Top Items:
Varun Dubey / cooltechzone.com:
Microsoft Buys Out Opera — (Insider Report) - Here comes a surprise. In a recent conversation with one of our insiders at Microsoft, the source revealed that Microsoft Corp., the world's largest software maker, has acquired Opera Software, makers of the Opera browser.
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Matt Loney / ZDNet:
Opera denies Microsoft takeover rumours … As the phones ring off the hook at Opera, the browser vendor insists rumours that Microsoft is buying it out are unfounded — Opera on Friday denied the latest takeover rumour spreading round the Internet, saying that it has not had any approaches from Microsoft or anyone else.
Michael Gartenberg:
Microsoft buys Opera - Here's Why (it would have made sense) — Update - The Opera folks are saying this isn't correct and there's no deal. I should have been more skeptical, it's something we would likely have been briefed on if it were true. — Thought it was going to be a quiet day, but it doesn't seem that way at all.
Discussion:
Microsoft Monitor
Jason McCabe Calacanis / The Jason Calacanis Weblog:
My Predictions for 2006 — 1. Someone will do the Wikipedia version of Weblogs, Inc. and and it will fail because it never reaches critical mass. — 2. 30 of the 50 blog networks will fizzle out and/or die. Only one or two (other than Gawker) will break 20M pages a month.
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Marissa Mayer / Official Google Blog:
About the AOL announcement — The recent announcement of the AOL partnership has been the source of a lot of rumors and misconceptions. We'd like to clear some of those up. — Biased results? No way. Providing great search is the core of what we do.
Reuters:
Microsoft to contest "unjustified" EU move — BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Microsoft said on Thursday it would contest what it called an unjustified European Commission decision to impose backdated daily fines if it fails to comply with European Union antitrust sanctions.
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Alorie Gilbert / silicon.com:
Customers vent spleen at Salesforce.com outage — "We're losing sales. It's a busy time of the year" — A Salesforce.com outage lasting nearly a day cut off access to critical business data for many of the company's customers on Tuesday in what appears to be Salesforce's most severe service disruption to date.
Brian Morrissey / Adweek:
One in Five Blogs Is Spam — NEW YORK While 80,000 blogs may be created every day, about one in five is spam, according to new research. — Umbria Communications, a Boulder, Colo.-based consumer-generated media monitor, found that 2.7 million out of 20.3 million blogs are spam, or splogs as they are sometimes known.
steampowered.com:
VALVE UNVEILS 64-BIT SOURCE™ GAMING TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPED IN CONJUNCTION WITH AMD — Available Now: 64-Bit Half-Life® 2 and Lost Coast™ — Bellevue, WA. - December 22, 2005 - Valve, a leading entertainment and technology studio, unveiled a 64-bit version of its Source game engine technology today.
Discussion:
Paul Thurrott's Internet Nexus
David Berlind / Between the Lines:
Mashup Camp: the unconference about the uncomputer — Under the questionable rubric of "Web 2.0" (see my treatise on the uncomputer), there have been a lot of events that, if you ask me, run incredibly counter to this new culture of open API provision and mashup development.
PR Newswire:
What Do President Bush, Lindsay Lohan and Star Wars Have in Common? They Topped Ask Jeeves Search Categories in 2005 — Current Events and Celebrities Dominate User Searches Overall — OAKLAND, Calif., Dec. 22 /PRNewswire/ — Ask Jeeves, Inc. today released the list of 2005's …
Discussion:
Search Engine Watch Blog
Joris Evers / CNET News.com:
Watch out with metadata in Vista, analysts warn — Windows Vista will improve search functionality on a PC by letting users tag files with metadata, but those tags could cause unwanted and embarrassing information disclosure, Gartner analysts have warned. — Search and organization capabilities …
biosmagazine.co.uk:
eDimensional Force Feedback Gaming Headset — Sound should be more than just heard. It should be felt, pulsing through your body like a grenade exploding at your six or the rumble of heavy turbulence. Your doctor will probably disagree, but what does he/she know about gaming anyway!
Jonathan Krim / Washington Post:
Microsoft Is Losing Some Of Its Elbow Room — As Software King's Growth Slows, Rivals Stake Out Their Own Territory — Rob Enderle, a longtime Silicon Valley analyst and observer of Microsoft Corp., remembers what used to happen when a tech start-up sought funding for a business …
Discussion:
David Card
Pete Wright / The secret life of an MS Author:
Living with a slate — Prior to the Motion LE 1600 [1] arriving all my tablets had been convertible. I needed something with a keyboard since by and large these would all be machines that I'd have to 'work' on (code) as well as use as a tablet. Perhaps I'm a minority here …
Discussion:
Rob Bushway
Michael Tanne / Wink Blog:
Open Beta One (OB1) — We've been working away for the last few months, getting feedback from our beta users (thank you so much!) and refining the Wink experience. As we got closer to a public beta we gave accounts to the rest of the people who'd requested them so they could try it out.
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