AMCP Tech Blog

Microsoft just released the second beta update for Windows Media Player 11, which provides some performance improvements, bug fixes, and integration with Windows Media Connect within the program. In the release notes, Microsoft commented that users can now automatically share their WMP libraries with compatible devices over a wireless network. Although you might not be seeing as many noticeable improvements in this latest beta build, integration is still in progress with URGE, a joint initiative between Microsoft and MTV to provide a music download service to compete with Apple Computer’s iTunes. You can now download it via Microsoft's website.

The fact that Microsoft has yet to add a podcast directory to WMP 11, similar to iTunes, which would allow me to subscribe and manage my podcasts on my portable devices, is still my biggest complaint about the program - And the reason why I don’t use it. I understand that the term “podcast” helps promote the iPod (notice the “pod” in each word?), but maybe Microsoft will find success by simply appealing to commonly used Internet jargon. Now, with a Microsoft-made media device on the horizon, named Zune, Microsoft could refit the word “podcast” to fit Zune. Maybe, a “zunecast”?

iPod manufacturer, Foxconn, has sued a report and an editor working at a Chinese newspaper, claiming that they tarnished their company's image by publishing an article about the poor working conditions. Wang You, a reporter for China Business News, and Weng Bao, an editor at the newspaper, are both being sued by the company for around $3.77 million. But, it got worse when Foxconn has the Chinese courts freeze the personal assets for both Wang You and Weng Bao. Recently, Apple Computer completed an audit of Foxconn for their working conditions and said that everything checked out - So did Foxconn have the right to sue these two men?

While I'm a big supporter of free speech and the right to speak your mind freely, which really isn't in the norm in China, these journalists did make libelous statements in their publication (See some of the discussion at iLounge). In the United States, you can be taken to court for libelous statements, but it can be easily dropped for a number of reasons, such as comment on a important public issue, fact, or opinion. Personally, I would of preferred if Foxconn sent a cease-and-desist letter as a warning before suing them. I'm interested to find out what's your thoughts on this issue? Did Foxconn do the right thing?

Google's CEO and former Novel CEO, Dr. Eric Schmidt, has joined the board of directors Apple Computer, joining others including Al Gore and Jerry York. Although you might think that this brings even more tension on Microsoft vs. Google blood fest (The recent news about Google's supposed "Office-killer" has everyone up in arms), I question Schmidt's motives. Afterall, Google and Apple do offer a handful of competing services, such as Google Video, which competes with Apple's iTunes Music Store offering television programs.

However, I can still see Steve Balmer's face white as he thinks of the possibilities surrounding this recent news. Microsoft "Zune" device, a digital media player that is thought to be Microsoft's stab at the iPod's success, isn't even public yet and is sure to draw out an even bigger battle between him and King Jobs when it's finally released. Sure, Microsoft has the budget to market the thing to Hell, but Apple has the brilliant marketing team. But, as tech-gossip website, ValleyWag, puts it, "This has to be a lousy day at Microsoft HQ."

With Schmidt on the board, he could leverage deals with Apple to offer even tighter integration between the two companies (Google Talk integrated with Mac OS X anyone?). iTunes gets integrated with Google Pack, a group of software that Google suggests for Windows users; It would be a great way to get the software that made me want to kill myself (Twice, count it!) onto everyone's computers! Maybe you'd want to sit down and use an integrated blogging tool in Mac OS X that's hooked up with Google's Blogger service. The possibilities for Google/Apple integration seems endless. But one thing is for sure, this could be one bad day for media companies around the world...

Blog network giant, Gawker Media, is planning to launch a music-focused blog sometime in the next few weeks, according to a scoop by Blogebrity. Going under the name Idolator (Which is currently password-protected), the blog will focus on everything concerning music. You can also read Google's cache of two preview posts from Idolator.

After a glitch on their Canadian website, Microsoft accidentally posted the prices for Windows Vista, with the top-of-the-line version running up as high as $499 for a full upgrade. Although the Canadian prices are generally higher than their United State's counterparts (Because of conversion rates), it still shows that Microsoft is planning to charge a considerable amount of money to upgrade to better versions of Vista. Besides the Ultimate Edition, Windows Vista Business (Which will be similar to Windows XP Professional) will cost about $249 CDN for the upgrade and $379 CDN for the full version. Microsoft quickly removed the prices and has yet to comment on the situation. However, you can read a run-down of the prices over at ZDNet's Microsoft Report written by Ed Bott, who thinks that the prices aren't that bad considering there isn't a price increase for the Home Edition.

Update: Microsoft Monitor writes that it wasn't just Microsoft that slipped the prices, but Amazon was guilty also. They have yet to remove the prices - Go check it out!

Yahoo! has killed off its blog search service, which was once integrated with Yahoo! News, according to one report. After taking a quick look at the Yahoo! News homepage, I've confirmed that they did remove the blog search feature. However, Kevin Burton notes that larger blogs, such as Defamer and Huffington Post, are still in the index for search results (Check out a search for Tom Cruise). On the other hand, many other blogs are no longer in the index. Is Yahoo! setting up to release a stand-alone blog search service, such as Google Blog Search? Or, is this a way of integrating Yahoo! services into search results, such as when they integrated Flickr photos with search results?

AllPeers launched the beta version of their peer-to-peer application yesterday, which allow friends and family to privately share files in a private setting. Unlike many other P2P service which are later sued out of existence, AllPeers will allow users to share files privately and securely. Released in the form of a Mozilla Firefox extension, it will be compatible with Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. AllPeers uses a combination of BitTorrent and "darknet", which will keep users anonymous while transferring files, to operate. Although the beta version is still missing a handful of releases that will make it in the initial version, such as chat, comments, tagging, and support for external torrents, it's still a solid offering.

The RIAA and MPAA have been shutting down P2P networks for years, and LimeWire was one of their recent victims. However, because of how AllPeers is built, it would be very difficult to shut it down. AllPeers doesn't use a centralized service (LimeWire, BearShare, and others did), which will means that it will be impossible to track what files are being transferred. Instead, it will rely on the smaller networks created by users. In a recent blog posting, CEO Cedric Maloux stressed the fact that AllPeers was for private transfer only. "AllPeers is for sharing privately with friends and family; not for massively distributing files amongst strangers," he said.

End your weekend with a list of our favorite news items from around the 'Web, as well as websites that we find interesting. Welcome to "The Friday Linker". Have any cool news items that you think should be here? E-mail Alex Morganis with your suggestions...

Tech News:

• MySpace the Magazine?: MySpace might become a print magazine that would be written by Nylon, and would cover everything from culture and music to fashion. You might also be interested in MySpace, The Movie (Thanks Bloggers Blog!).
  
• Answer Quiz - Recieve Vista Beta 2: For those of you who haven't gotten a chance to get your own copy of Vista, now you can after taking a quick quiz on the Microsoft India website. Once you log into your Passport account and provide shipping details, Microsoft will send you a free copy of Vista. Sweet!
• Gmail adds .mp3 Playback: Google's Gmail service never stops impressing me; They've been adding new features left-and-right that expand the functionality endlessly. Now, when you send or receive an attachment with an .mp3 file, Gmail will give you the ability to play right within the client.
• Firefox welcomes Microsoft's offer of help: On Tuesday, Microsoft invited Mozilla developers to make Firefox compatible with Windows Vista. Now ZDNet reports that they have accepted the invitation and will be working with Microsoft.
  

Pure Cool:

• What does your browser reveal about you?: You would be surprised to discover that the browser you use might give us a look into your personality. The author takes the time to talk about IE, Firefox, Opera, Netscape, AOL, Konqueror, and more. Check out this amusing article to discover who you are based on what type of browser you use!
  
• Funny Math: Ready to fall off your chair in laughter when looking at some hilarious math equations? Even after a cup of coffee, some of these don't even make sense! (For my fellow math nerds out there!)
  
• Swift: Do you enjoy using Apple Computer's Safari browser, but want to stay the Hellz away from Mac OS X? Now you can with a Windows application that looks and acts like Safari. Now that shows how much free time you have!
• Busty Mouse: Are you looking for a mouse that not only performs well, but also looks great? The Busty Mouse has two buttons and a scroll wheel which are part of...Err...The female anatomy. I know exactly who to give this to in my family...
• Firefox using up 1.5 gigs of RAM: Many Firefox users will know that Firefox is a memory-eating program - Using a handful of extensions and browsing for hours makes Firefox eat away megabyte after megabyte, but who knew that it could drain 1.5GB of RAM? That's why we restart our Windows systems folks! Once a day is the golden rule!
• Hacking Wireless Networks With The PSP: This poor guy was caught playing Tekken: Dark Ressurection outside of a federal building in his car. The police arrested him for being a possible terrorist. According to them, he could of been activating a bomb or hacking into a network to steal passwords and credit card information. Ouch.
  

Yahoo! has begun to integrate photos from Flickr into their search results, allowing users to shift through the masses of photos stored on Flickr. However, this feature is limited to a small number of keywords, but Yahoo! commented that they're planning to expand it in the future. Try searching for interesting photos, which brings up everything from artistic paintings to plants, or funny photos, which shows two kittens fighting it out (Look how cute they are! C'mon!). You can also find photos from the various photography groups located on Flickr, such as travel photography, nature photography, or black and white photography.

AllPeers, a Firefox extension that will allow you to share files with other users, is getting ready to be released for public testing, according to the company's blog. The much-anticipated service will offer innovative drag-and-drop functionality and combine that with a social network. Michael Copeland from CNN wrote a great profile of the company behind AllPeers, which is based in Oxford, England (You may hear that the company is based in Prague, but that's only because the development team is), and Michael Arrington got a chance to test it out in January. Now, they're ready to let the masses test it out after receiving funding from Mangrove Partners and Index Ventures, and getting positive feedback from beta testers. (Thanks Paul for hooking me up with an invite!)

Microsoft's NotForNoobs teaser website turned out as expected, promoting a partnership between Microsoft and Razor. Now the two companies are promoting their first product to hit the market since they teamed up, the Habu Mouse, which will appeal to serious gamers. The new mouse sports a 2,000 DPI laser engine (As well as a tool to change the sensitivity for the laser), a motion detection, several programmable buttons, and on-board memory to store game information. Like many available gaming mice, the Habu is wired, by Microsoft commented that the thin wire will make it seem as if the gamer is using a wireless mouse. Expected to hit shelves sometime in October, the Habu will run you up at $69.95.

Microsoft also introduced the IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0, boasting that it offered 9,000 frames per second, a Precision Booster, and gaming toggle. Although it's also expected to be released in October, it will only cost $39.95. However, gamers looking for a controller that offers a console-like experience will need to wait until the Holiday Season, when Microsoft is expected to release a Windows version of the Xbox 360 mouse. With a 30-foot range, an integrated headphone jack for PC headsets, and vibration, the mouse will be priced at $59.95. (Thanks to Siddhartha Gandhi for pointing this out!)

It appears that Dell might have pulled the plug on their digital music player, the DJ Ditty, after it disappeared from the company's online store. The Ditty, a flash-based player that was meant to compete with the iPod Shuffle, was offered by Dell after they removed their hard-drive line of Mp3 players. iLounge notes that the Dell DJ Life website displays links that lead to error pages when trying to order the device - And Dell's online store now sells players from Sandisk, Samsung, Creative, Archos, and iRiver. Now members of the Dell Messaging boards are saying that it can no longer be found in the Dell catalog, and was briefly offered earlier this month at a discounted price. Could Apple Computer's dominance in the digital music player market lead Dell to remove their offerings?

You can now download several ABC News programs using Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store, Disney revealed today. Among the new programs added, you can now find old Barbara Walters interviews, specials, and footage of recent major events at $1.99 per show. The offerings are grouped into three categories: "ABC News Specials", "The Day It Happened", and "Celebrity Flashback." This brings the number of television programs offering on iTunes from Disney up to six, including ABC, ABC Family, Disney Channel, Jetix and SOAPnet. Turner Broadcasting also added Cartoon Network and Adult Swim to iTunes earlier this month.

In a surprising move, Microsoft's open source lab sent an invitation to Mozilla developers to make sure that Firefox and Thunderbird run on Windows Vista. This is part of a weekly lab hosted by the Redmond-based company to help software developers increase application compatibility in Microsoft's software. Throughout each week in December, Microsoft will be holding a Windows Vista Readiness ISV Lab. Although Mozilla Firefox is Internet Explorer's biggest competition, Microsoft still feeds that it's important to nurture the developer ecosystem. While Mozilla hasn't publicly responded (So far, no Mozilla employees have posted anything about this matter), it is said that they're in contact with Microsoft.

As Microsoft prepares to release Windows Vista RC1, there remains the important process of making sure that applications previously build on Windows XP, work on Vista. As BetaNews points out, customers won't upgrade to Vista if applications won't work. To combat this growing problem, Microsoft has begun to work with developers directly. I'm impressed that Microsoft is taking the time to make sure that the transition period for software developers is as painless as possible. Not only is Microsoft doing this, but they're working with one of their biggest competitors in the browser market. With over 12% of the whole browser market under their belt, Mozilla represents the formidable come-back of the open source community.

Update: M-Dollar provides some more information and points to an e-mail sent by Sam Ramjii, Director of Microsoft's Open Source Software Lab, asking Mozilla developers if they would like to meet with Microsoft.

Adam Kalsey, founder and former CTO of Pheedo, has launched a new service called Feed Crier, which will deliver real-time RSS updates using popular instant messaging programs. Although Feed Crier only supports AIM, Kalsey noted that he was planning to support other programs, such as Yahoo! Messenger, MSN/Live Messenger, and Jabber. The basic service, which allows up to four feeds, is free - While the premium subscribers can receive unlimited amounts of feeds, remove the advertisements in alerts, and use a Web interface to manage their feeds. Even though there are other services that offer the same functionality, $4 per month isn't very steep.

Marshall Kirkpatrick notes that there are handful of other competitors, including Immedi.at, Zaptxt, and Rasasa. Many of these services mentioned aren't limited to AIM, and offer even more advanced features than Feed Crier, such as auto-discovery of feeds and SMS and e-mail alerts. Rasasa, with its "push technology", is rumored to be one of the best services around. Feed Crier might be able to stand up to these already-established services by providing to other companies. Tailrank, a popular meme-tracker created by Kevin Burton, and TagJag, a popular meta-search engine run by Chris Pirillo, have already signed up to provide IM alerts to their users.

Television is an excellent form of entertainment that can keep children memorized for hours on end. Although some people might think that excessively watching television is harmful, researchers in Italy have confirmed that watching television is a pain-killer for small children. Researchers took children who would need a hypodermic needle, and found the distracting factor of television helped to reduce the pain. The study involved 72 children, between the ages of 7-12. Surprisingly, children who were watching television reported 50 percent less pain than the ones who were being soothed by their parents, when stuck with a needle to draw blood (Talk about a strange way to prove a hypothesis!).

The study also showed that parents attempting to sooth their children often back-fired, due to the fact that soothing the children meant that it was a pretty serious situation. However, the fact that television is being used as a distraction shows that this pain-killing power might not be limited to television - But anything that can cause children to become distracted, such as story-telling of video games. Engadget goes even father and suggests that if we try this experiment with adults, we might now find the same results. The memorizing factor of certain things might only be limited to children. Television: 1. The man: 0!

End your weekend with a list of our favorite news items from around the 'Web, as well as websites that we find interesting. Welcome to "The Friday Linker". Have any cool news items that you think should be here? E-mail Alex Morganis with your suggestions...

Tech News:

• Optimizing your blog for search engines: There are many things that make someone a good blogger, but optimizing your blog is one of the most important. Knowing what search engines look for will bring you one step closer to becoming the next Robert Scoble! In the meantime, however, you can read Neil Patel's tips for getting your blog on the top of the search results.
• Boeing exits in-flight broadband: Being able to work and call friends using Skype was a reality on Boeing flights, but now the aerospace company has decieded to pull the plug on their in-flight broadband service. Why did it die off? Blame the lack of income (Really, who wants to pay $30 for a 2-hour flight of WiFi?).
  
• Google Opens Online Word Processor: The online word processing service that was bought out by Google in March, Writely, now allows anyone to sign-up and use the service. If you're looking for a great, free alternative to Microsoft Office, look no futher.
• Top Spanish Web 2.0 Apps: The Web 2.0 movement isn't exclusive to just the United States. Richard MacManus shows us some of the top Spanish Web 2.0 services around.
  

Pure Cool:

• Web2.0 Logo Creator: Steve Rubel points out a new service that allows you to create Web 2.0 logos using a PHP-based generator. The author even allows you to add a "Beta" tag to the logo. You can see the logo I made for this blog here.
• Yahoo Easter Egg: Many websites may contain "Easter Eggs", a hidden message or feature (You can read more about Easter Eggs on WikiPedia). Now, one has been discovered on the Yahoo! homepage. Go to Yahoo.com, and click on the "!" and you'll hear the Yahoo! Yodel.
  
• How do you Remove ads from Geocities?: Ever wonder how to get those annoying advertisements off of your GeoCities page? Now Paul Potnuru, a teenage blogger, has created a script that will allow you to do just that. Don't you just love script kiddies?
• PodTube v1.0: YouTube is one of the best video-sharing websites around, so why not put those haliourous Star Wars videos on your iPod? With 1-click, you can easily add any YouTube video onto your iPod.
• You're On Notice!: I'm not sure if any of you watch Steve Colbert's, The Colbert Report, but someone has taken the time to allow anyone to create a fun way to put anything up there and display it as, "You're On Notice!". You can see the one I made here (Try to see who belongs to which company!).
• 10 Definitions of Web 2.0: I often talk about Web 2.0 (I think I've said it over 20 times in just this post!), but are you still in the dark about the whole thing? Read up on it at Twopointouch.
  

A new marketing website has launched, known as Not For Noobs, that appears to be a teaser to an upcoming gaming device by Microsoft and Razer, a hardware production company. While no other information was provided by the website (I also took a deep look at the source code, and found no other hints), it hints at more details come next Friday. Both Microsoft and Razer's logos appear in the static on a plastic television. BetaNews points out that Razer makes peripherals for professional gamers, including high-end mice and sound cards - Leading to more speculation about what this device might be.

Although the website doesn't offer anymore clues, I decided to take the search into the next step. I did a WhoIs look-up, a service that allows you to see who or what company registered the domain, and a GoDaddy.com message told me that the information was private. It also appears that someone, either Microsoft or Razor, are using Proxy, a service that helps to make sure no one finds out about the company behind a website. Is this a possible gaming device from Microsoft? Or is it someone just going through the troubles of trying to pull a prank? We'll see, next Friday.

Update: Gizmodo gives us even more of a reason to believe that Microsoft is behind this website, by pointing out that "noob" is most commonly used in gaming (Man, I should of known that!). Sean Alexander, a Microsoft employee, has internally confirmed that this is a Microsoft marketing attempt and it is legitimate. More news as the story develops.

After nearly a year since the software's release, Google has introduced a handful of new features for its instant messaging program, Google Talk. Once your version automatically updates, you'll be able to file-share with other Google Talk users by simply dropping files or entire folders into the client and show your music status to show what you're currently listening to (Yahoo! Messenger also offers a similar feature that it integrated with its music service, LAUNCHcast). But, Google has taken the music status feature to a whole new, social level by integrating Google Trends to show what's the most listened to music on the Google Talk network. But, what if you want to talk to your friend, but he's offline? Now you can leave a voicemail, which can last up to 10 minutes (Note that Google has already been testing this feature with a select number of people).

Although Google Talk has a reportedly small user-base (I highly doubt those numbers though), Google and AOL will make their two IM service interoperatable, as a result of the $1 billion investment by Google in December. This move will be made to counter the Yahoo-Microsoft partnership which allowed Yahoo! Messenger users to IM MSN/Live Messenger users, which was announced in November 2005 but finally released in July. Google is already interoperatable with other services which use XMPP (Commonly known as Jabber, an open protocol). All I know is one thing, I better see these new features come to Google Chat in Gmail, Google's popular e-mail service.

Microsoft isn't the only software company that has a knack for delaying software - Now the Mozilla Corporation has said that they're pushing the Firefox 2.0 release date back to mid-to-late October, with Beta 2 slated for August 23. Previously, Firefox 2.0 was meant to be released this month, but last-minute bugs and security issues have led to a number of delays. Mozilla is currently working on resolving over 40 bugs before releasing Beta 2 for public testing. Before releasing the final version of Firefox 2.0, Mozilla is planning three major release candidates with visual tweaks and new graphics.

Local Mozilla Firefox fans in Oregon have teamed up with the same team that created the Firefox mural from Cornstarch and Kool-aid to create a crop circle that is now visible from space. Completed in under 24 hours, the crop circle was constructed in an oat field near Amity, Oregon and measures in at a diameter of 220 feet. The team working on the crop circle consisted of 12 people, mainly Oregon State University students. However, there were a number of Google and Mozilla employees there, such as Asa Dotzler and Chris Dibona.

This isn't the first time Mozilla Firefox fans teamed up and promoted Firefox on a grand scale. In December 2004, fans funded a two-page advertisement, 1 page bigger than originally planned, in The New York Times. That same month, European fans in Germany raised more than $93 thousand dollars to place advertisement in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a popular German magazine. Like the advertisement in The New York Times, it featured the names of everyone that donated money towards the cause. There have been numerous other fund-raisers recently, such as the Firefox weather balloon.

After nearly nine months of testing, Google has finally launched GoogleFi, its own WiFi networking protocol which will be used in Mountain View, California. The network, which cost nearly $1 million to build, covers over 11.5 square miles; Offering 380 access points throughout Mountain View. GigaOm has said that Google is currently offering speeds of a one-megabit per second connection for everyone, but might tweak the connection depending on how people use the service. So, if people are watching a lot of online videos or calling friends using Skype, they might increase the capacity. Although GoogleFi was designed by Google engineers, WFI, a San Diego-based company, installed it throughout the city.

Could this be the move that will allow Google to expand their WiFi offerings across the United States? Chris Sacca, Head of Special Initiatives at Google, noted in the GigaOm article that Google hasn't participated in any WiFi expansion moves. For example, the Smart Valley project, which will provide WiFi coverage across the Silicon Valley Bay Area. However, John Markoff from the New York Times gives us more compelling reasons to believe that Google's in no position to go national. He says that Google is doing this to demonstrate the value of competition in providing Internet access, and later points out that there would be no Net Neutrality if there was more competitive Internet access providers.

My thoughts point out that the cost would ultimately limit were Google could operate WiFi networks. If Google wanted to add WiFi networks to the ten major cities in the US, including Boston, New York City, Chicago, Miami, Detroit, and Los Angles to name a few, then it would easily cost them over $10 million. I'm sure that Google isn't willing to spend that (Maybe they are, so they won't have to pay so much taxes) just for the local advertising revenue or for the sake of competitive Internet providers. Whatever Google's plans might be, I'd be up for free WiFi access!

On Monday, Google took the wrapping off of the new version of Blogger, which adds a number of new features that will give competitors a run for their money. Google is selecting a handful of Blogger users to start testing out the beta version - And if you're chosen, you'll see the link on your Blogger Dashboard. You can test out the new Blogger Beta by setting up an account and starting a new blog at Beta.Blogger.com. Please note that setting up a new account on Blogger Beta requires a Google Account or the creation of a Google Account. In the future, Google will integrate the two. With the beta version, users will be allowed to categorize posts with labels, control who reads their blog with privacy settings, modify without needing to edit the HTML, and the addition of new templates. You can read more about Blogger Beta at TechCrunch, Blogger's Blog, and Mashable.

Within the past few months, Google has been sending out letters to media organizations with a strange motivation - Google wants them to stop using the "Googling" in their articles. The letters, which all seem to have the same content, define it as okay to say: "I used Google to check out that guy I met at the party", but taboo to say "I Googled that hottie". When asked for an explanation, a Google spokeswoman noted that Google feels that it's important to make a distinction between Google, the Internet search engine, and Google, to generally describe searching the Internet. Some think that it all surrounds trademark issues.

Google's behavior in this issue is horrible. They do have a point. If "Google" becomes a verb it will become commonplace, and if it becomes commonplace people will behave as if it is not a trademark, and Google will face a serious threat to their brand. However, now that Google has begun to turn into a verb, it cannot be stopped, and Google is going to make a fool out of itself trying to stop that progress. Google should be glad that it has become a part of the English language, which is a big deal, and stop being so literal. The letter's attempt to be "cool" is pretty pathetic, and is ruined by the overall message. The fact that Google is allowing lawyers to dictate company policy in regard to the brand name telegraphs to me Google's abandonment of their idealistic "Don't be evil" motto, and their complete transformation from a "cool" fringe tech company into a mainstream corporate giant -- like Microsoft.

Userplane, a Flash-based messaging service, has been acquired by AOL for an undisclosed sum. Userplane uses a combination of Flash and AJAX to offer text, video, and audio chatting right within your browser. Using the company's Webrecorder service, these chats can be recorded and stored for later use. Although Userplane doesn't land in the headlines, it has had some very important clients, including Friendster, Date.com, and Red Bull. By appealing to social networking service, Userplane's technology is now used on over 100,000 websites in 25 countries. Now that AOL offers many of their services for free, it should be interesting how they plan to actually support Userplane. As Marshall Kirkpatrick explains, a compelling user experience is required to get advertisers to support a product. Although I've never used Userplane's service previously, I'm sure that integrating it with other AOL products, such AIM Pages and UnCut, will be the best path to choose.

Microsoft has long been called the "Evil Empire", a play on the Imperial Empire in Star Wars, for its monopolistic business practices. On the other hand, Google has always pointed out their "Don't be Evil" policy - But it seems like the shoe might be on the other...Err...foot in this case. The Economist is running an article comparing Google to Napoleon; Pitting the forces of Yahoo!, Microsoft, eBay, and others against Google, the Napoleonic France. Although some might not take find history interesting, the Economist presents some important facts and comments about how Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Google are squaring off in the ultimate battle for supremacy in the search engine space (Thanks John Battelle).

Instead of taking beta tester's feedback to push back the first release candidate of Windows Vista and issue a third beta release, Microsoft has given the go-ahead to get the first release candidate ready for testing. Nick White, a Product Manager working on Vista, said that Microsoft is also planning to re-open the Vista beta program for this release. Microsoft has also noted that anyone who participated in the Customer Preview Program for Beta 2 will automatically receive RC1, and you'll have another chance to enter the beta program (Which is great for anyone who doesn't have a MSDN subscription, but are still looking to give Vista a go).

After testing out Vista for three hours straight last weekend (I'm also planning to on Saturday), I believe that Microsoft should be ramping up and starting to fix all the bugs so they can release Vista as soon as possible. I was upset when Microsoft announced that they would miss their holiday season deadline - Because we all know that that would mean much stronger sales as people headed out and bought new computers for Christmas (I blame the Product Managers). Getting Vista ready for shipping should be paramount, because not only is Microsoft planning to release a new OS soon, but so is Apple Computer...

Microsoft has released a trial version of its much-anticipated Flight Simulator X software, which will be fully optimized for Windows Vista upon launch. The demo includes two airports, three missions, and the ability to use three different aircraft. Flight Simulator X works with Windows XP SP2 and Windows Vista, and will require 14GB of hard-drive space (God, that's a boat-load of memory for one program!) and a DirectX 9 capable graphics card. Expect more airplanes, missions, and cities in the premium edition, which is expected to launch in time for the holiday season. Microsoft is also rumored to be planning an online component of the software.

Apple Computer might be considering changing the prices of individual songs purchased on its iTunes Music store, after a Digg user posted screenshots supporting the idea. Although I've been told that this screenshot might be fake, I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple raising the prices of songs on iTunes. It's no secret that Apple gives record companies more than 70 cents from each individual song purchased, and the bandwidth cost might be causing Steve Jobs to think over the pricing on iTunes. No word on when this rumor might come true (It was thought that it would during Worldwide Developers Conference, which ends on Friday). Don't take this rumor to seriously, because after-all, the rumor mill has been known to be horribly incorrect.

Microsoft announced today that it plans to ship Windows Speech Recognition in eight languages as part of Windows Vista, thought to be the first operating system to include this kind of technology. Users of Vista will be able to issue commands (Such as opening a certain file, or program, for example) dictate text in applications. Upon the release of Vista (Which is thought to be around January-July 2007), the technology will support U.S. English, U.K. English, traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, Japanese, German, French and Spanish. The Redmond-based company is also planning to allow software developers to tap into the speech API in Office Communications Server 2007, so applications can be built around the speech recognition feature. The idea behind this feature is to increase productivity by reducing the usage of the keyboard and mouse.

Update: Long Zheng has posted a screencast of Windows Speech Recognition in action, when using Windows Vista July CTP (Build 5472). Although the movie runs a little over 5 minutets, it gives you a good idea of how the software works and what kind of features to expect. And who said that the software would suck?

AOL just released a free, software-based virus scanning solution, with technology powered by Kaspersky Labs, called Active Virus Shield. The software, which can be downloaded starting today, offers real-time scanning of files and e-mails, as well as the ability to update every hour. Once installed, the software continuously monitors for threats. And, to make the process as fool-proof as possible, AOL has made sure that the software will allocate more computer resources during periods of increased use. This ensures that scanning for viruses won't cause any interference with system performance (Which is always a good thing - Many anti-virus programs are huge memory hogs). In addition, Active Virus Shield also provides an Internet Explorer toolbar which will provide real-time data on security threats, a pop-up blocker, and a link to the Whois service, a domain registration database.

This step by AOL is part of their initiative to starting offering more products for free - And security software is a great start. According to a recent survey by AOL, 56% of all Internet users have no security protection, or haven't updated their anti-virus software with the latest threats (However, this only includes the last several days). Studies have shown that computers without any protection will only last a couple of minutes on the Internet before becoming infected with some form of malware (Viruses, spyware, adware, worms, ect.). Hopefully, this new offering from AOL and Kaspersky Labs will help to make the Internet a better place.

FeedBurner, a popular RSS feed management service, is rumored to be testing out a new product slated to be released in September, called "Networks", which will group a number of blogs that are similar in category (They must also be using FeedBurner to manage their RSS feed). The idea behind Networks is to allow people to subscribe to whole categories, an RSS feed featuring content from every blog within that Network. For example, the Venture Capital network feed can be found here, and lists all of the posts from every blog in the network.

FeedBurner is planning to have respectful bloggers manage the Networks, by inviting other bloggers in the same niche topic into the Network and to make sure that only blogs that are on topic are included. However, I think that having bloggers running the Networks will end in problems. There are many blogs that cover a handful of topics, how will it get categorized into one Network? What constitutes as good editorial content? But, the biggest question is will the people actually doing the work, the content writers, get any part of the advertising revenue generated from the Network? Everyone is concerned about who's actually getting paid because of someone's work, and I think that this question will ultamitly be the cause of death to FeedBurner's new service.

Lime Group, the company behind the popular file sharing program, LimeWire, was sued by the RIAA in federal court on Friday, which accused the New York-based company of facilitating the trade of illegal music files between its users. Record labels are seeking damages, as well as $150,000 fine for every occurrence of an illegally-traded file (Man, that'll add up quick!). The RIAA claims that LimeWire's success is the result of making profits off of illegally-traded songs, noting that the company even encourages users to pirate music.

Many have said that LimeWire had its chance to come clean go legal. It was one of the several P2P services that received a letter last September threatening legal action if it didn't shut down or change to a licensed business model. Many other services, including BearShare and WinMX, exited the business. Although I haven't been a fan of many of the recent lawsuits pursued by the RIAA, such as the lawsuit against an older women accusing her of downloading music illegally (Even though she didn't even have an Internet connection), I applaud their motivation to take down many of these P2P services that continue to exist and cheat many out of download music legally.

End your weekend with a list of our favorite news items from around the 'Web, as well as websites that we find interesting. Welcome to "The Friday Linker". Have any cool news items that you think should be here? E-mail Alex Morganis with your suggestions...

Tech News:

• The New AOL: Ted Leonsis, the Vice Chairman of AOL, talks about how AOL is starting to make its important change from just another Internet service into more of a content provider and a portal in this insightful and interesting post. A great read for anyone interested in one of the oldest technology companies in the world getting ready to change its business model and shift focus to beat out the competitors.
  
• Google gets more proactive on protecting surfers: Google is starting to give a warning to users when they are about to visit a potentially malicious website through its search results. Users are referred to StopBadware.org, a website dedicated to informing people about the "badware" floating around the Internet (Which is also sponsored by Google and Sun). Good grab Alex Eckelberry!
• Yahoo Launches Corporate Blog: Joining more than a dozen other Yahoo!-run blogs, Yahoo! launched a corporate blog on August 1, titled "Yodel Anecdotal". Not only does the blog present a great look into the character of Yahoo!, but it also has an upbeat design and good integration with other Yahoo! services. Bravo!
• Put Your Money Where Your Blog Is: Betus is taking bets on which blog will end up in the #1 spot on the Technorati Top 100 list at the end of this year. Currently, they suspect Boing Boing, Engadget, TechCrunch, Matt Cutts, PostSecret, Lifehacker, Daily Kos, Scobleizer, Auto Blog, or Gawker to win. Should be interesting!
• Podcasting sampled by almost two million people: Podcasting is becoming more mainstream and more people are hearing about them and listening to them, according to this article from DigitalBulletin.
• Big Day: Matt writes in to tell us about new features that have hit Wordpress.com, including the ability to make blogs private, and customize CSS. Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger offers even more details and commentary 'bout the recent features.

Pure Cool:

• Letterman's tribute to Bill Gates and Microsoft: John Paczkowski points out this video hosted on YouTube - Short, hilarious and great for any Evil Empire lover.
• New Firefox 2 Theme Previews: The new Firefox 2.0 themes are set to be released over the weekend in nightly builds. Ryan Flint gives us a straight-up review, along with screenshots and a download link. Perfect for any Firefox user looking forward to Firefox 2.0.
• More Photos from Apple WWDC 2006: Some possible photos of the upcoming WWDC event hosted by Apple Computer.
  

Interestingly enough, the two companies I am probably most involved with in the entire nation, Google and XM Satellite Radio, have hitched up to deliver content-targeted advertisements over satellite radio to XM's 5 million subscribers. For those who don't know, XM Radio subscribers pay about $13 per month (Plus the original cost of their device) to listen to nationwide satellite radio. The dozens of music channels on XM are ad-free, however, certain non-music channels do play ads (Such as news, commentary, or comedy). Up until now XM has been selling its ads mainly through ClearChannel, but it seems that that is about to change...

In January, Google acquired a service called dMarc, an advertising platform that would allow Google to expand its flag-ship ad network, AdWords, into terrestrial radio. Think Google already dominated the Internet advertising market? Now, Google will be able to sell ads through satellite radio as well. Google will run ads through dMarc on non-music channels only, through a simple and automated process that will allow advertisers to reach XM's nationwide subscriber user-base.

ZDNet is running an informative article that suggests that Google might get into locally targeted advertising. Imagine that you're driving past your local Best Buy, for example, a radio ad would then remind you that you wanted to upgrade your computer's RAM. However, if that ever happens during this partnership between Google and XM, it will take quite a while (XM devices do not have or need GPS). This move will probably have little impact on XM radio (XM users will probably will not be able to tell the difference between ClearChannel ads and dMarc ads), but the real import of the news is the evidence of Google's ambitions.

Lycos announced today that their new e-mail service, which is currently in beta testing, will offer 3GB of storage and allow the size of attachments sent and received to be unlimited - All for free. If you're willing to dish out $20 per year, you can bump that storage cap to 5GB (This will also remove all the advertisements, which are currently Google AdSense ads). To prevent use just for sending large files infrequently, there is a stipulation that mail accounts that go unused for 30 days will be deleted (However, you can avoid this fate by paying an additional $6 per year). Upping the storage amount and attachment sizes might interest people that often work with multi-media files, since they usually require large amounts of storage.

Can this new offering from Lycos take out other popular storage-focused e-mail services, such as Google's Gmail, or Yahoo! Mail (The closed beta version currently offers 2GB, as well as Live Mail, which is also in closed beta testing). Gmail, which currently offers 2.75GB of storage, might be the better choice because of the good use of integration with other Google services, such as Google Talk. Gmail's use of tabbed conversations, as well as the ability to view a wide variety of HTML files might be the better choice. But, as always, the e-mail wars continue.

Microsoft has begun to roll out major upgrades to its Spaces blogging service, now known as Windows Live Spaces, including new social networking features that might give it a chance to take on MySpace. This new release will feature tighter integration with other Windows Live services, such as an integrated friends module tied into your contacts defined in Messenger, or the option of adding gadget support, or widget-like functionality, using Microsoft Gadgets.

The biggest improvement will be the new social aspects of Live Spaces, allowing users to define how their online relationships and see more information about their friends, as Niall Kennedy explains. The service will be integrated with Live Contacts, as well as Windows Live Messenger, allowing users to initiate conversations by showing the online status of your friends. However, with these new social features, comes a concern for better security measure. To combat this, Microsoft has added permission features to controll who can contact them through their Spaces site. These permissions would be shown beside a user's profile, and can be changed. Although many people think that this new upgrade might not be up to par against MySpace, it sure it a start.

Turner Broadcasting announced today that you can now purchase Cartoon Network and CNN video content through Apple Computer's iTunes, including content from the popular 'Adult Swim' program on Cartoon Network. This content will be offered separately from the free CNN and Adult Swim podcasts that can be listened to on iTunes. The newly added content includes "CNN Presents", Cartoon Network's, "Johnny Bravo", "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" and "The Venture Brothers", popular cartoons on Adult Swim, and the third season of "Sealab 2021". Episodes on iTunes can be bought now for $1.99 per download.

Over the course of last week, we've been running a poll asking which search engine you use - Google, Yahoo, MSN/Live.com, or Ask.com. The results are in, and you can view them here. Below you can read a short biography about each search engine.

Google
Google began as a research project in 1996 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who were both Ph.D. students at Stanford. They thought that a search engine that could analyze the relationships between websites would product better results than other search engines. They called their new creation "BackRub", because it checked the backlinks to estimate a site's importance. Page and Brin would test their thesis as part of their studies at Stanford, and would later house their newly created engine at google.stanford.edu. On September 7, 1998, Page and Brin bought the domain Google.com, and officially changed the name to Google - A play on the world Googol, (The number one followed by one-hundred zeros).

Today, Google is a publicly traded company that handles one of the most used search engines in the world. The company currently employs 8,000 employees, and is based in Mountain View, California. Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Novell, is now serves as Google's CEO. Google was recently named a verb by the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary, meaning "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet". With 54% of the search engine market in their control, Google is undoubtedly the most widely used search engine in the world.

Yahoo!
Two years before Google would spread its wings, Yahoo! began as yet another ordered directory (Rather than a searchable index), known as "Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web", on the newly created Internet in 1994, founded by David Filo, a Stanford graduate, and Jerry Yang. Shortly after, it was renamed "Yahoo!", a backronym for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle", but Filo and Yang insisted that they used the name because of what it meant - As in Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: "rude, unsophisticated, uncouth".

According to Alexa and Netcraft, Yahoo! is now one of the most visited websites in the world coming in with more than 400 million unique visitors a day. Yahoo!'s global network receives 3.4 billion visitors a day. The company, which is now based in Sunnyvale, California, currently has over 11,000 employees. Yahoo! is considered second compared to Google, coming in at 23% in the overall search engine market.

MSN/Live.com
MSN is the collective Internet offerings from Microsoft. It was released on August 24, 1995 to coincide with the Windows 95 release. Originally, MSN supplied content through an interface that matched Windows 95's Windows Explorer software, but was later rebranded a handful of times. In the United States, MSN isn't just an Internet search engine, but also an ISP (Internet Service Provider). With over 9 million subscribers, MSN is the second largest ISP in the United States, following America Online (Which has nearly 26.5 million subscribers).

Currently, many MSN services are being upgraded and rebranded under the Windows Live initiative. The idea behind Windows Live is to bring about better services and software under the Windows brand to better compete with Google and Yahoo!, which have been stealing away many MSN users. MSN, on the other hand, will become a content portal in the future. Microsoft is planning to offer Windows-like functionality and looks in Live services. For example, Windows Live Mail, which is currently in beta testing, offers an OutLook-like interface (Review here). Although MSN is one of the less used search engine, Windows Live might bring the new and updated look that MSN needs.

Ask.com
Ask.com, formally known as Ask Jeeves, was founded by Garrett Gruener and David Warthen in Berkeley, California in 1996. However, the original design was first implemented by Gary Chevsky. The idea behind Ask Jeeves was to give answers to everyday questions written in natural language, which means to be able to distinguish languages spoken and written by humans. In fact, Ask Jeeves was the first question-and-get-an-answer service on the Internet. However, as Google and Yahoo! started to beef-up their offerings and features, Ask Jeeves started to loose many of their core users. So, the folks at Ask Jeeves started to improve their technology behind the search engine, but by the time it was ready, Ask Jeeves had fallen behind Google, Yahoo!, and MSN. A sad story, for the once proud butler.

In September 2005, the company announced that they would be letting go of Jeeves, the butler that served as an icon for so many years, in an attempt to rebrand the company. While some users were very upset by the news (One Ask.com employee even set-up a "Save Jeeves Blog"), many saw this as a fresh start. On February 27, 2006, Jeeves officially retired. Ask.com now owns many popular portals, such as Teoma, Excite, MyWay.com, iWon.com, Bloglines and several others. All of these portals bring in enormous amounts of traffic into the Ask.com network, bringing Ask.com up to the top ten parent web companies in the US, as rated by both comScore and Nielsen/NetRatings in September 2004.

Thanks again to everyone that voted. Our previous polls included "Do you Blog" and "Do you use an RSS Reader". Our next poll will ask you if you use an Mp3 player, and you can now vote for that poll.