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Archive for April, 2007

Google Ads, provided by Advertisers through the advertising service known as “Google Adwords” has been the leading front in Online advertising for thousands of publishes and advertisers world wide, used on blogs and sites owned by millions of bloggers, it may come to cause some discomfort with the recent news of some Google Ads containing spyware, is it Google’s fault? Some may think so.

Google, being the publisher of the ads is now rethinking there method of approval for the desired ads to be published, with the news of some of their advertisements being “hi-jacked” with spyware, it could cause potential users of the advertising to turn away and go to other sources. Google is well aware of this, and have already taken swift action.

“We cancelled the affected ads as soon as we were made aware of the problem,” Google spokesperson Diana Adair told ClickZ News in an e-mail. Google is not alone, if they are able to be penetrated like this, then the smaller companies could be as , if not more vulnerable. All Google really can do is delete the affected ads, and amp up their protection against this threat.

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vista.jpgWhile Mac OS and Linux have made significant gains over the past few years against Windows, if Redmond’s latest profit figures are anything to go by the Windows era is far from over. On the back of the release of the latest Windows operating system, Vista, and a new edition of Office, Microsoft has posted a staggering 65% gain in third quarter profits.

The quick start for Vista is good news for the world’s biggest software manufacturer as it demonstrates that consumers are not hesitating to adopt the new OS and we can expect to see Vista dominating the world’s computers in coming years.

On the back of the sales figures, Microsoft’s net income rose to almost $4.93 billion for the past year – a rise of a staggering $2 billion on the previous year. Microsoft’s slinky new operating system has had mixed reviews from critics, but consumers are clearly not showing any such concerns as they flock to the new operating system which has enhanced communications and usability features.

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Congressman Jay Inslee and eight cosponsors have introduced the Internet Radio Equality Act, designed to combat the recent rate hike implemented by the Copyright Royalty Board.

If no action is taken, royalty rates on internet music broadcasts will jump significantly on May 15th, potentially putting many small netcasters out of business.

Among other things, the new bill would:

  • Nullify the Royalty Board decision.
  • Change the arbitration process for internet radio rate setting.
  • Establish that the minimum annual royalty a netcaster has to pay can be no higher than $500.
  • Set a transitional royalty rate that is the same as the rate paid by satellite broadcasters.

The bill gives the save net radio crowd a chance to rally behind a specific action. Up until now, they’d been asking folks to write their local members of Congress to demand action. Now they’re asking for people to call legislators and ask them to support the bill.

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nintendo_off.pngNamco Bandai announced this morning that they have sold the majority of their share in Tokyo-based developer Monolith Soft to Nintendo.

Monolith Soft is the creator of the Xenosaga RPG series for PlayStation 2 and the Baten Kaitos series for Nintendo GameCube. (They are not to be confused with Monolith, the developers of FEAR.)

At E3 last May, Nintendo announced that Monolith Soft was creating a Wii game to be published by Nintendo called Disaster: Day of Crisis.

Namco Bandai held 96% of the stock in Monolith Soft. It will retain 16% of the stock, and Nintendo will become majority shareholder with 80%.

In today’s statement, Namco Bandai said that it would continue to work closely with Monolith Soft on game development in the future.

The first Baten Kaitos game was published by Namco Bandai in the US, but Nintendo themselves published the sequel, Baten Kaitos Origins, in the US last year.

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adobe-labs-logo.jpgAdobe Systems announced last night that they will be open sourcing their Adobe Flex framework so developers can access their source code to enhance its ability to create Rich Internet applications. The Flex SDK and docs will be available through the Mozilla Public License. Adobe Flex, initially released in 2004 by Macromedia, and available since 2006 as a free SDK from Adobe, is a set of technologies to support the development of RIAs, web apps with the features and functionality that mimic traditional desktop applications.

By open sourcing the technology, Adobe is realizing the potential of embracing the developer community. By providing open tools they are helping to foster a developer environment that can result in the creation of cool features and functionality and further developer the framework to suit developer needs. Other open source projects from Adobe include the contribution of source code for ActionScript Virtual Machine to the Mozilla Foundation and the open source WebKit engine in the Apollo project.

“The definition and evolution of Flex has been influenced by our incredibly talented developer community from day one,” said David Mendels, senior vice president, Enterprise and Developer Business Unit at Adobe in a press release. “The decision to open source Flex was a completely natural next step. I am incredibly excited to deeply collaborate with the developer community on Flex, and further fuel its momentum and innovation.”

Expand Post: Adobe Takes Flex Open Source

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longhorn-server-beta-3.jpgWindows Server Team director Iain McDonald announced that Windows “Longhorn” Server Beta 3 has shipped.

Longhorn Server is to Windows Server 2003 what Vista is to XP, with major improvements in networking, security, and remote access. Beta 3 is the first public release, meaning developers and IT types (and pretty much anyone else) can download the evaluation version of Longhorn Server for free.

You’ll also be able to get order a copy directly, and the team’s put together a pretty funny video showing the brainstorming process for other distribution methods.

As we pointed out yesterday, that’s not to say that this is an easy way to get a free operating system. Betas expire, and when they do, they can take your whole system with you if you don’t upgrade.

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Ask.com has announced a contextual advertising product for publishers today. As part of the Ask Sponsored Listings (ASL – not to be confused with Age, Sex Location) platform, parent company IAC claims the new service already reaches 34 million unique users per month via their network of sites, which include Match.com, Ticketmaster, and and Evite.

The company hopes to win over publishers by attacking one of AdSense’s biggest weaknesses – transparency. Ask.com plans to inform content partners of their revenue share up front, rather than leave them guessing about the fluctuations in eCPM one might notice in their AdSense account. The service will also include other standard contextual advertising management features, such as customizing the look of the ads and offering varying levels of editorial control.

Added transparency might win over the paranoid, but ultimately the battle for contextual will come down to who pays the most, and matching Google’s massive advertiser reach will be a challenge for Ask.com. For the curious, Ask.com’s contextual product will be available the week of May 21st.

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myspace.PNGMark Burnett, known for being the creator of the popular reality shows Survivor and The Apprentice has approached MySpace with a offer to start a reality show, this would be the first for a social networking site, and might be the last (doesn’t sound interesting to me.) Mark has decided to bring social networking site MySpace into his “next big project.”

The reality show will be called “Independent” and will be centered around the upcoming political campaigns, it will pit contestants in a fictional run for the White House with the prize being $1 Million. Potential contestants will submit movies to be chosen for the show, and if chosen they will decorate their MySpace profiles to appear as mock campaign sites. Which I am guessing after decorating users of myspace etc. will vote for who they like best in the race for One million. (I don’t really understand either) This will be a first for a social networking site, and probably the last if they can not come up with better ideas then this.

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Scientist have broken the internet speed record, previously set at 7.67 Gbps, they were able to send data at 9.8 Gbps over a 20,000 miles distance at a constant rate. For an example of how fast this is, a high-def movie that typically takes 40 hours on a typical broadband connection would only take a few seconds if this connection was open for public use.

Tokyo (Japan) Scientist are the ones that broke the record at the Internet2 consortium. With this break through they have not only given further proof of what internet speed holds for us in the future, but have laid a path for other scientist to follow in bringing us a better online experience. If an internet at this speed is released in the future, you can rest assured knowing that piracy of downloaded contest will raise at a rate never seen before.

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