Frank Caron / Ars Technica:
XNA games coming to the Zune, Xbox Live Arcade  —  This morning at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Microsoft announced the next step in its Xbox Live and XNA initiative: the Zune will be entering the fray as new third pillar of XNA software support, with over 1,000 […]

Nivi / Venture Hacks:
T-Shirts for VCs  —  Hilarious new t-shirts for the “top 2/20%” (get it?) of the population from VC Wear.  —  There are more awesome t-shirts at VC Wear as well as a Powerpoint Pitch and a Buy it (the company) Now button.  —  There’s truth in every t-shirt.

Ashkan Karbasfrooshan / HipMojo.com:
Why Most VC-Backed, Ad-Supported Companies Are Doomed to Fail  —  Most of the web projects out there are ad-supported, or intend to be ad-supported.  —  While a lot of companies are bootstrapped, most are financed by angel investors or venture capitalists.

Om Malik / GigaOM:
Google & Its 99 Broadband Balloons  —  Google, according to The Wall Street Journal is thinking about teaming up with Space Data Corp., a company that sends balloons carrying small (micro) base stations about 20 miles up in the air for providing connectivity to truckers and oil companies.

Robert X. Cringely / InfoWorld:
Look before you leak  —  I bet you thought people banked in the Cayman Islands because they serve fruity cocktails with tiny parasols in them while you’re waiting for your checks to clear.  Well, you’re only partly right.  The other reason people keep accounts in the Caymans is to avoid […]

Ryan Block / Engadget:
Microsoft announces games for Zune via XNA Studio  —  Looks like games are coming for the Zune after all!  Microsoft just announed XNA Studio developers will be able to use the Zune as a multiplayer wireless mobile gaming platform.  Details are sparse at this point, but it looks like it’s … […]

Brandi Stewart / Fortune Small Business:
eBay seller strike starts, listings dip  —  EBay’s listings appear to be down 3% since this week’s seller strike began, but separating the boycott’s effects from standard daily fluctuations is a tricky task.  —  (FORTUNE Small Business) — Monday marked the start of a week-long eBay (EBAY …

Brooke Crothers / CNET News.com:
Dell launches Inspiron notebooks with ‘Penryn’ chip  —  As expected, Dell is now offering Inspiron notebook PCs with the Intel Core 2 Duo “Penryn” chip as an optional configuration.  This is the first time that Dell has included the 45-nanometer processor as an option in the consumer-oriented Inspiron line.

Chris Williams / The Register:
BBC mulls dropping Flash as iPlayer meets iPhone  —  iDontbelieveit!  —  The BBC is considering ditching Adobe’s Flash system for its iPlayer streams to improve the video quality of the on-demand service, it said on Tuesday.  —  The news came alongside an announcement that iPlayer …

Ina Fried / CNET News.com:
Gates on Yahoo: It’s the people  —  PALO ALTO, Calif.—Bill Gates is willing to pay a lot for engineering talent.  —  Asked what makes Yahoo worth more than $40 billion, Gates pointed not to the company’s products, its huge base of advertisers or its market share, but rather to the […]