Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:
Breaking News: Satellite to Gather Exclusive Images for Google Earth Blasts off in California…Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Launch  —  VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, CA — A Delta 2 rocket carrying a GeoEye satellite lifted off at 11:50 a.m. PDT today.  The imaging satellite will provide mapping exclusively to […]

Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
Startups: your web site sucks  —  I visited each website from the list of Demo finalists.  —  Boy, do they suck.  Really, really suck.  —  Does no one understand how to market themselves?  —  It’s amazing to me that not a single Demo website has learned from the lessons of Gary […]

Jacqui Cheng / Infinite Loop:
On iTunes 8 and hunches; also iPhone 2.1 for Tuesday  —  On Friday, we posted a short roundup of what’s expected in iTunes 8 thanks to the rumortastic stylings of Kevin Rose.  The Pandora-like Genius feature, Genius Sidebar, Grid view, and more are all said to be included.

Nicholas Carlson / Valleywag:
NBC dumps Microsoft Silverlight after Olympics  —  NBC streamed all its NBCOlympics.com videos using Microsoft’s Silverlight backend tech, but the network dumped Microsoft before last night’s NFL kickoff — streamed live over NBCSports.com and NFL.com — opting to use Adobe Flash instead.  Why?

MacNN:
iPod nano 4G photo, details [new orig photo]  —  MacNN can confirm the existence of the fourth-generation iPod nano and has obtained a verified authentic photo of the Apple music player.  The device exactly matches claims by Digg founder Kevin Rose of a tall, tapered design and is enclosed …

Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
So Much Hate For Microsoft’s Seinfeld/Gates Buddy Ad  —  from the what’s-wrong-with-it?  dept  —  I wasn’t going to comment on Microsoft’s new ad campaign featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates buddying around, but the response among the press and bloggers is almost universally negative …

Joshua Topolsky / Engadget:
iPod nano 4G leaked in actual, factual, really-real spy photo  —  Look, you know the drill here.  This may be the painstaking result of some CAD-school-dropout’s nights home alone, or the latest in cheapo knock-offs from the Far East.  You may be looking at a Photoshop spackled together …

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Xbox 360 defects: an inside history of Microsoft’s video game console woes  —  When his fourth Xbox 360 video game console died in April, Chris Szarek wasn’t surprised.  —  The Chicopee, Mass. gamer was accustomed to the hardware failures that became known throughout the Internet as RROD …