Ken Fisher / Ars Technica:
Microsoft says “sorry” with free Valentine’s Zune 80 players  —  Microsoft’s special Valentine’s Day edition of the Zune (Red Zune 80) is apparently more popular than the company expected.  The Zune Originals creation that was announced just three weeks ago has already been through …

Hiawatha Bray / Boston Globe:
Polaroid shutting 2 Mass. facilities, laying off 150  —  As company exits film business, plants will close in Norwood, Waltham  —  Polaroid Corp., the Massachusetts company that gave the world instant film photography, is shutting down its film manufacturing lines in the state and abandoning …

Matt Richtel / New York Times:
Facing Free Software, Microsoft Looks to Yahoo  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Nearly a quarter-century ago, the mantra “information wants to be free” heralded an era in which news, entertainment and personal communications would flow at no charge over the Internet.  —  Now comes a new rallying cry: software wants […]

Zephoria / apophenia:
a google horror story: what happens when you are disappeared  —  Earlier this week, an acquaintance of mine found himself trapped in a Kafka-esque nightmare, a nightmare that should make all of us stop and think.  He wants to remain anonymous so let’s call him Bob.  Bob was an early adopter of […]

Erica Ogg / CNET News.com:
Nokia turns people into traffic sensors  —  UNION CITY, Calif.—On a cool, overcast morning in the parking lot of a Lowe’s hardware store, 100 UC Berkeley students lined up in rows ready to jump into a bevy of idling vehicles.  —  With media and VIPs from companies like Nokia, Navteq […]