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All Things Digital
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Google’s Earth

"I actually think most people don’t want Google to answer their questions,” said the search giant’s chief executive, Eric Schmidt, in a recent and controversial interview. "They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next."

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the New Axis of Evil (Oracle)

There’s a wide sense of lament since Oracle has taken over Sun and their intellectual property, including MySQL, Java, Solaris and their hardware sales business. I’d say the average observer of this process might use the terms “slow moving train wreck”. I doubt they are far off on this one.

Why the Net Was Never Really Neutral Anyway …

The notion of net neutrality evokes a sense of righteous entitlement whenever anyone vaguely threatens this sacred principle. The mere discussion gets a knee jerk "the net should stay neutral" reaction that rivals what the "live free or die" call probably evoked in its day.

How Microsoft Research Foresaw Google's 'Priority Inbox' feature

It's not uncommon for me to hear about some new technology product or feature, from some company other than Microsoft, and realize that it sounds very similar to something I've covered before. More often than not, that something similar from the past ends up being a Microsoft Research project.

What Do "Goodfellas," Social Media, MTV, "The Terminator," Tequila, and Torture Have To Do With My New Favorite Band?

At 39 years old, I'm still a pop culture kid. I love media, entertainment and technology. I can't sit still when I discuss them. It's not only a hobby; it's been my job for 15 years.

How Google Cost Me $4 Million

On November 11, 2008, I woke up at 6 o'clock and did a Google search on my phone, like I do every morning. We're usually one or two for just about every industry keyword. But we were nowhere to be found.

In Defense of Links

For 15 years, I’ve been doing most of my writing--aside from my two books--on the Web. When I do switch back to writing an article for print, I find myself feeling stymied. I can't link!
More Voices Inside »

About Voices

This is a section of the All Things Digital Web site featuring posts from around the Web, from other Dow Jones properties and also original pieces we solicit. The section is now explicitly labeled that it comes “from other Web sites.”

Regarding third-party posts: We are trying to point readers of this site to other posts from around the Web that we admire and are trying to do so in the quickest manner possible.

That is why we have made even more changes to Voices to ensure we do this in the most transparent and timely way. While we don't expect that everyone will agree with our policies, we have made changes that reflect our intent in pointing to content outside our site.

So here is exactly what we do.

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All Things Digital Widgets

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Digital Daily

Hewlett-Packard Raises 3Par Bid

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) has again raised its bid for 3Par (PAR), trumping a superior bid made by Dell (DELL) just hours before. HP offered $33 a share for the data-storage company, surpassing Dell’s counter-offer of $32 a share and pushing the total value of the deal to $2.4 billion. [Details to follow] PREVIOUSLY Will Dell Bail on [...] Read More »

BoomTown

Video: Even Apple Product Marketing Head Schiller Touts Facebook Connect, Which Apple Has Now Disappeared on Ping

The plot thickens! While two official Apple pages tout an ability to use Facebook to find friends on its new social music offering in ITunes called Ping, which would be very useful, the feature is now not available on the service. CEO Steve Jobs told me that “onerous terms” prevented the integration at Apple launch event yesterday. Which is why it is odd that Apple’s SVP of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller said in the interview below that I also did at the confab minutes before that “you can use your Facebook contacts to find friends who are also on Ping and hook up to them.” Read More »

MediaMemo

Social Music Mystery! What Happened to Apple’s Ping/Facebook Connection?

Why isn’t Ping playing with Facebook? It’s Facebook’s fault, says Apple CEO Steve Jobs: The social network demanded “onerous terms” to connect with Apple’s social music play. But clearly there’s more to the story. Because while Facebook isn’t connected to Ping right now, it had been up through the service’s launch last night, and even for some time after that. Read More »

Donna Martin Graduates! Happy 90210 Day, Or Something

Brandon or Dylan? Brenda or Kelly? I don’t care at all, but some of you seem very invested in the classic (?) 90s show. So for you people, today’s date has a weird importance. The wayback machine beckons… Read More »

September Surprise: AOL Reups and Expands Search Agreement With Google

In a surprisingly quick and even stealthy move, AOL has renewed and expanded its search agreement with Google, even though many had expected there to be more competitive bidding throughout the fall to win the deal. The five-year deal, which is actually the third between the companies since 2002, to provide search technology and search advertising by powering AOL Search is more wide-ranging than the one it replaces. It also includes improved search products, global search, mobile search and also a video distribution arrangement with YouTube, which could evolve over time to include content partnerships. Read More »

Millions and Billions: Apple’s Music Event by the Numbers

Apple events are typically heavy on metrics and yesterday’s affair was no exception. In fact, it was more abundant with the stats than most I’ve seen, with CEO Steve Jobs trotting out quite an array of big milestone numbers with which to mark the company’s achievements. After the jump, a list of most of them. Read More »

Steve Jobs on Why Facebook Is Not Part of Apple’s New Ping Music Social Network: “Onerous Terms”

Yesterday, at the Apple music event in San Francisco, I had a short chat with Apple CEO Steve Jobs about its new social music service, called Ping. Essentially, it is a vertical version–in this case for music–of Facebook. But, except for Apple borrowing the blue color scheme from the powerful social networking site, Facebook is nowhere on Ping. So, Jobs explained why. Read More »

Video: BoomTown Zings, Dings and Pings (Manilow) at Apple Music Event

Here is a lovely movie from the Apple iPod, iPad, iTumes, TV and, now, Ping event yesterday in San Francisco. (Yes, this is a photo of me channeling Walt Mossberg in a chat with CEO Steve Jobs in the demo area.) It includes the you-are-there shots of Jobs onstage, as well as scenes from the media throng and more, as the tech giant unveiled updates, additions and renovations of old stuff and also launched new stuff. Read More »

Voices

Amazon.com Cuts Some TV Show Prices to 99 Cents

Amazon.com Inc. cut the price on some downloaded TV shows to 99 cents from $2.99 in the wake of Apple Inc.’s announcement Wednesday it will begin streaming some shows for 99 cents. Read More »

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Twitter for the iPad Says Hello!

BoomTown does not plan to get into the endless so-and-so launches an Apple iPad app news cycle, because it is not really news, except to the more breathless fanboy tech bloggers. But Twitter’s intro of one tonight in the App Store is probably more important than most. “Twitter for iPad,” said the company, “makes it even easier for people to explore Tweets and discover new content and accounts on Twitter.” We’ll reserve judgement on that. Read More »

AOL and Facebook Get the New Yorker Treatment

Within the next several weeks, the New Yorker magazine will be publishing big pieces about a pair of digital icons located on the East and West coasts–an assessment of the turnaround at AOL by staff writer Ken Auletta and a profile of Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg by Huffington Post senior contributing editor Jose Antonio Vargas. So fire up the iPad! Read More »

News Byte

Meanwhile, in Other Music News, Sony Announced…Something

In a vivid illustration of what Sony is up against, the Japanese giant today proudly previewed a new service called Music Unlimited, which will provide customers with cloud-based access to their music across a variety of Sony devices–news that mere hours later was pushed straight out of the collective consciousness by a string of music-related announcements from Sony nemesis Apple.

Voices

How Internet Growth Is Playing Out in Top Emerging Markets

The number of Internet users in the top emerging markets is set to nearly double by 2015 — a pace of growth that sounds enticing but that actually presents plenty of challenges for businesses, according to a Boston Consulting Group report released Wednesday. The report estimates that China, India, Brazil, Russia and Indonesia will have 1.2 billion Internet users within five years, up from about 610 million in 2009. Read More »

Lawsuit Non-News! PING Golf Won’t Sue Apple

Here’s one lawsuit averted! In case you were wondering, Apple had gone ahead and cleared the name of its new music service before launching the thing. That’s unlike its 2007 iPhone imbroglio, which led to a trademark dispute with Cisco. In this case, Apple reached a deal in advance with the PING golf brand and its owners, Karsten Manufacturing Corporation. Read More »

Apple TV Tuned to Improve Reception

Apple TVSteve Jobs may call Apple TV a hobby, and it certainly hasn’t met with the runaway success of some of the company’s products. But Jobs is an avid collector of both users and cooperative media companies, and with that in mind, Apple, as widely rumored, announced a new version of the gadget today, equipped to stream videos rented from iTunes. Read More »

Earlier Posts

There's more good stuff on BoomTown, Digital Daily, MediaMemo and Voices

Helping Runners Go the Distance

Nick Wingfield tests out iPhone apps that help runners go farther and faster. Note: Walt Mossberg is on vacation. Mossberg's Mailbox will return on September 16. Read More »

The Mossberg Solution

Mossberg’s Mailbox

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