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From Yahoo! News: “Following the lead of Google Inc. and other online competitors, Microsoft Corp. plans to start selling sponsored links on its search Web pages. Microsoft’s move into this potentially lucrative area capitalizes on detailed demographic information the software company has gathered over the years, raising privacy concerns for some.”
From PC World: “An Orange, California, IT manager who earlier pled guilty to hacking into his previous employer’s computer network was sentenced Monday to five months in prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said this week. According to a plea agreement dated August 30, 2004, Mark Erfurt broke into the computer systems of Santa Clara, California’s …
From NYT (via IHT): “Publishers find it hard to keep giving away content online. Consumers are willing to spend millions of dollars on the Web when it comes to music services and gaming sites. But when it comes to online news, they are loath to pay for it.”
From Reuters: “Sales of portable digital music players are set to grow 57 percent this year after more than doubling in 2004, results of a global survey showed on Tuesday. Over the next five years, shipments of MP3 music players will expand to 132 million units in 2009 from 36.8 million in 2004, market research …
From Yahoo! News: “A software vendor that tried to drum up sales by offering to clean up nonexistent computer ‘spyware’ has been temporarily shut down, U.S. regulators said on Friday. The makers of Spyware Assassin tried to scare consumers into buying software through pop-up ads and e-mail that warned their computers had been infected with …
From NYT: “At first glance, digital music is the field in which Sony’s considerable assets seem best suited, with a little rearrangement, for a comeback. On one side, Sony has 50 years of experience in producing portable music players, beginning with transistor radios in the 1950’s and extended by its Walkman franchise that has sold …
From TechRepublic: Five years ago Thursday, a pin pricked the Internet bubble. And in that five-year span, the tech-heavy Nasdaq has fallen by more than half, corporate America has pulled back its IT spending, a large swath of jobs have been cut across a number of industry sectors, consumer confidence has waned, and the tech …
From Yahoo! News: It wasn’t too long ago that a kid with a stereo and television in his room might have been the coolest on the block. Now, that just makes him one of the crowd. In the past five years, many children’s rooms have evolved into multimedia centers, with cable or satellite hookups, computers …
From Forbes.com: The rich had a very good year. The collective net worth of the 691 billionaires we could find is $2.2 trillion, up $300 billion from the combined worth of the 587 people listed last year. Every region saw gains. The world’s richest moguls now hail from 47 countries, including, for the first time, …
From CNet: Google began testing new customization features on its news aggregation site Wednesday in a salvo against competition from Microsoft. Google News, still in its test or ‘beta’ phase after launching in 2002, says it will let people specify what categories of news to display on the page, giving an array of choices including …