News
Corp., AOL Pursue Yahoo Deals
Yahoo Inc. and Time
Warner Inc.’s AOL are closing in on a deal to
combine their Internet operations, a move aimed at
thwarting Microsoft Corp.’s effort to acquire
Yahoo, people familiar with the matter said Wednesday.
But Microsoft is recrafting its
assault plan by talking with Rupert Murdoch’s
News Corp., publisher of The Wall Street Journal,
about mounting a joint bid for Yahoo, people familiar
with the matter said. Microsoft and News Corp. have
yet to reach an agreement on joining forces but one
person apprised of the plan described the discussions
as serious. Such a deal would combine three of the
biggest Internet properties: News Corp.’s MySpace,
Microsoft’s MSN and Yahoo.
Negotiating Leverage
The AOL-Yahoo deal under consideration
would include the repurchase of some Yahoo shares
at a price above Microsoft’s offer. Taken together
with a possible search advertising pact with Google
Inc., the plan could give Yahoo an alternative to
a Microsoft takeover — although many analysts
and investors believe Microsoft will ultimately win
out. At the least, Yahoo’s efforts could give
it more leverage to negotiate a higher price from
Microsoft
Source:
Online
Microsoft
Makes $42B Bid for Yahoo
Unable to topple Google Inc. on
its own, Microsoft Corp. is trying to force crippled
rival Yahoo Inc. into a shotgun marriage, with a wager
worth nearly $42 billion that the two companies together
will have a better chance of tackling the Internet
search leader.
Microsoft’s audacious attempt to buy Yahoo,
spelled out in an unsolicited offer announced Friday,
shows just how much Google threatens the world’s
largest software maker’s grip on how people
interact with computers.
For Yahoo, the bid represents another
painful reminder of how missed opportunities and mismanagement
combined to open the door for Google to supplant it
as the Internet’s main gateway, decimating its
stock price in the process.
AOL
buys BEBO for $850 Million
In an unexpected move, AOL has acquired
social-networking site Bebo. The price tag: $850 million
in cash.Rumors had floated over the past few months
that Bebo, which has over 40 million members, was
up for sale. Reports suggested a $1 billion price
tag, but there were few hints as to potential buyers.
Though Bebo had already partnered with AOL’s
AIM messaging client to facilitate friend-invite interoperability
between the two services, even the most creative blogger
speculation didn’t seem to point to AOL eventually
buying the social network.
Ironically, AOL itself has been
talked about as an acquisition target. Jeffrey Bewkes,
CEO of Time Warner, which operates AOL, has spoken
recently about plans to spin off or sell divisions
of the company.
Internet
founding father steps down from ICANN
Vint Cerf, one of the founding fathers
of the internet, is stepping down from his role as
the chairman of its oversight committee to focus on
writing books, advocacy and his job at Google Inc.
The 64-year-old has spent the past
seven years as the head of the Internet Corporation
for Assigned Names and Numbers, which counts the administration
of domain names as its chief responsibility. Cerf
is also a vice-president and “chief internet
evangelist” of Google.
He is stepping down from ICANN this
week after guiding the organization through several
battles over the past few years. In 2005, ICANN was
under threat of being taken over by the United Nations
after several countries complained the group was too
U.S.-focused. Cerf helped negotiate an agreement that
kept the running of the organization largely unchanged.
“My sentence is up,”
he told the Associated Press with his trademark humour.
Cerf said he has spent between 25
and 40 per cent of his time on ICANN-related business.
He said he will step away from the group completely
for at least a year, to allow it to become self-sufficient.
ICANN has not yet named a successor.
Under Cerf, ICANN introduced new
top-level domains for Europe and Asia — .eu
and .asia — but could not decide on how to implement
a .xxx name for pornographic sites.
He said he plans to write several
books, including at least one about the internet and
another about hearing impairment. Cerf is also an
outspoken advocate of net neutrality principles and
the development of the internet.
Source:
CBC
News
MySpace
starts Skype call service
Social network website MySpace has
joined forces with internet phone firm Skype to allow
MySpace users to make calls to each other.
With the service, which starts from
the end of November, the two firms say they are creating
the world’s largest online, voice-connected
community.
MySpace users will be able to place
free internet calls to other people on MySpace, or
to Skype users.
In addition, MySpace users will
be able to pay to call landlines and mobiles.
‘Natural step’
The Skype option will be added to
MySpace’s existing instant messaging feature,
and will not require MySpace users to download any
additional Skype software.
“Internet calling is the natural
next step for how our members communicate with each
other,” said MySpace chief executive Chris DeWolfe.
No financial terms of the arrangement
have been released.
Source:
BBC
Google
Pledges $30 Million for Private Moon Landing
Google Inc. will pay up to US$30
million in prize money to anyone able to land a privately
funded spacecraft on the moon, because “it’s
cool,” the company said on its blog.
“More seriously, space exploration
has a remarkable history of producing technological
breakthroughs,” wrote Alan Eustace, senior vice
president of engineering, on Google’s blog.
He cited ablative heat shields, asteroid mining, invisible
braces, and the Tang orange drink as past achievements,
and said the prize money could lead to further developments
in robotics, new space-age materials, precision landing
control technology, “and who knows what else.”
Teams from around the world will
vie for the Google Lunar X-Prize by building lunar
missions complete with robotic rovers capable of roaming
the surface of the moon for at least 500 meters and
sending video, images and other data back to Earth,
according to a statement from the X Prize Foundation.
The X Prize Foundation is best known
for another space competition, the $10 million Ansari
X Prize for private suborbital spaceflight, won by
SpaceShipOne three years ago. Google teamed up with
the foundation on the lunar project.
A grand prize of $20 million will
go to the first team to land a privately funded spacecraft
to the Moon and complete several tasks. Bonuses of
up to $5 million can be earned from roaming an additional
5,000 meters on the surface of the Moon, finding and
photographing man made artifacts left on the lunar
surface, such as hardware from one of the Apollo missions,
discovering water ice, and surviving a lunar night,
a frigid affair lasting 14.5 Earth days, the foundation
said. The remaining $5 million will be paid to the
second place finisher in the competition.
Images from the lunar landing will
be available online at the Google Lunar X Prize Web
site.
There is a time limit to the competition.
The value of the grand prize will drop to $15 million
after Dec. 31, 2012, and on Dec. 31, 2014 the contest
will end unless extended by Google and the X Prize
Foundation.
Source:
PC
WORLD
‘Fake
Steve’ Blogger Comes Clean
For the last 14 months, high-tech
insiders have been eating up the work of an anonymous
blogger who assumed the persona of Steven P. Jobs,
Apple’s chief executive and one of the world’s
most famous businessmen.
The mysterious writer has used his
blog, the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, to lampoon Mr.
Jobs and his reputation as a difficult and egotistical
leader, as well as to skewer other high-tech companies,
tech journalists, venture capitalists, open-source
software fanatics and Silicon Valley’s overall
aura of excess.
Source:
NY
TIMES
Microsoft
to test ad-supported version of Works
Microsoft Corp. said on Wednesday
it will offer a free, advertising-supported version
of its basic productivity software, Microsoft Works,
as part of a test program with computers manufacturers.
The world’s largest software
maker has been pondering the future of Microsoft Works,
its basic spreadsheet and word processing software,
in the face of rising competition from Google Inc.’s
suite of business software services.
Unlike Google Docs and Spreadsheets,
which are delivered through an Internet browser, Microsoft
plans to pre-install Works on computers and display
advertisements stored in cache. The software normally
retails for $39.99.
Source:
Reuters
Google
spending hundreds of millions on mobile?
Google Inc has invested hundreds
of millions of dollars in its cell phone project and
is courting U.S. and European mobile operators, The
Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
Anian, a Reuters company that tracks
industry trends for institutional investors, reported
last month that Google had engaged Taiwan’s
High Tech Computer Corp to design a Linux software-based
phone for launch in the first quarter of 2008.
The Anian report cited industry
sources as saying T-Mobile, owned by Deutsche Telekom,
would likely be Google’s U.S. partner with France
Telecom’s Orange selling the phones in other
markets.
Source:
Reuters
Wikia
Search Engine Gains a Web Crawler
Wikia Inc.’s project to develop
an open-source search engine got another boost with
its acquisition of the Grub distributed Web crawler,
the company announced Friday.
Wikia acquired Grub from LookSmart
Ltd. and released it under an open-source license,
adding a significant component to Search Wikia, scheduled
to debut in this year’s fourth quarter.
The Search Wikia project seeks to
create a search engine based on open-source search
protocols and human collaboration, drawing from the
concept of the Wikipedia online encyclopedia, which
is written and edited by a community of volunteer
collaborators.
As such, it will provide a better
search experience than the ones offered by commercial,
proprietary search engines like those from Google
Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp., said Jimmy Wales,
Wikia’s co-founder and chairman, and Wikipedia
founder.
Source:
PC
World
BBC
launches Internet TV service
The BBC’s flagship online
TV service (iPlayer) is being launched, offering viewers
the chance to download their favourite programmes
from the last seven days.
The iPlayer allows viewers to download
a selection of programmes from the last seven days
and watch them for up to 30 days afterwards.
In the UK, Channel 4 offers a similar
service, called 4OD, for programmes across its portfolio
of channels.
Viewers interested in the iPlayer
can register for the service on Friday and will then
be invited to join. The number of users will increase
over the summer, before a full launch in the autumn.
Source:
BBC
Microsoft
CEO defends move beyond desktop
Chief Executive Steve Ballmer defended
the software company’s expansion beyond its
Windows and office software businesses, saying Web
services and consumer devices are key to the company’s
future.
Speaking on Thursday at an annual
meeting with financial analysts, Ballmer acknowledged
he had been “hammered” by investors who
argued Microsoft should focus on its core desktop
and server software business and forget businesses
like digital music players and video games.
Source:
Reuters
SEO Recources : Click
Here
Search engine watch :- Click Here
SEO Latest New Blogs:- Click Here
SEO News Letters : - Click Here
SEO Chat Forums : - Click Here
SEO News Journal : - Click Here
News iStart : - Click Here
SEO News Letter : - Click Here
SEO Information : - Click Here
|
