IE8 at Add-On Con in Mountain View

A few of the startups building browser Add-Ons have organized the first ever Add-On Con, to take place in Mountain View on Dec 11, 2008.  We thought it was such a cool idea that we decided to co-sponsor the event (Mozilla is the other sponsor).  We will be giving some sessions about extending Internet Explorer, and Mozilla and Google will be presenting about their respective web browsers.  Many companies with successful Add-Ons will be sharing their stories and experiences, so it’s a great education and networking event. 

Matt Crowley, Program Manager for Extensibility, will cover all of the extensibility options available in IE8.  I will be discussing the lessons learned porting Firefox extensions to IE.  

Source- IE Blog

Gmail launches voice and video chat

Google today launched Gmail voice and video chat, making it simple for people around the world to chat in high-quality video for free right within Gmail. All you need is a webcam and a small web browser plugin, and you can start video chatting with your friends, family, and coworkers on Gmail and Google Apps. Gmail voice and video chat lets you start a video chat without switching to another application or signing up for another account. And if you don’t have a webcam, you can simply chat by voice. We’ve made it easy enough that your mom — or your employees — will actually use it.

The launch comes as video communication grows in popularity; many of the latest lines of laptops, for example, come with built-in webcams. Businesses stretched across continents and timezones want more face-to-face collaboration among their employees, but in this economic climate, they’re looking for ways to cut travel and IT expenses. Having a meeting with a colleague over video allows communications to continue in person without the expense of traveling there. Whether it’s a coworker demoing a new product, or a first-time grandmother saying hello to her new grandson, sometimes there’s no substitute for speaking to and seeing someone. Google is offering browser-based voice and video chat as a natural extension to webmail and instant messaging, allowing people to choose how they want to communicate at each moment — by email, instant message, voice, or video.

Source- Google Press Release

Windows Mobile 7 release delayed

According to Cnet News.com Microsoft has been informing its partners that it will be delaying Windows Mobile 7 to the second half of next year.
Windows Mobile 7 was widely expected to be released to device partners and operators early next year. The delay could severely set back sales of Windows Mobile devices as Apple’s iPhone sales grow stronger and Google’s G1 android device looks to make an impact in the smartphone market.
Earlier this year news leaked about multi touch, motion gestures and a new UI for Windows Mobile 7 pictured below which drew huge excitement from Windows Mobile and smartphone fans.

Despite HTC updating Windows Mobile with the touchflo interface and Samsung introducing its own interface on top of Windows Mobile the operating system still requires an overhaul to bring it in line with touch based devices. Here’s hoping that Microsoft get Windows Mobile 7 out as soon as possible as we are all looking forward to it.
Microsoft has not commented publicly on the news.
View: Windows Mobile

Source- Neowin

Adding Live Search Maps As An Internet Explorer Search Provider

If you have Internet Explorer 7, you may be aware of the ability to add custom search providers to your browser. This allows you to add not just Live, Google and Yahoo!, but the likes of specific web site searches such as ESPN, Facebook or Target (yes, the retailer)! I figured there’s enough map lovers out there who may just want to search the Virtual Earth-based consumer site Live Search Maps right from the comfort of their own browser. So, how do you do it?

Well, first make sure you have IE 7. It might work on IE 8, but I’ve yet to return to it since Beta 1 when Virtual Earth 3D didn’t work right - I AM the team’s evangelist and this stuff MUST work right when I demo it! Well, in the browser search box, click the down arrow and you’ll see a list of the currently installed providers. It’s important to clarify that you need to select the Internet Explorer Search Box and not the Live Toolbar, MSN Toolbar, Google Toolbar, Yahoo! Toolbar, etc, etc. Only the Internet Explorer Search Box does this write up pertain to.

Next, click the "Find More Providers" link from the list. This will transport you to the Windows "Add Search Providers to Internet Explorer" list page. You’ll see a list of providers you can just click to add to your Internet Explorer Search Box. We’ll be creating our own, so after you’ve added your favorites continue reading.

Source- Virtual Earth Blog

Live Searches Drop Below 1 Billion

August U.S. search share data shows ugly declines for Microsoft in 2008.

The month’s data, released today by ComScore, is but a snapshot of a longer trend. I went back to the historical data, which shows how big Google gains are compared to Microsoft losses.

Microsoft’s share of U.S. searches dropped 4 points, to 8.3 percent, between July 2007 and August 2008. During the same time period, Google gained 7 points, to 63 percent search share. For Microsoft, the heavier blow will be psychological. In August, its number of searches dropped below 1 billion, approaching the dregs occupied by Ask and AOL.

U.S. Internet users conducted 11.7 billion searches in August, 7.4 billion through Google. But, when including YouTube, Google searches top 10 billion.

The numbers should greatly disappoint Microsoft product managers, particularly considering how much improved Windows Live Search is. I now tend to use Live Search alongside—and sometimes instead of—Google. Live Search typically delivers different results and often better ones. But better often doesn’t win the market, otherwise DVDs would have replaced Betamax not VHS, and Netscape Communicator would have bested Internet Explorer 4 a decade ago.

Source- Microsoft Watch

DoubleClick Serves Into Silverlight to Power Video Advertising for NBC Universal Digital Media

Today, DoubleClick, a premier provider of digital marketing technology and services, announced the new capability to serve video ads into Microsoft Silverlight 2 video environments. The move is part of DoubleClick’s ongoing effort to help clients maximize the yield on their advertising inventory as they deliver content into emergent online, video and mobile channels.

With this new feature of DoubleClick In-Stream, DoubleClick clients such as NBC Universal Digital Media are able to monetize video content played within the Silverlight 2 player. NBCOlympics.com, a division of NBC Universal, will be one of the first sites to open Silverlight 2 content up to advertisers with DoubleClick In-Stream. The solution carves out new video inventory across 2,500 hours of video content running as part of NBC’s Olympics coverage.

“Microsoft has always had a strong commitment to working closely with partners and the industry to enable them to leverage our tools and platform to deliver great user experiences. With Silverlight, we’ve extended that commitment to the advertising space,” said Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President, .NET Developer Division. “We’re pleased to see the investment DoubleClick has made to enable customers such as NBCOlympics.com to take advantage of Silverlight to offer compelling packages to their advertisers.”

Source- Google Press Release

Microsoft crowbars Live Search into Facebook

Microsoft has traded its exclusive deal to plaster Facebook with banner advertising for the right to pump Google-style contextual search ads on the profit-lite website. The switcheroo was tossed into yesterday’s attempt by Steve Ballmer to convince analysts that he’s still the world’s top chair-flinging sweaty software kingpin in the wake of the Yahoo! bid debacle.

Boydroid CEO Mark Zuckerberg claims that he isn’t interested in making money and that his once-buzzy firm is focused on “adding value” for users. The truth however is that Facebook needs to demonstrate to its real customers and chiefs - advertisers and venture capitalists - that it is anything more valuable than a complicated web spam generator. Especially after the world was shocked - shocked! - to discover the site isn’t really worth $15bn.

View:  The Reg

Microsoft Challenges Google’s PageRank Technology

Microsoft engineers, in collaboration with researchers at several Asian institutions, have proposed a new method for improving upon the Web page rankings produced by today’s search engine requests. Called BrowseRank, the new approach adds a human factor to the process by weighing how people actually use the Internet, the collaborators reported in a paper recently presented before the Special Interest Group on Information Retrieval.

“The more visits [to] the page made by the users, and the longer time periods spent by the users on the page, the more likely the page is important,” the paper’s authors noted. The goal is to “leverage hundreds of millions of users’ ‘implicit voting’ on page importance,” they said, “in accordance with the concept of Web 2.0.”

Source- newsfactor