Bing Toolbox for Webmasters Launched

Bing Toolbox, similar to Google Webmaster Tools, promises even more. Bing Toolbox is a new portal for all you Bing webmasters, publishers, developers, and advertisers out there. The Toolbox is an organized set of tools for the entire Bing community, plus links to our Webmaster and Developer community blogs and forums.



Heres are some of the most useful resources available in the Bing Toolbox.

1. Site Submit
2. Sitemap Submission
3. Bing Local Listing Submission
4. Bing SEO and Webmaster Whitepaper
5. Bing API Web Page Error Toolkit
6. Webmaster Help
7. Get an AppID for the Bing Developer Network
9. Bing Webmaster Blog
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Windows 7 prices announced; pre-orders start Friday

Microsoft Corp. announced pricing for its upcoming Windows 7 operating system, and the best deal you can get is $49.99.

That's if you pre-order Windows 7 from Microsoft. The Redmond-based company announced today that pre-ordering will start Friday and run through July 11.

Microsoft will also launch on Friday its Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program, through which it offers a free upgrade from Windows Vista if users don't want to wait until the Oct. 22 Windows 7 release to buy a computer.

There is a catch: Upgrades are only available to people who buy a new PC from a participating manufacturer, and it or a retailer could charge a small fee. The upgrade program will run through Jan. 31.

Windows 7 is Microsoft's attempt to mitigate poor response to its previous operating system, Vista, which was released in 2007. Windows 7 is largely based off the Vista engine, but is reported to run more smoothly and clean up a lot of the loose ends users complained about.

"We have literally had millions of customers downloading, using and giving feedback on our beta and (test) product, more than any other version of an operating system that we've done in the history of Microsoft," Brad Brooks, corporate vice president for Windows Consumer Marketing, said in a publicity video.

Customers in the United States, Canada and Japan will be able to pre-order versions of Windows 7 this Friday for a discounted price. (It lasts only through July 5 in Japan.) Pre-ordering will be available July 15 in the United Kingdom, France and Germany (lasting through Aug. 14).

Pricing for Windows 7 is as follows:

Version	Unit	Win7 est. price	Vista est. price	Cost diff.
UPGRADE	Home Premium	$119.99	$129.99	-$10
	Professional	$199.99	$199.99	$0
	Ultimate	$219.99	$219.99	$0
FULL	Home Premium	$199.99	$239.99	-$40
	Professional	$299.99	$299.99	$0
	Ultimate	$319.99	$319.99	$0

The Windows 7 pre-order pricing is as follows:

Unit	Retail price	Pre-order price	Cost diff.
Home Premium	$119.99	$49.99	-$70
Professional	$199.99	$99.99	-$100

Brooks also confirmed that Microsoft will be releasing a limited version of Windows 7 in Europe, without Internet Explorer. That decision was made in response to a European Union antitrust investigation into Microsoft's browser bundling practices.

Source: SeattlePi

Microsoft: Bing Drives Paid Clicks Up 13%

The number of clicks on ads served by Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) Bing search engine jumped 13% in the two weeks since it was re-launched, a trend that might encourage marketers to spend more with the software giant in the future.

The paid-click data released Tuesday by Efficient Frontier Inc, the world's largest search engine marketer, suggests Bing could become a significant revenue generator for the Redmond, Wash.-based software maker - if Microsoft can maintain its momentum.

"Those gains are significant in terms of revenue," said Justin Merickel, marketing vice president at Efficient Frontier, which places about $750 million in text ads on top search engines worldwide.

Though Microsoft lags far behind market leader Google Inc. (GOOG), the Efficient Frontier's data is the latest evidence that Bing, which was formerly known as Live Search, is off to a promising start.

Last week, market research group comScore Inc. (SCOR) said Microsoft's U.S. search market share - a reflection of the total number of queries - jumped from 9.1% to 12.1% in the first two weeks since Bing's launch.

Google has about 75% of paid clicks, while Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) is in second place with about 20%. Microsoft, by comparison, accounted for just under a 5% share of U.S. paid clicks.

With the U.S. search ad market valued at $12 billion this year, each additional point in paid-click share Microsoft gains would be worth $120 million in annual revenue.

Any sustained gains would provide an important boost for Microsoft's online services business, which includes search. The business reported a loss of $575 million, on revenues of $721 million, in the third fiscal quarter, ended March 31.

Efficient Frontier's findings are echoed by Marin Software, a company which makes tools that digital agencies use to plan Internet search campaigns. Marc Barach, the company's chief marketing officer, said customers are already spending more time planning campaigns on Bing than they were prior to its launch.

"In the past, our clients may just have bid on the most popular keywords for Microsoft, and focus most of their time and attention on Google," says Marc Barach. "Advertisers are now taking the steps to make sure they are fully represented across Microsoft."

Still, search engine marketers like Efficient Frontier, as well as ad agencies and Wall Street analysts, are quick to note that Microsoft must demonstrate it can sustain Bing's early momentum so it does not fade like earlier efforts did.

In a recent note, Jefferies & Co. analyst Youssef Squali recalled that Microsoft's "cashback" rebate initiative in May 2008 helped drive the software maker's search traffic up about 15% in the first month after launch, but those gains quickly evaporated.

James Kiernan, a digital marketing specialist for Media Vest, a unit of Publicis Groupe S.A. (PUBGY), said the key will be whether Bing can sustain momentum after Microsoft completes a $100 million advertising campaign it launched to support Bing.

Efficient Frontier's Merickel said advertisers will likely start to dedicate a larger slice of their search budgets to Bing if Microsoft can sustain its gains over a two- or three-month period.

"Once they sustain that for a quarter, I think you will see advertisers start to reallocate their search budgets," said Merickel. "At some point it becomes a much more relevant volume for (advertisers) to actively manage."

Rob Garner, director of search strategy at digital marketing agency iCrossing Inc., was skeptical about Bing's ability to keep its momentum.

"There's a risk that it will fall back quite a bit. I think they have made a lot of gains as a result of the ad campaign. I think it will drop down quite a bit after," he said.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Apple: Steve Jobs Liver Transplant

Steve Jobs, who has been on medical leave from Apple for the past six months, received a liver transplant in Tennessee two months ago, according to a report Friday in The Wall Street Journal.

Earlier this year, Apple's CEO was reported to be relocating from California to Tennessee, which has a shorter waiting list for patients seeking organs, the report noted. In January, after Jobs announced that he would step aside from his day-to-day duties for a six-month medical leave of absence, Bloomberg reported that Apple's CEO was considering a liver transplant. In a telephone interview at the time, Jobs refused to comment on his health status.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but an Apple representative told the Journal that Jobs "continues to look forward to returning at the end of June, and there's nothing further to say."

Jobs is expected to return to the helm of Apple this month after nearly six months of medical leave. Jobs announced in January that he would be stepping down temporarily from the chief executive post while recuperating from a hormone imbalance. Some hoped his return to the company would coincide with an appearance at the Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this month to announce the new iPhone 3G S, but that did not pan out for Apple faithful.

Jobs, 54, has been the subject of heated speculation regarding his health since last June's Worldwide Developers Conference, when he appeared to have lost a great deal of weight. At the time, Apple insisted that Jobs' health was a private matter but revealed in early January that Jobs was suffering from a hormone imbalance that was impeding his body's ability to absorb certain proteins.

In August 2004, Jobs underwent successful surgery to treat a rare form of pancreatic cancer, which sidelined him until September of that year. Much of the speculation over the past year had been over whether that cancer had returned.

Tim Cook, Apple's chief operating officer, has been running the company during Jobs' absence.

Source: CNET

Microsoft: Free anti-malware beta on the way

Microsoft will launch a public beta of its anti-malware service, Microsoft Security Essentials, on Tuesday as it phases out its Live OneCare suite in favor of a simpler free consumer security offering.

Microsoft Security Essentials, which will run on Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7, will be available in the U.S., Brazil, and Israel in English and Brazilian Portuguese. A public beta version for Simplified Chinese will be available later in the year.

The service works like traditional antivirus products in which client software monitors programs on a PC. When something changes on the computer, such as files being downloaded or copied or software trying to modify files, the system checks against a set of malware signatures in the client program to see if the code matches the signature for known malware. If so, it blocks it from getting downloaded.

If no signature match is found, the system will ping the server-based Dynamic Signature Service to see if any new signatures are available and, if so, it removes the malware. If it appears to be new malware, the Dynamic Signature Service may request a sample of the code in order to create a new signature.

The service updates its anti-malware database constantly and publishes new antivirus signatures to Microsoft Update three times a day, Alan Packer, general manager of Microsoft's Anti-Malware team, said in an interview on Thursday.

"The hope is that people who install Security Essentials and enable auto updates in their Windows configuration will be protected" automatically, he said.

The service also includes new technologies that help protect against rootkits, programs that are designed to hide the fact that a PC has been compromised, and is also designed to run efficiently by scanning when the PC is idle and conserving on memory usage.

If you already have antivirus software installed you probably don't need this service. Security Essentials doesn't detect if you have security software installed but does provide a message upon install that says two antivirus products aren't necessary and could interfere with each other, Packer said.

Microsoft announced in November that it was dropping its Live OneCare service in favor of a slimmed-down free offering designed to encourage more people, particularly those who don't want to pay for it and fear it will slow down their computer, to use antivirus software.

The new service lacks features like managed firewalls, performance-tuning, backup and restore, printer-sharing and multi-PC management that the OneCare service offered.

"We don't see Security Essentials as a direct competitor to other free products and suites," which try to "upsell" users, or get them to eventually pay for a product, Packer said. "We're targeting people who aren't protected" already.

A spokeswoman for AVG, likely the main rival to Microsoft's service, said AVG offers a free Internet security suite that has advantages because it is operating system agnostic and was developed by a company that specializes in security products.

Asked what Microsoft's strategy is for mobile, Packer said he couldn't comment on what the Windows Mobile team is doing.

"In general, the way we look at mobile from a security standpoint is that you are better off preventing the malware from getting on a mobile device rather than trying to run anti-malware or antivirus software," he said. "We haven't targeted mobile antivirus software because we felt that's not the right approach."

Microsoft Security Essentials will be available for download from Microsoft's Web site beginning on Tuesday.

Source: CNET

Adsense now allows font size changes

Adsense publishers can finally change the default ad text sizes from "small" to either "medum" or "large".

From Google:

Since February, you've been able to change the font faces of your ad units. We're now happy to announce the launch of a related feature you've been asking for -- the ability to change the font size of the text in your ad units. You can now select from small, medium, and large font sizes for ad units on pages in Latin-character languages. Just like with the current font face options, size options appear in every account but will only be applied to ad units on pages primarily in Latin-based characters for now.

The font size you choose will be applied to the body of the ad, with the title scaled appropriately. In order to fit the ad text correctly, the actual font size will vary for each format size, font face, and user-specific settings such as browsers and operating systems. In addition, some formats sizes currently have very limited room, so the font size application will be most apparent in cases where the number of ads appearing in your ad units varies automatically in order to maximize your performance.

Your ads are currently set at the default size for AdSense, which is the equivalent of 'small'. You can select a new font size on an account-wide basis in the Ad Display Preference section of your My Account tab, or on an individual ad unit basis for new and existing ad units.

If you're creating new ad units, you can choose between the AdSense default font size, your new account-wide font size (if you've selected one using the instructions above), or a separate size. To update existing ad units you've created using the Manage Ads feature, visit the 'Manage Ads' page under your AdSense Setup tab. Any font size changes you make on an individual ad unit basis will be maintained even if you change your account-wide default in the future.

Also, a bit of advance notice: soon, we'll also be changing the default font size across AdSense in ad units from 'small' to 'medium'. We've heard from some of you that the current font size can be too small, and our testing also showed that slightly larger font sizes improved performance. Any ad units set to the default font size will automatically be updated to display the larger setting. If you'd prefer to stick with today's font size, you can set your desired font size as 'small' across your account.

We encourage you to combine these new font size options with the other customization options in your account to test the optimal layout for your pages. We're excited about this launch, and we'll be sure to follow up with another post to let you know once the default font size has been changed.

Source: Google Blogspot

Bing: Fear Grips Google

You'd think nothing would get under the skin of search giant Google.

But co-founder Sergey Brin is so rattled by the launch of Microsoft's rival search engine that he has assembled a team of top engineers to work on urgent upgrades to his Web service, The Post has learned.

MICROSOFT'S 'DECISION ENGINE' DECIDEDLY RACY WITH VIDEOS

Brin, according to sources inside the tech behemoth, is himself leading the team of search-engine specialists in an effort to determine how Bing's crucial search algorithm differs from that used by the company he founded in 1998 with Stanford University classmate Larry Page.

"New search engines have come and gone in the past 10 years, but Bing seems to be of particular interest to Sergey," said one insider, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The move by Brin is unusual, as it is rare these days for the Google founders to have such hands-on involvement in day-to-day operations at the company, the source added.

A spokesman for Google declined to comment about Brin's interest in Bing but said: "We always have a team working on improving search." He added: "We dedicate more time and energy to search than anything else in our company. Our algorithm is constantly evolving."

Microsoft launched Bing two weeks ago with a massive marketing budget that sources say ranged between $80 million and $100 million.

The software company has struggled to survive in the Internet-search business, with its former MSN search engine managing to grab only 8 percent of the lucrative search market share -- far behind Google's 60 percent and Yahoo!'s 20 percent share.

In fact, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, in an effort to close the gap on Google, last year made an offer to buy Yahoo! That offer was rejected. More recently, pre-Bing, there had been talk of Microsoft being interested in some sort of deal or partnership with Yahoo! search.

Those efforts have cooled.

Bing has been warmly greeted by analysts, critics and users alike who seem to largely welcome Microsoft's new approach to the everyday business of searching the Internet. Early statistics show Bing increasing Microsoft's market share by two percentage points, to about 11 percent -- but that the gains largely didn't come from Google or Yahoo!

Microsoft prefers not to use the term "search engine," however, choosing instead to describe Bing as a "decision engine."

While Bing is presented differently from Google -- with a colorful home page and easy-to-navigate search categories compared with Google's stark white page and search box -- there is little difference between the two when it comes to searching for simple terms.

A spokeswoman for Microsoft said, however, that Bing is currently focused on improving search results in four main categories: shopping, travel, health and local searches.

Scott Kessler, senior equity research analyst at Standard & Poor's, and a Google specialist, said that Bing has a lot going for it but he does not expect it to knock Google from its No. 1 perch.

"In a recent survey we found that the predominant features that dictate how people search the Internet are ease of use and force of habit. Google has been so dominant for so long that it will be tough for anyone to take significant market share away from them."

Source: NY Post

SEO can benefit all industries

Many companies feel that they need to be in the IT field in order for search engine optimization (SEO) to work for them, but one embroidery company has found that SEO is helping increase sales.

EmbroidMe, which labels itself as the largest embroidery and screen printing franchise in the world, says that by using search engine optimization (SEO) along with other online marketing tools like social media, the company's 450 locations have not only seen a rise in sales but also an improvement in branding.

Christine Marion, emarketing specialist for EmbroidMe, says that by using a search engine optimization (SEO) campaign that incorporates social media sites like Twitter and Facebook they have been able to increase visibility.

"We felt that it was incredibly important to join the social networking conversation and engage in the discussion," she said. "This campaign has enabled EmbroidMe to tap into new markets, increase customers and sales, and continue to build the brand.

As people increasingly use search engines to find information on the internet, search engine optimization (SEO) appears to be a helpful tool for companies to increase traffic and visibility. A recent study from comScore found that while search engine queries had increased 68 percent over the last five years, clicks to paid search have only increased 18 percent.

Source: Brafton

No IE on Windows 7 in Europe

As a result of European competition rules, Windows 7 will be sent to Europe without Internet Explorer, or any other browser. Windows 7 buyers will have to download and install browsers of their choice, which Microsoft claims is an easy task.

Microsoft plans to release Window 7 in Europe at the same time as the rest of the world, they just have to comply with European laws.

In 2008, Microsoft had to pay fines to European Commission for anti-competitive behavior for such things as bundling in media player and IE into Windows.

Windows 7 is due to be realeased world-wide on October 22, 2009.

The Bing push

When Microsoft launched it's new search engine Bing (aka "the decision engine"), I was quite intrigued. My first reactions were on the surface. The design is clean and neat. Navigating is easy and the search results are good, although quite similar to their rival Google in my opinion.

For the last week I have been bombarded with television ads about Bing, which made me think about one thing:

What is it about Bing that is truly "better" then other search engines, mainly Google?

So I tried to answer this question, first by revisiting Bing and seeing what all of Microsoft's hype was about...mainly, what makes it a "decision engine".

The first thing I did was search Bing as if I wanted to buy an "iphone" at the best price. I searched for "iPhone" and the standard type of results came up...or did they? After scrolling down and up seeing "Apple iPhone" (apple.com) listed #1 which was no surprise, to many miscellaneous web results. Than I noticed at the top and bottom of the results next to an ebay link, a link that states "Bing cashback".

OK, now I'm curious, so I clicked. I was immediately taken to an ebay shop. There was no information about getting "cashback", so I searched Bing Shopping for "bing cashback" and received ZERO results!



I was shocked...so then I search Google for it and found in the first result: www.bing.com/cashback/
There is a page on Bing explaining "Bing cashback" that did not even come up in their own search results!"

Next I went to bing.com/cashback/ and followed the "How cashback works" link (again, not indexed by Bing???). Not to get too much into the details, but if you register, you can search, shop and save. This feature does seperate Bing from Google, and I'm sure Microsoft financially benifits through discount sales through registered users...which may explain the "Bing push".

But as far as standard search results go, when Bing can't even show it's own pages in their own search results for their own unique money saving concept, It makes me wonder what else has been overlooked.

So here is the answer to my question "What is it about Bing that is truly "better" then other search engines?"

A: It has a money saving "Bing cashback" feature...that not even Bing can recognize.

Motorola Rival messaging phone review

Earlier today, Motorola announced its Rival mobile messaging phone, which packs a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard, touchscreen elements (I’ll get to this later) and visual voicemail, among other things.

The Moto folks were kind enough to let me play with the new device, which I believe is a nice solution for someone who wants a smartphone but doesn’t want to pony up the dough for a data plan. The phone offers many features that mimic those on a high-priced smartphone, and to boot, it’s a solid handset as well.

This phone is intended for a more youthful audience that are drawn to constant mobile communication. The device comes in two colors — silver with red piping, and black with purple piping — and looks like the kind of phone you’d get your teenager.

Make no mistake, though: this phone is quite capable of serving anyone who doesn’t plan on bothering with a true smartphone.

The hardware is very nice. Fit and finish are top-notch, it has a satisfying heft, and the slide out keyboard slips out with a pleasing “sshhh-shk” that even the T-Mobile G1 can’t provide. The full QWERTY keyboard has wide, tactile keys, which I find a bit easier to use than the mini-squareish ones on your favorite BlackBerry.

The phone carries a bright, 2.2-in. touchscreen that only activates as a touch input for number dialing and for two bottom buttons, which are indicated by little white lights in each of the screen’s corner. In both cases, the phone confirms each touch input with a brief vibration, a bit of tactile feedback I found reasonable. When you slide out the keyboard, the screen adjusts 90 degrees and the “touch” button that becomes out of reach deactivates and another one activates in its place for landscape mode. It’s a slick little feature.

However, that brings me to the main hurdle with this phone: because it’s a go-between a truly “dumb” phone and a smartphone, it’s a little unintuitive. Now that touchscreen smartphones have flooded the market, as users we’ve become accustomed to their usage tics, such as using “flick” and press gestures. That wreaks havoc here, because the touchscreen only functions in a limited way (dialing and two navigation buttons), and I often had to catch myself from poking at a screen that wasn’t designed to respond, particularly when browsing the web.

Which brings us to the user interface. For such a nice piece of hardware, I found the UI to feel a bit “dumb” and only somewhat changed from the Motorola Razr that took the mobile world by storm several years ago. Phones have come a long way since then, and the Rival’s hardware proves it. But the software — particularly when browsing the web, or what have you — just doesn’t feel any newer. The main menu of the device has a stacked, iPhone-like layout, which I found great. But again, I found myself poking the screen instead of using the ring around the big, central confirm button to navigate, and some areas still had the “cramped” feeling of a “dumb” phone.

The phone has several other features, which I detailed in the original announcement: a 2.0 megapixel camera, threaded IM messaging (a nice compromise between true smartphone IM clients and the “dumb” version) and several services in conjunction with Verizon, including GPS navigation/maps, visual voicemail and Rhapsody music playing. The Verizon services cost extra, but nowhere near the price of a smartphone data plan.

So who should buy this phone? In my opinion, everyone who wants a fully-featured phone that isn’t a smartphone (with associated costs). It’s an incredibly solid-feeling phone with tight gaps between exterior panels and a good tactile feeling. The only drawback is that the UI takes a little getting used to if you’ve ever used an iPod touch or similar device.

At $99 with a two-year contract, I was initially going to say that the Rival is a good value for the price — you’re on what is considered the best carrier in the country, and the phone is impressive with regard to fit and finish. It’s much cheaper than the latest T-Mobile Sidekick ($229) and most smartphones out there, which hover around $200.

I showed it to a friend who has an LG Venus — similar both in size and features, also on Verizon — and she felt inclined to make the switch for the Rival’s QWERTY keyboard. That’s a good sign.

But the market changes fast, and just this week Apple dropped the price of its iPhone 3G to $99 on AT&T. It’s clear that puts pressure on true smartphone competition such as the T-Mobile G1, Palm Pre, RIM BlackBerry and others, but it also puts pressure on this segment of the mobile market to justify their prices for phones that can’t do quite as much.

A $99 price tag for the Rival was a great deal last week. Thanks to Apple’s recent waves, it’s a tougher sell. Despite this concern, I recommend the Motorola Rival.

By Andrew Nusca

Source: ZDNet

Webhost hack wipes out data for 100,000 sites

A large internet service provider said data for as many as 100,000 websites was destroyed by attackers who targeted a zero-day vulnerability in a widely-used virtualization application.

Technicians at UK-based Vaserv.com were still scrambling to recover data on Monday evening UK time, more than 24 hours after unknown hackers were able to gain root access to the company's system, Rus Foster, the company's director told The Register. He said the attackers were able to penetrate his servers by exploiting a critical vulnerability in HyperVM, a virtualization application made by a company called LXLabs

"We were hit by a zero-day exploit" in version 2.0.7992 of the application, he said. "I've heard from other people they've been hit by the same thing."

Foster said he's been unable to reach anyone at LXLabs to discuss the suspected vulnerability. The Register has also received no response to inquiries sent to the company, which according to its website is located in Bangalore.

According to Foster, data for about half of the websites hosted on Vaserv was destroyed all at once sometime Sunday evening, shortly after administrators noticed "strangeness" on the system. The attackers had the ability to execute sensitive Unix commands on the system, including "rm -rf," which forces a recursive delete of all files.

Some 50 percent of Vaserv's customers signed up for unmanaged service, which doesn't include data backup, Foster said. It remains unclear of those website owners will ever be able to retrieve their lost data, he said. As a result, at least half the websites that were hosted on the site remain offline.

"Since last night, I've had probably 40 phone calls from clients saying 'Why is my website down,'" said Daniel Voyce, a web developer for Nu Order Webs who uses Vaserv to host customer sites. "It's making me look bad."

Voyce said the hackers, given the high level of server access they gained, were likely able to intercept a wealth of sensitive data stored on Vaserv's servers. Voyce said his customers are safe because all sensitive information was encrypted.

Little is known about the people who attacked the site. So far, there are no known reports of individuals taking credit for the hack. The breach was likely the result of a SQL injection attack that penetrated Vaserv's central management software and removed vital binaries and data for about half of all user data stored by the service, Foster said.

"This wasn't someone randomly scanning things," he said. "It was a deliberate attack on our infrastructure."

Vaserv specializes in low-cost web hosting using VPS, or virtualized private servers. Virtualization features in LXLabs' HyperVM helped Vaserv provide the service, which costs a fraction of the price of dedicated server hosting.

Related note: Apparantly the owner of LXLabs, the maker of HyperVM hung himself and was found dead in his house on monday.

Source: The Register

Apple: Is this the new iPhone?

Sure, it's Palm's big day, but that doesn't mean the Apple rumor mill is taking a break -- check out this pic of what might be the new iPhone set to drop on Monday. Yep, that's a matte black casing with no chrome border, a what looks to be a front-facing camera, and iPhone OS 3.0, so it certainly lines up with what we've heard -- but it wouldn't exactly take a Photoshop master to do this one up either. One more pic at the read link -- anyone believing this?



Source: Engadget

Study Shows Google Tracks Most Surfers

When asked about online privacy, most people say they want more information about how they are being tracked and more control over how their personal information is used. Those consumer expectations are rarely in line with the data collection practices of Internet companies, which often collect information about their users not only on their own sites, but also when those users visit other sites across the Web.

Those are some of the central findings of a new privacy study conducted by a group of graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley, which was released late Monday. The students at the School of Information — Joshua Gomez, Travis Pinnick and Ashkan Soltani — studied consumer expectations by looking at sources like complaints filed with the Federal Trade Commission and data collected by the state of California and a privacy group. They analyzed company practices using Ghostery, a browser plug-in that detects cookies, Web beacons and other types of trackers that allow third parties to gather information about Web site visitors, often without their knowledge.

Google showed up as the most conspicuous tracker on third-party sites. Google Analytics, a free product that allows online publishers to gather statistics about visitors to their sites, was used on 81 of the top 100 sites. Cookies from the advertising company DoubleClick, which is owned by Google, were present on 70 of those sites. When combining trackers from those two services, Google had a presence on 92 of the top 100 sites. Others weren’t far behind. Cookies from Atlas, Microsoft’s DoubleClick rival, appeared on 60 sites, and trackers from two other analytics companies, Quantcast and Omniture, showed up on 54 sites.

The findings roughly line up with those in other studies of third-party tracking on the Web. Researchers from AT&T Labs and Worcester Polytechnic Institute, for instance, looked at a much larger sample of 1,200 popular Web sites and found Google trackers on 61 percent of them. Omniture’s tracker was on 34 percent and Microsoft’s on 24 percent.

What is striking in the Berkeley students’ report is that in a sample of nearly 400,000 Web domains, Google’s presence remained high, at 88 percent, while those of other companies declined sharply. The second most frequent tracker in that sample was from an analytics company called StatCounter, which appeared on only 7 percent of domains. Assuming the data is accurate, it is a testimony to the widespread popularity of Google’s services like Analytics, DoubleClick and AdSense, the company’s contextual advertising network, which is used by a large percentage of Web sites small and large.

“I don’t know that anyone has identified the scope and depth of the coverage that Google has across the Web in terms of tracking,” Mr. Soltani said. “Our data shows that even if you are not going to Google, if you are browsing the Web they are collecting data about you.”

The implications of the study, however, are not exactly clear. “We are not claiming that Google aggregates information from each of these trackers into a central database, though it does possess the capability to do so,” the researchers wrote.

But Google disputes even that. For instance, it said that the cookies used by its analytics service are different on each Web site, so they do not allow the company to track a user from site to site. “It doesn’t enable any cross-site tracking,” said Mike Yang, managing counsel at Google. Mr. Yang also said Google’s contracts with customers do not allow it to merge data from various services like DoubleClick and AdSense, or to link that data to personal information that Google collects when users sign up for its other services.

What’s more, the data from the Berkeley study, which reports the presence of trackers by domain, can overstate the amount of tracking that is taking place. Many large domains like MySpace can include multiple sites with thousands of pages, if not tens or hundreds of thousands of pages. The presence of a tracker on one site or page doesn’t mean users are tracked across the entire domain.

Still, the numbers are eye-catching. And as important as the numbers themselves is what the study says about the disconnect between how Americans conceive of privacy, company practices and the government’s approach to regulation of those practices, said Chris Hoofnagle, director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology’s information privacy programs, who helped advise the students.

“Consumers were complaining to the F.T.C. about a lack of control over personal information,” Mr. Hoofnagle said. “That is very different from how the F.T.C. has framed the issue,” he said, noting that under the Bush administration, the agency frowned on privacy practices only if they caused harm to consumers.

Mr. Hoofnagle added: “We have a new F.T.C. now. They may scrap the ‘harm’ approach and look at some other method for balancing rights and responsibilities.”

Source: NY Times

Unique web domains top 180 million

VeriSign reports a 12 per cent rise in the past year

The total number of unique domain names on the internet has reached more than 180 million, according to recent figures from VeriSign.

Researchers estimate that there are now roughly 183 million domains registered across each of the top-level domains (TLDs). New domain registrations rose at a level of 12 per cent last year.

The study said that the .com TLD continues to be the most popular web suffix, comprising the majority of all web domains. However, the use of 'country code' domains, such as .co.uk, rose by some 18 per cent. The company estimates that country code TLDs account for 74.1 million domain names.

Of those country code domains, China's .cn was the most popular, followed by Germany's .de. The .net TLD was the fourth most popular TLD.

VeriSign said that the growth of new domains underscores the importance of maintaining the Domain Name System (DNS) which links the domain names with numerical IP addresses.

"DNS becomes even more critical to the overall infrastructure of the internet, not only as usage grows but as innovative products and services related to the DNS proliferate," said Jill Corso McNabb, vice president of naming services at VeriSign.

Researchers recently warned that the next challenge to the internet's structure may not come from the DNS, but from a lack of new IP addresses. Slow migration to the new IPv6 protocol could lead to a shortage of new IP addresses.

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Source: vnunet

Google Squared now in Google Labs

Some information is easy to find. If you want to learn the rules of golf, you can search Google for [golf rules] and we'll return a list of relevant web sites right at the top. But not all your information needs are that simple. Some questions can be more complex, requiring you to visit ten, perhaps twenty websites to research and collect what you need.

For instance, I'm a big fan of roller coasters. In the past I've used Google to search for information about roller coasters, such as which ones are the tallest, fastest, and have the most loops. Finding this information used to take multiple searches — I'd find roller coaster sizes on one website, heights on another, and speeds on a third. By manually comparing the sites, I could get the information I was looking for, but it took some time. With Google Squared, a new feature just released in Google Labs, I can find my roller coaster facts almost instantly.

Google Squared is an experimental search tool that collects facts from the web and presents them in an organized collection, similar to a spreadsheet. If you search for [roller coasters], Google Squared builds a square with rows for each of several specific roller coasters and columns for corresponding facts, such as image, height and maximum speed.

While gathering facts from across the Internet is relatively easy (albeit tedious) for humans to do, it's far more difficult for computers to do automatically. Google Squared is a first step towards solving that challenge. It essentially searches the web to find the types of facts you might be interested in, extracts them and presents them in a meaningful way.

This technology is by no means perfect. That's why we designed Google Squared to be conversational, enabling you to respond to the initial result and get a better answer. If there's another row or column you'd like to see, you can add it and Google Squared will automatically attempt to fetch and fill in the relevant facts for you. As you remove rows and columns you don't like, Google Squared will get a fresh idea of what you're interested in and suggest new rows and columns to add.

If you click on any fact, you'll see the sources Google Squared gathered it from as well as a list of other possible values that you can investigate. So even if your square isn't perfect at the beginning, it's easy to work with Google Squared to get a better answer in no time. Once you've got a square you're happy with, you can save it and come back to it later.

To give Google Squared a whirl, try searching for [planets] or [romantic movies]. You can try out Google Squared now in Google Labs.

Source: Google Blog

Intel buys Wind River to push Linux

Intel Corp.'s acquisition of Wind River on Thursday is a strong push by the chip maker to extend Linux support across devices that use its processors, analysts said.

Intel agreed to buy Wind River for $884 million. The acquisition should help both Intel's prominence in the Linux space and its efforts to push the OS in smartphones and mobile Internet devices, analysts said. Wind River offers embedded Linux operating systems and is a leader in software design tools for devices such as smartphones.

"While [Intel] competes with many vendors in doing so, it may also be trying to counter the buzz and momentum in the space around Android from Google and the Open Handset Alliance," said Jay Lyman, an enterprise software analyst with The 451 Group.

Intel has been throwing more of its weight behind Linux and its efforts to consolidate the disparate versions of the operating system, Lyman said. The company is working on Moblin v2.0, a version of Linux for mobile devices and netbooks, for which it released a beta version in May. It is also working with Canonical on Ubuntu Netbook Remix, a flavor of Linux for netbooks.

Intel's Atom processor was designed for mobile devices and netbooks and it recently announced derivatives of that Atom chip for embedded devices. It also opened up Atom's design to other chip designers through a deal announced in March with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. The company is trying to catch up with rival Arm, whose low-power chip designs go into most cell phones and smartphones today.

To sell more chips, Intel needs to provide software tools, and acquiring Wind River could give it much-needed credibility in the embedded and mobile space, analysts said. Products like Wind River's compilers could help Intel optimize software to work with low-power x86 chips.

"The company seems to be interested in the broader mobile and embedded software space, which continues to embrace Linux," Lyman said. "Intel is obviously moving more aggressively into both software and mobile and embedded devices, so this acquisition fits both of those."

Wind River's acquisition could be a step to filling the software side of Intel's recent push to develop integrated chips that could fit into new products like set-top boxes and TVs, said Dean McCarron, principal analyst with Mercury Research.

Source: Computer World

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Release Date Disclosed

Today during a keynote address at Computex 2009 in Taipei, Microsoft’s OEM Division Corporate Vice President Steve Guggenheimer revealed that the company is confident with the progress made with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, and that as a result, Microsoft will deliver Release to Manufacturing (RTM) code to partners in the second half of July. Windows 7 will become generally available on Oct. 22, 2009, and Windows Server 2008 R2 will be broadly available at the same time.

“As we’ve said many times, quality is our primary goal,” Guggenheimer said. “We announce each milestone once we’re confident of where we are in the development cycle and that it is ready to be shared with customers and partners. We’ve received great feedback from our partners who are looking forward to offering Windows 7 to their customers in time for the holidays.”

E3: Hottest Games and Gear from Microsoft

Microsoft's E3 Press Conference Surprised and Enticed Us
McCartney and Ringo live, a new Metal Gear Solid game, a 3D motion sensor, Zune TV for Xbox 360 with 1080p instant-on, what didn't Microsoft bring to its E3 press show?

You knew something was up when Microsoft kicked off (as opposed to wrapping up) with two of the most celebrated musicians in rock history. The message? "Hey, it's The Beatles!" The subtext? "Hey Sony and Nintendo, we ain't messin' around." Classy, and not a little intimidating. Next? A battery of trailers and actual game demonstrations, including pretty tasty announcements for stuff like Epic's first Xbox Live Arcade game, Shadow Complex, Valve's zombie-blender sequel, Left 4 Dead 2, and a brand new standalone Halo game, Halo: Reach.

Games were foremost on Microsoft's itinerary, but the company still snuck in a bunch of new media and social networking services, illustrating their commitment to broadening the Xbox 360's lifestyle-centric role. Think live TV piped through the new Zune TV service, plus 1080p streaming video, instantly delivered.

And then there's Facebook and Twitter, fully integrated with the Xbox 360 dashboard. Track friends, issues status updates, and view your pictures, all in one easy-to-access spot. Cha-ching.

But the biggest show announcements were probably Konami finally hopping in bed with the Xbox 360 to deliver a brand new Metal Gear Solid game, and Microsoft's no-controller motion sensing bombshell. That's right, bombshell. Bypassing Nintendo's Wii and dramatically one-upping Sony's Eye Toy, "Project Natal" is a way to interact with games where you -- no wires or widgets or other flimflammery involved -- are the controller.

If last year's E3 was mostly flash-in-the-pan disappointing, this one's already surpassing expectations.

Source: PCWorld

Adobe: Flash gets a programming boost

Adobe Systems released on Monday beta versions of three programming projects for producing online applications that run in its Flash Player, software that's widely used but also under competitive threat from other Web technologies.

First is a beta version of Flash Catalyst, a programming tool that's meant for the designer crowd rather than the coding crowd. Catalyst lets designers create a Flash application's user interface in Adobe's Photoshop and Illustrator applications, import the files, attach a variety of actions to user interface elements, then produce the Flash application for production or for handing off to more serious programmers.

Second is the beta of Flash Builder 4, the harder-core programming tool previously called Flex Builder. This tool, based on the Eclipse programming software, employs Adobe's open-source Flex framework for building advanced Flash applications and is for the serious programming set who works in an integrated development environment (IDE). For example, it can be used to link Flash applications with a variety of back-end data sources for advanced features.

Third is the beta of Flex 4 framework that provides underpinnings for Flash applications, including everything from user interface components to animation technology. Flex 4, code-named Gumbo, is an open-source project.

Flash got its start as a way to produce animations on Web sites, leading to gripes that its timeline-based view of the world was alien to programmers. For the animation-oriented set, Adobe still offers its Flash Professional software, but for others, Adobe has the Flex-based approach for producing Flash applications.

Adobe offers a variety of tools in an attempt to appeal to a variety of programming styles. A single project can bounce among different people using the different tools, said Steven Heintz, principal product manager of the Adobe Platform business.

"We've really made all these tools work together," Heintz said. "For pieces of the same project, you can use the tools best for the job. We believe this is better than jamming all this together into one massive tool that's totally inappropriate."

Flash faces a number of challengers. Most directly is Microsoft's Silverlight, version 3 of which is set to be launched July 10. But Google, Yahoo, and browser makers also are advancing what can be done directly in Web browsers without relying on plug-ins such as Flash or Silverlight.

And HTML 5, an still-in-progress revision of the Hypertext Markup Language used to describe Web pages, comes with a variety of features such as the ability to run multiple tasks at the same time and to play video and audio as easily as browsers can display images today, and Google, Apple, Opera, and Firefox developer Mozilla are pushing what can be done with the JavaScript language for programming Web pages.

Adobe argues that it's got consistency on its side with Flash, though. Web users tend to upgrade to the newest Flash player relatively rapidly, and Flash works consistently regardless of which browser it's plugged into or which operating system it's running on. For programmers in the HTML camp, Adobe offers its DreamWeaver development software.

In contrast HTML and JavaScript--including advanced JavaScript applications built with technology called Ajax--varies from browser to browser, said Shafath Syed, a product marketing manager with the Adobe Platform group.

"We've come full circle" in the browser market to the mid-1990s browser wars, with different interpretations of standards and new features and differing support for that technology, Syed said. "That's always a challenge."

Another challenge both camps face is spreading to the increasingly important realm of mobile phones. Flash, for example, doesn't run on Apple's iPhone and is still under development for phones based on Google's Android operating system. Those devices support JavaScript and some HTML 5 features, though, they, of course, lack much of the processing power and memory to make full use of it.

The Adobe programming tools also can be used in the production of applications that run on AIR, the Adobe Integrated Runtime that lets Flash applications run on their own outside a browser.

Source: CNET