London-based startup Openads has changed its name to OpenX (see TechCrunch UK for more) and former AOL CEO Jonathan Miller has joined as chairman. OpenX is an increasingly popular open-source ad server (we use it here at TechCrunch). Since his departure from AOL, Miller has become quite active in the startup world as an investor and board member. He is a partner in the Velocity Interactive Group with former Fox Interactive Media chief Ross Levinsohn. Miller also sits on the board of Clickable, another advertising startup in which he has personally invested.

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The Federal Communications Commission is backing off plans to force TV stations to air more advertisements about the upcoming transition to digital TV next year, according to several news reports.

The FCC supposedly backed down from its position amid criticism from the industry that feared airing more advertisements would displace …

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Mobile phone maker Motorola has named Paul Liska, a former private equity executive, as chief financial officer, the company said late Thursday.

Liska, who had been a partner for private equity firms including MidOcean Partners, CVC Capital Holdings and Ripplewood Holdings, will take the top finance spot at the company …

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Over the years, I’ve noticed something lots of techies have in common–they like things to be black-and-white. Sorry if that offends you, but in my experience, it’s true.

Unfortunately, the real world is gray. Like it or not, living and thriving in a gray world, especially a gray workplace, involves negotiating. None of us are born with negotiating skills. We have to learn them. This will help.

Here are five things you need to know to negotiate effectively. They’ll help you in all your work-related relationships - with peers, managers, subordinates, customers, vendors, everyone. They’ll help you to negotiate better compensation packages, promotions, and even exit packages.

Who knows, they may even help to improve your personal and personal business relationships. After all, so much of family and business life involves negotiating.
…
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Samsung is touting the reliability of solid-state drives, while citing an explosive market for the devices in server computers.

SSDs are based on flash memory chip technology and have no moving parts. Hard-disk drives (HDDs), in contrast, use read-write heads that hover over spinning platters to access and record data. …

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Speaking at an event for the Google Lunar X Prize on Thursday, Google co-founder Sergey Brin reiterated his company’s position on a Microsoft-Yahoo union, the Associated Press reported.

“The Internet has evolved from open standards, having a diversity of companies. And when you start to have companies that control

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Like many of you, my copies of Windows XP crash with the now-classic “blue screen of death” (BSOD). When this happened a couple times recently to a new ThinkCentre A61 tower, I called Lenovo tech support. As the title of this posting suggests, it did not go well.

When Windows …

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The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation said Thursday it awarded 17 teams a total of $2 million for contest entries to develop technologies for kids’ education and digital media.

The innovative competition was unveiled last August. Seven teams won either $100,000 or $238,000 for creating new …

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Google has launched AdSense for Video, enabling Web sites another way to push ads in our faces.

I’m not complaining…well, actually I am. The ads don’t offer much, except more distraction to already ad-filled Web sites.

Viewing the ads on My Damn Channel, for instance, you can’…

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Jerry Yang, still scrambling to find a last-minute suitor to avoid becoming Steve Ballmer’s vassal, is said to be girding for the certainty of a coming proxy war with Microsoft.

Sources familiar with the brain trust’s thinking say that Yahoo’s CEO is working out details of a …

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