Best Damn Tech Show, Period.

Redlasso.com (Jim McCusker), Rachel. Schmidt, Drdrew

Best Damn News Headlines
Answering question from last week as to 4th most popular search engine….AOL
Google extends lead over competition last month growing to 61.6 percent, up from 59.8 percent in March seemingly proving unstoppable. Also proving that even a merger between Yahoo and Microsoft would not be enough to topple the giant.

Larry Page made the trip to Washington to appeal to the powers-that-be for access to the unused TV whitespace in an attempt to blanket the whole country with free wifi. He also talked up a possible Yahoo-Google deal citing a near monopoly in communications if Microsoft and Yahoo were to bed together.

Microsoft launches cash for search service that pays users a rebate for buying products they found through the company’s Windows Live search engine. Gates claims that MS will partner with more than 700 retailers including eBay Inc, Barnes & Noble, Sears and Home Depot.

The One Laptop per Child program is planning to resume its BOGOF program where users can purchase the laptop and donate one to a third world child. They announced plans for the 2nd gen, dubbed XO that should be closer to the $100 goal. They also announced a partnership with Microsoft to offer their operating system for cheap (but not cheap enough at this stage as they still have to work out the licensing agreement.) They also have a new domain at www.laptop.org

Schmidt faced
http://badvista.fsf.org/blog/don-t-give-microsoft-the-remote-control
Microsoft plays a little too nice with the FCC.

Iris on the Virus
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/05/22/vulnerabilities-in-ical-pose-potential-security-risk

Tech Tips

Around the World Wide Web
Europe is planning a ‘big brother’ campaign in a bid to counter terrorism. Their plan includes the creation of a digital vault which will contain information on every email, internet visit and phone call. This central repository will be made available to Home Office officials.

Tech this out
- This one straight from the “Oh my God, this is the biggest news ever!” files. Facebook is planning a redesign. They’re talking about tabs folks. http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=509854&id=21073243776#pid=509854
- Napster launched its new mp3 store touting some 6 million unprotected tracks not without its bugs though
- HP launches a green initiative for printers…the HP DeskJet D2545 Printer is made almost entirely out of recycled plastic.
- Mahaolo are opening up to everyone. The editors will be monitoring but anyone can edit content.
- Speilberg has entered the gaming arena with Boom Blox. Teaming up with EA, it has been described as “This is a wacky, addictive puzzle game with precious little story and surprisingly bland characters”

Drewmors

Site of the Week
http://www.howcast.com/
http://ww.redlasso.com

Best Damn News Headlines
CBS BUYS online media company CNET for $1.8bill

ReadBurner Partners with Netvibes
- Drew talks about it

Ask (IACI) Buys Dictionary.com for $100m

Verizon have announced plans to adopt an open source platform for their phones but will be backing Linux over google’s android

MySpace fake user Lori drew, who allegedly helped create a fake MySpace account to contact neighbour Megan Meier who thought she was chatting with a 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans which ended up in the hanging death of Megan has officially been charged with “one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorisation to obtain information to inflict emotional distress.”

Public pressure (and what they call potential copyright infringement) has forced the folks at Sega to pull a marketing website/video for their new game “Offset the evil” by using a campaign that resembled the My Little Pony character. As a result of the backlash they decided “we thought it would be a good time to take it down and move the campaign onto the next stage.”

Yahoo launched its new SearchMonkey platform for developers to add extra features link ratings, add images like a facebook photo aimed at improving the user experience, kickstarting it with the SearchMonkey developer Challenge awarding up to $10,000 for the top apps. These “enhanced results” will apparently replace the current search results.

Finally, Google is continuing to roll out (although there is a waiting list) FriendConnect with the aim of integrating social features like blogging and feedback forms without requiring the skills of a developer. On the other end MySpace, Yahoo and Ebay have jumped on to the OpenID option. One platform not accepting of the Google initiative is Facebook…for his opinion on such issues…

Schmidt faced
Facedbook bans Google Friend Connect:
Facebook is all about openness and data portability, as long as that doesnt involve openness or portability of data, it seems. Today they wrote a long 7 paragraph blog post to get a single point across: Facebook has banned Googles Friend Connect access to the Facebook API. They claim that Google’s use of the data goes against their policies and wants to work with Google to cometo an agreement, however Facebook’s application distributes their info in a similar fashion.

Iris on the Virus
Safari 'carpet bombing' vulnerability. Apple says 'meh'

Tech Tips

Around the World Wide Web
While Google is starting to blur certain images on their street view option here in the US, they’re launching street view in the EU amid privacy concerns. According to one source in France “Unlike in the US, we are mostly beautiful people but we do have some uglies. Generally we like to hide the uglies but with something like this Google streetview, it will be difficult”.

Tech this out
- Comcast has acquired Plaxo
- ComScore data has Google jumping to the head of the class by overtaking Yahoo as the most popular website in the US as determined by the number of unique monthly visitors.
- Amazon is taking some interest in Animoto, the very cool music video creator
- Flash 10 has been made available for public testing

Tech Biffo
I can’t decide who the biffo is between, Myspace and the “Spam Kings” or the Spam King to Spam King for the Spam King title. Self proclaimed “Spam King” Sanford Wallace plus another self-proclaimed “Spam King” Walter Rines has been ordered to pay $230 million to MySpace for hijacking other people’s MySpace pages or setting up their own and sending over 700,000 junk messages to members. Meanwhile another self-proclaimed “Spam King” Scott Richter is being pursued by the News Corp giant.

Site of the Week
www.offsettheevil.com

Best Damn News
Following their failed bid on Yahoo, Microsoft is giving Facebook a bit of a poke to see if they’ll poke back over the possibility of a full acquisition. While they already claim $240 million investment in the company, values are being thrown around in the ballpark of $15 billion.

As anticipated, Grand Theft Auto smashed all sorts of sales records, raking in some $500 million in its first week. The Hooker and Prostitutes Union (HPU) have now changed their tune, now staking a claim in the success of the game. “Even though the game depicts violence against us, it’s all true and now it gives us an extra element of credibility” says Lindy LaLa the union’s spokeperson. Now a new group has come out against the game, RAD (Russians Against Defamation) are complaining that “in the game Russians are depicted in a bad way” they go on to say that “not all Russians are that ugly” citing Baryshnikov, Kournikova and Sharapova as examples. Plus, only 70% of Russians regularly wear sweat suits. (Side note, most copies sold on XBOX)

MySpace launches “Open Availability”, data share with Yahoo, Ebay and Twitter, et al.

http://mashable.com/2008/05/08/breaking-myspace-announces-data-availability-with-yahoo-ebay-and-others/

Pownce says game on with shared files in friend streams, and more storage space for everyone. Competitor to box.net, ups the game on twitter.

Drewmors

Microsoft trying to buy Facebook now that they’ve dumped Yahoo at the arranged marriage alter?
Do they really want FACEBOOK or do they want Mark Zuckerburg (or both?). Zuckerburg the next Bill Gates? Long term CEO? Ballmer/Gates’ Successor?

The debate on Net Neutrality rages on. Also raging on…

Schmidt faced

Senators to ISP’s: “Think twice” about ‘Net neutrality or else.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080506-senator-to-isps-think-twice-about-net-neutrality-or-else.html

Years ago, Congress began protecting ISPs from the twin threats of regulation and taxation; in return, ISPs were expected to deliver an unimpeded connection to the Internet. A move away from a neutral ‘Net would undermine the “very philosophical underpinnings of what we fought for for the last 15 years,” according to Ron Wyden (D-OR). If that happens, he sees no reason for Congress to continue sheltering ISPs.

Iris on the Virus
Chinese cyber attacks
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/08/belgium_india_china_warnings/

Tech Tip
Getting away from your PC

Tech this out
More proof that hackers are generally assholes….the website for the epilepsy foundation was recently hacked with the intent on causing seizures. They exploited a vulnerability in the publishing software that would barrage the users with a lot of flashing images and bright colors.

The MPAA has won a victory against TorrentSpy, claiming a $110 million judgement and permanent injunction for distribution of pirated video. As a result TorrentSpy has shut up shop.

Sites of the week

www.Domize.com
www.Xkcd.com

Flemo's back from Australia!

Happy Birthday to the Internet!

Microsoft struggles with XP SP3 and Vista.

eBay vs. CraigsList

Hookers Pissed Off over Grand Theft Auto 4 (IV).

CrudWare Company Sues despite sucking ass.

BBC uncovers Facebook flaw

Justin.tv Representative pisses off Podcamp community.