Here is today’s selection:

ZDNet: How IE’s HTML5 support could affect Hotmail (and other browser musings)

This post by veteran Microsoft watcher Mary-Jo Foley comes at a good time, given that Microsoft today started a new PR campaign to get Gmail and Yahoo Mail users to consider Hotmal again. Looking at Microsoft’s work on an HTML5-enhanced version of Bing, Foley wonders what this means for Hotmail. Even if your are Gmail user and don’t usually lie awak thinking about Hotmail, I think it’s worth taking a look at what Microsoft is doing with its webmail product these days. There have been lots of new features lately (some ahead of what Gmail and co. currently offer) and judging from this story, Microsoft could go as far as replacing its consumer desktop email client with an HTML5 version of Hotmail.

Here is the most important quote from Foley’s contact at Microsoft:

“The Softies are working on an HTML5 version of Hotmail with something that few people understand the consequences of: offline storage,” my contact said. “They are planning on replacing the Windows Live Mail client with it.”

News.me Gets Ready to Launch

AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka has been following the development of the New York Time’s collaboration with URL shortener bit.ly closely over the last few months. Now it looks as if the service is just about ready to launch (or, at least, it’s got a new website). What’s interesting about yet another news aggregator? Well – this one has the blessing of the publishers it aggregates. It will come in the form of an iPad app and email newsletter (both will require a $0.99 per week subscription).

News.me will pay the publishers a fee every time one of their articles is read through the service (it will offer a Readability-like text-only view, too).

Are Barack Obama and Facebook Getting Too Friendly?

I was a bit worried about the White House’s close relationship with Google in the early days of Obama’s presidency. Now, Politico’s Michelle Quinn writes about the president’s visit to Facebook’s headquarter:

“President Barack Obama and Facebook both have a lot to gain when he holds a town hall meeting at the company’s Palo Alto headquarters Wednesday.

Obama can burnish his high-tech, ‘win the future’ image by tying himself to Facebook ahead of the 2012 campaign. And Facebook can signal that it’s a serious player on the national stage by hosting the president ahead of a much-expected IPO.”

Bonus Link: Hashify.me

Store text in a (very long) URL. Given the problems the Independent had with it’s new URL scheme today, this little tool gives us some new understanding what a humble URL can do.

Also worth reading: Why working in a coffee shop is often so productive.

Image credit: losmininos

Have ideas for stories we should feature here? Email us at tips@siliconfilter.com

Fortune: Trouble at Twitter

The bad PR for Twitter just isn’t stopping. Today, Fortune’s Jessi Hempel takes a look at the current state of affairs in Twitter’s boardroom and why the company still hasn’t found a business model or even a definitive mission statement.

The most telling part of the article for me:

“Costolo, Twitter’s current CEO, spent his first six weeks on the job creating and refining the company’s first mission statement—”Instantly connect people everywhere to what’s most meaningful to them”—and reminding Twitter employees how valued they are. And the company tells Fortune that in coming months Twitter will roll out new features and ad products, including a set of services aimed at helping small businesses market themselves on Twitter.”

Related: Twitter Biggest Problem: Tweets are Ads

Bob Warfield: “Twitter’s problem is that when the vast majority of your content is advertising you give away for free to get participation, it’s going to be very very hard for you to sell additional ads on top of that for revenue.”

Bloomberg: Google’s Profit Falls Short of Estimates as Employee Costs Rise

Today’s afternoon news cycle was mostly dominated by Google’s first-quarter earnings report. While income rose 18 percent, earnings per share were down slightly. The stock market was not amused.

Interesting analyst quote from Bloomberg:

“Google’s decision-making process has slowed over the years,” said Jordan Rohan, an analyst at Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. in New York. He recommends buying the stock, which he doesn’t own himself. “He’s trying to attack that decision paralysis.””

Business Insider: Dear Microsoft: You Owe Google An Apology

The story around Google’s FISMA certification has gotten rather technical and convoluted, with a headed back-and-forth between Redmond and Mountain View. Looks like Microsoft was wrong

“Microsoft called Google a liar. Turns out, Microsoft is wrong. Google Apps for Government was, always has been, and still is certified under a government security spec called FISMA.”

Have ideas for stories we should feature here? Email us at tips@siliconfilter.com

Please Stop Saying ‘Cloud’

Redmondmag.com’s Don Jones talks about his feelings when he hears the word cloud:

“Okay, we need a serious dose of reality here. I just finished a customer engagement where the company’s IT director, in no uncertain terms, told me that his company was having nothing to do with “the cloud.” I nodded, and asked why. Turns out he’d recently attended a tech conference, where the keynote address (according to him) was basically summed up as, “no company is going to outsource their IT to the cloud.” He agreed that outsourcing his IT was a bad idea, and so no cloud for him.”

An Interview With Twitter’s Forgotten Founder, Noah Glass

Silicon Alley Insider got an exclusive interview with Noah Glass, “the Twitter co-founder you’ve never heard of.” Glass talks about the earliest days of Twitter and how he was pushed out of the company by Evan Williams.

“Odeo was supposed to be a podcasting platform. But then Apple launched iTunes and everyone at Odeo panicked. Williams told everyone: come up something for us to do next! Along with Jack Dorsey and a developer named Florian Webber, Glass pitched something called Twitter. Glass came up with the name. Williams liked it enough to put Glass in charge. The product became Glass’s obsession. He told Williams he wanted to spin it out of Twitter as its own company.”

Related (also from Silicon Alley Insider): The Real History of Twitter. A good story, especially for those who didn’t follow the ups and downs of Odeo back in the day.

A5: All Apple, Part Mystery

The most detailed look at Apple’s A5 processor yet. Highly technical but more than worth a read (or just Instapaper it for the weekend).

“Bold is the only word that can be used to describe Apple’s A5. It was bold to design such a large device. Certainly the CPU+GPU combination is significantly larger than the comparable portion of the A4. However, this is only the beginning of the story. Going beyond these basic elements leaves an additional 34 mm2 or 64 percent of the whole A4 die. Yes, there are very likely additional IP cores there, but there might also be some clever custom design that leverages Apple’s integrated approach.”

Image credit: losmininos