Month: July 2010

Google vs. Microsoft in the Cloud

The newest battle between Google and Microsoft concerns selling Web-based email and other software to the federal government. These two technology giants already compete to win contracts from private businesses as well as state and local governments by attracting customers who hope to cut costs by switching to Web-based software from programs installed on their own computers. Now Google and Microsoft are vying to take over the job of providing email to the General Services Administration, the U.S. agency that oversees government procurement and manages federal property. The contract’s size is substantial incentive enough––15,000 + employee email accounts. However, according to the Wall Street Journal who notes that the bidding is being closely watched because the GSA assists in shaping how other agencies acquire new technology. “The GSA is in a unique position as an influencer,” says Curt Kolcun, vice president of Microsoft’s public-sector business. Security is perhaps the biggest factor in deciding whether or not to adopt cloud mail.The cloud-based vendors, are responsible for storing and securing personal and confidential information for its users. On Thursday the GSA certified that Google’s email and word-processing service, known as Google Apps, meets security requirements to qualify for use by the agency, a GSA spokeswoman said. Microsoft says it is close to obtaining the same certification for a Web-based version of Exchange, a widely used program for managing email that most...

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Hurray for the EFF, The LOC and DRM Exemptions!

We reported months ago that the group The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF )acts as the champions of tech users. Its recent goals include going to battle for us against the evil arch enemies of fair use. Well the EFF prevailed this time when it petitioned the Copyright Office and the Library of congress on our behalf. Today, in a historical move, the Library of Congress released a statement that floored us all but I will bet it especially hit Apple. SInce 1998, The Digital Millenium Copyright Act  has made it illegal for us to crack the DRM placed on...

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Google Introduces New Image Search Interface

On Tuesday, Google introduced a redesigned interface for Google Images. Google Images product manager Nate Smith says that images have become one of the most popular types of Google searches and that Google decided to update its image search to keep up with the increasing number of images online. Bing’s image search may also have added to the decision to add a redesign, considering the similarities of Bing’s scrolling and the new instant scrolling in Google Images. The new Google Images is being brought out over the next few days, but is available now for most image searches. “We hope they not only make it easier to search for images, but also contribute to a better aesthetic experience,” said Smith in a post on Google’s Blog. “We see images as a major source of inspiration, a way of connecting the world — and their growth is showing no signs of slowing down.” You can now able to scroll through up to 1000 images on a single page, the image tiles have less white space between them, there’s keyboard navigation, the previews have been made bigger, and there’s now a hover pane that shows the image preview when rolling over a thumbnail. The page that loads when a user clicks on an image shows the image in the frame of the Web site that hosts it. Clicking outside the image...

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Swedish Pirate Party Launches ISP

The torrent-dedicated website TorrentFreak has reported that the Swedish Pirate Party, who is the host of The Pirate Bay,  has launched their own “Pirate ISP”. To defend torrent users everywhere, the Swedish Pirate Party volunteered to provide bandwith to The Pirate Bay after legal issues in May.  Now the Party has decided to partner with other companies to provide consumer internet service. The service began beta testing in the city of Lund yesterday with around 100 residents. Their initial aim is to gain 5% of Lund, and move on to other parts of Sweden. At the Hacknight conference in Malmo, Sweden, the CEO of Pirate ISP said that they will not allow the Swedish Government to monitor Pirate ISP users and will refuse to retain logs. He also said that any attempt to force the ISP to do so will result in a constitutional issue. It was also clear on how Pirate ISP would respond to outside interference, in particular from the United States, saying “They can bring on whatever they have, we will refuse to follow there. We don’t agree with what they are saying and we don’t agree with the laws they are making so if they have an issue with us, then we will have an issue – but that’s it.” For most potential Pirate ISP customers who intend to use the service to file-share, the...

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