News
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Linked Pages: Bing Now Lets You Curate and Highlight Links that Are About You
Google may have Google+, but Bing has a close relationship to an ever bigger and more important social network: Facebook. While Google now highlights your Google+ profile [...]
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Google’s Flight Search Goes Mobile
Google today launched its flight search feature for mobile browsers. Since it acquired travel software provider ITA Software in 2011, Google has been very deliberate about rolling [...]
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Good News/Bad News: Spam is Down, Malware is Up
Thanks to better spam filtering techniques, most of us probably don’t see too many ads for “herbal Viagra” and similar concoctions in our inboxes these days, but [...]
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Googlelighting: The Google/Microsoft War of Words Continues, Now in Musical Form
“Who knows what the future holds for Google Apps.” That’s the question Microsoft would like its customers to ask themselves before switching away from Microsoft Office and [...]
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48% of Mobile Phones in the U.S. Are Now Smartphones, Up From Just 31% a Year Ago
The age of the feature phone, at least in the U.S., is slowly coming to an end. According to the latest data from market research firm Nielsen, [...]
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Opinion
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The New York Times Idiotwall
It took the New York Times almost two years and close to $40 million dollars to come up with its paywall scheme and the results neither reflect this huge investment in manpower nor money. It’s a mess that was designed by committee. I actually believe that most people would be more than willing to pay a reasonable amount for access to the NYTimes’ generally excellent reporting. The problem is, it almost feels as if the paywall was designed to scare away just those readers who would be willing to pay.
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What Twitter's 5th Anniversary Video Tells Us About Its Future
Twitter celebrates its 5th anniversary today. While the company has recently taken to annoying its users with the #dickbar and is working hard on alienating its developers, Twitter decided to mark its birthday with a celebrity-studded video featuring Piers Morgan, Snoop Dogg, Hilary Clinton and Serena Williams, among many others. In it, Snoop Dogg tells us why he follows Martha Stewart, Piers Morgan explains that his show prep largely consists of checking out what his guests are saying on Twitter (which explains a lot, I think) and a musician named Julian Perretta says that he uses Twitter as a way of “learning what [he] should do” (which also explains a lot).
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A Few Notes About SXSW 2011
I just got back from Austin yesterday and after a day of recuperation, here are my thoughts about this year’s event. Quite a bit has been written about it already, so the fact that it’s getting bigger (maybe too big), very commercial and without any real news value doesn’t come as a surprise, even to those who weren’t there this year. But none of these things are what SXSW is about – it’s about the people, the networking, and the new friendships forged in hallways and over free ice cream at Club de Ville.
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Twitter's Updated iPhone App Annoys Users With Unnecessary Focus on Trending Topics
Twitter today launched an update to its iOS apps that brings lots of welcome new features (automatic shortening of links, autocomplete for usernames and easier photo uploads) but also puts far too much emphasis on trending topics in the iPhone app. Every time you scroll to the top of your stream on the iPhone, Twitter will now show you a trending topic at the top.
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