Yahoo
gives Google search power the boot
This move caught no one by
surprise. Internet media giant Yahoo Inc. said yesterday it was letting
Google go and replacing it with its own web search technology. This
development is the final move in the unraveling of a long-term partnership
between the two rival internet companies. The relationship was amicable to
begin with, but soon turned adversarial as Google’s popularity
skyrocketed and web-search advertising revenues, which traffic providers
like Yahoo share with search companies, increased tremendously. The newly
single Google is expected to go public later this year. Yahoo acquired
search provider Inktomi and Overture Services, a web-search advertising
company, to power its searches. Yahoo began making the switch late Tuesday
night with the U.S. site and will continue the project over the next
several weeks. Once completed, Yahoo will be the driving force behind
nearly half of all web searches in the U.S.
Google's
response? Who cares, we serve 6B.
Not
every person in the world has a web page, but there’s one for every
person on Google. The internet search powerhouse said this week that it
now has access to more than 6 billion web pages, images and online
postings. Previously, the online search engine accessed 3.3 billion pages,
but because of the ever-expanding web, Google’s new index spans 4.3
billion pages, 880 million images and 845 million bulletin board posts, in
addition to book chapters and reviews. Google co-founder Sergey Brin said
images saw the biggest hikes because of the intense popularity of digital
photography. The Mountain View, Calif., company’s legions of computers
scan the web to find new pages to add, which allows them to attain their
page index. Google’s growing popularity has helped its AdWords program,
small text ads that run next to searches, gain 150,000 advertisers.
Today's
net worm brought to us by Netsky.B
Categorizing internet worms is beginning to take as much
time as erasing spam. “Netsky.B” appeared on the internet Wednesday as
familiar emails to users, which lured them into opening file attachments
containing harmful software, according to security experts. The majority
of security companies identified the worm as a medium-grade threat,
calling it more of an annoyance than a destructive virus. Trend Micro Inc.
said it has a very low infection rate, although newer, more potent
versions could be on the way. Once activated, Netsky.B forwards itself to
email addresses it finds on the computer’s hard drive. The worm
typically appears as an email from a familiar contact bearing an
attachment that seems to be a Microsoft Word document labeled “read it
immediately” or “something for you.”
Big
demand for Apple's new small iPod
Apple’s new iPod mini is getting big orders. On Tuesday,
Apple Computer Inc. said it had received 100,000 orders for the compact
digital device, which goes on sale on Friday at Apple’s retail outlets,
its online store and via resellers. Apple said it will also unveil $15
prepaid cards for its online music store, which will be available at
Target stores. The cards have a code that users punch in when they enter
Apple’s online music store, iTunes. The iPod mini, which is about the
length and width of a business card, weighs 3.6 ounces and holds 1,000
songs. It is Apple’s answer to flash-memory budget digital music
players. The tiny tune tool costs $249, as opposed to the larger iPods,
which can hold a range of 3,700 to 10,000 songs and cost from $299 to
$499.
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