This year, Live Nation, the world’s largest concert promoter, will put on some 22,000 live shows–each one attended by carping about the asinine “convenience” and “courtesy” charges the company likes to tack on to ticket purchases. But much as concertgoers might loathe the idea of giving Live Nation even more of their money, they may soon do so. Because beginning today, the company is offering exclusive audio and video recordings of some of its events through iTunes.
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Google’s Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management and Matthew Papakipos, engineering director for Google Chrome OS–joined by founder Sergey Brin–discuss how they plan to bring the OS to the market, then answer some questions from the audience.
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Direct from Google headquarters, and liveblogged by John Paczkowski, Google’s Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management and Matthew Papakipos, engineering director for Google Chrome OS, explain some of the advantages of the operating system: Speed, simplicity and security.
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Speaking at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans this past July, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said of Google’s forthcoming Chrome OS, “Who knows what this thing is?” Today, he found out. The operating system, a direct challenge to Microsoft Windows, was on display at a media gathering at the company’s HQ this morning, and in the words of Sundar Pichai, Google’s vice president of product management, it is intended to make computing a “delightful” experience.
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Good thing Comcast and General Electric plan to name NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker as head of their proposed joint venture, because Sirius XM CEO Mel Karmazin doesn’t want the job. Not that he wouldn’t be a good candidate to run a merged Comcast-NBCU. Because as Karmazin himself told Fox Business Network’s Neil Cavuto, he’d be an excellent choice.
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If you follow AllThingsD, and Weekend Update hopes you do, then one thing you’ve come to value is the special way the staff gets around the world to cover the important stuff and report it straight from the geek’s mouth. This week our bicoastal brigade brought the tech news as it happened, and in Boomtown’s case, from 30,000 feet.
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BoomTown’s week began onstage in front of thousands of chanting women. No, Kara wasn’t filling in for Oprah; she was doing something much cooler.
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When Apple said it does not support iTunes integration with third-party digital media players, it meant it. With iTunes 9.0.2, it has once again disabled the Palm Pre’s ability to synch with the media software.
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Microsoft may have gotten the jump on Google when its Bing search engine became the first to allow users to search Twitter in real time, but that victory is largely an empty one. Because while being first is generating quite a bit of attention for Bing–which is, for once, leading search innovation instead of following Google’s–that’s about all it’s good for now.
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According to comScore, Web traffic to Amazon in the U.S. rose 14.8 percent, far outstripping that of overall U.S. Internet traffic, which grew just 3.5 percent. “It appears that Amazon is gaining share the old-fashioned way,” ThinkEquity analyst Ed Weller noted last week, “by acquiring more and more customers…and selling more to each of them.” Judging from the nice gain in third-quarter earnings the company posted after Thursday’s closing bell, that would seem to be the case.
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If newspapers are suffering a death by 1000 cuts, the next 100 will be made at the New York Times. The company today announced plans to reduce its newsroom staff by eight percent by the end of 2009. Cuts will be made by buyout, but the company will resort to layoffs should its hand be forced.
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For those about to rock, All Things Digital salutes you.
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The last time Microsoft was featured in an episode of “Family Guy,” it was the butt of Zune joke. Peter Griffin’s father-in-law asked Bill Gates to help him program his Zune and then taunted the Microsoft chairman, noting that he owns an iPod “like the rest of the world.” This time it’s going to be different. That’s because Microsoft is paying to make it so. The company has teamed up with Fox to sponsor a “Family Guy” special built around Windows 7.
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Sometimes life’s irony smacks you in the face. Sometimes BoomTown smacks you with it instead.
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