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2008

2008
Google’s Product Search Picks-Up Pace With Rivals
December 31, 2008 at 8:23 am 0

New York -- Soon before Christmas traffic statistics start pouring in; it is amazingly a rare occasion when we stumble upon news of this height, especially, even without those numbers, Google’s Product Search engine is reportedly catching up with big time rivals in the comparison shopping market instead of leading ahead of them.

Well, if we look at comScore’s November data on the comparison shopping market wherein Google’s Product Search managed to post a growth of 786% in November 2008 as compared to last year dismal performance -- the biggest one-year increase by far of any online comparison shopping service, says market tracker comScore. An astounding growth extending through November has the service putting its rivals to shame.

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2008
Online Retail Sales See Huge Declines This Holiday Season
December 30, 2008 at 11:45 am 0

San Francisco-- This year’s holiday shopping season appears to be one of the worst in history. Despite retailers’ attempting to lure shoppers with deep discounts, failed to save the final week of holiday shopping was pretty much a bust, as sales dipped throughout most categories on decreasing consumer spending, according to a report from a division of MasterCard Inc.

The cause: A depressing economy combined with poor weather, according to MasterCard’s SpendingPulse 2008 Holiday Wrap-Up Report.

Online holiday sales declined 2.3% from Nov. 1 to Dec. 24, according to the SpendingPulse report from MasterCard Advisors LLC, a subsidiary of payment card company MasterCard Worldwide, says: “It is probably one of the most difficult economic environment combined with unfavorable weather during the last week of shopping made 2008 one of the most challenging holiday shopping seasons in decades,” says Michael McNamara, vice president of research and analysis for SpendingPulse.

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2008
Google To Launch Street View Feature In Britain In Spring 2009
December 30, 2008 at 11:43 am 0

London-- Have you ever imagined taking a stroll in New York City’s Time Square, all the while sitting in your home in UK? Well, having access to Internet, you can take that same stroll down the streets of New York absolutely free. No air fare, no jet lag, no translators needed. Search Giant Google is prepared to debut Street View for UK some time next year as the mind-numbing process of collating and processing millions of photographs of Britain’s streets and roads continues in full swing.

Google Earth, the popular geo-tagging service has been utilized for varying purposes in the UK, such as from locating pools to swim in by nefarious teens to planning vacations and driving routes, but, missing from the UK Google Earth service is the street view that is popular in the US.

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2008
British Culture Minister Mulls Hollywood-Style Ratings For Web Sites
December 30, 2008 at 11:39 am 0

London-- Blighty’s culture secretary, Andy Burnham, seeks to impose an Internet rating system on English-language Web sites that mirrors movie-like ratings, and said that he would negotiate with U.S. President-elect Barack Obama’s administration team on drafting international standards for contents against indecency, violence, libel and copyright theft on the websites in a bid to better police the Internet and protect children from harmful and offensive material, Britain’s minister for culture has said.

If Britain’s culture minister has his way, the U.K. government could soon impose tough restrictions on websites -- a rating system akin to the movie industry in the coming year.

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2008
Verizon Awarded A Record $33.2 Million In Cybersquatting Judgment
December 29, 2008 at 12:07 pm 0

Washington-- US telecommunications giant Verizon, has been awarded a record judgment by a federal court in the Northern District of California for $33.2 million in a cybersquatting lawsuit against a shady Internet domain services company “ OnlineNIC” that claims to registered hundreds of domain names using Verizon name and trademarks.

Verizon said the award was made in a default judgment late last week, by a federal court in Northern district of California in San Francisco ruled that OnlineNIC should pay $50,000 for each of the 633 domains Verizon claims were created specifically to be confused with legitimate Verizon brands.

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2008
Windows 7 Beta Build 7000 ISO Leaked On BitTorrent Websites
December 29, 2008 at 11:58 am 0

San Francisco-- The first beta version of Windows 7 -- Microsoft’s much-anticipated next-generation operating system and substitute for the most troublesome Vista, which was expected to reach retailer shelves in time for the 2009 holiday shopping season, has apparently popped up on peer-to-peer network BitTorrent as an ISO file, making it available for anyone to download.

A quick search run on the Pirate Bay BitTorrent site, for example, produced results for two Windows 7 Build 7000 listings, both of which had been posted Friday.

Since Saturday afternoon, one torrent on Pirate Bay display more than 1,800 “seeders” -- the term for a computer that has a full copy of the torrent file -- and about 8,500 “leechers,” or computers that have downloaded only part of the complete torrent.

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2008
Google Earth Found Lost Paradise In Mozambique
December 29, 2008 at 3:51 am 0

London -- A team of eagle-eyed conservationists from Kew Garden have discovered a treasure trove of biodiversity in previously uncharted territory in the southern African nation while scrolling around internet map on Google Earth.

“Hidden Paradise” Yields New Species

The mountainous area of northern Mozambique in southern Africa - crowded with colorful birds, strange insects and rare plants - had been disregarded by wildlife experts and map makers due to inhospitable terrain and decades of civil war in the country.

But while sneaking around an area of Mozambique on Google Earth, which allows the viewer to look at satellite images of anywhere on the globe, researchers found a path of green forest, which had never been spotted before.

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2008
Google, Microsoft and Apple Sued Over File Preview Patent Violation
December 29, 2008 at 3:45 am 0

A small Indiana based company called “Cygnus Systems” has lodged a patent violation case against three technology heavyweights Google, Microsoft and Apple claiming that it holds the patent on a common “file preview” functionality both in web browsers, and operating systems, which enables users to a brief preview of files before they actually opened them. (more…)
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2008
China’s Sina.com Buys Focus Media’s Assets For $1 Billion To Increase Advertising Revenues
December 24, 2008 at 12:09 pm 0

Beijing-- Sina Corp., China's major internet media portal, agreed to acquire core assets of Focus Media Holding Ltd.'s digital outdoor advertising networks business at a deal that could be valued at $1.37 billion in stock, a bold attempt to seek a growth engine for its advertising revenues.

The deal announced late Monday demands Sina to purchase most of Focus Media, which has advertising spots in office buildings, malls and airports. Its network contains banks of television screens in office building lobbies and poster frames in elevators.

The agreement is a deviation from Sina's online business, which consists of 280 million registered users, in an effort to expand its advertising business.

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2008
Meebo Adds IM Chat Support For Facebook And MySpace
December 24, 2008 at 12:06 pm 0

San Francisco-- Meebo, the foremost Web-based instant messaging aggregating service, has attained its current level of popularity by providing Web access to popular IM interfaces like AOL, MSN, and GTalk. And quite recently, Meebo extended its functionality to embrace this growing market -- now expanded its support to Facebook and MySpace IM chat.

“These are two of the leading social networks in the world, and we are sure many of you use them on a daily basis,” according to a Meebo blog post. “So click that [sign on to more accounts] link and let us know what you think.” (more…)
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