Google Browser (Google Chrome) and Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 are nothing short of resource hogs compared to Firefox 3.0.1. This is the conclusion presented by researchers from the Devil Mountain Software company, who threw the three browsers one against the other on the same "arena", a Dell OptiPlex 745 (Core 2 Duo @ 2.66GHz) with 2GB of RAM and running both Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3.

The conclusion on IE8 Beta 2 is not that flattering: "What we found was another example of unchecked Microsoft code "bloat," complete with "shirt-bursting, waistline-stretching" memory consumption and the kind of CPU-hogging thread growth normally reserved for massively parallel server farms," a representative from the Devil Mountain Software company stated.

But the fact of the matter is that Google Chrome, is even worse. "What we found was truly shocking: After re-executing our 10-site, multi-tab scenario across all 4 browsers, we discovered that it is Google Chrome, not Internet Explorer 8, that is the true memory consumption leader," the Devil Mountain Software company member indicated.

In a 10-site, multi-tab browsing scenario, IE8 Beta 2 consumed no less than 332MB of RAM, with Chrome Beta also eating a lot of system memory, namely 324MB. By contrast, Internet Explorer 7 only managed to climb as high as 250MB. In this context, it appears that the new technologies, features and capabilities built into Internet Explorer 8, as well as Google Chrome, require more resources than Firefox to perform the same tasks.

"Of course, both browsers look absolutely porcine when compared to the lean, mean Firefox 3.01 (151MB peak, 104MB average working set size). And lest we forget, IE 7 continues to hover somewhere between the fit & trim Firefox and the obesity that defines Chrome/IE 8 (209MB peak, 142MB average)," the Devil Mountain Software company researcher added.

But when it comes down to CPU utilization, both Firefox 3.0.1 and Google Chrome managed to shame IE8 Beta 2, in terms of their hunger. Google Browser took no less than 45% of the processor while Firefox 3.0.1 managed a high of 42%. IE 8 Beta 2 used just 22% of the CPU under XP SP3 and 33% under Vista SP1, while IE7 took only 13% and 24% respectively.

"Both Firefox and IE 7 spawn a relatively modest number of threads (25 and 43, respectively), a fact related to their reliance on a single process instance to handle all tabbed sessions. By contrast, IE 8 spawns potentially hundreds of threads (153 in our latest test round), and spreads them out across its various instances (in our case, 6 discrete copies of iexplore.exe)," the Devil Mountain Software company member indicated, adding that, by contrast, Chrome was managing just 48 execution threads at the apex of the test scenario.

But in the end, the fact that Firefox 3.0.1 is superior, in terms of resource usage, to Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 8 shouldn't come as a surprise. Both Microsoft and Google's browsers are still in Beta development stage, albeit IE8 is in Beta 2, with the gold version expected to drop in November 2008, and considerably slower than its predecessor.

"Chrome, like IE 8, is a browser designed with tomorrow’s hardware in mind. Its use of a multi-process tabbing model – which, according to Google, helps isolate failures and protect complex web applications (like GMail or Google Docs) – means that it will always use more memory than Firefox, IE 7 and similar, single-process browsers. How such model will hold up under heavy use, especially on today’s hardware, remains to be seen," reads the conclusion from the Devil Mountain Software company.

Google Chrome is available for download here.
Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 is available for download here.
Firefox 3.0.1 for Windows is available for download here.
Firefox 3.0.1 for Linux is available for download here.
Firefox 3.0.1 for Mac OS X is available for download here.
By: Marius Oiaga, Technology News Editor (news.softpedia.com)

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If Microsoft is moving into the Cloud, Google is expanding to the Desktop and to the Windows client. The Mountain-View search giant is on the verge of making available a beta version of Google Chrome, a browser initially designed to integrate only with the Windows platform, but which is set to be tailored to additional platforms in the future. Not even out yet, Google Chrome is positioned as an Internet Explorer killer, far beyond what Microsoft's rivals Mozilla and Opera have been capable of doing with their own products.

"This is just the beginning – Google Chrome is far from done. We're releasing this beta for Windows to start the broader discussion and hear from you as quickly as possible. We're hard at work building versions for Mac and Linux too, and will continue to make it even faster and more robust," revealed Sundar Pichai, VP Product Management, and Linus Upson, engineering director.

At the time of this article the Google Chrome bits were not available for download yet. Google is attempting what representatives from the company referred to as a "fresh take on the browser," with every intention to "launch early and iterate." Anchored on the desktop and owning the vast majority of both the operating system and the browser markets, with Windows and Internet Explorer, the Redmond giant is in fact an intermediary between the end users and Google, located almost exclusively into the cloud.

Even though Google claims that Chrome will be made available "because we believe we can add value for users and, at the same time, help drive innovation on the web," the fact of the matter is that the Mountain View company is making a decisive move to reduce the relevance of Internet Explorer on the world wide web.

At the end of August 2008, Winifred Mitchell Baker, chairperson of the Mozilla Foundation and chairperson and former chief executive officer of the Mozilla Corporation, announced that "we’ve just renewed our agreement with Google for an additional three years. This agreement now ends in November of 2011 rather than November of 2008, so we have stability in income."

So in this context, Google and Mozilla are now obvious partners, on the same front against Microsoft. At the end of August 2008, all the supported editions of Internet Explorer accounted for over 70% of the browser market, according to data from Net Applications, while Firefox was close to breaking the 20% milestone. As a newcomer, Google Chrome will start from zero, but the browser is bound to get traction fast, especially with Google's resources behind it.

The Google Browser features components from Apple's WebKit and Firefox and is a fully fledged open source product. Chrome sports a new approach to the graphical user interface, with the focus on Tabs but also features such as Omnibox, an address bar with auto-completion functionality, as well as a Speed Dial, privacy mode via the "incognito" window, a new method of managing the execution and usage of web applications, and malware protection.

"Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today's complex web applications much better. By keeping each tab in an isolated "sandbox", we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built a more powerful JavaScript engine, V8, to power the next generation of web applications that aren't even possible in today's browsers," added Pichai and Upson.

Update: Google Chrome is available for download here.
By Marius Oiaga, Technology News Editor (news.softpedia.com)

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Google Maps and YouTube on Your Sprint Handset - A new collaboration between the companies has been announced. The American company Sprint has announced today that it would expand its collaboration with the Mountain View giant, Google. Sprint is a wireless and wireline communications service provider that offers its products to both mainstream and business users. Google and Sprint have joined forces for the development of another project that was also announced today.

The new agreement will allow Sprint users to access some of Google's most popular products. As part of its efforts to improve users' dynamic mobile experience, Sprint will start providing easier access to Google Maps for mobile, YouTube and many others. The new tools provided to the Sprint clients are meant to lure more consumers, mostly with the help of the continuously increasing popularity belonging to Google's products.

Providing a fast and easy way to access the Google mobile search engine from their own Sprint handsets will most certainly allow users to better appreciate Sprint's services. Doug Garland, vice president of product management at Google declared that "Google and Sprint have a lot in common when it comes to our vision for the mobile web". He also added that "we both believe in openness and providing compelling, easy-to-use mobile services that consumers can use every day. We look forward to working together to deliver a great experience."

The collaboration between the two companies dates back to November 2006, when Google's Gmail was made available from Sprint's portal.

Google's interest in the world of mobile handsets has long been speculated. There were a number of rumors over the release of a potential G-Phone developed by Google but until now they were only simple speculations. The only thing that Google released, which comes close to a G-Phone, is the Android. The Linux-based operating system was unveiled in November 2007, as a joint venture between Google and the Open Handset Alliance.

Source: news.softpedia.com

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Although this update could be seen as early as a few days ago, the Mountain View-based company officially introduced the new Google Translate languages today, along with several other improvements to the translation technology. The newly introduced languages are Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hindi, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian and Swedish, raising the total number of supported languages to 23. This means that you can translate websites, texts and words from and to any language supported by the service.

As mentioned, along with more languages, Google has also came with a few other updates. "You can now translate text and web pages as well as perform cross-language searches between any two languages that we offer. For example, we now support Chinese translation to/from any of our languages (e.g., Chinese to French). So for those of you who will be following or attending the Olympics in Beijing this fall, you'll be able to more easily find and access content from local sources," Jeff Chin, Product Manager, wrote on the official Google blog.

Besides that, a "Detect language" function has been added to Google Translate that helps you detect the language of the website or text, and automatically translate it to the language you choose. "Keep in mind that the longer the text, the more accurate it will be. And for those of you who have embedded the Google Translate My Page gadget in your website to give it global reach, these new languages will automatically appear. Developers can also take advantage of these new languages in our AJAX language API," the Google official added.

Just like in the past, Google Translate also provides the "Suggest a better translation" link, which allows regular users to help the technology improve the quality of the translations and thus provide more accurate texts.

Source: news.softpedia.com

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FoxyTunes now supports Blogger
Mozilla and Google are already two good friends but using the power of the browser extensions, the two companies aim to bring more consumers to their solutions. In case you forgot, the search giant designed a browser toolbar, 100 percent Firefox compatible, which comes with one click access for many of the Google services. In addition, the toolbar brings a little bit more security to Firefox, blocking all the pop-ups discovered while you browse the Internet. Today, the Blogger team proudly announced that a Firefox extension becomes compatible with their blog service which is supposed to be the most popular one on the Internet.

FoxyTunes is an interesting browser add-on, especially designed for the Mozilla application that allows you to control your audio player straight from the Firefox interface. Basically, FoxyTunes adds a new bar in Firefox which comes with control buttons such as volume, play or stop a song. However, the FoxyTunes – Blogger interoperability is not about this music control bar. Using the Firefox extension, a user who posts a new article on a Blogger page can easily add a signature in the message with the current artist and song.

"Signatunes is built into the latest version of FoxyTunes for Firefox - it adds a small icon to your favorite webmail and blogging services. This allows you to add a music signature to your message with a click. There is also an 'auto-insert' mode, which allows you to automatically add a Signatune to every message you compose," the official page of the Firefox extension reads.

However, Blogger is not the only blogging service which supports FoxyTunes. In addition, the add-on is compatible with the AOL Blogs, Bebo, Facebook, Yahoo 360, WordPress and many others. Also, you can add a signature into a Gmail, Yahoo, Thunderbird and other mail technologies.

Source: news.softpedia.com

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As we have already informed you, Google has done a good job in providing Google Earth users with information about the latest disasters that struck Asia. Besides the large amount of data meant to inform users about the status of the Myanmar victims, users can also see satellite imagery of China's 7.9 magnitude earthquake. This can be easily done by downloading a KML file to your own Google Earth.

If you want to increase your knowledge about the earthquake disaster, the best way to do so is to turn to YouTube. There, you will see cell phone recorded videos, uploaded by people who lived through the disaster. According to the Chinese mainstream media, there are approximately 600 million cell phone users in China, which means that you are going to see an impressive number of videos uploaded on YouTube. According to the official YouTube blog, most videos and photos have been uploaded by users from China's Sichuan province.

The 7.9 magnitude disaster is the worst experienced by the Chinese people in over 30 years. The earthquake that struck China in 1976 is said to have been the worst mankind has experienced in the 20th century. Estimates indicated it had a dead toll of approximately 255,000, with several thousands being severely injured. Until now, the 2008 earthquake hasn't reached the high amount of victims of its 1976 counterpart, but the number of reported people is in the range of thousands.

Videos that might be considered shocking by some can now be seen on the largest Internet video service. A number of users have uploaded footage from surveillance cameras that displayed people running in the midst the disaster. Scientific videos showing the movement of the tectonic plates and offering a better insight into the causes of the disaster are also available. People are also trying to offer their support to the victims, by placing a pay tribute and trying to raise money and supplies through a YouTube video.

Source: news.softpedia.com

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In case you haven't visited Google Maps recently, you’re probably not aware of its latest updates. This last Tuesday, users visiting Google maps have been faced with a new functionality. Between the Traffic and Map buttons, a new "More..." button has surfaced. The new button has been set to provide users with more information about the different locations on Earth. The "More..." button provides two choices: Photos and Wikipedia.

Clicking the two options will fill your Google Maps with a bunch of icons featuring photos and links from Wikipedia. These links display additional information about specific landmarks and locations. The images are geotagged photos from Panoramio or from different users around the world. By adding this feature Google intends to enhance the users' experience and provide them with as much information as possible about a place. Since the release of Google Maps, Google has continuously brought new features to the online product.

We also informed you, early this week, that Google had added Real Estate information into Google Maps, which you can access by clicking the "Show search options" link and choosing Real Estate. This search options is, at the moment, available only to US users. Adding these new features to Google Maps, the search engine will most certainly provide its users with a comprehensive understanding of their surroundings. Unlike the Real Estate information, which can be used by a restrictive number of users, the photos and Wikipedia links are available worldwide.

News about Google's upgrade to its Maps product surfaced at the Where 2.0 conference, where another piece of interesting information was released. According to Lior Ron, Product Manager of Google Maps, the Mountain View company plans to add a Google News layer for both Google Earth and Google Maps. As some of you might know, Google has reached an agreement with New York Times, which resulted in the first built-in live updating layer of news from the NY Times in Google Earth.


Source: news.softpedia.com

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Google Maps and Google Earth are two of the Mountain View company products that can provide users with a number of useful tools, meant to solve their everyday problems. Since its release in early 2005, Google Maps has received some important new features and upgrades. At this point in time, Google Maps can be used to locate almost anything of significant importance. And because the guys at Google never rest when it comes to improving the quality of their products, Google Maps has recently received a new feature.

If you are planning to relocate and you find it difficult to search for an appropriate place where you and your family can reside, Google Maps might just make your day brighter. Yesterday, Google Maps was announced to have received an upgrade which will provide users with information about real estate. Searching through Google Maps search engine will now give users information regarding the location of any building or real estate available for sale.

Details on the searched real estate includes price, number of rooms, photos and webpage, where users can find more details regarding the property in which they take interest. Google is not directly involved the real estate business, it only provides professional companies a platform for presenting the offers. A number of real estate companies have recently updated their websites with Google Maps' Street View feature, which ultimately provides users with a better understanding of their future-to-be home.

When you want to search something on the Google Maps search engine, you will have to press "Show search options", which enables you to restrict the search results to just real estate. At the moment, the feature is available only to US users.

Adding new features to Google Maps in order to enhance the users' search experience is just another confirmation that Google is continuously trying to improve its products.


Source: news.softpedia.com

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Last November the YouTube co-founders announced while attending in a TeeVee conference, that their company was toying with higher resolution videos replacing the low res that currently makes up for more than three quarters of the total clips uploaded. Because of the cryptic and almost Spartan ‘leak,’ the media jumped and all sorts of estimates started floating. "Will it be HDTV? Obviously, the Google owned video sharing service must be feeling Hulu breathing heavy down its neck and decided to step up its game," was one of the trains of thought.

Arguments immediately appeared showing that no tool in the world would enhance a resolution that much, or, at any rate, better than the original file uploaded. It’d be too costly and simply not worth it. Yet. A consensus was arrived at, and it was probably the only one possible, shaped after an old saying: we’ll live and see it.

Four months after that conference and one month longer than predicted, YouTube is testing higher quality video. At the moment, the option is available for a limited number of clips and trying it out is a bit boorish in fashion. Ionut Alex. Chitu of the Google Operating System noticed that by appending &fmt=6 to the URL of a YouTube video, a new page should open and it should have the video in a higher resolution. The screenshots on the left are his exemplification of the difference, while I couldn’t find any that would be included in the limited number that have the option made available.

The regular version of 320 x 240 was modified to that of 448 x 336, and the audio encoding was upped from 22050 Hz to 44100 Hz. It’s not a big increase, but a step in the right direction. Probably once the testing phase will come to an end, a button for switching to high res will be added somewhere on the page. Note: a video with better resolution will load slower.


Source: news.softpedia.com

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Late last week, the YouTube development team flashed before our eyes the option to virtually add a social layer to the popular video sharing site and said that the changes would come ‘soon.’ Naturally, a couple of days later when you read that there’s been an update, you have your hopes high that it be the one promised, but no such luck. The experimental personalized homepages are still in the testing, with only few people actually using it. If you should want to opt-in on the hot action, here’s a link that will get you on board.

One of the new features appearing on YouTube is Character counter for video comments, useful for when you just start typing and don’t know when to stop, or lets you know just how many words you can fit in before hitting the ‘submit’ button.

Contextual help in ‘My Account’ is the second newly-added feature, and it has to do with the new help icons that have appeared next to some of the buttons in the account page. "To see instructions and helpful information related to managing things like your channel design and videos, just hover over the '?' icons. Click the 'read more' link to go directly to the full article related to that particular feature in our Help Center," the team’s blog reads on the topic.

Those two and the possibility to opt-in for the personalized home pages are the highlights of the update. As usual, there’s some work done that doesn’t usually catch everybody’s eye, but a heavy viewer will immediately notice. The Sort by Relevance and Sort by Date options have been brought back after receiving scores of feedback from the users that demanded this to happen. Two out of the four sorting methods have been added, but when could we expect the Sort by Ratings and Sort by View Count? Probably, the next update will clear the air, but you have to demand it in a strong voice.


Source: news.softpedia.com

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As the weeks keep flying and nothing worthy of mentioning is happening after Yahoo! turned down Microsoft’s unsolicited bid, rumors are starting to get leaked and suppositions made. The lawsuits filed against the Sunnyvale-based company are something of lesser importance, because they are in a unsolvable situation whichever way the coin flips. Out of the seven suits, there are two accusing Yahoo! of encouraging MS to bid, and others that demand the sales as being in the shareholders’ best interest. It doesn’t matter what Yahoo! does, it will still get sued.

Google responded very quickly when Microsoft made the big announcement. In an instant, a press release was put together, deeming the bid as dangerous, and the next day, investment banker George Boutros was hired for advice. "Boutros is known in M&A circles as a briefcase slammer. […] The kind of negotiator who will do whatever it takes to make the other guy blink," Valleywag quoted Adam Lashinsky.

Two weeks’ work later, the solution presented to Google’s directors was that the Mountain View-based company should bid for just under 20 percent if Yahoo!’s stock at an inflated price. There are two theories as to why that is. The first, presented by Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, is that "Google clearly wants to see the status quo continue in the search space, and would rather fight a fragmented market than a single, stronger, Microsoft/Yahoo."

The second has a lot more to do with chaos and mayhem, that would destabilize the two companies currently involved in their very own cold war right now: Microsoft shareholders are unhappy and penalized the Redmond giant severely by lowering its stock value, while Yahoo! is hit with lawsuits and has talent departing due to the vesting packages that just expired. If crazy is what Google’s after, it did a very good job. I wonder if the bid is actually made what will be to come.


Source: news.softpedia.com

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Yahoo is not, even by far, the only item on Microsoft’s shopping list. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates made it clear that, although he gave his blessing for the acquisition of Yahoo, a strategy cooked by Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer, the Sunnyvale Internet giant wouldn't become the company's exclusive focus in its race after Google. And while Yahoo will undoubtedly shorten the distance which separates Microsoft from the incontestable leader of the search engine and online advertising markets, by a consistent share, the Redmond company continues to climb its way toward Google slowly, through its own efforts, but also via additional acquisitions.

Of course that in comparison with the $44.6 billion price tag that Microsoft stuck to Yahoo, all other take-overs seem anodyne. Case in point: YaData, a developer of tools designed to identify unique customer segments. The financial details of the acquisition have not been made public, but it is reported that Microsoft paid between $20 and $30 million.

"The purchase of YaData brings the Israeli R&D center into the field of online advertising, which is undoubtedly one of Microsoft’s most strategic fields," said Moshe Lichtman, President of the Microsoft Israel R&D Center. "This is a great example of how Israeli technology has considerable value that is contributing to our most important areas of development. In recent months, I have become familiar with YaData's top quality personnel, and I am convinced that their contribution to the Israeli R&D center and to Microsoft globally will be significant."

Microsoft's Israel R&D center in Herzliya will grow with the addition of the YaData team, and the technology will be added to the Microsoft’s Advertiser and Publisher Solutions group. "YaData fully believes in the potential of behavioral targeting to enhance the value of online advertising for publishers, advertisers and users," said Amir Peleg, chief executive officer of YaData. "Microsoft has the resources to unlock the potential in YaData’s technology and create a truly innovative online advertising solution. We’re excited to see what the future holds."


Source: news.softpedia.com

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Opera announced that it has made Google the default search engine for its mobile browsers, Opera Mobile and Opera Mini. From now on, mobile users that work with Opera can access Google's search engine directly from the browser's start page, for a quick and easy way to get the information they need.

The new mobile collaboration between Opera and Google covers all global territories except Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (no idea why is that), and includes all of Opera's standard mobile browsers.

Opera might have chosen the G-search-engine over Yahoo (which was made the default search engine on Opera's mobile browsers a year ago) following countless complaints from consumers who were unhappy they couldn't make Google the default browser page. Moreover, Google has been the default search option on Opera's desktop browser for many years, so it's somehow natural that it now became the default for mobile browsers too.

"Google and Opera have established a valuable relationship over the years and we look forward to continued collaboration on mobile products," said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera. "With 2008 poised to be the year the mobile Web goes mainstream, Google and Opera are extending this collaboration to give our users immediate access to the quality and convenience of Google's search results. We're excited to extend this productive relationship and we hope that the nearly 100 million people using our mobile products will agree."

Opera Mini and Opera Mobile are the most popular mobile browsers in the world, being used on more than 100 million handsets. Opera Mini users, for example, browse more than 1.7 billion pages monthly. Both Opera's mobile browsers offer advanced features, specially adjusted for cell phones, including Opera Zoom, Opera Link and Speed Dial.

While Google recently introduced a new and improved search engine for mobile phones, Yahoo doesn't seem to care too much about the mobile side of the Web. Should we say "too bad", or should we be happy that Google won another pseudo-battle with Yahoo?


Source: news.softpedia.com

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The first ever SMX Search Bowl took place last night and had teams from Google, Yahoo!, Ask.com, Live Search and the SEM All Star Team line up at the starting line. A fierce battle they fought, dodging trick questions prepared by Search Engine Land, but in the end the cup was all the teams wanted and everything else was just insignificant. Sort of.

Like the title says, Google won, and did that
by a landslide. At the other end of the dais was the SEM All Star Team that at one point had a negative score. 50 questions were asked, and all were more or less difficult (mostly more), and the first team that buzzed had a chance to answer. In case they got it right, points were awarded, else they were subtracted from the total.

Google's team consisted of Matt Cutts and Paul Haahr, Senior Staff Software Engineer. Microsoft's team was made up of Nathan Buggia, Lead Program Manager, and Natala Menezes, Product Manager at adCenter. Ask.com had Peter Linsley, Senior Product Mgr, Search Technology, and Gary Price, Director of Online Resources. The SEM team had Todd Friesen and Ian Lurie.

Here are a couple of questions, as were posted on Search Engine Land:

The Sunday Times sent a legal request for which news search engine to stop crawling its content:
a) Excite NewsTracker
b) News Index – the right answer
c) Wired Newsbot

Which search engine first sold sponsored links?
a) GoTo
b) Open Text – the right answer
c) Excite

Don’t be fooled that they have b) as a correct answer, it wasn’t that easy. Too bad the final results weren’t posted, I really would have enjoyed seeing the exact difference, as the search engines sent their best qualified people at the event. I guess it was a measure of the employees’ levels of knowledge about their own companies as well as the others’. Glad to see Google coming first, else they couldn’t really justify their dominant position on the market.


Source: softpedia.com

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In its race to become the runner-up on the search engine and online advertising markets, Microsoft is about to give Google a little something to chew on. The Redmond company is looking to buy Yahoo for no less the $44.6 billion. Microsoft has just announced the proposed acquisition of Yahoo for $31 per share. According to current estimates, the transaction is valued at no less than $44.6 billion and Microsoft is to offer both cash and stock. Yahoo
has been increasingly losing its position on the search engine market, as well as its audience eroded by social networks.

The latest financial results posted by the Sunnyvale Internet giant feature a consistent loss, with profit dropping to $660 million for 2007, down from $751 million in 2006. Yahoo was even preparing to lay off a reported 1,000 workers of its 14,300 workforce, after the poor financial results of the past year. Microsoft's proposed acquisition offers shareholders a 62% premium to current trading price for Yahoo! The Redmond company has presented its proposition to Yahoo's Board of Directors.

"We have great respect for Yahoo!, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market," said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft. "We believe our combination will deliver superior value to our respective shareholders and better choice and innovation to our customers and industry partners."

"Our lives, our businesses, and even our society have been progressively transformed by the Web, and Yahoo! has played a pioneering role by building compelling, high-scale services and infrastructure," said Ray Ozzie, chief software architect at Microsoft. "The combination of these two great teams would enable us to jointly deliver a broad range of new experiences to our customers that neither of us would have achieved on our own."

Yahoo has failed to officially respond or comment on the acquisition proposal from Microsoft. Still, it is clear that the Redmond company will not hesitate in the least to cough up no less than $44.6 billion for Yahoo. The aims is of course the online advertising market, which is estimated to double in the next couple of years, from $40 billion in 2007 to nearly $80 billion by 2010. Microsoft revealed that the move to buy Yahoo was made as a measure to counter Google and its increasing dominance over the online advertising market.

"The combined assets and strong services focus of these two companies will enable us to achieve scale economics while reaching R&D critical mass to deliver innovation breakthroughs," said Kevin Johnson, president of the Platforms & Services Division of Microsoft. "The industry will be well served by having more than one strong player, offering more value and real choice to advertisers, publishers and consumers."

Source: news.softpedia.com

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They’ve kept a low profile so far, but when they came up with it, it was well worth it. The Google Lat Long Blog comes with a post from Wei Luo, a senior GIS Specialist detailing all of the changes and updates that have happened. In decreasing order, based on the level of how exciting the additions are, here they come:

First, they’ve made tremendous work with the roads
in 26 countries, adding and updating to have everything up to date in Russia, Malaysia, Thailand, Aruba, Bahamas, Belize, Bermuda, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, St. Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Bodies of water will be labeled in whatever language you have the Google Earth software set to, and places names in Taiwan, Russia, Australia, New Zealand Brazil and Turkey will be labeled in their local language. Not very cool, but definitely useful for non-English speakers that want to use Google Earth.

National Geographic, one of their more popular layers, has been expanded to three new continents, Europe, Asia and South America. I don’t know if you understand the magnitude of that, but as an example, they have included everything, "from China's fearsome Taklimakan Desert, where Marco Polo traveled, to the hyacinth macaws of Brazil." I think it’s too much to ask for a complete Discovery History layer, right?

And last but by no means least, a team of USGS scientists have put some work into re-engineering the Earthquake layer to provide better and more accurate information. If you want to, you could even zoom out further enough and observe that quakes most often happen where tectonic plates meet / collide and, by following the line of such natural catastrophes, you easily see the boundaries of the plates. Now, I'd look at it, and I will, especially because every site is linked to information about the magnitude, depth and date of the earthquake.

Source: news.softpedia.com

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Google reported that the problem which some of the AdSense users had been encountering, that of not being able to login to their accounts, was found a reason and a workaround until further action is to be taken, but more about this a bit further down the page.

The error, "Welcome! You're signed in to Google
Accounts under the email [your email address] and your Google Account password, but this is not a valid AdSense login," is caused by the same password being used for both the Gmail account and the AdSense one. That is said to be the reason in 99.9 percent of the cases, so if you encountered it, you’d better go and change your password for one of the two.

Arlene Lee, with the AdSense Publisher support, has provided the first method of doing so, "first ensure that you're logged out of Google Accounts for any other products you use, such as Gmail or AdWords. Then, change your AdSense password at https://www.google.com/adsense/assistlogin. You’ll be asked to submit your login email address to us, and we’ll then send a reset link to that address. When changing your AdSense password, please be sure to select a unique password that you’re not using with any other Google product. After you've changed your AdSense password, please try logging in again at www.google.com/adsense."

What I said I’d get back to is the fact that the workaround is not actually a solution in the traditional way. That comes to be because the Google plan to create global profiles has not been set in motion yet. Once that happens, there will be just one account and one password for all of the services used, courtesy of the Mountain View-based company. Until then, just be sure you don't make the mistake above, even if it's easier to remember just one password.

source : news.softpedia.com

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