Business News Research

TECHCRUNCH
MICHAEL ARRINGTON
14 MAY 08

One Laptop Per Child will ship a special version of Windows on their low cost laptops for poor children, the two companies announced this afternoon. Previously the laptops, which to date have been tested in a number of countries, ran only Linux. Trials of the Windows version of the machines will begin in June in “key emerging markets.” OLPC is also working with third parties to port its user interface, called Sugar, to Windows, and is hoping to have a machine with dual boot options to allow “users” to choose between operating systems.

There are no financial terms being disclosed, although it wouldn’t be dumb to assume that not only is the software being supplied for free, but Microsoft made a healthy donation to the organization as well. The last thing Microsoft wants is for anyone who’s computer literate to think that a world without Microsoft Windows is possible.

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TECHCRUNCH
MICHAEL ARRINGTON
14 MAY 08

More details on Facebook’s banning of Google Friend Connect from the Facebook API earlier today. I spoke with Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly and Google’s Director of Engineering David Glazer about the banning to get a fuller picture of the conflict.

Here’s an example of how Friend Connect (more details) works in practice. A third party site may want to add social elements to their service. They can integrate with Friend connect and allow users to sign in. Those users choose a social network where they keep their profile (Orkut, Hi5, GTalk and, until today, Facebook) and log in via the social network’s API. They then become “members” of the site, using Google’s terminology. If any of their friends from their social network also become members of that site, those friends are shown on the site and you can interact with them. To see it for yourself, click “log in” at the top of this sample site, IngridMichaelson.

Kelly says the issue comes down to the fact that Google Friend Connect users don’t have control over data pulled from Facebook. In particular, Facebook is concerned that they have no relationship to the end site where the data is presented (in the example above, IngridMichaelson). Instead, Google has inserted itself as a middleman in the process.

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TECHCRUNCH
MICHAEL ARRINGTON
14 MAY 08

Facebook is all about openness and data portability, as long as that doesn’t involve openness or portability of data, it seems.

Today they wrote a long 7 paragraph blog post to get a single point across: Facebook has banned Google’s Friend Connect access to the Facebook API:

Now that Google has launched Friend Connect, we’ve had a chance to evaluate the technology. We’ve found that it redistributes user information from Facebook to other developers without users’ knowledge, which doesn’t respect the privacy standards our users have come to expect and is a violation of our Terms of Service. Just as we’ve been forced to do for other applications that redistribute data in a way users might not expect or understand, we’ve had to suspend Friend Connect’s access to Facebook user information until it comes into compliance. We’ve reached out to Google several times about this issue, and hope to work with them to enable users to share their data exactly when and where they choose.

This of course has nothing to do with the fact that Facebook launched their own nearly identically named product called Facebook Connect three days before Google’s Friend Connect.

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TECHCRUNCH
MICHAEL ARRINGTON
14 MAY 08

Dear Mr. Bostock:

It is clear to me that the board of directors of Yahoo has acted irrationally and lost the faith of shareholders and Microsoft. It is quite obvious that Microsoft’s bid of $33 per share is a superior alternative to Yahoo’s prospects on a standalone basis. I am perplexed by the board’s actions. It is irresponsible to hide behind management’s more than overly optimistic financial forecasts. It is unconscionable that you have not allowed your shareholders to choose to accept an offer that represented a 72% premium over Yahoo’s closing price of $19.18 on the day before the initial Microsoft offer. I and many of your shareholders strongly believe that a combination between Yahoo and Microsoft would form a dynamic company and more importantly would be a force strong enough to compete with Google on the Internet.

During the past week, a number of shareholders have asked me to lead a proxy fight to attempt to remove the current board and to establish a new board which would attempt to negotiate a successful merger with Microsoft, something that in my opinion the current board has completely botched. I believe that a combination between Microsoft and Yahoo is by far the most sensible path for both companies. I have therefore taken the following actions: (1) during the last 10 days, I have purchased approximately 59 million shares and share-equivalents of Yahoo; (2) I have formed a 10-person slate which will stand for election against the current board; and (3) I have sought antitrust clearance from the Federal Trade Commission to acquire up to approximately $2.5 billion worth of Yahoo stock. The biographies of the members of our slate are attached to this letter. A more formal notification is being delivered today to Yahoo under separate cover.

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TECHCRUNCH
JASON KINCAID
14 MAY 08

Increo Solutions has launched Backboard, a site that allows users to easily leave feedback on a variety of documents and images. Backboard is aimed at product managers, marketing teams, and designers who could benefit from the simple feedback system that the site offers.

Backboard looks very nice, but a quick glance shows that it might be too simple. There doesn’t seem to be much going on each page - just the document in question with some comments beneath it. Then again, this barebones system might appeal to users in a hurry. The site has support for Word, Excel, Powerpoint, PDF, and a number of image formats, along with standard URLs.

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TECHCRUNCH
MICHAEL ARRINGTON
14 MAY 08

Mozilla CEO John Lilly revealed more details of their stealth Data project today, which we first reported here.

In a blog post, he says “data is one of the most important pieces to faciliate understanding (and innovation), and is also one of the most under-explored areas of the modern web.” He also says that Mozilla has two early projects that touch on the idea - Spectator and Test Pilot.

The Data idea is much broader, however. “There are worlds of information about how people use the web that are locked up and not currently shared,” he says. By simply adding optional tracking software to Firefox code, much of that data could be unleashed

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TECHCRUNCH
MICHAEL ARRINGTON
14 MAY 08

Bill Gates will demo a new multi-touch computer and interface today called TouchWall at the Microsoft CEO Summit in Redmond.

TouchWall refers to the touch screen hardware setup itself; the corresponding software to run TouchWall, which is built on a standard version of Vista, is called Plex.

TouchWall and Plex are superficially similar to Microsoft Surface, a multi-touch table computer that was introduced in 2007 and which recently became commercially available in select AT&T stores.

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TECHCRUNCH
JASON KINCAID
14 MAY 08

Magnify.net has introduced a plugin for Movable Type and WordPress that attempts to minimize the effort required to add multimedia content to a blog. Magnify.net is a video discovery and broadcast platform that provides a hosted framework for video distribution.

The plugin, called Magnify Publisher, allows bloggers to search and embed content from over a dozen media sites including YouTube and Flickr without ever leaving their blog’s admin panel. Publisher also allows bloggers to upload videos from their computer, and to record clips on a webcam (sort of like seesmic). After choosing a video or picture, users are free to rearrange and resize their media from within their blog’s WYSIWYG editor.

Magnify’s CEO Steve Rosenbaum sees the plugin as a gateway to an online ecosystem where bloggers are the curators of multimedia. While there are a number of other blogging plugins that offer similar functionality, Rosenbaum says that Magnify Publisher is the first to integrate media search, upload, and webcam features. Magnify hopes that this combination will spur bloggers to regularly include more multimedia content in their posts.

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TECHCRUNCH
JOHN BIGGS
14 MAY 08

Dash, everyone’s favorite navigation company, has just released its open API for developers. Using some basic tools, you can highlight any geographical information you want — property listings, speed traps, and weather reports. Because the device has two-way communication with the cloud, data providers can send almost anything to the device. While some of the apps are map-based, you can also sync contacts with Funambol and even use MediaGuide to see what’s playing on the radio. The MediaGuide feature sends a server the device’s current location via an internet connection, and returns a list of nearby radio stations and songs that have been recently played.

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TECHCRUNCH
DUNCAN RILEY
14 MAY 08

Dutch startup Scoutle marries different networking ideas to deliver what they call an “Automated Social Networking for Bloggers.”

Scoutle operates via webcrawlers they call Scouts. Users create their own personal Scouts, for example one for their blog, another for their Facebook or similar profile, and the scouts “walk through the Internet,” by meeting other Scouts with similar interests or profiles, creating a contact between both.

Results from the Scouts are constantly being compared, delivering a realtime guide that allows users to see which blog on a certain topic, in a certain language or country is most relevant to the user at a specific moment. Users can also create networks based on specific topics or personal groups and see who is best ranked within these networks.

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