Tom Krazit / CNET News:
Apple hires top IBM chip designer and blade server guru  —  Apple’s decision to hire Mark Papermaster away from IBM could mean that its Xserve lineup is taking on a more prominent role.  —  (Credit: Apple)  —  Updated throughout at 4:55 p.m. PT with additional details and comment from IBM.

Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
Court Greatly Limits Software And Business Method Patents  —  from the huge-victory-for-innovation dept  —  I don’t say this often, but it looks like the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) — or “the patent court” — got a big one mostly right.

Sara Silver / Wall Street Journal:
Some Shed Their Gadgets by Turning to One: iPhone  —  Lower-income households are turning in force to Apple Inc.’s iPhone and may be doing so to save the cost of a separate broadband connection and music devices, according to the media measurement firm comScore Inc.

Reuters:
US appeals court rejects business method patents  —  A U.S. patent appeals court ruled on Thursday that business methods, such as Amazon.com Inc’s (AMZN.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) one-click to buy goods on the Internet, cannot be patented.  —  The case was closely watched …

Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:
Revenue Crisis: Here Come The Pro Accounts  —  In his Wired magazine cover story, “Free!  Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business,” Wired editor Chris Anderson wrote: “It’s now clear that practically everything Web technology touches starts down the path to gratis, at least as far as we consumers […]

The Official Google Blog:
What we learned from 1 million businesses in the cloud  —  The reliability of cloud computing has been a hot topic recently, partly because glitches in the cloud don’t happen behind closed doors as with traditional on-premises solutions for businesses.  Instead, when a small number …

YouTube Blog:
Link To The Best Parts In Your Videos  —  Here at YouTube, we still pride ourselves in listening closely to our community and building what you ask for.  In this spirit, we are pleased to announce the ability to “deep link” to YouTube videos.  This means you can now not only link to […]

Meghan Keane / Epicenter:
Study: iPhone Users Not All High Earning Tech Geeks  —  Only one percent of cellphone users have an iPhone, and while it may seem like most iPhone owners are just dropping disposable income on the latest tech gadget (present company excluded, of course), that is changing rapidly.

Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
The new AOL.com gets all social and stuff  —  Social networks are front and center in the latest redesign of AOL’s AOL.com homepage, which the company announced Thursday and says it will start to gradually roll out to users over the next few weeks (unless they choose to opt in […]

Ben Charny / Wall Street Journal:
H-P Mulls Service Bundles for Netbooks  —  Hewlett-Packard Co. wants to employ a new tactic to market “netbook” computers in the U.S., offering them at a steep discount to customers who sign-up for wireless service contracts.  —  This bundling of cellular service with PCs isn’t done in the U.S. […]