Hester PC

Most of the hubbub about search lately has centered on Bing and Google. But the one that started it all, Yahoo, will try to make its own splash in search, with a new feature called Search Pad.

The service will go live Tuesday night at 9:00 PM Pacific Time.

Basically, Search Pad pops up a window that saves your search process as clickable links, that can be saved to the Yahoo service if you’re logged in. Search Pad will automatically collect visited sites and their thumbnails during your research session. You can also add their own notes and drag and drop additional content onto the window. The tool also allows users to print, email, or share the research via social networks such as Delicious, Facebook, and Twitter.

Google discontinued its similar Notebook service this past January, but Yahoo’s implementation makes Search Pad more a part of the searching process, by proposing itself when your session looks like research, rather than a simple query. Likewise, Bing’s search history feature shows all your previous searches in a sidebar and lets you save clicked links from a search to a local or online folder in its SkyDrive service.

“At Yahoo Search we are committed to understanding people’s intent and building the right tools to help them complete their most important tasks online,” said Larry Cornett, vice president of consumer products, at Yahoo Search. “With Search Pad, Yahoo is providing an elegant solution that understands when valuable research is being conducted and offers a way to effortlessly gather information in one place. Yahoo Search Pad helps people make decisions, save their work, and share the best with friends and colleagues.”

To try the service out for yourself, after 9:00PM tonight Pacific Time, simply enter six or more related searches, say on a planned trip, and you’ll see Search Pad proposed. It remains to be seen whether the feature will help Yahoo make a comeback in a search market that, on the one hand, remains dominated by Google and on the other is being aggressively pursued by Microsoft.

via Need a Scratch Pad for Search? Yahoo Has One – News and Analysis by PC Magazine.

Have you posted your date of birth and birthplace on any of your social networks? If so, you may have provided enough information for hackers to figure out your Social Security number. Well, in theory, anyway. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have successfully devised a way to guess a person’s Social Security number using statistical analysis.

Carnegie Mellon researchers Alessandro Acquisti and Ralph Gross say the Social Security numbering system combined with the widespread use of S.S.N’s as an identifying number has created an “architecture of vulnerability,” and is an unexpected consequence of the availability of basic personal information and modern computing power. The study will be presented on July 29 at this year’s Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas.

Acquisti and Gross determined that the problem lies in how Social Security numbers are constructed. Every S.S.N. has three parts: area number (AN)-group number (GN)- serial number (SN). All three components can be predicted based on the probable location of your residence at the time your S.S.N. was applied for. This is possible since the sequence of ANs and GNs for each state are publicly available online, and SNs are assigned in consecutive order.

via Researchers Expose Security Flaw in Social Security Numbers – PC World.

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Through July 11, Microsoft is offering steep discounts on Windows 7 upgrades for the Home and Pro versions of the software–but not Windows 7 Ultimate.

According to a CNET report, users can “preorder Windows 7 Home Premium or Professional at roughly half the list price, but the Ultimate version is offered at the full $219 price.”

Those who currently use Windows Vista Ultimate and were hoping to switch to Windows 7 Ultimate were understandably upset. After getting little more than a few extras with Vista Ultimate, like Microsoft’s BitLocker Drive Encryption software, they were hoping they’d be treated better this time around when they opted for Windows 7 Ultimate.

No such luck.

But instead of railing against Microsoft for treating its Windows Vista Ultimate customers so poorly, perhaps we should turn our focus to Windows 7 Ultimate itself. It might be the follow-up to Windows Vista Ultimate. Microsoft might have thrown every feature into it. But if we take an objective look at what it really offers, I don’t think Microsoft can justify its existence as a consumer operating system.

According to Microsoft’s Windows 7 Web page, Windows 7 Ultimate edition sports just two features that you won’t find in Windows 7 Professional: a full language pack, which includes support for 35 languages, and the company’s BitLocker software. A press release Microsoft sent to journalists in February lists BranchCache and DirectAccess support, as well.

It’s silly. BitLocker was included in Windows Vista Ultimate. I’m willing to bet that if you asked most Windows Vista Ultimate users how often they use BitLocker, they’ll wonder what you’re talking about.

Although it’s nice to see Microsoft supporting multiple languages for those more comfortable computing in their first language, a relatively small subset of the market will actually want such a feature. For many, it’s a waste. And since both BranchCache and DirectAccess are designed specifically for enterprise users, consumers won’t have any reason to use those tools either.

Why did Microsoft even consider releasing Windows 7 Ultimate? It’s not only more expensive than Windows 7 Professional, which sports all the features most folks would need anyway, but its add-ons are, once again, inconsequential.

For its part, Microsoft is saying that Windows 7 Ultimate isn’t for everyone. Windows General Manager Mike Ybarra said in an interview with Microsoft PressPass, the company’s PR arm, that Windows 7 Ultimate is for the “enthusiast.”

“There is a small set of customers who want everything Windows 7 has to offer,” Ybarra said. “So, we will continue to have Windows 7 Ultimate edition to meet that specialized need.

“Windows 7 Ultimate edition is designed for PC enthusiasts who ‘want it all’ and customers who want the security features such as BitLocker found in Windows 7 Enterprise edition.”

Although I haven’t seen Microsoft’s customer research, I have a hard time believing the PC enthusiast will look at Windows 7 Ultimate as the go-to version. PC enthusiasts are generally experts with a high-level of computing knowledge. Why would they pick an overpriced OS edition whose features can’t justify its price?

Quite the contrary, Windows 7 Ultimate edition looks like a sucker’s bet. Folks who go to the store with little knowledge about software will be left wondering why they shouldn’t just spend an additional $20 for Windows 7 Ultimate when, judging by the name, it must be better than Professional. (Boxed copies of Windows 7, available in October, will cost $119 for Home Premium, $199 for Professional, and $219 for Ultimate.)

Windows 7 Ultimate is really only Windows 7 Enterprise by another name. It offers nothing compelling that would make home or even small business users want to buy it. And yet, Microsoft is still selling it at full price.

Once again, Microsoft has damaged the “Ultimate” moniker. Maybe it’s best if it fades away before Microsoft ostracizes even more customers.

Check out Don’s Facebook profile, Twitter stream, and FriendFeed.

via Why is Microsoft even offering Windows 7 Ultimate? | The Digital Home – CNET News.

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Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Operating System, Preorder, Software, Windows, Windows 7

A new report in the Wall Street Journal suggests that the Holder Department of Justice may be setting its sights on AT&T and Verizon for a possible antitrust investigation. At issue is the fact that the two companies control almost 90 percent of landlines and 60 percent of the mobile market, which could make them targets for an administration that’s already miffed about SMS charges and handset exclusivity deals.

There isn’t much detail on exactly what’s in the works, but the WSJ’s sources indicate that there’s no official inquiry planned yet. The DOJ appears to be looking at the full spectrum of telecom practices and products, from wireless to landlines to broadband, in order to determine if it should launch a formal antitrust investigation into the two top companies. If such an inquiry does actually happen, AT&T and Verizon will join Google in feeling the heat of a DoJ that seems to have trust-busting near the top of its agenda.

But the DOJ isn’t the only part of Washington that has wireless carriers in its sights; the FCC has been making dissatisfied noises about handset exclusivity deals, and Congress is actively looking into allegations of SMS price fixing by AT&T and Verizon. And then there’s wireless carriers’ non-neutral treatment of Internet services that compete with their own offerings, a practice that’s also likely to come under increasing scrutiny over the next three-and-a-half years.

And Congress is pushing the FCC to do more. On Monday, United States Senator Herb Kohl (D-WI) sent the Commission’s new chair Julius Genachowski and the DoJ a bullet list of wireless-related reforms that he wants both agencies to take on.

In the FCC’s case, these would include making it harder for carriers to block voice and data interconnection (or “roaming”) requests from smaller services, finding more spectrum for smaller companies to buy, investigating exclusive handset deals between carriers and handset makers, and requiring carriers to pro-rate early termination fees. Kohl also called for reforms that would reduce the wholesale line-sharing rates that smaller services pay the incumbent telcos.

As for Justice, Kohl, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee, asked the DOJ to probe the cell phone industry “to insure that dominant carriers do not take action to stifle competition.”

“Four carriers control over 90% of the cell phone market,” Kohl’s letter warned. “And two of them collectively have a market share of 60%. I therefore believe it is vitally important that the FCC and Justice Department take action.”

via Ma Bell 2K? DOJ, FCC looking into AT&T and Verizon – Ars Technica.

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Technorati Tags: Anti-Trust, AT&T, Mobile, Telco, Verizon

We’re often asked why so many Google applications seem to be perpetually in beta. For example, Gmail has worn the beta tag more than five years. We realize this situation puzzles some people, particularly those who subscribe to the traditional definition of “beta” software as not being yet ready for prime time.

Ever since we launched the Google Apps suite for businesses two years ago, it’s had a service level agreement, 24/7 support, and has met or exceeded all the other standards of non-beta software. More than 1.75 million companies around the world run their business on Google Apps, including Google. We’ve come to appreciate that the beta tag just doesn’t fit for large enterprises that aren’t keen to run their business on software that sounds like it’s still in the trial phase. So we’ve focused our efforts on reaching our high bar for taking products out of beta, and all the applications in the Apps suite have now met that mark.

Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Talk — both enterprise and consumer versions — are now out of beta. “Beta” will be removed from the product logos today, but we’ll continue to innovate and improve upon the applications whether or not there’s a small “beta” beneath the logo. Indeed, today we’re also announcing some other Google Apps features that we think will appeal to large enterprises: mail delegation, mail retention and ongoing enhancements to Apps reliability.

We have much more in store, and IT managers can read more about how to make the switch to Apps in our Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes resource centers. One more thing — for those who still like the look of “beta”, we’ve made it easy to re-enable the beta label for Gmail from the Labs tab under Settings.

via Official Google Blog: Google Apps is out of beta (yes, really).

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Technorati Tags: Beta, GMail, Google, Google Apps, Google Calendar, Google Docs