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Microsoft has often stated that it plans to expand its Windows Live suite and improve how this interacts with its client OS, instead of integrating everything straight into Windows. This has two main advantages:

1. Anti-competitive lawsuits are (hopefully) avoided as the optional services must be downloaded and installed first
2. The Windows team is free to focus on the core features of the operating system, which (hopefully) results in a less-bloated release

Windows Live’s future will deeply rely on whether Microsoft succeeds in acquiring the web giant that is Yahoo. It is unclear how Microsoft would use the Yahoo branding, but it’s more than likely that Windows Live is here to stay in some form or another. During the software giant’s employee webcast to discuss the Yahoo bid, Microsoft noted that it is already planning its next update for Windows Live. “We are now in vision phase for Windows Live wave 3, working to get that out later this year,” division President Kevin Johnson declared. Details were not revealed, except that search would play a big role in the update.

The heart of Windows Live, the part which needs to be successful for the whole suite to work together, is search. Windows Live Search hasn’t been doing so well; Microsoft believes its third place product is due for some rebranding, and a name change may be coming. The revamp was rumoured to come in September, when Live Search was overhauled, but is now expected in the next biannual search update, reported to occur sometime this spring (possibly in April). The new brand name has yet to leak; Microsoft employees keep referring to it as Rome.

Whatever it ends up being called will probably be an improvement over the current name.

Homicide detectives are hoping an internet satellite camera could help solve the grisly murder mystery of a woman in Victoria.

The body of an Asian woman believed to be aged in her 20s or 30s was found dumped in the front garden of a home in the Melbourne suburb Springvale about 10.50am yesterday (AEDT).

She had been wrapped in two black garbage bags and dumped behind a small brick fence at the front of the currently unoccupied property.

It is believed the woman’s body, which was discovered by residents who were renovating the property, was dumped late on Tuesday night or early yesterday morning.

The body was partially covered by shrubs at the front of the property.

Det-Sgt Jeff Maher of the homicide squad confirmed that a Google Earth satellite mapping van had been filming the area for up to a week.

He said the images captured by satellite could hold some clues to the gruesome murder.

“They (Google Earth) have had a van in the area for the last week,” Det-Sgt Maher said. “We don’t know what they’ve got yet. It’s an avenue of inquiry at the moment.” Police learned of the Google Earth link during a door-knock of the area.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt was recently at the Seoul Digital Forum and he was asked to define Web 3.0 by an audience member. After first joking that Web 2.0 is “a marketing term”, Schmidt launched into a great definition of Web 3.0. He said that while Web 2.0 was based on Ajax, Web 3.0 will be “applications that are pieced together” - with the characteristics that the apps are relatively small, the data is in the cloud, the apps can run on any device (PC or mobile), the apps are very fast and very customizable, and are distributed virally (social networks, email, etc).

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Schmidt’s full answer can be found here via a YouTube video.

YouTube will launch a system in September designed to prevent pirated material from going up on the site, a Google lawyer said in court on Friday.

Google, which acquired YouTube in October, plans to generate a library of digital video fingerprints that would be used by a computer system to screen clips being uploaded to YouTube, said Philip Beck, one of the attorneys representing Google and YouTube. Beck added that the screening process would take only a few minutes to determine whether a clip is copyright material…

“We hope to have the testing completed and technology available by sometime in the Fall,” said a Google spokesman in an e-mail. “But this is one of the most technologically complicated tasks that we have ever undertaken, and as always with cutting-edge technologies, it’s difficult to forecast specific launch dates…”

“If in fact Google puts this (system) in place, it is obviously way too late,” Solomon said. “But we encourage Google to come forward and do what other companies have already done and treat all the content providers fairly. Not just the favorite few who have agreed to share advertising revenue with YouTube.”

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A consumer watchdog is taking legal action against Google over the way it sells and displays its sponsored links, in a case that could “send shudders down the industry”.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said that it believed its action, which named Google Inc and Google subsidiaries in Ireland and Australia as defendants, was “the first to seek legal clarification of Google’s conduct from a trade practices perspective”.

The case stems from 2005 when Trading Post, an Australian classified ads magazine, took out sponsored links in the name of two car dealerships from Newcastle, New South Wales. People clicking on the names of the dealerships found themselves on Trading Post’s website.

The ACCC dropped a case against Trading Post when the publication said it would stop using its competitors’ names in Google sponsored links. However, the watchdog now says that Google “engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct” by allowing Trading Post to buy ads in the name of the car dealerships.

In addition the ACCC is also claiming that the way Google displays its links is misleading.

Google said on Monday it has agreed to acquire e-mail security company Postini for $625 million.

Postini supplies on-demand communications security and compliance products to more than 35,000 businesses and 10 million users worldwide. Google said the deal could enable it provide organizations with more hosted services similar to its Google Apps package, which includes its e-mail service Gmail, Calendar, and Talk, its messaging service.

Google said Postini will become a wholly owned subsidiary. The deal is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close by the end of the third quarter.

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Google has beefed up its 411 voice search service with some directions.

Google launched a 411 voice search at 1-800-GOOG-411 in April. The service allows users to call in a search query and get the result by voice. Now Google has integrated maps into the voice search. The 411 voice search service with maps works the same way, but during your call you would say “map it” to get a text message with details of your search plus a link out to a map result on your mobile phone.

1-800-GOOG-411 is a free service, but only available in the US for US based business listings.

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The New York Times is reporting that Microsoft has agreed to make some changes to the desktop search feature included in Windows Vista.

Google had filed a complaint against Microsoft, claiming that Windows Vista’s search feature was designed so that it wouldn’t play nice with Google Desktop search. In a nutshell, Google was making a familiar complaint about Microsoft software: that it was anti-competitive.

At issue is the fact that users who run Google Desktop on Windows Vista might notice their computer behave slowly. This is because the two desktop search programs are both frequently scanning your computer for new and changed files to store in an index.

At this point, it’s not clear exactly what changes Microsoft has agreed to make, but there will be changes. Oh yes, there will. We think.

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Online applications are great, but what happens when you can’t get a connection to the internet? Whether it is because you are on an airplane, or in the middle of nowhere camping, and have to get certain emails, calendar items, or files, you are quite possibly out of luck. Its sure a bummer, and one of the reasons why so many people are hesitant about using online applications for their most important information.

Now Imagine being able to take your online applications, offline, and store that data locally in a completely searchable database? Google is making this possible with Gears. Google Gears is an open source browser extension that enables web applications to provide complete offline functionality. Google hopes that developers will use this new toolset to create offline web applications using JavaScript APIs to store and serve the applications resources locally, as well as store data in searchable databases. All of the syncing runs in the background without burning out the browsers memory usage, or slowing anything down.

The Google Gears Beta is currently available for installation on Windows XP,Vista, as well as on Mac and Linux machines. The plug-in works with Firefox 1.5+ and IE 6+. Google’s first stop with Gears is Reader, with JavaScript APIs getting released shortly for data storage for use in applications like Docs and Spreadsheets.

The official Google Gears announcement will be made tomorrow to over 5,000 developers at Google’s Developer Day gathering.

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A new study shows that one fourth of human resources people have decided against hiring a job candidate based on information they found online about that person. Luckily, you can have a say in what Google says about you.

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It just goes to show that you should be careful what you blog, post, or put up on the web, because you never know who will come along looking for it…