Mar 12 2009

Mozilla Contemplates a Future Without Google

An anonymous reader points out a story at Business Week which begins: “Mozilla Chair Mitchell Baker says the Chrome browser is making the foundation behind Firefox rethink its reliance on revenues from Google. Since Google introduced its own Web browser, Chrome, the prospect that Google may not re-up the three-year contract set to expire in 2011 has Mozilla considering other search partnerships and ways to generate revenue, Baker said. ‘There are probably other search engines that would pay us more money,’ Baker says. Yahoo! and Microsoft’s MSN, Google’s two main search rivals, come to mind, but Baker says smaller search engines wouldn’t be discounted should such a situation arise. One player Baker won’t identify ‘offered a blank check to replace Google,’ she says. Set to launch on certain Nokia phones in late spring, Fennec is the first Mozilla browser optimized for mobile platforms. If it gains traction with enough handset makers and mobile users, Fennec could represent another way to draw revenue from a partnering search engine.”

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Mar 12 2009

Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 Released

ink writes “Mozilla has released the third beta for Firefox 3.1 (which may become Firefox 3.5). This beta includes the new location bar, Mozilla’s new JavaScript engine Tracemonkey, new HTML5 features and many other enhancements. It looks the same on the surface, but there are many changes under the hood.”

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Mar 12 2009

So Amazing, So Illegal

Jamie gave me a nice writeup of a mashup where the writer shares some random youtube mashup video that you maybe have seen before called the Mother of all Funk Chords. It’s a pretty amazing artistic achievement and probably worth at least a quick glance of your time. But the larger point should be taken seriously. He says “If your reaction to this crate of magic is ‘Hm. I wonder how we’d go about suing someone who “did this” with our IP?’ instead of, ‘Holy crap, clearly, this is the freaking future of entertainment,’ it’s probably time to put some ramen on your Visa and start making stuff up for your LinkedIn page. Because, this is what your new Elvis looks like.”

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Mar 12 2009

BBC Hijacks 22,000 PCs In Botnet Demonstration

An anonymous reader writes “‘[The BBC] managed to acquire its own low-value botnet — the name given to a network of hijacked computers — after visiting chatrooms on the internet. The programme did not access any personal information on the infected PCs. If this exercise had been done with criminal intent it would be breaking the law. But our purpose was to demonstrate botnets’ collective power when in the hands of criminals.’ The BBC performed a controlled DDoS attack, ‘then ordered its slave PCs to bombard its target site with requests for access to make it inaccessible.'”

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Mar 12 2009

GrandCentral Reborn As Google Voice

Some anonymous person wrote in to say that Google has relaunched and rebranded GrandCentral as “Google Voice.” The article says it will “revolutionize telephones. It unifies your phone numbers, transcribes your voice mail, blocks telemarketers and elevates text messages to first-class communication citizens.” Sadly, the voicemail didn’t integrate very nicely w/ my phone back in the day, so I guess I should give it a shot.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Mar 12 2009

Visits to Gmail surpass YouTube

For the past two weeks, the market share of US Internet visits to Gmail has been higher than visits to YouTube. Previously, YouTube consistently ranked 10th among all websites by market share of visits until the week ending Jan. 10, 2009, where Gmail moved up one rank to reach #10. The websites have been swapping positions regularly ever since.

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Mar 12 2009

Google Share of Search To 72%; Yahoo, MSN Continue to Tank

Hitwise released a report yesterday showing that Google has posted a year-over-year increase of 8% in its share of U.S.-based search queries, for a total of 72.11% of all U.S. searches conducted over a four-week period that ended Feb. 28. Yahoo, Search, MSN Search and Ask.com received 17.04 %, 5.56 % and 3.74 %, respectively…

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Mar 12 2009

10 Twitteriffic tools – CNN.com

SEATTLE (CNN) — From the halls of Congress to college dorms and the boardrooms of bankrupt companies, there’s been a lot of buzz lately about the social media site called Twitter.

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Mar 12 2009

Sirius XM Radio Planning to Stream to iPhone + iPod

By streaming its music, sports and talk channels to users of the iPhone and iPod Touch, Sirius can give its existing subscribers another way to access content and let new customers sign up without buying new radios. Sirius also sees opportunities to bundle its satellite radio service with TV packages from…

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Mar 12 2009

How to Stream your Music Library to any PC via a Browser!

Sometimes you just want to browse and listen to your album collection at the office without having to load it all into a portable music player. With this guide, you can make it all easy!

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