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03 Feb 2010 22:35

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Biz, Tech: Why does Wal-Mart have a limit on buying new release DVDs?

  • five the number of copies of a newly released DVD you can buy from Wal-Mart; Target also does this
  • 40% the percentage of DVDs that kiosk company Redbox buys from Wal-Mart or Target; hmm source

03 Feb 2010 22:26

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Tech, World: Italy’s trying to screw over YouTube for some stupid reason

  • The background In 2006, a video of a child with Down’s syndrome getting attacked showed up on YouTube. Italy has gone after Google for the video big time, suing major executives and arguing that they should screen their content. Google argues this is a bad idea because it’s impossible.
  • The changes Now, Italy is considering taking the policy a step further. They want to force user-generated content sites like YouTube to be liable for what it posts by screening all the content that goes through and getting licenses to distribute the content online. Gah. What a bad idea.
  • The motives? Who’s the Prime Minister? Oh yeah, Silvio Berlusconi. Anyway, some suggest the government’s putting the hammer down due to Berlusconi trying to protect the content of his total-conflict-of-interest media and entertainment companies. Tinfoil hat time. source

02 Feb 2010 23:18

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Tech: SeededBuzz: A blog marketing site in need of more blogs

  • Is this innovation, or is it overly complicated? SeededBuzz, which is in super-early beta, promises bloggers an opportunity to do mutual promotion of blog articles with other sites, all in the hopes of stirring up some viral traffic for your site. Oh, and it costs money outside of beta, but if it works, it should give your revenue model a shot in the arm. We smell something cooking here, but none of the articles we saw on the site looked like they were really worth blogging about. In this case, the early adopters have nothing to grab onto. If we were them, we’d cut some deals with notable bloggers (blogs-about-blogging CopyBlogger and ProBlogger come to mind) and get them to use the service. Then it might be worthwhile. source

02 Feb 2010 23:01

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Tech: Fans of comments on tech sites win one, lose another

02 Feb 2010 21:04

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Tech: Google decides to bite the bullet, adds multitouch to the Nexus One

  • They could set themselves up for a patent battle with Apple. When the Google Nexus One launched, one of the biggest things it was lacking was multitouch – a seemingly obvious advantage the iPhone (along with Palm’s Pre and Pixi) held over it. Apple has a lot of patents on the technology, which would seemingly make it off limits. Today, though, Google enabled the feature in a software update, which should at the very least cause a cluster#(&@ … or nothing. We’ll see. source

02 Feb 2010 20:53

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Tech: Douchebags who use Foursquare upset about Foursquare’s accuracy

  • Total FAIL, guys. Who are you to judge what your customers like and don’t like?
  • Get Satisfaction commenter “valerie” • After earning the “douchebag” badge using the Foursquare service. She wasn’t very happy about the moniker, and many other users complained too. Then TechCrunch noticed. While the quickly-growing service isn’t budging now, they’re likely to feel pressure to change it as a result of their growing popularity. They also made a deal with Bravo recently. That said, if we earn the badge, we’d wear it like a badge of honor. We think more companies need to call their users douchebags. source

02 Feb 2010 08:37

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Tech: Apple’s A4 chip: Perhaps the iPad’s most surprising aspect

The secret sauce in Apple’s iPad is a new chip. Critics claim the main novelty isn’t the chip’s speed, but the fact that Apple designed it themselves. source
 

01 Feb 2010 18:52

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Biz, Tech: The Associated Press continues its shakedown of Web giants

  • We’re breaking our longstanding AP boycott for this story. The Associated Press today reached a new deal with our boys at Yahoo News, giving the wire service more money to host the content from the news service we know and love. Details aren’t being disclosed, but let’s just say that no major changes are taking place as of yet. Oh yeah, Google News hasn’t hosted AP stories since their contract expired in December. Didya know that? You probably didn’t notice, because Google News is that good. source

01 Feb 2010 09:34

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Tech: Social networking no longer immune to the advances of spam

  • 57% of social networking users have been spammed in the last year
  • 70% increase in social networking spam from 2008 to 2009
  • 39% of social networking users have been offered malware in 2009 source

01 Feb 2010 08:43

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Tech: Steve Jobs reportedly has a Jobsian fit against Google and Adobe

  • Word on the street is that Steve Jobs had a pretty epic unloading session on both Google and Adobe late last week at Apple headquarters in the wake of the iPad launch, noting how 1.) Google got into the phone business even though Apple didn’t get into the search business, 2.) Google’s “Don’t be Evil” motto is “bull*%*^” or “a load of crap” depending on who you ask, and 3.) Apple doesn’t support Flash on its iPhone and iPad because it’s so buggy, and the company makes no effort to do anything with the technology Apple makes. source