[Software News] NYSE Updates Server Farm to Keep Pace
[Software News] Cisco's WiMax Focus is International
Cisco Systems sees a big market for WiMax, but not primarily in high-profile deployments in the developed world such as Sprint Nextel's nationwide network, planned for commercial launch in the U.S. next year. Cisco's acquisition of Navini Networks, expected to close in January, will make it a vendor of wireless radios to carriers for the first time, even though it has been selling the infras...
[Software News] Holiday Shoppers Drawn To Uggs, Wii, Social Shopping Sites
U.S. holiday product searches for the Nintendo Wii rose 274% last week compared with the previous week, according to figures released Thursday. The game console held the top spot for Hitwise's U.S. holiday product searches for the week ending Dec. 8, while Uggs and the Apple iPod were close behind. "Searches for the limited supply of this season's hottest gift, the Nintendo Wii, co...
[Software News] Cover-Up Roils Google-DoubleClick Deal
As various U.S. presidents have discovered to their sorrow, a cover-up is often more damaging than the underlying offense. That's the uncomfortable position in which Washington powerhouse law firm Jones Day finds itself, one day after two privacy groups flagged the firm for deleting potentially embarrassing Web pages. For the last several months, the Federal Trade Commission has been review...
[Software News] Execs: Web ad spending should be higher
NEW YORK - Online advertising jumped 25 percent this year, raking in a cool $20 billion, but Internet executives say that figure could have been even higher if advertisers had reliable and consistent ways to measure online audiences. Unlike traditional media, where each format has one main ratings provider — The Nielsen Co. for television, Arbitron Inc. for radio and so on — there are many...
[Software News] WTO ruling in Internet gambling case delayed: U.S.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A World Trade Organization decision on the amount of retaliation that Antigua and Barbuda can impose on the United States in an Internet gambling trade dispute will not come out on Friday as expected, a U.S. trade official said. "We understand the report has been delayed," said Gretchen Hamel, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Trade Representative's office. T...
[Software News] Death Knell Sounds for Wikipedia, About.com
In relatively quiet fashion, search engine giant Google announced the testing of a new tool for organizing and disseminating knowledge on the Web. The new tool is built around the concept of a "knol," which the company says stands for "a unit of knowledge." "A knol on a particular topic," wrote Udi Manber, Google's vice president of engineering, "is meant ...
[Software News] Correction: Wireless tracking story
NEW YORK - In a Dec. 13 story about S5 Wireless, a Utah company that is designing a new wireless positioning system, The Associated Press listed the incorrect Web site address for the company. The correct address is http://www.s5w.com. ...
[Software News] FTC head won't recuse from Google deal
WASHINGTON - The head of the Federal Trade Commission said Friday she won't remove herself from an antitrust review of Google Inc.'s purchase of online advertising company DoubleClick, rebuffing requests from privacy groups opposed to the transaction. Deborah Platt Majoras, chairwoman of the FTC, said she has reviewed a petition from the groups with the agency's ethics official and other staff, and ...
[Software News] Google building its own version of Wikipedia
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Google is building its own version of communally-constructed online encyclopedia Wikipedia, which consistently ranks among the most visited websites in the world. The Internet search powerhouse is inviting chosen people to test a free service dubbed "knol," to indicate a unit of knowledge, vice president of engineering Udi Manber said Friday in a post...
[Software News] Google working on Internet encyclopedia
SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc. is working on a new Internet encyclopedia that will consist of material submitted by people who want to be identified as experts and possibly profit from their knowledge. The concept, outlined late Thursday in a posting on Google's Web site, poses a potential challenge to the nonprofit Wikipedia, which has drawn upon the collective wisdom of unpaid, anonymous contributors...
[Software News] New music services reach for slice of digital pie
DENVER (Billboard) - After 2006 -- a year when virtually no one managed to launch a digital music service in competition with Apple's dominant iTunes -- 2007 was a refreshing change of pace. Several fresh faces emerged onto the digital music scene this year, buoyed in part by record companies' newfound willingness to experiment with different business models, but also by the departu...
[Software News] Opera files EU antitrust suit against Microsoft
Opera Software has filed an antitrust suit against Microsoft in the European Union, accusing it of stifling competition by tying its Internet Explorer Web browser to Windows, the Norwegian company said Thursday. The complaint, which was filed with the European Commission on Wednesday, says Microsoft is abusing its dominant position in the desktop PC market by offering only Internet Explorer as a sta...
[Software News] EBay focusing on 'user experience'
SAN JOSE, Calif. - EBay Inc. will focus on improving the "user experience" in 2008 in hopes of making the world's largest online auction more satisfying for its millions of users, a top executive said. Engineers significantly updated eBay's home page earlier this year — for the first time since 1999 — and made its search engine faster. Next year they'll focus on rooting out sellers with un...
[Software News] MS eScience group offers database advice to scientists
San Francisco - Microsoft Research's eScience group is helping scientific researchers use database and online sharing tools in ways they might not have imagined, and sharing those experiences with Microsoft product groups that can tweak their software for easier use by the scientific community. Microsoft researchers showed off some of their projects at the American Geophysical Union annual confe...
[Software News] Group asks FTC chairwoman to step down from DoubleClick review
San Francisco - U.S. Federal Trade Commission chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras is consulting with the agency's ethics officer to see if she should recuse herself from a review of Google's planned acquisition of online ad network DoubleClick. On Wednesday, two technology lobbying organizations called on Majoras to recuse herself, citing her husband's involvement in the matter. John M...
[Software News] Update: Opera files EU antitrust suit against Microsoft
San Francisco - Opera Software has filed an antitrust suit against Microsoft in the European Union, accusing it of stifling competition by tying its Internet Explorer Web browser to Windows, the Norwegian company said Thursday. The complaint, which was filed with the European Commission on Wednesday, says Microsoft is abusing its dominant position in the desktop PC market by offering only Internet E...
[Software News] Russian computer program fakes chatroom flirting
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Internet chatroom romantics beware: your next chat may be with a clinical computer, not a passionate person, trying to win your personal data and not your heart, an online security firm says. A Russian website called CyberLover.ru is advertising a software tool that, it says, can simulate flirtatious chatroom exchanges. It boasts that it can chat up as many as 10 women at ...
[Software News] MySpace and Sprint land mobile partnership
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. wireless operator Sprint Nextel Corp will make it easier for its cell phone customers to link to a free version of online social network MySpace. Instead of typing the entire address, cell phone users will be able to connect to News Corp's service by clicking a link, the companies said in a joint statement. The deal will also include links to News Corp's ot...
[Software News] FTC Chair Asked to Step Down From DoubleClick Review
U.S. Federal Trade Commission Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras is consulting with the agency's ethics officer to see if she should recuse herself from a review of Google's planned acquisition of online ad network DoubleClick. On Wednesday, two technology lobbying organizations called on Majoras to recuse herself, citing her husband's involvement in the matter. John Majoras is a partner wit...