Gates touts 2006's long-delayed Windows update
Come December 2006, Microsoft’s going to party like it’s 1995. That’s when the company is expected to release its newest, much-delayed version of the Windows operating system, code-named Longhorn, and it will supposedly be the most significant update to the software since Windows 95. Microsoft chair Bill Gates demonstrated some of Longhorn’s features on Monday, including the ability to see through windows stacked on top of each other, faster searching and a more natural system for organizing files. But the thing Gates said developers had invested the most in was security, and appropriately so, considering the volume of security patches Microsoft has divvied out for its products in recent years. As a competitive comparison, many of the features Gates outlined on Monday have been available on Apple’s Mac OS X operating system since March 2001.

Opera browser success may have CEO all wet 
Opera Software launched its new web browser last week, and its early success may lead to a long swim for company CEO Jon S. von Tetzchner. Before the browser's April 19 launch, Tetzchner said he would swim from Norway to the U.S. if more than 1 million copies of the new browser were downloaded within four days. After 48 hours, 600,000 copies of the browser had been downloaded, and at 10 a.m. on deadline day, Saturday, 1,050,000 copies had been downloaded. There’s no word on when, if at all, Tetzchner will actually attempt the swim. The Opera browser has a few innovative features, like responding to commands spoken into a microphone and rearranging pages to fit in narrow windows, but overall reviews have been mixed because there are lots of web pages that don’t work with it as well as they do with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer or Mozilla’s Firefox.

Hitwise: Product placement works on 'Apprentice'
NBC’s “The Apprentice” is TV’s current king of product placement, but how effective is the show in driving interest in the products that appear? Internet tracking company Hitwise measured one aspect of the show’s effectiveness, online interest for select advertisers. The Feb. 10 episode that featured Dove body wash was the most effective of those measured by Hitwise, as Dove.com increased its market share of internet visits by more than 1,500 percent during the week ended with the airdate versus the prior week. The April 14 episode featuring the Pontiac Solstice led to a 180.35 percent increase in market share of visits to Pontiac.com. And the March 31 episode featuring Domino’s Pizza sparked a 64.01 percent increase in market share of visits to Dominos.com. Three other episodes also resulted in web site increases, according to Hitwise: PlayStation.com increased it market share of visits by 19.9 percent during the week ended Feb. 24, Airstream.com received an 11.35 percent boost during the week ended Feb. 17 and BurgerKing.com jumped 2.27 percent during the week ended Jan. 20.

Warning: Don't buy World Cup 2006 tix on eBay
If you’re planning on making the trek to Germany for the 2006 World Cup, you better not get your tickets on eBay. Organizers of the world’s biggest soccer tournament warned that fans who do purchase tickets on eBay risk denial of admission upon arrival at the stadium. Each World Cup ticket has the purchaser's name on it, and IDs will be checked at random. Tickets can be legally passed on to someone else, but only with the approval of the organizing committee. The most expensive World Cup tickets have a $780 face value, but cheaper tickets have turned up on eBay selling for as much as $1,300. In the U.S., eBay remains the dominant online retailer, according to the latest info from Nielsen//NetRatings. In March, eBay accounted for 21.35 million purchases, or 45 percent of all purchases made online in the U.S. Amazon.com was a distant second with 5.69 million purchases, or 12 percent of the market share.