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From TechRepublic: Microsoft will introduce a search engine better than Google in six months in the United States and Britain followed by Europe, its European president said on Wednesday. “What we’re saying is that in six months’ time we’ll be more relevant in the U.S. market place than Google,” said Neil Holloway, Microsoft president for …
From TechRepublic: Technology is a wonderful thing, when it works. Just as cars run reliably but lawn mowers never start, many people wonder why humans are capable of creating amazing technology but can’t make PCs that average people can understand. As a result, demand for PC support services is booming even as retailers and PC …
From Datamation: Can you trust a major corporation to keep your e-mail address out of spammers’ hands after you fill out the company’s unsubscribe form? Not always, according to a service that tracks what happens when addresses are submitted to unsubscribe mechanisms on the Web. I wrote last week that a service called Lashback LLC …
From TechRepublic: How do you bring the Internet to countries like Mali, where more than 70 percent of the population is illiterate and the telecommunications infrastructure barely exists? You use the radio. Equipped with dust-resistant PCs, digital audio broadcasting equipment and antennas assembled from salvage, local radio broadcasters are emerging as ersatz Internet service providers …
From the New York Times: Most people who use e-mail now know enough to be on guard against “phishing” messages that pretend to be from a bank or business but are actually attempts to steal passwords and other personal information. But there is evidence that among global cybercriminals, phishing may already be passé. In some …
From the New York Times: It may well have been the best 99 cents Alex Ostrovsky ever spent. Early yesterday, he paid that amount to download “Speed of Sound,” a song on the Coldplay album “X&Y,” from the iTunes Music Store, the Internet music shop that Apple Computer started less than three years ago. He …
From the New York Times: A recent federal court decision in California might undermine a pillar of defense for Google in its dispute with publishers and authors who are challenging the company’s right to scan books that are still under copyright. Representatives of publishers and authors who have filed lawsuits against Google over its Book …
From eWeek: A small Canadian university has ruled out campus-wide wireless Internet access because its president fears the system’s electromagnetic forces could pose a risk to students’ health. Lakehead University, in Thunder Bay, Ontario, has only a limited Wi-Fi connections at present, in places where there is no fiber-optic Internet connection. And that, according to …
From Yahoo! News: China is cracking down on junk e-mail and “illegal” mobile phone text messages, the official Xinhua News Agency said Tuesday. A new regulation will ban sending e-mail for advertising purposes to people without their permission, and all advertising e-mail must be titled “advertisement” or “AD,” the agency said. It also said that …
From TBO.com: America Online Inc., seeking to encourage its subscribers to sign up for high-speed connections, is raising the price of its main dial-up plan to equal that of its new broadband offerings. That means most subscribers will pay $25.90 a month for either dial-up or broadband beginning March 9, although AOL is offering discounts …