strokes of information and commentary.

The report, complied by Thomas Husson, a Forrester senior analyst, acknowledges that until now augmented reality apps have been fun, but entirely impractical because technology limitations often rendered information slowly and inaccurately.

But the report predicts that this will soon change as information becomes “ultra-accurate and delivered in a perfectly seamless way.”

Augmented Reality on Your Phone - NYTimes.com

E-Mail Use Falls as Young Chat and Text - NYTimes.com

Changing communication channels

“The future of messaging is more real time, more conversational and more casual,” said Andrew Bosworth, director of engineering at Facebook, where he oversees communications tools. “The medium isn’t the message. The message is the message.”

The numbers testify to the trend. The number of total unique visitors in the United States to major e-mail sites like Yahoo and Hotmail is now in steady decline, according to the research company comScore. Such visits peaked in November 2009 and have since slid 6 percent; visits among 12- to 17-year-olds fell around 18 percent. (The only big gainer in the category has been Gmail, up 10 percent from a year ago.)

The slide in e-mail does not reflect a drop in digital communication; people have just gravitated to instant messaging, texting and Facebook (four billion messages daily).

E-Mail Use Falls as Young Chat and Text - NYTimes.com

Google Social Researcher Paul Adams Leaves to Join Facebook | Liz Gannes | NetworkEffect | AllThingsD

Socially awkward for Google…

The move is especially interesting because Adams had prepared an influential slide deck about the shortcomings of today’s social networks that was widely circulated online as well as within Facebook. Originally presented at the Voices That Matter Web Design Conference in June, “The Real Life Social Network” has been viewed more than 400,000 times since being posted on SlideShare.

For Adams to join the opposition is obviously not a vote of confidence for Google and its much-maligned plans to offer more social products.

Google Social Researcher Paul Adams Leaves to Join Facebook | Liz Gannes | NetworkEffect | AllThingsD

Al Franken: The Most Important Free Speech Issue of Our Time [Huffington Post]

Final paragraphs of an Al Franken essay

Imagine if Comcast customers couldn't watch Netflix, but were limited only to Comcast's Video On Demand service. Imagine if a cable news network could get its website to load faster on your computer than your favorite local political blog. Imagine if big corporations with their own agenda could decide who wins or loses online. The Internet as we know it would cease to exist.

That's why net neutrality is the most important free speech issue of our time. And that's why, this Tuesday, when the FCC meets to discuss this badly flawed proposal, I'll be watching. If they approve it as is, I'll be outraged. And you should be, too.

Al Franken: The Most Important Free Speech Issue of Our Time

BBC News - Lord Chief Justice allows Twitter in court

Sign of the times

Lord Justice Judge's ruling said: "The use of an unobtrusive, hand-held, virtually silent piece of modern equipment for the purposes of simultaneous reporting of proceedings to the outside world as they unfold in court is unlikely to interfere with the proper administration of justice."

Recording sound or images during a court hearing is illegal, but sending electronic communications has not been.

BBC News - Lord Chief Justice allows Twitter in court

The Brainy Learning Algorithms of Numenta - Technology Review

A Numenta update

At his current firm, Numenta, Hawkins is working on another idea that seems to out of left field: copying the workings of our own brains to build software that makes accurate snap decisions for today's data-deluged businesses. He and his team have been working on their algorithms since 2005 and are finally preparing to release a version that is ready to be used in products. Numenta's technology is aimed at variety of applications, such as judging whether a credit card transaction is fraudulent, anticipating what a Web user will click next, or predicting the likelihood that a particular hospital patient will suffer a relapse.

"What those examples have in common is that they contain complex patterns that evolve over time," says Hawkins. The algorithms can analyze and extrapolate from those patterns because they borrow techniques from parts of the human brain that have evolved to interpret complex data streaming in from our senses and use it to predict what might be coming.

The Brainy Learning Algorithms of Numenta - Technology Review

Business & Technology | Apple on quest to carve slice from BlackBerry's corporate pie | Seattle Times Newspaper

Check the link below for an Apple-versus-RIM snapshot

In September, after only three years on the market, the iPhone for the first time surpassed the BlackBerry in total quarterly sales with 14.1 million devices sold, compared with 12.1 million for Research In Motion, or RIM, as it is commonly known.

In its quest to become the de facto smartphone maker for business users — the company has already won about 23 percent of that market, comScore said — Apple has hired a number of former RIM salespeople to help it sell its phones to corporate America.

Business & Technology | Apple on quest to carve slice from BlackBerry's corporate pie | Seattle Times Newspaper

Google Ngram Viewer [Microsoft, Google. and Facebook since 2000]

A snapshot via Dan Gillmor

Google Ngram Viewer

Google TV Faces Delays Amid Poor Reviews - NYTimes.com

Please stand by…

Industry analysts also say Google’s sudden change of plans reflects a weakness in the company’s business culture around managing relationships with partners.

“Google as a company is not a particularly partner-friendly or partner-focused company,” said James L. McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester, who added that because of the delay, it might take another year before Google TV has a chance to catch fire.

Executives at the television makers played down the idea that they were reacting to an abrupt change in marching orders from Google, but according to people familiar with the negotiations, they were caught by surprise.

Google TV Faces Delays Amid Poor Reviews - NYTimes.com

Social Networking Can Bring in New Views, Not Just Echoes - NYTimes.com

A snapshot of projects at IBM’s Cambridge, MA research lab

That is the task being squarely addressed last week at I.B.M.’s Center for Social Software — a roughly 30-member lab that addresses “the modern-day challenges of collaborating across distributed, global enterprises.” The lab tries to use increasingly sophisticated computers to act as information advisers.

“I do think of computers as augmenting people, not replacing them,” said Irene Greif, the director of the research center. “We need help with the limits of the brain, but there are some things that our brains can do that computers can’t do.”

Social Networking Can Bring in New Views, Not Just Echoes - NYTimes.com

Schumpeter: Why do firms exist? | The Economist

Check the story link below for a Ronald Coase profile

The man who restored the pin factory to its rightful place at the heart of economic theory celebrates his 100th birthday on December 29th. The economics profession was slow to recognise Ronald Coase’s genius. He first expounded his thinking about the firm in a lecture in Dundee in 1932, when he was just 21 years old. Nobody much listened. He published “The Nature of the Firm” five years later. It went largely unread.

But Mr Coase laboured on regardless: a second seminal article on “The Problem of Social Cost” laid the intellectual foundations of the deregulation revolution of the 1980s. Eventually, Mr Coase acquired an army of followers, such as Oliver Williamson, who fleshed out his ideas. In 1991, aged 80, he was awarded a Nobel prize. Far from resting on his laurels, Mr Coase will publish a new book in 2011, with Ning Wang of Arizona State University, on “How China Became Capitalist”.

Schumpeter: Why do firms exist? | The Economist

Doonesbury Strip [on parents & texting]

I feel better; the per-child monthly texting record for my family is currently a mere 5,625…   (check here for the full weekly strip)

 

Doonesbury Strip

YouTube - Introducing Flipboard's Latest Edition: Getting More Social

Check the video for some useful and subtle features

Mediactive: a Handbook for Engaged Media Citizenship « Groundswell

More Mediactive perspectives

If we are living in a media nation, then Dan Gillmor’s new book, Mediactive, is a handbook for engaged media citizenship. We might summarize the premise behind Gillmor’s book as: Ask not what your media can do for you, ask what you can do for your media. The book was just released this week, but I have been reviewing it for the past few weeks (Disclosure: Dan is a friend and gave me a copy to review).

At its most basic Mediactive is a clear eyed examination of our rights and responsibilities in this new media nation. This is not another book about the future of media, it is a book about us. As Clay Shirky writes in the forward, “Dan doesn’t make upgrading the sources, or the gatekeepers, or the filters – or any other ‘them’ in the media ecosystem – his only or even primary goal. Dan wants to upgrade us, so we can do our own part. He wants us to encourage media to supply better information by helping us learn to demand better information. And he wants us to participate as creators.”

Mediactive: a Handbook for Engaged Media Citizenship « Groundswell

There Will Be No Kinect Sex Game [Gawker]

Only a matter of time…

ThriXXX, the developer behind a title claiming to be Kinect's first sex game, won't be doing anything of the sort after platform holder Microsoft decided to block its release.

"Xbox is a family friendly games and entertainment console and does not allow Adults Only (AO) content to be certified for use on its platform, and would not condone this type of game for Kinect" a Microsoft spokesperson has told IGN.

There Will Be No Kinect Sex Game

IPhone and Android Apps Breach Privacy - WSJ.com

I don’t think anybody should be surprised that “free,” advertising-supported services share user information with other companies, but this WSJ analysis is still interesting

Few devices know more personal details about people than the smartphones in their pockets: phone numbers, current location, often the owner's real name—even a unique ID number that can never be changed or turned off.

These phones don't keep secrets. They are sharing this personal data widely and regularly, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found.

IPhone and Android Apps Breach Privacy - WSJ.com

Book Review - Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1 - NYTimes.com

The one-line summary of a Garrison Keillor review, from this page:

Samuel L. Clemens’s autobiography, embargoed at his request for 100 years and now a best seller, is a powerful argument for writers’ burning their papers.

Book Review - Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1 - NYTimes.com

BBC News - The mantra of CA Technologies' Donald Ferguson: Simplify

Some insights into the creation of WebSphere

What's the biggest technology mistake you ever made - either at work or in your own life?

When I was at IBM, I started a product called Websphere [which helps companies to operate and integrate business applications across multiple computing platforms].

Because I had come from working on big mission-critical systems, I thought it needs to be scalable, reliable, have a single point of control ... I tried to build something like a mainframe, a system that was capable of doing anything, that would be able to do what might be needed in five years.

I call it the endgame fallacy. It was too complex for people to master. I overdesigned it.

Because we were IBM, we survived it, but if we'd been a start-up, we'd have gone to the wall.

BBC News - The mantra of CA Technologies' Donald Ferguson: Simplify

BBC News - Facebook suffers brief shut down

More details here

In a statement on its blog, Facebook apologised for the brief downtime.

"For a brief period of time, some internal prototypes were made public to a number of people externally." read the message. "As a result, we took the site down for a few minutes. It's back up, and we apologise for the inconvenience."

The BBC understands that the problem arose when code for a number of new products was exposed to the public before they were ready to be launched. This included a feature called "memories" that indexed what people have done on Facebook chronologically.

BBC News - Facebook suffers brief shut down

We Are the Words - Technology Review

More details

Lieberman Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel, both at Harvard's Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, led the project, which they've dubbed "culturomics"—a portmanteau combining "culture" and "genomics." The first fruit of their labors was a mammoth database of the words in about 5.2 million books published between 1800 and 2000—roughly four percent of all published books. These came from the Google Books project, whose library contains 15 million books.

In today's issue of the journal Science, the researchers introduce their project along with some of the first results they've derived from the data. In connection with the publication, Google is rolling out an application (at www.culturomics.org) that allows anyone to access and analyze the finished database, which includes 2 billion words and phrases.

We Are the Words  - Technology Review

Making the transition from Delicious to Evernote « Evernote Blogcast

Evernote seeks to capitalize on Yahoo “sunsetting” Del.icio.us

Earlier today, rumors began to spread that Yahoo might be shutting down Delicious. It’s bittersweet for us to see Delicious go. The service was a pioneer in the social bookmarking space, and many of us here have thousands of bookmarked pages dating back to the old Del.icio.us days.

Evernote is actually a great Delicious alternative. Unlike Delicious, Evernote allows you to clip your favorite webpage–text, images and links–so that you can view them at your leisure, online or offline. No more worrying about 404 errors or changing pages. True, we don’t have the social features of Delicious, but if you want to save your favorite pages forever, Evernote is perfect.

Making the transition from Delicious to Evernote « Evernote Blogcast

Income Rises 45% in Quarter for BlackBerry Maker - NYTimes.com

RIM’s last hurrah?…

R.I.M. said it shipped 14.2 million BlackBerrys in the quarter, narrowly beating Apple’s iPhone sales in its latest quarter, which ended in September. Most of R.I.M.’s growth is now coming from markets outside the United States, Canada and Britain, where the BlackBerry is the business phone of choice.

[…]

Forty-eight percent of R.I.M.’s subscriber base at the end of the quarter was international. Mr. Balsillie acknowledged some disappointment in subscriber additions in North America this year.

Income Rises 45% in Quarter for BlackBerry Maker - NYTimes.com

Apple, Oracle, EMC Take Part in Novell Patent Grab | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

Interesting IP times

Because while companies do sometimes ally to pool patent rights, this seems an…unusual alliance. Why are these patents–which presumably cover networking, virtualization and data center technologies–important enough that Microsoft, EMC, Oracle and Apple would create an LLC to acquire and cross-license them? That’s not entirely clear, though a source inside one of the four companies tells me it was essentially an alliance of convenience.

“We get to buy in at a cheap price and get a license to a very valuable portfolio,” a source inside one of the four companies told me. “It’s cheap defensive insurance.”

Apple, Oracle, EMC Take Part in Novell Patent Grab | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

Google's Word-Wide Web Launches - WSJ.com

More details

"It is just stunning," said noted cultural historian Robert Darnton, director of the Harvard University Library, who wasn't involved in the project and who has been critical of Google's effort to digitize the world's books. "They've come up with something that is going to make an enormous difference in our understanding of history and literature."

All told, about 129 million books have been published since the invention of the printing press. In 2004, Google software engineers began making electronic copies of them, and have about 15 million so far, comprising more than two trillion words in 400 languages.

Google's Word-Wide Web Launches - WSJ.com

Oracle earnings up most in 2 years - The Boston Globe

For server platforms other than Windows Server, perhaps Oracle is engaging in monopoly-scale pricing

Oracle Corp.’s net income jumped 28 percent in the latest quarter, its biggest increase in more than two years and another sign that companies are spending more liberally on technology.

The software maker demonstrated in its latest numbers that it is shielded somewhat from sudden market swings because nearly all of its revenue comes from support contracts that provide consistent revenue.

Oracle earnings up most in 2 years - The Boston Globe

Harvard, Google join in study of books from past 200 years - The Boston Globe

The search for terrestrial intelligence continues…

Books already tell stories, but when their words are combined and analyzed with computational tools, they tell bigger tales. By studying billions of words that appeared in books published over the last 200 years, the researchers found that references to God have been dropping off since about 1830. People are becoming celebrities earlier in life now than in the past, but their fame is more fleeting as their names drop out of the lexicon. References to past years are dropping off more quickly as cultures shift their focus to the present. And censorship leads to discernible shifts in a person’s or event’s cultural footprint, as evident in tracking Tiananmen in Chinese books, or the Jewish artist Marc Chagall in German books from the Nazi era.

Harvard, Google join in study of books from past 200 years - The Boston Globe

Will Oracle And Microsoft Bid On Autonomy Next Year? | Arik Hesseldahl | NewEnterprise | AllThingsD

In the bigger picture, I think a bidding war for Autonomy among Cisco, EMC, and Oracle would be more logical, considering Microsoft’s FAST technology

There’s a sketchily-sourced report in the UK’s Daily Mail this morning saying that the British software concern Autonomy may be the subject of a bidding war between Oracle and Microsoft after the first of the year

Will Oracle And Microsoft Bid On Autonomy Next Year? | Arik Hesseldahl | NewEnterprise | AllThingsD

Perhaps a bit of Amazon sell-back tuning required…

… e.g., consider

Let’s see – 10 used copies priced from $75.95, and Amazon generously offers a $14.85 gift card (and free shipping); I think I’ll pass for now…

p.s. it’s deeply ironic that Ted Nelson’s writing is expensive and available exclusively (AFAIK, for Computer Lib) in dead-tree format; not so much intertwingled or transcluded, at this point…

Amazon in proactive reseller mode

Hmm – noticed this option for the first time this morning, while looking up a book on Amazon.com (the “How to Trade In” window appeared when I clicked “Learn more”).  I’m guessing there won’t be a Kindle book sell-back option real soon now…

Dan Gillmor's Mediactive: masterclass in 21st century journalism demands a net-native news-media - Boing Boing

Check the link below for the rest of the Cory Doctorow review and download links.  You can read the entire book at no cost; I opted for the Kindle edition for reading convenience and to use Kindle annotations – and because I believe excellent writing should be rewarded.

Dan "We, the Media" Gillmor's latest book, Mediactive is a master-class in media literacy for the 21st century. Gillmor, a former star reporter at the San Jose Mercury News, serial entrepreneur, and journalism professor, has produced an extraordinary text that disrupts the current poor-me narrative of failing journalistic business models and counters it with a set of sensible, entrepreneurial proposals for an Internet era news-media that invites broad participation without surrendering critical thinking and healthy skepticism.

Dan Gillmor's Mediactive: masterclass in 21st century journalism demands a net-native news-media - Boing Boing

Microsoft Pri0 | Bing rolls out new mobile, local and Facebook features | Seattle Times Newspaper

View inside malls and restaurants with Bing; see this page (and this page, if you’re heading to a mall) for more new Bing features

Restaurant 3-D tours. The Bing listings for some restaurants will now feature three-dimensional tours of the interior so you can check out the ambience and decor before making a reservation. The feature comes from a partnership with EveryScape. I was hoping to get the 3-D tour of El Gaucho, which is featured in this Microsoft video, but I'm getting a "technical difficulties" message. The Bing restaurant listings also now works with OpenTable so you can make a reservation without leaving the Bing page. You can read more about the new restaurant features on the Microsoft search blog.

Microsoft Pri0 | Bing rolls out new mobile, local and Facebook features | Seattle Times Newspaper

Coming to Grips With an iPad Carrier - NYTimes.com

Still waiting for the iOS cranial implant device option

For the fashion forward, the solution can lie in clothing. Jeffrey Jacques, a 40-year-old physician in New York City, owns two zip-up fleeces with iPad-size pockets from Scottevest, a company in Sun Valley, Idaho, that started promoting “iPad-compatible” clothing a few hours after the iPad was unveiled by Steve Jobs in January.

Coming to Grips With an iPad Carrier - NYTimes.com

Kinect sex is here, game company says | Geek Gestalt - CNET News

Sign of the times

Kinect sex has arrived, and it took the adult gaming community less than two months to get there.

Just more than two weeks ago, one of the world's leading experts on sex and video games said that while there were not yet working adult games using Microsoft's Kinect motion controller, the potential was there. That barrier has been broken, as one game company illustrates in a demo for a new game.

Kinect sex is here, game company says | Geek Gestalt - CNET News

Phone-Wielding Shoppers Strike Fear Into Retailers - WSJ.com

Another disruptive and involuntary transparency wave

Until recently, retailers could reasonably assume that if they just lured shoppers to stores with enticing specials, the customers could be coaxed into buying more profitable stuff, too.

Now, marketers must contend with shoppers who can use their smartphones inside stores to check whether the specials are really so special, and if the rest of the merchandise is reasonably priced.

"The retailer's advantage has been eroded," says Greg Girard of consultancy IDC Retail Insights, which recently found that roughly 45% of customers with smartphones had used them to perform due diligence on a store's prices. "The four walls of the store have become porous."

[…]

Phone-Wielding Shoppers Strike Fear Into Retailers - WSJ.com

Is Google Too Big to Shop? - NYTimes.com

“Convicted and regulated monopolist” appears to be an inevitable part of Google’s future description

“Fair and square.” Those words — which also appear in Mr. Pearlstein’s column— represent the crux of the debate. Does Google, with its market capitalization of $189 billion, 23,300 employees, and vast array of online businesses, compete fairly?

According to Gary Reback, the lawyer who spearheaded the antitrust case against Microsoft in the late 1990s, the answer is no.

“The acquisitions are interesting, but they’re the tail, not the dog,” Mr. Reback told DealBook. He said that the antitrust case against Microsoft was analogous to the situation surrounding Google, which he argued is using its dominance in search to push its own content. “Microsoft bundled the browser with the operating system and gave preference to their own, a lot of people worked very hard to break that monopoly, and now Google is getting away with everything that Microsoft did,” Mr. Reback said.

Is Google Too Big to Shop? - NYTimes.com

Meet the Nexus S, Google’s Own Android Phone - NYTimes.com

From David Pogue’s Nexus S review

The most exciting hardware news is that the Nexus S can read N.F.C. tags. In case you’re not an engineer, that stands for near-field communications. Supposedly, one day soon, you’ll be able to pass your phone over a special smart tag to pay for something. You’ll be able to wave your phone at someone else’s to exchange e-business cards. You’ll be able to extract information, Web links or videos from special stickers on billboards and bus shelters, just by swiping your phone.

Sure. And then you can hop into your hovercraft and fly home.

Unfortunately, there aren’t any N.F.C. tags in America (except in a Portland test program run by Google), so for now, the feature is worthless. Sure, you could argue that if N.F.C. ever does arrive, the Nexus S will be ready. Unfortunately, by that time, it will look like a kerosene-powered steam pump.

Meet the Nexus S, Google’s Own Android Phone - NYTimes.com

Twitter Raises $200 Million at $3.7 Billion Valuation; Adds New Board Members | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD

On another Twitter/Flipboard dimension…

Twitter has completed its latest round of funding–$200 million at a $3.7 billion valuation–with Kleiner Perkins as the lead investor, according to sources familiar with the situation.

Sources said the San Francisco microblogging service is also adding two new board members: Flipboard’s Mike McCue and former DoubleClick head David Rosenblatt.

Twitter Raises $200 Million at $3.7 Billion Valuation; Adds New Board Members | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD

Get the Latest Edition of Flipboard | Inside Flipboard

Speaking of Google co-opetition, I suspect Google is not entirely thrilled to see Google Reader relegated to a background service role on the iPad (along with Facebook and Twitter).  If successful, this move could accelerate Apple’s acquisition of Flipboard.  See the link below for more new Flipboard features.

What’s in this new release, you ask?

By far our most requested feature to add was Google Reader.  When we spoke to Google Reader enthusiasts about it further, what we heard was that you wanted Google Reader integrated as a social network.  And that’s what we have done.  We now have deep implementation of Google Reader.  You can browse your folders and your friend’s shared items.  You also have the ability to star, share, and comment on stories.

Get the Latest Edition of Flipboard | Inside Flipboard

Google Goes To the Cloud For New Idea In PC System | Walt Mossberg | Personal Technology | AllThingsD

An excerpt from Walt Mossberg’s net-negative Cr-48 review

The Chrome OS will have a big advantage. Because it is mainly a front-end-to-cloud service, if you lose your laptop, you can get another one and just sign into your cloud accounts. You should be able to find all your stuff waiting for you.

However, users of the Chrome OS will have a huge adjustment to make. They will have to give up the rich, local programs they have spent years learning to use and tweaking to their liking. You can’t install local programs on a Chrome OS computer. Instead, Google provides a Web Store inside the browser that allows you to download icons for “Web apps”—mostly websites designed to look and work like standard programs.

Google Goes To the Cloud For New Idea In PC System | Walt Mossberg | Personal Technology | AllThingsD

YouTube said to seek production company - The Boston Globe

This could be the Nexus of content production – low Google profit potential with high partner-related opportunity costs

YouTube, the video site owned by Google, is in talks to buy Next New Networks, a Web video production company, according to two people briefed on the discussions. The acquisition would be YouTube’s first major foray into original content and would demonstrate how intently it is focused on offering professional videos rather than short clips by amateurs.

YouTube said to seek production company - The Boston Globe

Oracle Takes on Microsoft, Google With Cloud Office - PCWorld Business Center

Maybe some marketing people at Oracle think Sun’s productivity application suite was a dismal failure because it wasn’t sufficiently expensive?… 

While Oracle has a long way to go in catching up to competing office suites, it is hoping to close the gap by positioning its products as more flexible and open alternatives.

Open Office 3.3 Standard Edition costs US$49.95 per user and is meant for companies with one to 99 employees. The Enterprise Edition, which includes many more tools, connectors and supported platforms, costs $90 per user with a minimum of 100 users, although volume pricing is available.

But interoperability with Office comes at an additional price. Earlier this year, Oracle imposed a $90 per user fee on an ODF plug-in that enables the sharing of files between Open Office and Microsoft Office. The plug-in had been available at no charge under Sun's ownership.

Oracle Takes on Microsoft, Google With Cloud Office - PCWorld Business Center

Mark Zuckerberg - Person of the Year 2010 - TIME

An excerpt from the extensive and informative cover story

Almost seven years ago, in February 2004, when Zuckerberg was a 19-year-old sophomore at Harvard, he started a Web service from his dorm. It was called Thefacebook.com, and it was billed as "an online directory that connects people through social networks at colleges." This year, Facebook — now minus the the — added its 550 millionth member. One out of every dozen people on the planet has a Facebook account. They speak 75 languages and collectively lavish more than 700 billion minutes on Facebook every month. Last month the site accounted for 1 out of 4 American page views. Its membership is currently growing at a rate of about 700,000 people a day.

Mark Zuckerberg - Person of the Year 2010 - TIME

Google's DataWiki Aims For Twitter Integration

Maybe Google should just dust off the Jotspot stuff acquired 4+ years ago…

Google made a lot of big headlines last week by demonstrating its Chrome OS. One item that fell through the cracks, you could say, was something new that popped up on the Google Labs Web page: Google Data Wiki.

Described as "a wiki for structured data," Google says it will allow for creation and editing of structured data, creation of "simple mashups" in just minutes, better sharing capability because of a built-in federation and -- this sounds interesting -- input or output from a variety of sources, including Twitter.

Google's DataWiki Aims For Twitter Integration

Que: Exploring Microsoft OneNote, a Content and Collaboration Chameleon

This is the first article in a multi-part OneNote series I’m writing for Que

Microsoft OneNote was introduced in 2002 as a new note-taking application within the Microsoft Office suite. Although it has been popular, especially for people whose roles entail extensive note-taking (such as students and journalists), OneNote hasn't achieved the same level of mainstream usage as its Office siblings, including Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel.

In this article, I'll show you why I consider OneNote to be a content and collaboration chameleon, useful in a wide variety of scenarios. If you haven't used OneNote, I hope that this article will entice you to consider it as an everyday tool for a range of information management and collaboration needs. If you're an experienced OneNote user, I'll introduce you to some features that may be new to you. In either case, you'll see why I believe that OneNote is currently poised for significant growth.

Que: Exploring Microsoft OneNote, a Content and Collaboration Chameleon > A Noteworthy Application

Chrome OS: What Is It Good For?: Tech News « [GigaOM]

Check the link below for more analysis, e.g., about a potential role for ChromeOS devices in business domains – déjà vu all over again…

If Google was looking for a warm welcome for its Chrome OS and the new Cr-48 laptops it’s currently giving away to select beta testers, well then, it was wrong. The actual hardware has received a reception colder than Scrooge’s heart. Folks at TechCrunch have given it a verbal lashing that would make a drill sergeant proud. For past three days, I’ve been using the Cr-48 and here are my impressions.

[…]

Bottom line: Will I use Cr-48 or something like it as my primary computer? It would be tough for me –I admit I have a life-long habit of using a full desktop operating system — to make Chrome OS my primary computing experience. That doesn’t mean I won’t keep an open mind, but for now, it’s a no-go for me. My more portable, 2.13 GHz MacBook Air is the machine I like, and even as I spend a lot of time inside the browser, I prefer a desktop with the Chrome browser and raw power. Plus my Mac has Silverlight, which lets me play Netflix and use third-party, native apps such as Reeder.

Chrome OS: What Is It Good For?: Tech News «

Paramount to Rock the Mobile Apps Market on Windows Phone 7 - The Official Microsoft Blog

“Really?”  Like nobody is going to walk into a wall while watching movies on their phone?…

Paramount Digital Entertainment, a division of Paramount Pictures, announced today the availability of a brand new “School of Rock” app in the Windows Phone Marketplace that lets smartphone owners watch the full movie plus menus, bonus features and experiences not available on other mobile platforms.

Paramount to Rock the Mobile Apps Market on Windows Phone 7 - The Official Microsoft Blog – News and Perspectives from Microsoft - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

Smartphone Wars Move Into Mainstream - WSJ.com

Considering current offers that include steep discounts (e.g., two-for-one deals) for higher-end smartphones, I don’t think this strategy will get far.  Also, as Bill Gates once said to Jim Manzi, back in the early days of productivity application suite competition, “it’s not a good idea to get into price competition with someone who has more money than you do.”

Having ceded much of the high end of the smartphone market to Apple Inc., slower-footed rivals such as Research In Motion Ltd., Nokia Corp. and Motorola Inc. are jostling for what remains up for grabs: cheaper cellphones that still provide Internet capabilities.

The result is a price war in midrange smartphones this holiday season. Wireless carriers and handset makers are focusing on more affordable smartphones—which skimp on features such as screen resolution and camera quality but allow users to surf the Internet and download applications.

Smartphone Wars Move Into Mainstream - WSJ.com

Gmail Founder Says ChromeOS Won't Survive | Ina Fried | Mobilized | AllThingsD

More speculation about the ChromeOS future (or lack thereof)

In posts on FriendFeed and Twitter, Paul Buchheit said on Tuesday that he thinks Google will axe the product next year, either fusing it with Android or killing it outright.

Chrome OS will meet that fate, Buchheit said on FriendFeed “because ChromeOS has no purpose that isn’t better served by Android (perhaps with a few mods to support a non-touch display).”

Gmail Founder Says ChromeOS Won't Survive | Ina Fried | Mobilized | AllThingsD

Google Voice app now supports iPad & iPod Touch - Official Google Mobile Blog

I.e., it’s the voice app with which you can’t directly initiate voice communication (except as a remote control for a separate phone)

At the top of the list was adding support for iPod Touch and iPad. Starting today, you can download a new version of Google Voice that lets you use all the features of the app on these devices, such as sending and receiving free text messages - except, of course, make cellular calls.
While you can’t use your iPod or iPad as a phone, you can use it to initiate Google Voice calls with your phones. We call this feature Click2Call. Simply click any ‘Call’ button in the Google Voice app on your iPod or iPad and then select which of your phones you want to ring. Google Voice will call your phone and then connect your call.

Google Voice app now supports iPad & iPod Touch - Official Google Mobile Blog

BBC News - Facebook connections map the world

Another Facebook map

Facebook intern Paul Butler has been poring through some of the data held by the social networking firm on its 500m members.

The map above is the result of his attempts to visualise where people live relative to their Facebook friends. Each line connects cities with pairs of friends. The brighter the line, the more friends between those cities

BBC News - Facebook connections map the world

World Map Of Social Networks Shows Facebook’s Ever-Increasing Dominance [TechCrunch]

Check the article link below for a series of maps over time

Just in case you had any doubts about the fact we live in the age of Facebook, just check out Vincenzo Cosenza’s latest edition of the World Map Of Social Networks.

World Map Of Social Networks Shows Facebook’s Ever-Increasing Dominance

Leaders: Curl up with a good screen | The Economist

Excerpt from The Economist’s The World in 2011 edition

They should call it McLuhan’s law (after Marshall McLuhan), as inexorable as gravity or the doubling of processing power. New media technologies inevitably change the works they transmit—the medium becoming the message, as the Canadian scholar first observed. This fate has finally caught up with the book. If 2010 was the year e-readers and tablet computers entered the mainstream, 2011 will be when the electronic reading vessel truly disrupts its content. On multipurpose mobile devices, from smart-phones to the iPad and its emerging competitors, the book will cease to be a book. It will be an “app”.

Leaders: Curl up with a good screen | The Economist

Underwhelmed by Google’s ebookstore | TeleRead

Check the link below for analysis

For the past 18 months or so, like many of you, I’ve been anxiously awaiting Google’s ebookstore launch. Originally referred to as Google Editions, the service finally arrived this week with the name Google eBookstore. Now that I’ve had some time to tour the store and download some sample content, I have one question: Why did it take this long to launch a service that offers nothing new? Seriously, I was figuring there would be some groundbreaking functionality but this is basically the Kindle’s bookstore with fewer bells and whistles.

Underwhelmed by Google’s ebookstore | TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics

Playing Tech Support for Your Family? Google Wants to Help: Tech News « [GigaOM]

Hmm…

If you work in the technology field, or if you even have a smartphone and know how to use a web browser, you have probably been pressed into service by family members to help them do a web search, adjust the time on their computer clock, or even do something as simple as cut and paste text from one document to another. Well, the geeks at Google would like you to know that you aren’t alone — and as a kind of early Christmas present, they have set up a special site just for you, so that you can send a video to your parents (or anyone else for that matter) about how to do these and other things on the computer.

Playing Tech Support for Your Family? Google Wants to Help: Tech News «

Track Me Not - Technology Review

Excerpt from a timely Simson Garfinkel reality check

People who haven't been following the controversy regarding Internet tracking often have a hard time understanding just how invasive today's Internet has become—and why they should care. Much of the press coverage has just confused the situation further by focusing on the role of third-party Web analytics and advertising companies, rather than on the tracking and tabulation done by industry advertising giants like Google, Yahoo, and Facebook. A paradoxical but entirely possible outcome of Microsoft's new browser feature might be to increase the ability of such companies to track and record everything you do online.

Track Me Not - Technology Review