Yahoo is Trying to Become a Part of Social Web

Yahoo participated in the fray of integrating social networking with search results. Due to the alliance of Bing and Yahoo, Bing is responsible for all of the back-end work of actually crawling and indexing the Web, while Yahoo handles a unique front-end. The company does not plan to convolve the tent as well as be inferior online search to Google and Bing in the near future.

The company is going to overtake its competitors such as Google and Bing in the race for incorporating real-time search results brought from social networking.

One should say that Google search results as well as the integration of Twitter real-time updates showed the values of social networking for online search. Still the standard catalog of Web sites indexed for online search hold its position, although social networking supplements an immediacy element that is necessary for the society in order to make instant updates on breaking news.

Yahoo has made an approach concerning integration of Twitter in its search results. The company offers only two tweets and also adds two YouTube links that are taken from Twitter updates. It helps cut down on the information overload but unfortunately it cuts too far.

It should be mention that Yahoo is the party, but still the company is lucky because the party is in the process of development.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Bellingham officials interested in Google high-speed Internet project

Bellingham Mayor Dan Pike has asked his staff to start discussions about applying to be a part of Google’s Fiber high-speed Internet project.

Google announced Wednesday, Feb. 10, that it is planning to build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the United States.

The networks would deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than the average U.S. Internet connection, according to Google’s announcement, and the service would be offered to between 50,000 and 500,000 people.

They’ve asked local government and the public to offer up proposals through March 26 to take part in the project.

“The first blush reaction was, well, first of all more speed is a better thing for the city because it helps us in terms of attracting economic development,” Pike said.

The project also has sparked the creation of a Facebook group – Bring Google Fiber for Communities to Bellingham – by residents excited for the city to seek the network.

Pike’s piqued interest is shared by new Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, who announced Thursday, Feb. 11, that his administration would respond to Google’s request for proposals, too.

In Bellingham, any work toward a proposal is in the very early stages, said Information Technology Services Department Director Marty Mulholland.

The city must determine if the project is viable, she said, so staff will look at the status of the city’s infrastructure, use of utility poles, regulatory requirements, existing broadband in the community and more.

“We have many community attributes that seem to me to be positive in considering whether to take this on,” she said. “Our community size, presence of university, commitment to ‘green,’ presence of specific business types, active engaged citizens, and beautiful desirable community setting all seem to me to be positive factors.”

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Google Books project face trouble in India

A group of Indian author and publishers have raised voice against Google and filed charges at the New York district court alleging copyright violation for scanning several books in Indian languages without notifying the authors.

Star Publications Pvt. Ltd., Abhinav Publications, Daya Publication House and Pustak Mahal also include in the group of publishers, who have moved court against the Google Book Settlement.

By reaching an agreement with several universities in the US, Google has been scanning millions of books under copyright protection since 2004 and thus the snippets of these books were made available online under the initiative, known as the Google Library Project.

Siddharth Arya, the legal counsel for IRRO (Indian Reprographic Rights Organisation) said, “Google’s unilateral conduct is a brazen attempt to turn copyright law on its head, by usurping the exclusive rights of the copyright holder”.

“The outcome of all of this was GBS 2.0 that incorporates minor cosmetic changes but continues to violate basic copyright laws. It retains several fundamental issues in the original settlement such as a mechanism known as ‘opt out’,” Arya said.

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Google Transliteration IME to support 14 Indic languages

The search engine giant Google on Thursday released a desktop Transliteration IME, an Input Method Editor which aids users to type in 14 Indic languages using Roman keyboard accessible in online or offline mode. The service was previously available by the name Google Indic Transliteration as an online service.

Users can type words phonetically using Latin characters and the Google Transliteration IME would convert the word to its native script.

The Google Transliteration IME was developed at Indian R&D center in Bangalore which is available in 14 languages like Arabic, Bengali, Farsi (Persian), Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.

For the time being, the IME engine is compatible with Windows 7/Vista/XP and can be downloaded for free. The tool also has features like personalized choices, word completion, quick search, easy-to-use keyboard and various other neccessary required options.

The IME enables businesses, students and teachers to author content and share views in their local languages and also helps users to use the feature with Gmail, Orkut, Blogger and Knol.

Popularity: 18% [?]

Britons ‘waving goodbye to humble ‘handshake’

For centuries, the humble handshake has been the respectful greeting practised all over the world. But, now it seems that Britain is waving goodbye to the tradition which dates back to the Middle Ages.

A new research by Manchester Metropolitan University has revealed that many young adults now consider shaking hands too stuffy and instead prefer to give either a casual wave, an air kiss or even a street-savvy fist bump.

Almost three quarters (74 per cent) of British adults have admitted they no longer reach out a hand to greet friends and colleagues. While 69 per cent of the over-25s still use the handshake, only 45 per cent of the under-25s do the same.

In fact, modern youngsters now prefer the touching of clenched fists, a hug or a showbiz-style air kiss. According to the research, based on a survey by hand wash manufacturers Carex, many opt for no physical contact at all because of fears about hygiene. From the poll of some 1000 adults, 67 per cent revealed that health fears played a part in their reluctance to shake somebody’s hand.

Popularity: 27% [?]

Chinese Human Rights Sites Hit by DDoS Attack

Five Web sites run by Chinese human rights activists were attacked by hackers over the weekend, as a separate row continued between Google and China over political cyberattacks.

The Web site of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, an advocacy group, was hit by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that lasted 16 hours starting Saturday afternoon, the group said in an e-mailed statement on Monday. A DDoS attack involves the attacker ordering a legion of compromised computers all to visit a certain Web site at once, overwhelming its server with requests for communication and leaving the site inaccessible to normal visitors. The group said it could not confirm the origin of the attackers but called the Chinese government the most likely suspect.

Google this month said it had been hit by cyberattacks from China partly aimed at accessing the Gmail accounts of human rights activists. The company cited the attacks, which also resulted in the theft of Google intellectual property, as one reason it plans to stop censoring its Chinese search engine, even if that means closing down its China offices.

The latest hacking attack also targeted another Chinese rights group named Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch; two news sites run by Chinese activists, Canyu and New Century News; and the Independent Chinese Pen Center, which posts essays by dissident writers, according to the e-mailed statement. Public records show the Web sites all share two neighboring IP (Internet Protocol) addresses, suggesting the sites were all affected by the DDoS attack.

The bandwidth consumed by the attack hit 2GB per second at its peak, the statement said, citing the Internet service provider for the Web sites.

The targeted IP addresses belong to The Planet, a server hosting provider based in Texas. No one at The Planet was immediately available to comment.

Hackers also placed malware on two of the Web sites before the attack, but that is now being removed, the statement said. The group that sent out the statement has often been hit by cyberattacks, sometimes leaving its Web site down for days, it said.

An advocacy group for foreign journalists in China last week said the Gmail accounts of at least two reporters there had been recently hijacked.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Bill Gates Joins the Twitterati

With little fanfare, Bill Gates joined the ranks of celebrities on Twitter this week. But if 140-character tweets aren’t enough for you, the software-mogul-turned-philanthropist Wednesday started sharing his more complete thoughts on a Web site dubbed “The Gates Notes.”

Mr. Gates’s site, www.thegatesnotes.com, will be a repository for his thoughts on a range of topics from education to energy. He will list books he’s reading and post emails and excerpts from presentations. Areas of the site are broken into categories including “My Travels” and “What I’m Learning.”

The site follows the Microsoft Corp. chairman’s first use of Twitter’s messaging service on Tuesday. His Twitter page bore the blue check-mark icon used to verify the identifies of famous people who use the service.

The Twitter updates and new Web site are part of an effort to increase communication about a broader range of topics that Mr. Gates has focused on since leaving full-time work at Microsoft in 2008.

His first tweet, “Hello World. Hard at work on my foundation letter – publishing on 1/25,” was enough to start pulling in followers, who by Wednesday afternoon numbered more than 230,000. The message referred to an annual letter coming Monday detailing his thoughts on his philanthropy, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Mr. Gates wasn’t just sharing his thoughts, he was also using the service to follow about 40 Twitter users ranging from Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan to actor Ashton Kutcher. “I’d like to welcome @billgates to the twitterverse,” wrote Mr. Kutcher, who has more than four million Twitter followers.

Since leaving the software company he co-founded Mr. Gates has experimented with other non-Microsoft Web tools, including Facebook, which he stopped using after too many people wanted to connect to him on the social-networking site.

Wednesday Mr. Gates used Twitter to announce the Gates Notes site, tweeting that he’s “excited to share more about what I’m learning.”

The first installments include his thoughts on education reform, Haiti and geo-engineering, among other topics. He also gave a thumbs up to the book “Sustainable Energy” by David MacKay and highlighted the work of Vaclav Smil, a professor at the University of Manitoba and author of books on energy, food and population.

Throughout the site, Mr. Gates’s opinions show his overarching belief that more technological innovation, some of it government-led, can cure many of the world’s ills.

Among them is that he believes in “strong government encouragement” to spur innovation in carbon dioxide reduction. He said the world should push for reducing carbon dioxide emissions 80% by 2050.

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Google campaign to increase net exposure in state

Google India on Tuesday announced the arrival of the Google Internet Bus, a mobile campaign aimed to reach out to people in tier II and III towns with limited exposure to the internet. After covering Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh, Google India kick-starts its 2010 journey in Rajasthan.

The bus is designed to provide an Internet experience to the people. The 30-day journey in Rajasthan will be covering Jaipur, Kota, Ajmer, Beawer, Bhilwara, Udaipur, Pali, Jodhpur, Bikaner and Sikar With a focus on four themes, information, communication, entertainment and education, the Internet Bus will have content in English and Hindi to give users an understanding of how the internet can be used for all these needs.

It is a Google India’s exercise to learn from users on their requirement. The bus experience is specially designed to familiarise people with various applications and services that they can use to make their life simple. In addition to basic familiarisation on using services like search, email, social networking and online maps, the bus will also aim to reach out to first-time users who have little or no exposure to the Internet.

During its 11-month journey the Internet Bus has made an impresssion each time it has visited a city: A businessman in Krishnagiri (Tamil Nadu) was amazed to see how he could pay off his utility bills and book train tickets with the click of a button. It was a thrilling experience for a local musician in Vijaywada (Andhra Pradesh) to learn how he can use the internet to compose music and showcase his work to the world. A millet farmer in the remote fringes of Tumkur (Karnataka) went back with a memorable experience with the bus and asked his son to go online to search for a job.

“The year 2009 has been a great journey for the Google Internet Bus. Having covered five states we touched the lives of over 460,000 people and showcased the benefit of internet and how it can revolutionize daily lives,” said Prasad Ram, head ,Google R&D, India.

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How to Protect Yourself When Using Internet Explorer

It won’t take more than a few minutes to close a security hole in Internet Explorer that allowed attacks against Google.

Worried about the security hole in Internet Explorer that was used to launch attacks by China against Google and others? There are ways to help close it and limit your exposure to similar threats — and it won’t take more than a few minutes. Here’s how to do it.

Microsoft has confirmed that an IE vulnerability was at fault for the Google attacks. In Microsoft Security Advisory (979352) it spells out details and in a company blog, Mike Reavey, director of Microsoft’s Security Response Center (MSRC) provides more information.

The security advisory notes that IE 5.01 running on Windows 2000 was not vulnerable to the attack, but that IE6, IE7 and IE8 on Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008, Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 are all at risk.

As of yet, you can’t completely close the security hole. However, there are ways to limit your exposure, notably using Protected Mode in IE on Windows Vista and Windows 7, and enabling Data Execution Protection (DEP). Changing your IE security zone to “High” will help as well. Here’s what Reavey has to say:

Protected Mode in IE 7 on Windows Vista and later significantly reduces the ability of an attacker to impact data on a user’s machine. Customers should also enable Data Execution Prevention (DEP) which helps mitigate online attacks. DEP is enabled by default in IE 8 but must be manually enabled in prior versions.

Customers can also set Internet and Local intranet security zone settings to “High” to prompt before running ActiveX Controls and Active Scripting in these zones or configure Internet Explorer to prompt before running Active Scripting or to disable Active Scripting in the Internet and Local intranet security zone. You can find details on implementing these settings in the advisory.

Unfortunately, though, he doesn’t detail how to do that. It’s all relatively straightforward to do, though. Here’s how.

Turning on Protected Mode

Turning on Protected Mode in IE 7 and IE 8 is exceedingly simple. Select Tools –> Internet Options, and click the Security Tab. Then check the box next to Enable Protected Mode, as you can see in the screenshot below. You’ll have to restart IE for it to take effect.

Changing your Security zone to high

It’s also quite simple to change your IE security zone to high. Select Tools –> Internet Options, and click the Security Tab. Then move the slider to High. You won’t need to restart IE for this setting to take effect.

Enabling DEP

DEP ie enabled by default in IE8. To turn it on in IE7, and to ensure that it’s on in IE8, select Tools –> Internet Options and click the Advanced tab. Scroll down until you come to the Security section. Check the box next to “Enable memory protection to mitigate online attacks” then click OK. You can see it, below. You’ll need to restart IE for the new setting to take effect.

As for IE6, I don’t have a copy, so can’t tell you how enable DEP from my own first-hand experience. However, according to About.com, right-click My Computer, select Properties, then choose the Advanced tab. Under Performance, select settings, then select the Data Execution Prevention tab. Next, select the option to “Turn on DEP for all programs and services except those I select.” Click Apply then click OK.

Microsoft has also released a tool that turns on DEP. To use it, go to this page and follow the instructions.

Will taking all these steps keep you safe from the Chinese Google-style attack? Not completely, but it will keep you safer than if you don’t do it. At some point, though, expect a patch from Microsoft to fix the problem.

Popularity: 11% [?]

2010 global IT spend to be flat: Gartner

The IT budgets will essentially be flat this year across the globe compared to last year when it declined by 8.1 per cent, says an industry survey.

According to a Gartner-EXP Worldwide Survey of global chief information officers (CIOs), the IT budgets are expected to witness a marginal increase in global average of 1.3 per cent compared to 2009, which saw the IT budgets declining by 8.1 per cent.

“The year 2009 was the most challenging for CIOs in the corporate and public sectors as they faced multiple budget cuts, delayed spending and increased demand for services with reduced resources,” Gartner EXP group vice-president and research head Mark McDonald said today, releasing the report.

This is set to change in 2010, as the economies recover from recession and enterprises transition their strategies from cost-cutting efficiency to value-creating productivity, he added.

The survey includes responses from 1,586 CIOs representing over USD 126 billion in corporate and public sector IT spends across 41 countries and 27 industries.

McDonald said while technologies are transitioning from ‘heavy’ owner-operated solutions to a ‘lighter-weight’ services model, the CIOs are, in turn, transitioning IT beyond merely managing resources to taking responsibility for managing results.

“The CIOs see 2010 as an opportunity to accelerate the transition of IT from a support function to strategic contributor focused on innovation and competitive advantage,” Gartner group vice-president McDonald said.

According to the survey, business process improvement and reducing enterprise costs are top two business priorities for the CIOs, while virtualisation and cloud-computing emerged as the top two technology priorities.

“These technologies, implemented properly, create the opportunity for IT to change its role and the operational performance of the enterprise,” McDonald said.

The data were collected in the fourth quarter of 2009 and provides a snapshot of the CIO plans, priorities and budgets for 2010 as they stood at the end of the fourth quarter of 2009, Gartner said.

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