tech.memeorandum

Tech Web, page A1 … for 5:10 AM ET, December 8, 2005
Current Tech Page     Also:   Politics

Top Items:

Michael Bazeley / siliconvalley.com:
Yahoo's new online phone calls near  —  Yahoo is expanding its reach in the fast-growing Internet calling market, offering a service that will allow people to make and receive low-cost computer calls to and from regular phones.  —  The long-expected move could make the Sunnyvale company …
RELATED ITEMS:
Bruce Meyerson / Associated Press:
Yahoo adds Skype-like ability to IM service  —  NEW YORK — Yahoo Inc. is entering a suddenly crowded field, offering Skype-like capabilities through its instant-messaging service that will let people dial regular phone numbers using their computers or receive calls from conventional phones.
Davis D. Janowski / PC Magazine:
Yahoo! Messenger Phones Home  —  Yahoo! is rolling out two new fee-based services, under the overall name of Yahoo! Messenger with Voice, that deviate a bit in their structure from the unlimited calling plans of many voice over IP (VoIP) services such as AT&T Callvantage, VoicePulse, and Vonage.
Brad Stone / Newsweek:   IM's New Calling  —  How the marriage of instant messenger services …
Quinn Norton / Wired News:
Music Man Cracks DRM Schemes  —  The ongoing saga of Sony BMG's sneaky, lawsuit-inducing copy-protection software opened a new chapter Monday when the music company released an uninstaller program to allow customers to remove the offending code from their PCs.
RELATED ITEMS:
Danny / Danny Ayers, Raw Blog:
Web 2.0 and Scale  —  The point made by Jeremy Wright (currently 404ing), and supported by Om Malik on the need for Web 2.0 startups to consider scalability of their systems is valid, as far as it goes.  But I believe the argument is, in part at least, misdirected and doesn't goes far enough.
Discussion: Web 2.0 Explorer and Scott Sanders
RELATED ITEM:
David / Signal vs. Noise:
Don't scale: 99.999% uptime is for Wal-Mart  —  David Dec 06  —  Jeremy Wright purports a common misconception about new companies doing business online: That you need 99.999% uptime or you're toast.  Not so.  Basecamp doesn't have that.  I think our uptime is more like 98% or 99%.
Ben / Ben Metcalfe Blog:
Les Blogs: Me + Mena  —  (Health Warning: this is a rant)  —  Mena Trott (co-founder and president of Six Apart) gave, in my opinion, a badly toned and way-off-base speech at the Les Blogs conference in which she requested for more civility in the blogosphere.
Mike Antonucci / A+E Interactive:
Best Buy's new outreach over the Xbox 360 launch controversy  —  I'll also add this to the previous post about Best Buy, but this deserved a separate headline.  Here's a new letter to consumers from Best Buy's President of Retail in North America, Brian Dunn:  —  TO: Open Letter to Customers
RELATED ITEM:
fiXXXer / xboxcircle.com:
Best Buy President Apologizes For Xbox 360 Launch
Discussion: Joystiq
Dan Goodin / Wired News:
The Digital Audiophile's Toolbox  —  So you want to be an audiophile?  Great, but you need to realize this is an elite designation and that joining the ranks will take work.  The key is having the right tools, and not all of those listed here are easy to figure out, at least not the first time you use them.
Tim / O'Reilly Radar:
Ruby Book Sales Surpass Python  —  I was just looking at our BookScan data mart to update a reporter on Java vs. C# adoption.  (The answer to his query: in the last twelve weeks, Java book sales are off 4% vs. the same period last year, while C# book sales are up 16%.)
signal15.com:
How to stop filesharers from stealing hotel bandwidth  —  Starts out with some geeky stuff, keep reading, the funny part is later on.  —  So, I'm in Milwaukee at ye olde Holiday Inn Express.  They have a wireless internet connection here and it's been suckin' all night, like I couldn't even do anything on it.
CNET News.com:
CBS goes mad: free college hoops online  —  CBS Sports will offer out-of-market basketball games for free online during NCAA March Madness.  —  It's the fourth year that CBS Sports will offer the mostly regional games—ones that wouldn't appear across the whole network.
Discussion: BeyondVC, Techdirt and PaidContent.org
Yahoo! Search blog:
Asking the Internet  —  The popularity of web search has changed the way we think about the Internet in some pretty odd ways.  I've heard more than a few people struggling to answer a question who turn to their keyboard and proclaim, "I'll just ask the Internet..." while typing something into a search box.
Loren Baker / Search Engine Journal:
Search Engine Journal's 2005 Search Engine Blogs Awards  —  Search Engine Journal's 2005 Search Engine Blogs Awards  —  The Search Engine Journal is proud to announce that we are now taking nominations for the First Annual Best of Search Engine Blogs Competition.

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More Items:

Russell Shaw / IP Telephony, VoIP, Broadband:
Idaho first, La. last in patent-population ratio
Reuters:
Gimme a turkey on rye with a side of Sinatra
John Borland / CNET News.com:
VCs invest in alternate reality
Anoop Gantayat / psp.ign.com:
Capcom Fixes PSP Pad
Discussion: PSP Fanboy and Joystiq
Thomas Hawk / Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection:
Starbucks: Using Confrontational Marketing …
CNET News.com:
Publishers to Google: back off
Kenneth Li / Reuters:
Microsoft, Google still vying for AOL
Mathew Honan / Macworld:
Podcast is 2005 Word of the Year

Earlier Picks:

Joris Evers / CNET News.com:
New IM worm chats with intended victims
Individualist / Dot Tactics:
what does the future hold for communities?
Saul Hansell / New York Times:
NBC to Sell TV Shows for Viewing on Apple Software
pcpro.co.uk:
Sophos says Apple good security choice
Zachary Rodgers / ClickZ:
Ingenio Adds InfoSpace to Pay-Per-Call Network
Daniel Terdiman / CNET News.com:
New gateway to multiple virtual worlds?
Discussion: Joystiq and newsmotto! blog
Bonhomie Snoutintroff / The Register:
EFF volunteers to lose important suit over Sony 'rootkit'
Discussion: eHomeUpgrade
David Carnoy / CNET News.com:
Ten things I hate about the Xbox 360
 
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