New York -- Facebook on Tuesday announced in a post on its developer blog that “Facebook Connect,” its universal-login service adopted by more than 15,000 third-party sites--is now available in 64 international languages and locales.

Almost 70 percent of Facebook's 250 million global monthly active users are outside of the US, and most of them are not speaking English. As the site is witnessing massive growth around the world, which began launching international translations of its site early last year, encouraging users to help translate the social-networking service into their native languages.

Now, the company is hoping to win over its international growth by providing translated versions of its web-wide identity service, Facebook Connect. Thanks to its user-driven translation program, Facebook is now available in 64 different languages.

San Francisco -- Web developers should now rejoice as Adobe Systems Inc has taken a step forward in announcing two of Adobe's latest open-source initiatives on Tuesday: both the technologies are related to the Flash platform -- Open Source Media Framework (OSMF), and another one is, Text Layout Framework (TLF), designed to help media companies and other publishers build richer Flash applications.

Although Adobe's Flash still remains a closed-source technology, but that does not mean that other technologies surrounding and supporting Flash cannot be open. The moves is intended to promote open source innovation around Flash, and are in step with Adobe's strategy of being open, though not always open source.

San Francisco -- It seems that Google still grants its employees play with their 20% time, as over the weekend its video sharing web site YouTube began experimenting with a three dimensional video.

"YouTubePete," the Googler behind this project, confirmed this in a YouTube forum thread that he has been working on making a stereoscopic player during his "20 percent time" at Google.

He stated that "it is currently very early, hence the silly bugs like swapping the eyes for the anaglyph modes." Peter also shared the various ways to view such videos:

• yt3d:enable=true Enables the view mode.
• yt3d:aspect=3:4 Sets the aspect of the encoded video.
• yt3d:swap=true Swaps the left and right sources. You may need to add this to videos when the player with fixed anaglyph modes ships. Apologies for the inconvineince.[sic]
• yt3d:left=0_0.1_0.5_0.9 and yt3d:right=0.5_0.1_1_0.9 These tags are very provisional and most useful for fixing up old videos. They set the source area for each eye as pairs of coordinates x1_y1_x2_y2. The scale of these coordinates is 0,0 for the the top left down to 1,1 for the bottom right.

A sample video, which was tracked by SearchEngineRoundtable.com, can be viewed below.

Well, it seems pretty cool that this is being done and, is this just another Googler's recreational project without a practical application, or is there truly a future in 3D video marketing?

San Francisco -- In a surprising news last week for social networking fans, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, officially announced the number of users have embraced the online social networking site have climbed to 250 million active users across the world, according to a post on the company blog.

Facebook, continuing its relentless bid to rule the Internet, announced that it had now gained its 250 millionth user, barely over three months after reaching the 200 million plateau, making it one of the fastest growing social networks on the Web, according to Zuckerberg. The news arrived the same day that the Nielsen Co. reported that people spend more time on Facebook than any other Web site.

"The rapid pace of our growth is humbling and exciting for us," Zuckerberg said in a message posted at Facebook's official blog.

San Francisco -- TiVo, the Silicon Valley innovator that popularized the Digital Video Recorder, and Best Buy, the consumer electronics chain, are embarking on a broad partnership to promote TiVo products in its stores, and looking at ways to integrate TiVo tech into Best Buy products.

On Thursday, the two companies plan to announce that Best Buy will heavily promote TiVo products in its 1,100 stores in the United States. The two companies are partnering to develop a unique TiVo user interface for customers that are sold at Best Buy that will integrate the retailer's digital content services.

“Best Buy and TiVo will study development of a series of consumer tips and insights that can be easily accessed for all kinds of digital home experiences, and Best Buy anticipates to look into opportunities with TiVo to provide unique Best Buy solutions that enable viewers to take greater advantage of transactional opportunities through the television set,” the two companies said in a statement.

Los Angeles -- As it fights against allegations of copyright infringement, Google's YouTube on Tuesday claimed a small legal victory in the website's everlasting campaign not to have its pants sued off by copyright owners.

A group of sports and music copyright holders, led by the UK-based Football Association Premier League, had argued that foreign works were exempt from any registration requirements under the U.S. Copyright Act.

A U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton, of the Southern District of New York, dismissed some claims for damages in a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by a lengthy roster of sports and music copyright holders, led by the UK-based Football Association Premier League against Google Inc and its video-sharing Web site YouTube.com but left open the possibility that non-U.S. based rights owners could seek damages for live broadcasts, if they prevail.

San Francisco -- In an effort to capture wider audience and create more of a rapport between Facebook Pages and third-party websites, Facebook on Wednesday unveiled a new widget that will compete with MySpace as a platform for celebrities to connect with fans look no further than the just-launched “Fan Box”.

Facebook recently introduced the Live Stream Box, which allows webmasters to connect a real-time social viewing experience on their site. But today it has unveiled something new: the “Fan Box," another social widget that webmasters can employ to integrate the Facebook experience to their site.

The Fanbox, which is a new tool for celebrities, brands, products, companies, and other entities with Facebook “fan pages” to effectively integrate their Facebook presence into their Web sites.

Cyclist Lance Armstrong, Coca Cola, and the (Red) campaign have already added the Fan Box widget to their sites via Facebook Connect.

"If you are not yet connected to their Facebook Page, you can "Become a Fan" directly from their Facebook Fan Box and begin receiving updates on Facebook as well," Facebook Product Manager Mark Kinsey, wrote in a blog post.

"Facebook Page owners can now embed the Fan Box, a Facebook Connect-enabled widget, and activating the function involves merely including a snippet of Javascript code on your website to bring content from their Facebook Page into their site and convert visitors into fans on Facebook," a spokesperson for Facebook said.

Bands and celebrities are becoming very cautious of managing their relationships with fans on sites like MySpace and Facebook. Just the contact information alone is invaluable for most bands. Their online fans are their marketing armies, and smart celebrities want to maintain that relationships and the entire experience. The Facebook Fan Box lets them use Facebook's ubiquitous sign-in and stream, while drawing fans to their own sites where they can centralize their online presence.

To include the Fan box, simply click "Add Fan Box to your site," which is located below your page's profile picture. Once you select it, you can choose whether or not you want to include the stream and fans. Further customization options can be found here.

The move comes as Facebook continues to expand its existence beyond its famed blue-and-white walls, while keeping up the pressure with its 200 million-plus user base as an invaluable resource for marketers--especially interesting since brand promotion is something that MySpace once had a lock on in the social-networking world. Moreover, the new widget is doubtlessly of huge importance to musicians and companies who wish to leverage their social media following more effectively.

Additional information on the Fan Box is available here.

New York -- A copyright management company called Music Copyright Solutions (MCS), last week initiated a legal proceeding against Microsoft, Yahoo and Real Networks, alleging that each of their online music stores -- Zune, Yahoo Music, and Rhapsody -- infringed upon their copyrights for more than 45,000 pieces of compositions and the authors of music they look after.

Well, if you are nodding your head and wondering how that is possible, with all the royalties they pay out, then you are not alone.

MCS Music America Inc., a division of British company Conexion Media Group PLC, last week filed a case in the U.S. District Court for Middle Tennessee. MCS comprises of a large number of other plaintiffs in the case, which is based on streaming technology used by Microsoft, Yahoo and Real Networks.

San Francisco -- Mozilla yesterday released Firefox 3.5, introducing the latest version of the world's second-most popular open-source Web browser, spreading delight into the hearts of children and adults alike -- tete-a-tete with current browsing technology and trends, intensifying the battle between competing browsers that is dramatically increasing the speed with which web pages are viewed.

Yet, it is by no means the leap ahead than its predecessor Firefox 3 was, and it is clear that the competition is not fading away anytime soon.

In addition to displaying a fancy revised icon by the Iconfactory, Firefox 3.5 delivers several new features to the program, including support for HTML5 video and audio content embedded directly on a page, a private browsing mode, and location-aware browsing, which allows you to share your location with Web sites if you so choose.

New York -- Facebook on Tuesday evening announced that it has begun beta testing a new feature of its search engine that would enable its members to search the site for content from friends, organizations and public figures and sharing about particular topics -- from links and comments to photos and videos -- all in real time.

Certainly, it sounds a lot similar to Twitter Search, which allows anyone -- not just members -- to tap into the keywords of Tweets to get a sense of what is being said about a particular topic at any given moment. The plus-point that Twitter has over Facebook, of course, is that anyone can see the tweets. By default, Twitter is a public forum.

Facebook, on the other hand, can offer more than 140 characters and a link in its results. Being able to see results in a number of ways -- photos, videos, and so on -- offers deeper insight into the topic being searched. In its blog post, the company says:

San Francisco -- Barely time has passed for most of us, AOL's MapQuest is the oldest mobile mapping application existed than any of its rivals. Even today, MapQuest remains one of the most popular places to get maps and directions online, on Monday took the wraps off a new application for iPhone users called “MapQuest 4 Mobile,” designed as an alternative to the built-in Google Maps, playing a catch up to the iPhone, which remains the most important smartphone platform for the time being and billed as a “leap forward in how people interact with maps, directions and local search” on their Apple handsets.

Today, MapQuest launched its first free iPhone version of its app, called MapQuest 4 Mobile, and after testing it for a while, it quickly became apparent that MapQuest's app makes it easy for users to conduct one-tap category searches from any location on a map, and is a perfect challenger for the iPhone's built-in mapping application, which is based on Google Maps.

New York -- About one year ago, Adobe, The San Jose-based company has developed tools for creating cloud-based productivity suite, while intensifying its focus the company on Monday said that it will move its Acrobat.com Web-based productivity and collaboration services out of beta and offer for-fee subscriptions to provide what the company hopes will be a new way for business users to collaborate on document creation and added a beta version of its new online spreadsheet, Tables.

Adobe's Acrobat.com site currently boasts Buzzword for documents and ConnectNow for meetings, in addition to the newly intorduced experimental Presentations software. Now the company also will incorporate a spreadsheet service called “Acrobat Tables,” which goes into preview release on Monday, said Erik Larson, director of marketing and product management for Acrobat.com.

New York -- Facebook has once again succeeded in swaying yet another important Googler to join its ranks. Google's AdWords operations chief “Grady Burnett,” who held the title “Director, Online Sales & Operations” will quit the company and move from Ann Arbor, Mich., to join Facebook in Palo Alto, where he will lead the startup's growing self-service advertising unit. Grady is also a DoubleClick veteran.

Burnett, who was based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, home to Google's AdWords operation, is the second executive to announce his departure from the search giant this week.

Burnett will shift to Facebook's headquarters in Palo Alto, California, to lead the social-network's global self-serve-ad operation, reporting to chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg.

San Francisco -- Following the sounds of its fellow entrepreneurs, Sony Corp's Sony Music Entertainment has answered the call to join “VEVO,” the new online premium music video and entertainment service conceived by Universal Music Group (UMG) and powered by Google Inc's YouTube when the site launches, and will bring with it a library of music videos from artists such as Beyonce, Britney Spears, and Bruce Springsteen, the companies said Thursday in a statement.

Vevo will begin its service sometime later this year presenting video content from at least the two largest recording companies, (Universal is the largest). Furthermore, Vevo is intended to help both YouTube and the recording agencies to better monetize their video assets, by classifying the premium music video assets from user-generated content that includes music from UMG and Sony artists.

Beijing, China -- After exactly 20 years back, on June 4, 1989, the Chinese Red Army opened fire on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square, resulting in the loss of hundreds--if not thousands--of innocent lives. However, the Chinese authorities have tightened security on Wednesday ahead of the 20th anniversary of the June 4 crackdown, and blocked access to Microsoft's new search engine, Bing, and its Hotmail email service and Twitter Inc.'s Internet social-networking service.

Security continues to be stepped up at Tiananmen Square ahead of Thursday's anniversary [EPA]

Black police vans prowled through the borders of the Forbidden City, while police and paramilitary forces patrolled through crowds of tourists enjoying a sunny summer morning.

New York -- Expanding its ambition from being just a graphic software heavyweight into online services, Adobe Systems, last week quietly introduced the latest in its new free online service called Acrobat.com Presentations, hosted at Adobe Labs in public beta, the new technology marks the early steps towards competing with PowerPoint, the ubiquitous presentation-making software in Microsoft Office and Google.

San Francisco -- A Russian Internet investment company Digital Sky Technologies (DST), has invested $200 million in Facebook for a 1.96% equity stake, empowering the social networking company a cash buffer during the recession and pegging its value at $10 billion, the social networking site announced Tuesday.

Digital Sky Technologies, a global investment group that has large investments in Eastern European and in prominent Russian Internet companies like Mail.ru and Vkontakte.ru, will take about 2 percent share in Facebook in exchange for preferred stock, the two companies said on Tuesday.

Facebook said DST, however, would not be represented on the board of the fast-growing social network or possess special observer rights, in accordance with Facebook's normal practices, the company explained in a statement.

New York -- The online social networking websites Facebook and Twitter were back in business for Iranians, just a day after the government authorities blocked it reportedly to prevent supporters of a moderate in the presidential race from using it for his campaign, the Ilna news agency said on Tuesday. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has denied ordering the site blocked.

A freelance writer, the 28-year-old woman, who dubs herself as Shahrazad to shield her identity, said the sites were reactivated during the morning.

On Monday, CNN Correspondent Reza Sayah asked Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about the shutdown of Facebook. He told the news conference he had not called for the ban but would look into it.

Tehran, Iran -- Iran has banned the use of the popular social networking site Facebook since last weekend, in ahead of the June's presidential elections, in an apparent attempt to muzzle the opposition reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, as opposition voters increasingly turn to online social sites to promote their candidates whose fan page has a whopping 5,000 members, Iran's Ilna news agency and web users say.

“Blocking of social website is part of state's crack-down on opposition, Iranians will be forced to depend on state-run media before the election.”

Blogs and related websites have become an important campaign tool for a prominent reformist candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, who is attempting to mobilise Iran's critical youth vote before the June 12 ballot.

San Francisco -- Many major Web companies such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and few others, have long back announced their support for OpenID, but for the last couple of years, Facebook has been acting somewhat indifferently with the possibility of supporting the OpenID log-in standard. However, on Monday the massive social network widely opened the doors of its ultra-walled-garden approach to data and user experience finally adopted OpenID, the open user-identity framework to simplify how people register for and log into the social networking site.