Digital Business
Google may be on its way out as the dominant player in search, according to one analyst — and could even "disappear" in as little as five to eight years if the competitive pressures that ultimately claimed other search giants start to take root.
Of all the confounding changes made in the latest Windows 8 consumer preview, few upset people quite as much as the removal of the Start button. But what hasn’t been clear is why Microsoft removed the feature, which has been a central pillar of Windows for over a 15 years. The answer might be obvious: People weren’t using it.
Google Now will learn your daily commute home. And if there’s particularly congested traffic that would cause you to get home much later, it’ll send you a notification suggesting alternate routes. Another thing it does is update you on restaurants/retail stores as you’re walking past them, provides reviews of those stores, and other recommendations.
In a brief demonstration, Google showed off Jelly Bean’s revamped home screen, which now automatically rearranges icons when you’re moving apps and widgets around. The new OS sports a “refined dictionary” and a predictive keyboard (that’s hopefully better than past Android keyboards). Google is also bringing Voice Typing offline in Jelly Bean, which should be a big plus for dictation junkies.
Jelly Bean’s camera app has also been updating to allow for easier browsing of photos. The interface looks smoother and simpler than the Ice Cream Sandwich camera.
Facebook has purchased facial recognition startup Face.com … makes technology that can identify people in photos and even guess a person’s age.
The Second Circuit Court of Appeal has handed down a big decision in Viacom's $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube. The appellate circuit rules Thursday that while the district court judge correctly interpreted the safe harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which YouTube parent company Google said shielded it from Viacom's copyright claims, the judge shouldn't have dismissed the case on summary judgment. The appellate circuit judges ruled that a reasonable jury could conclude that YouTube had knowledge or awareness of infringing clips on its system. As such, the case has been remanded back to the trial court.
As of around October 2011 – the date varies by category – iTunes has sold over 16 billion songs, about one half-billion movies, videos and teevee shows, some 20 billion apps, and Crom knows how many books, magazines and newspapers.
Here’s the rub: in each and every one of these approximately 40,000,000,000 cases, the purchaser could have downloaded the damn thing for free. In most cases, it is far easier to illegally cop a boot than it is to purchase one. Let’s start with the fact that you don’t need to have a credit card or room left on your credit limit to procure your illegal bootie.
So. 40 billion downloads from just one – the biggest one – online merchant in a world that only houses seven billion people. That’s an average of four and one-half perfectly legal downloads for each and every person, including babies in the Amazon who don’t even have access to Amazon.
Hey! People are inherently good. Go know!
Microsoft is on the verge of buying Skype for $8.5billion - despite the Internet phone service making a loss of $7million last year. The deal would be the biggest in the 36-year history of the world's largest software company.
Pointing to the growing number of connected devices, from PCs to mobile phones to TVs to medical devices, the two companies have said that today's approach to security isn't enough. And with the mounting threat of cyberattacks, a new security framework that combines hardware, software, and services is needed. [Or, maybe, they just got bought out.]
In a bid to turn file sharing into a legal business opportunity, Swedish software company Global Gaming Factory X AB (GGF.SK) said Tuesday it is acquiring file sharing web site the Pirate Bay for 60 million Swedish kronor ($7.8 million).
The developers of the Blu-ray high-definition video format may have beat HD DVD on the technology, but both are losing the war for the hearts and minds of video consumers who look to cable, satellite and the Internet for video.
On Tuesday, Opera released Opera Unite, a technical preview of a service that turns the Opera browser into a Web server for file sharing and streaming.
Google.... 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 European Commission has issued a statement that seems to side with Opera's position. The EU said: "The Commission had suggested to Microsoft that consumers be provided with a choice of Web browsers. Instead, Microsoft has apparently decided to supply retail consumers with a version of Windows without a Web browser at all. Rather than more choice, Microsoft seems to have chosen to provide less."
with actual user names
Two reports commissioned by ICANN say new top-level Internet domains will not force trademark owners to make defensive registrations to protect their brands,
The introduction of generic top-level domains (TLDs) could wreak havoc across the internet if they are not implemented carefully and with suitable regulations in place to help minimise the risk of abuse.... most internet users do not believe that the liberalisation will have any discernable benefit to their online experience, and the majority believe it will lead to pointless domains, making the internet more complex, messy and confusing.....
A group of DNS registrars claims that VeriSign's exclusive contract to manage the .com registry is a product of lobbying, astroturfing, meeting stacking, and legal threats—and it has meant that .com domains cost twice what they otherwise would.
Two thirds of businesses are unaware they will be able to use their own name in place of domain extensions such as .com, .org, or .net when Internet domains are liberalized next year... The price of $185,000 [$185,000!!!!!] will initially limit applications to the largest corporations and organizations....
Google Inc's free mobile-phone operating system will begin running computers next quarter, entering a market dominated by Microsoft Corp's Windows and deepening the rivalry between the two companies...
Microsoft will eliminate an artificial limitation that prevents three concurrent applications from running under Windows 7 Starter Edition for netbooks, the company said late Friday
We're still waiting on what is expected to be an opportunity to play with Google Wave, the company's ambitious project to rework email, instant messaging, document sharing, and blogging. After doing some thinking, however, I wanted to highlight some of the points that intrigued me personally.
At the All Things D conference on Thursday, Microsoft unveiled the latest re-branding of its search engine. Forget Live Search--that's so three months ago. Now Bing is in! Launching in a couple of weeks, Bing hopes to make searching a little more useful and, judging from this video demo (warning: video contains Steve Ballmer), it looks a bit like the love-child of Google and WolframAlpha.
AOL, eight years after the Internet service linked up with Time Warner Inc. in a $124 billion merger, is now worth half as much as Facebook Inc. and less than 5 percent of Google Inc.
at this morning's Google I/O 2009 opening keynote, Google gave away a new, unlocked HTC Magic to all 4,000 attendees. This phone was previously unavailable in the US. As you might expect, this move drew the biggest applause by far from the audience, but actually very little of the keynote was devoted to Android.
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by some mindful webworker, posted on other sites in various guises.
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The mysterious journey of the young man with the miraculous message
Webworks regarding human liberties and similar social and legal fundamentals.
Webworks dedicated to getting people and property from here to there in an intelligent and automated way, and all the history and means of transportation.
Comix and other mindful webworks examining the appeal of indulgences and the consequences of desire.
LEGAL AND SAFE! But your mother might not approve.
LEGAL AND SAFE! But your mother might not approve.
