Top Items:
Xeni Jardin / Boing Boing:
DoJ search requests: Google said no; Yahoo, AOL, MSN yes. — Update: Earlier today, I asked a Justice Department spokesperson which search engines other than Google received requests to provide search records. The answer: Yahoo, AOL, and MSN were also asked to supply search records information, and all complied.
Discussion:
B2Day, Epigonic, PC World's Techlog, Search Engine Journal, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim and InsideGoogle
RELATED ITEMS:
Michael Liedtke / Associated Press:
Google Rebuffs Feds on Search Requests — SAN FRANCISCO — Google Inc. is rebuffing the Bush administration's demand for a peek at what millions of people have been looking up on the Internet's leading search engine _ a request that underscores the potential for online databases to become tools for government surveillance.
Arshad Mohammed / Washington Post:
Google Refuses Demand for Search Information — Government Asked 4 Firms for Data in Effort to Revive Anti-Porn Law — The Justice Department said yesterday that it subpoenaed four major Internet companies for data on what people search for on the Web as part of an eight-year battle …
Discussion:
Todd Bishop's Microsoft …
Gary Price / Search Engine Watch Blog:
Court Documents & Summary Of United States Versus Google Over Search Data — Earlier we reported in Bush Administration Demands Search Data; Google Says No, Yahoo & MSN Said Yes that the US Government seeks to force Google to hand over search data. That story explains more about the situation …
Arik Hesseldahl / Business Week:
Is the New iMac a Cash Machine? — Disassembling the first fruit of the Apple-Intel alliance raises some interesting questions about the model's profit margins — For years the thought of an Intel (INTC) chip going into an Apple computer (AAPL) was enough to make those who love their Macs turn various shades of green.
RELATED ITEM:
Jason Snell / Macworld:
First Lab Tests: iMac with Intel Core Duo processor — Intel-based iMacs are fast, but gains don't match Apple's claims — Since the first rumors of an Apple switch to Intel, everyone has been wondering about the potential speed of Intel-based Macs. Last week's announcement …
Guardian:
Tesco offers free internet calls — Hilary Osborne and agencies — Tesco today entered the internet calls market, offering customers the chance to talk to friends and family via their computers for an upfront cost of less than £20. — The supermarket giant claims the move …
RELATED ITEM:
Sylvia Carr / silicon.com:
Tesco debuts 'VoIP for all' — "Simple service" to rival Skype — Retail giant Tesco has launched a new voice over IP service aimed at the mass market, which allows customers to place phone calls over the internet via their PC. — The goal is to make it easy enough for anyone - even those who've never heard of VoIP - to use.
Kevin Poulsen / Wired News:
The Backhoe: A Real Cyberthreat — At half-past noon on Jan. 9, cable TV contractors sinking a half-mile of cable near Interstate 10 in rural Arizona pulled up something unexpected in the bucket of their backhoe: an unmarked fiber-optic cable. "It started pulling the fiber out of the pipe …
Discussion:
Tech_Space
Ashlee Vance / The Register:
Google's botched video store starts coughing up cash — Google has started returning money to those customers screwed by its hapless video service. — Last week, we told you how billionaires Larry and Sergey had taken 99 cents from us and others as a result of their handicapped Google Video store.
RELATED ITEM:
Greg Reinacker / Greg Reinacker's Weblog:
Image aggregator prototype — The other night, on the way home, an idea came to me...so I pulled up my development environment and decided to write some code. I think my terrified development team is probably locking me out of the source control systems as we speak... ;-) — My thought was this.
Fractals of Change:
Search Down Memory Lane — Was reading John Battelle's excellent book The Search (which I'll blog about when I finish it) and was suddenly sent hurtling down Memory Lane. John writes about the distant antecedents of today's search engines: — "Enter Gerard Salton, a Harvard …
Discussion:
Clickety Clack
Mark Ballard / The Register:
Crazy Frog scapegoat finds solace in porn — Every mobile content firm admits that all the money is in porn. But most pin-stripe firms tend to steer clear of the genre. They don't want to upset their respectable customers. — mBlox was one of those untarnished outfits until …
Discussion:
The Mobile Technology Weblog
Dave Winer / Scripting News:
Six month Mac report — This is my sixth month primarily using the Mac. I still use Windows, but when I travel, the Mac is what goes with me. That goes for trips down the street to the coffee shop, or trips on BART to San Francisco, or United Airlines to Boston.
Robert Sinke / dapreview.net:
jWIN JX-MP93 can eat 2GB SD cards — Some of these reps at the CES in Las Vegas were just rude, which is okay as long as there's a valid reason. Something like "No sir, you cannot take pictures of this device because your camera's flash will cause this thing to mutate into some horrific giant sea cucumber …
Steve Stroh / Broadband Wireless Internet Access:
WiMAX For Real REAL - at last, for 3.5 GHz — I'll let the press release do most of the talking, but one key point to keep in mind here. What this announcement portends is the emergence of real WiMAX gear... finally... but only for 3.5 GHz. 3.5 GHz licensed spectrum, owned by large carriers in non-US markets.
Anne 2.0:
The Rise of the Individual on the Web: Monetizing the Blogger — Tech bloggers almost always blog under their real names. One thing that made it easier to start blogging under my own name here was to change it. My married name was a name I used anyway so it didn't feel disruptive to use it online.
Mark LaPedus / eetimes.com:
U.S. to open WiMAX spectrum — SAN JOSE, Calif. — Looking to stay ahead of Asian and European rivals in broadband deployment, the U.S. is making an aggressive bid to open up spectrum for emerging WiMAX technology, according to a Bush administration official.
