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SAN FRANCISCO -- Evan Williams, Twitter co-founder and CEO of Obvious, wants to change the world that he helped create with platforms like Twitter and Blogger, by making his new platform, Medium, a model for curating quality information.

He said the tech industry's obsession with Web content creation has been about making it easy, and quick, for people to share real-time information. Medium, in contrast, is about creating collections of "better quality" content, Williams explained, going beyond the typical columns of text and sidebars, and working well with touch-based and mobile platforms.

Williams' vision is different from … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO -- Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom said his company's big hurdle is knowing how to mine the constant stream of photos being uploaded each day to the popular network.

"Instagram isn't necessarily a photo company, or a communications company as I like to say, we're also going to be a big data company," he said today at the GigaOm Road Map conference in San Francisco.

Systrom said the company, recently purchased by Facebook, needs to find better ways to organize the billions of photos shared on Instagram. That means looking beyond hashtags for looking … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO -- Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom said he has no problem with Twitter adding filters -- something Facebook-owned Instagram is known for -- to its photos.

"I don't think that in anyway threatens Instagram because Instagram is a community and not a filter app," Systrom said at the GigaOm's Road Map conference in San Francisco.

It's been reported that Twitter is planning to launch a filters feature in the coming months.

Systrom said adding filters to photos is now ubiquitous with photo sharing and photo apps, so Twitter jumping on the bandwagon is not … Read more

Google's senior vice president of Chrome and Apps, Sundar Pichai, gave Microsoft some credit for innovating with its new Surface platform. "I think form factors need a lot of innovation," he said in reference to Surface. "It looks like they put serious effort into it."

But he was more dubious about Microsoft's odds for success, and seemed to welcome the potential disruption Windows 8 might cause among long-time Microsoft users. 

"The Surface is a surprising announcement, to say the least," Pichai said at the GigaOm Structure conference in San Francisco. He … Read more

Olympus invited a handful of reviewers out to Whistler, Canada, to pick up our evaluation units of the OM-D E-M5 and get some shooting in at the Olympus-sponsored Telus World Ski and Snowboard festival. (CNET paid my way.) I previewed the E-M5 when it was first announced, and for the most part thus far the camera lives up to -- and down to -- my expectations.… Read more

GigaOm, one of Silicon Valley's best-known blogs, said today it has acquired the assets from ContentNext Media, parent company of media blog paidContent, from publisher Guardian News & Media.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

"PaidContent is the leading voice covering the evolution of media, an area that is very important to us," said Paul Walborsky, CEO of GigaOM. "Integrating our teams will enrich our editorial coverage and expand our footprint immediately in two markets that are critical to our growth - New York City and the United Kingdom."

In addition to paidContent.org the other … Read more

Much as it did when launching the PEN series of Micro Four Thirds cameras, Olympus trots out another beloved film brand and updates it for the digital age. This time out, though, Olympus frames enthusiasts squarely in the scene.

When Olympus revived the venerable PEN brand with the PEN E-P1 in 2009, I suspect its product planners were a bit taken aback by how well it was received by prosumer photographers and slightly dismayed by its failure to become a blockbuster among the coveted point-and-shoot crowd.

This time around, Olympus' reincarnation of its OM film line targets those enthusiasts who've proven to be either Olympus loyalists or fans of the Micro Four Thirds (MFT) interchangeable-lens standard. And while I'm not fond of the nomenclature--the first model is the overhyphenated OM-D E-M5--Olympus certainly deserves points for style. … Read more

Olympus looks set to debut a new compact, high-end camera model whose OM-D name capitalizes on the company's old camera brand.

Olympus teased about an "OMG" camera in recent ads, emphasizing the O and M letters, 43 Rumors reported. And it more recently trademarked OM-D, the site said, adding a February 8 launch, a $1,100 price tag, and a March date for worldwide shipping.

In the film days, Olympus' OM line was one of the majors in the SLR (single-lens reflex) world--indeed, I learned photography with my first camera, an OM-10 I used for many years. … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Moscow-based game developer ZeptoLab has today announced Cut the Rope HD for BlackBerry PlayBook.

Om Nom came out swinging here at CES with a demo of the new HTML5 version of the game for IE, followed by the announcement of a licensing division to bring Cut the Rope plush toys to the consumer market. And now, at the tail end of the week, fans of the popular physics-based puzzler get yet another juicy bit of news.

Cut the Rope HD is now available for download in BlackBerry App World for $2.99.