Lifehacker:

Currently offered for NYC only, but coming to 100 US cities soon, Poorsquare takes Foursquare’s location and deals database and reveals the best offers by location. You can filter by free only, free with purchase, or all discounts.

Sheer genius.

Before she was Marilyn Monroe a young Norma Jeane Dougherty wrote to her foster mother, Grace Goddard, to describe a meeting with army photographers, specifically David Conover and her burgeoning modeling career. The eight-page letter gives insight on Norma Jeane’s marriage to “Jimmie” Dougherty, her work at the Radioplane Company, and her hopes of a better career. The letter which comes up for auction the very first time at Juliens Auctions is estimated to bring $30,000-$50,000.

With Tout’s templates, you’ll be able to quickly insert the repetitive information into your email, then spend your time personalizing it for the recipient.

They have an iPhone app and it integrates with Gmail.

NY Times:

The opening for Nokia, Mr. Elop explained, depends on Nokia’s ability to exploit the rapidly shifting market in smartphones, to profit from its new alliance with Microsoft and to develop services based on its own assets, like the company’s advanced mapping and location data technology.

With the exception of Microsoft, aren’t those the same challenges that Nokia faced before and failed?

Few in history have transformed their time like Steve Jobs has. In this timely book, Isaacson paints a vivid, compelling portrait that pulls no punches — the end result is satisfying, complete, and gives insight into a man who managed to turn his contradictions into potent strengths.

Poynter.org:

Every so often a journalist draws criticism for something he retweeted. And whether that criticism is justified or not, it discourages some journalists from using Twitter effectively.

Jeff Sonderman outlines the way that journalists are now using Twitter to retweet information, and some of the pitfalls each of the methods has when it comes to erasing the appearance of bias.

Ultimately, Sonderman suggests a new class of retweets for journalists and others who want to relay information on Twitter without specifically endorsing or offering the appearance of an endorsement: a “neutral retweet.”

It’s an interesting concept. But in practical terms, I doubt even that is enough to dissuade some readers with an axe to grind to assume the journalist has a bias, anyway.

Electronista:

Consumer Reports partly changed its tune on Apple and recommended the iPhone 4S on Tuesday. It claimed that the dual, auto-switching antenna system on the newer Apple phone had solved the ‘death grip’ problem cause by covering up the bottom-left antenna gap. It also didn’t notice the battery life issues reported by some and saw iOS 5.0.1 covering those might have problems.

Lest we forget, Consumer Reports’ complaints about the previous model, the iPhone 4, helped set in motion the “Antennagate” controversy, suggesting that the iPhone 4 was prone to reception problems.

It’s good to see Apple’s won Consumer Reports’ endorsement – for those buyers who value the opinion of the publication, anyway.

Horace Dediu doing his magic.

Engadget:

Microsoft has constructed a monstrous six-story “Windows Phone” just a few feet away from the world’s largest Macy’s store, right in the middle of one of the city’s more popular outdoor picnic areas.

Nothing says success like a giant eyesore.

The in-your-face-factor is essential in metal. Ask Jason Suecof – one of the essential producers on this side of the millennium and creative mind behind the sound of Trivium, All That Remains and The Black Dahlia Murder. He’ll tell you that, yes, it is essential indeed. So, we simply asked him to bag his most essential tricks for an EZmix Pack, one we’d like to call: Metal Essentials EZmix Pack.The Metal Essentials EZmix Pack comes with exactly what its title implies: instant and essential presets for your metal productions! One click and you get Jason’s take on how to beef up your guitars, drums, bass, vocals and overall master. Essentially easy.

Metal Month continues at Toontrack. You’ve got to love a company that celebrates Metal releases for an entire month.

iDownloadBlog:

Developer and hacker conradev has uncovered a hidden panorama mode in the iOS Camera app. By changing a key value in the iOS SDK, a Panorama mode is unlocked in the Camera app that lets iPhone users capture a panorama image by snapping photos continually from left to right.

I’m always amazed at what these hackers can uncover.

Reuters:

Several technology companies have expressed an interest in buying the division, which is seen as attractive for its patents, the sources said. Oracle Corp might be among the likely technology firms interested in the asset, one of the sources said.

They aren’t expected to get the $1.2 billion they paid for it.

Brian Womack:

“I had a lot of questions for him,” Zuckerberg said. The topics included, “how to build a team around you that’s focused on building as high quality and good things as you are.”

If there’s one person you’d like to answer your questions, it would have to be Steve Jobs.

AP:

Voters in five counties are filling out and returning their mail-in ballots for a Tuesday special primary election to replace former U.S. Rep. David Wu, who resigned following a sex scandal. A handful will mark their ballots not with a pen but with the tip of their finger.It’s the latest attempt at using new technology to help voters with disabilities cast ballots privately.

In life we connect with all kinds of people, places and things. There’s friends and family, of course, but there’s also the sports teams we root for, the coffee shops we’re loyal to, and the TV shows we can’t stop watching (to name a few).So far Google+ has focused on connecting people with other people. But we want to make sure you can build relationships with all the things you care about—from local businesses to global brands—so today we’re rolling out Google+ Pages worldwide.

Google is putting a lot into its social networking venture.

One of my biggest peeves in life is how people do not show enough respect for the men and women that have served our countries.

Reuters:

In a lawsuit filed late Friday in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the Times said Huffington Post’s “Parentlode” blog had caused reader confusion with the newspaper’s 3-year-old “Motherlode” blog.Both blogs have been overseen by Lisa Belkin, who worked for the Times from 1982 to 2011 before joining AOL last month. The new blog started on October 24.

I wonder where she got the idea for the name of the new blog?

The Associated Press has updated its stylebook entry on “illegal immigrant,” rejecting once again the “undocumented” term recommended by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, but approving “living in the country without legal permission” as an acceptable variation.

Jim Romenesko:

After publishing for 110 years, the Holyoke Transcript-Telegram went out of business and left the community of 30,000 without a daily newspaper. That was in 1993. “In Holyoke babies have been born, raised and sent off to college or war or other adult responsibilities without ever seeing their names in a T-T article taped to a refrigerator,” writes former Miami Herald and Boston Globe editor Thomas Fiedler. “Congressmen, mayors, and city councilors have been elected, served, and retired without knowing a hometown daily’s beat reporter.”

I never really thought of it like that before. Kind of sad.

Get mail done. Sparrow, the new mail for Mac, is designed for you to be efficient in the most pleasurable way. Lightweight and fast, it lets you compose, send and read messages in the most simple and elegant manner.

Try our Gmail-only free version or get the full-featured Sparrow at $9.99. Sparrow is constantly updated for free to bring you the best mailing experience on the Mac.

Edge:

A post from the team on the game’s forums reads: “Today we are very sad to announce that Lego Universe will be closing. This was a very difficult decision to make, but unfortunately Lego Universe has not been able to attract the number of members needed to keep the game open.

LEGO Universe debuted in October, 2010 for Mac and PC, but never had the impact on the MMO market that its developers and publisher expected. LEGO Universe had a difficult time attracting players despite an effort to make parts of the game free to play starting this past summer. LEGO Universe shuts down for good in January.

EMR and EHR:

As I’ve written these dozens of articles, talked to hundreds of doctors, and far too many EHR (Electronic Health Records) vendors it’s become clear to me that an iPad interface is basically a Must Have feature for an [electronic medical records system].

More doctors than ever are using iPads in their practices, either as handy guides to drug interactions or to access patient record systems remotely. Writing for the EMR and EHR blog, John advocates for vendors to consider developing native apps, as many doctors are now opting to access their desktop systems remotely (using screen sharing software) since they have no other option.

Adam Satariano and Peter Burrows for Businessweek:

About five years ago, Apple (AAPL) design guru Jony Ive decided he wanted a new feature for the next MacBook: a small dot of green light above the screen, shining through the computer’s aluminum casing to indicate when its camera was on. The problem? It’s physically impossible to shine light through metal.Ive called in a team of manufacturing and materials experts to figure out how to make the impossible possible, according to a former employee familiar with the development who requested anonymity to avoid irking Apple. The team discovered it could use a customized laser to poke holes in the aluminum small enough to be nearly invisible to the human eye but big enough to let light through.

For me, “make the impossible possible,” sums up a lot of things at Apple. That’s why they lead in so many markets.

Matt Alexander on CBS turning down Apple’s offer for streaming TV:

The streaming model works. Once you’ve experienced the joy of watching what you want, when you want, it’s difficult to go back to regular television consumption. And yet, here we are, listening to another CEO stick his fingers in his ears and hope to God his business stays on track.

The way we consume media is changing and like the music industry had to change, the TV business has to change too. Apple is leading the push for media consumption and consumers are following them. Companies like CBS have to embrace these changes or die.

Kirk McElhearn:

Just as when you compress a text file using zip compression, decompressing returns all the original letters and characters, lossless music compression provides the full fidelity of the original audio you compressed.

Nice compression overview.