Transcendigital blog

Microsoft Thursday said it would issue a release candidate (RC) for Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) in the first three months of 2009, indicating it will ship its newest browser sometime in the first half of the year.

“We will release one more public update of IE8 in the first quarter of 2009, and then follow that up with the final release,” Dean Hachamovitch, the general manager overseeing IE8, said in an entry to a company blog.

The current version is Beta 2, which was released in late August.

If Microsoft’s past performance is an indicator, the final of IE should launch in the first half of 2009. Its last major update, IE7, hit release candidate status in late August 2006, and shipped as a final version in mid-October of that year, a span of just under two months. Even if Microsoft pushes the release candidate of IE8 to users in March 2009, it should still be able to manage to ship a final edition by the end of June.

Original article can be found here:www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/154271/microsoft_to_launch_ie8_in_09_rc_due_out_in_q1.html

Ars Technica reports Microsoft is now trying a new way to incentivizes searches, this time in Canada. Microsoft launched Big Ticket Search to influence Canadians to search using Live Search. Canadians can win wide range of prizes, ranging from 2009 Mitsubishi Lancer SE to gift certificates.

Every time a Canadian searches at Big Ticket Search, they have a chance to win one of the 1,488 prizes being offered.

Original Article here:http://searchengineland.com/live-search-incentivizes-canadian-searchers-with-big-ticket-search-15555.php#more-15555

By some accounts, the Firefox browser is now responsible for a full 20% of web
traffic. As the number of Firefox users grows, so does the need for
top-quality support; 20% makes for a large number of potential attack points.
So it is interesting to note that Mozilla is now planning to end Firefox 2
support in the near future, perhaps before the end of the year. This change
could leave a lot of users - and not just Firefox users - in a difficult position.

One obvious question to ask would be: have most Firefox users moved on to
Firefox 3? Apparently, about two out of three users have made the change, but
millions of users have yet to move away from the older browser. The Mozilla
project would like to get as many of those users to switch before ending
support; that, in turn, requires looking at why they haven’t yet upgraded.
There seem to be a few prominent reasons beyond sheer inertia

Original Articles Continues Here:http://lwn.net/Articles/306015/

Keyword targeting can sometimes feel like a guessing game. Potential customers
are performing hundreds of millions of searches on Google, most of which you
don’t even know about. With so many searches, you have to guess which ones
might be relevant for each of your landing pages, and hope you find the right
audience for your AdWords campaigns. That’s where the Search-based Keyword
Tool (beta) comes in. With this new tool you can get a better sense of what
your potential customers are searching for and which keywords you should
advertise on.

Here’s the scoop: you know that the Google search engine starts with searches
conducted by users and helps them find relevant pages. But for keyword
targeting, what you want is a tool that goes in the opposite direction by
starting with your pages and identifying keywords that potential customers are
searching on to find your products or services. The Search-based Keyword Tool
does exactly this, leveraging search query data relevant to your website’s
content. In other words, this new tool gives you keywords that are highly
relevant to your site but are not part of your AdWords campaigns. This helps
you take advantage of missed opportunities.

Original Post Continues here:adwords.blogspot.com/2008/11/announcing-search-based-keyword-tool.html

Yesterday’s update patched virtually the same number of vulnerabilities as the
last security update seven weeks ago.

Firefox 3.0.4, the fourth update since Mozilla launched the browser in June,
fixes six flaws rated “critical,” two “high,” two “moderate,” and one “low” in
Mozilla’s four-step scoring system. Most of the critical bugs could be used by
hackers to introduce their own malicious code into a vulnerable system.

Among the most serious were a trio of vulnerabilities in the browser’s layout
and JavaScript engines, while others included a buffer overflow bug in the
HTTP index format parser and one — pegged as moderate — in the file:
protocol handler. Mozilla repeatedly patched protocol handler bugs in Firefox
starting in July 2007.

That vulnerability was judged moderate by Mozilla because of extenuating
circumstances. “It requires an attacker to have malicious code saved locally,
then have a user open a chrome: document or privileged about: URI, and then
open the malicious file in the same privileged tab,” Mozilla said in its
advisory.

article link:computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9120123&intsrc=hm_list

If you have a fever, headache and runny nose, you might go to Google and type the words “flu symptoms” to see whether you’ve come down with influenza.

Google knows that you might do something like that, and it also knows which U.S. state you’re in. Now, it’s putting that information together in a tool that Google says could detect flu outbreaks faster than traditional systems currently in use.

Google’s new public health initiative, Google Flu Trends, looks at the relative popularity of a slew of flu-related search terms to determine where in the U.S. flu outbreaks may be occurring.

Article Link:www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/11/11/google.flu.trends/?iref=mpstoryview

YouTube is formally announcing “sponsored videos.” This is an evolution and expansion of what was has been informally running under the heading “promoted videos.” The effort seeks to marry Google AdWords bidding and targeting with YouTube video content. Accordingly, it’s an auction marketplace but somewhat simplified vs. AdWords. And while there apparently will be a view from AdWords of sponsored videos the two marketplaces are largely separate — for now.

It’s a smart move for Google/YouTube and will enable content creators, publishers, marketers and even individuals to get their content in front of audiences searching on YouTube. Now that the program is formally rolling out it has an “obvious” quality — in retrospect. Indeed, what took YouTube so long? They told me that they were waiting until they got the experience right.

Article Link:searchengineland.com/youtube-formally-introduces-sponsored-videos-15450.php

YouTube took its first step towards a comprehensive movie service, reaching a deal with a big Hollywood studio to start showing full-length television shows and films.

The video-sharing Web site is set to announce that it will host TV episodes and movies from the archives of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in its latest step to boost advertising revenue.

The deal is expected to be the first of many. It emerged over the weekend that the site, which is owned by Google, was in negotiations with other Hollywood studios. One report from the CNET news Web site suggested a YouTube movie service could be available within 90 days.

MGM will post videos from full-length action movies such as “Bulletproof Monk” and “The Magnificent Seven,” and its decades-old “American Gladiators” program. They will be free to watch, with advertising running alongside the video.

Article Link:www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,449504,00.html

Microsoft is gearing up to take on Apple’s MobileMe with a Mac version of its Live Mesh file synching service, with beta copies now undergoing testing.

Live Mesh is a Software Plus Service application that can be used to sync files between PCs and store files in a Microsoft “Cloud” server. The Mac version will be able to sync files between Macs, PCs and Windows Mobile devices (although it will not be able to sync files with the iPhone).

The announcement was made at the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) and Microsoft’s Ian Moulster, Windows Live Commercial Lead explained to Macworld how it works: “At mesh.com you have the Live Desktop which is a Web based storage space containing folders. On your computer, you can right-click on a file and select ‘add to my mesh’. After a few seconds the folder will turn blue to signify that it’s been added to your Mesh”. From here it is pushed out to all the other computers on the Mesh network. In that sense Live Mesh is like iDisk, but rather having the single iDisk folder it works throughout your Mac and PC’s file system, syncing up multiple folders and containing your information online.

Original Article here:www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/153059/microsoft_reveals_live_mesh_for_mac.html

Google announced last night that it will become a single sign-on provider using OpenID solutions. This will allow Google users to login with their Google account information when signing up for new accounts on other sites.

Microsoft and Yahoo have both adopted the same strategy, using OpenID, and now Google has jumped on the bandwagon in a bid to offer its users a better “value” for their accounts. Google’s API is based on the OpenID 2.0 protocol and is designed to be embedded by third party web services.

Original Article:www.pcworld.com/article/153055/google_moves_to_openid.html