Top Items:

IE7 Beta 2 Released to the Public — That's right, the second beta of the next major update to Internet Explorer has been released. And I'm going to tell you the good and bad about it. — First the good. — I'm probably going to be flamed for saying this but IE7 is pretty, there I've said it.
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IE 7 bugs abound — update People didn't lose any time in finding bugs in the latest preview release of Internet Explorer 7. — It's been but a day since Microsoft publicly released a test version of Internet Explorer 7, but Internet news groups and blogs are already teeming with bug reports.

Valleywag FAQ — 1. What is Valleywag? — Valleywag is a tech gossip rag, focusing mainly on the people and stories of San Francisco and Silicon Valley. — 2. But Silicon Valley's far too dull and serious for gossip. — Yes, that's been the general consensus.
Discussion:
Laughing Squid, Bloggers Blog, Gawker, Thomas Hawk's Digital … and Business Blog Consulting
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Feds Blast Tech Firms on China — Congressional caucus launches blistering assault on absent tech firms as the debate on China begins. — The tone of the debate between the U.S. government and U.S. technology companies Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Cisco Systems on the subject of Internet freedom …
Discussion:
Good Morning Silicon Valley
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Politicos attack tech firms over China — WASHINGTON—Politicians on Wednesday attacked Google, Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Yahoo for declining to appear at a briefing about China's Internet censorship and called for a new law to outlaw compliance with such requirements.
Discussion:
Boing Boing, SearchViews, ZDNet.com, John Palfrey, Google Blogoscoped, Search Engine Watch Blog and Library Autonomous Zone

Dabble Dabble — It has been a busy week already! I have been furiously reporting for my next story for the magazine. Somedays it is a challenge to switch gears from reporting for a trend piece to blogging. I have fallen behind on some of the broadband stuff, but hopefully will catch up by end of the week.
Discussion:
Blogspotting, Connecting the Dots, Napsterization, Under the Radar, ben barren, Anne 2.0, Download Squad, Online News Squared, Mashable* and Message

30 Boxes, Best... Calender... EVER! — Let the ajaxification of your life continue! Yesterday I had the opportunity to sit down with a group of bloggers and technologists for a discussion about how we use calendaring as well as view a preview of 83 Degree's latest project 30 Boxes …

Is Verizon a Network Hog? — The telecommunications giant wants to devote most of its capacity to its own traffic, to Internet companies' dismay — Last November, Vinton G. Cerf wrote a letter of warning to Congress. The legendary computer scientist, now a vice-president at Google (GOOG) …

CBS to sell new 'Survivor' episodes on own site — Digital media chief says network likely to offer other shows for download — NEW YORK - New episodes of the popular "Survivor" reality television series will be made available for download directly from CBS's Web site for $1.99 per episode …

Apple's patented the Tablet Mac (part II) — Well, what do you know? Yetanother Apple tablet PC patent's shown up on the USPTO site, this one also with none other than Jonny Ive's Handcock onit (last time around it was both Jobs and Ive on the patent, though).

Verizon Blesses Phone-As-Modem Plans — Verizon Wireless has changed its policy and will now let subscribers use several popular phones as high-speed modems for their laptops, company representatives confirmed Thursday. — The shift represents a major policy change for Verizon …

Budde Outlines Yahoo News Future — YAHOO NEWS HAS ADDED THE weekly advice columnist, Margo Howard, to its short roster of writer/journalists. The news site has also undergone a mild restructuring, featuring popular video more prominently on its home page.

Researcher: WMF Exploit Sold Underground for $4,000 — Virus hunters combing through the wreckage of the zero-day WMF (Windows Metafile) attacks have found evidence that exploit code was being peddled by Russian hacker groups for $4,000 a pop. — The first sign of an exploit was traced …
Discussion:
Techdirt

SAP Gets On-Demand Religion — At last, Europe's biggest software maker is making a tentative — too tentative? — push into the on-demand CRM market occupied by rivals — Marc Benioff, the boisterous boss of Salesforce.com (CRM), has been heralding the end of software as we know it ever since …

Gtalkr's New Features — Colorado-based Gtalkr originally launched in November 2005 as a Flash based way to access Google Talk, Gmail and Yahoo maps from a website. I drew comparisons to Meebo as well as the Ajax home page crowd (my current list is here). — Gtalk released a ton of new functionality today.

BLOGUE, by Owen Thomas (apologies to Madonna) — Owen "Ditherati" Thomas shares the following original monstrosity masterpiece of pop music parody with BoingBoing. "If you film the music video," says Owen, "I'd gladly pay $1.99 on iTunes for it." … (c) 2006 Owen Thomas with apologies to Madonna