Google Deal Said to Bring U.S. Scrutiny

Posted by T. Michael Testi (Blogcritics.org , PhotographyToday, ATAEE)

From - New York Times

Written By STEVE LOHR

 

The Federal Trade Commission has opened a preliminary antitrust investigation into Google’s planned $3.1 billion purchase of the online advertising company DoubleClick, an industry executive briefed on the agency’s plans said yesterday.

The inquiry began at the end of last week, after it was decided that the Federal Trade Commission instead of the Justice Department would conduct the review, said the executive, who asked not to be identified because he had not been authorized to speak. The two agencies split the duties of antitrust enforcement.

An F.T.C. spokesman said yesterday that the agency did not comment on pending inquiries.

The deal, involving powerful forces in their respective niches of the online advertising business, prompted privacy advocates and competitors to raise concerns after it was announced last month. Those concerns and the deal’s size made a preliminary investigation all but certain, according to antitrust experts.

The F.T.C. has also issued Google a detailed list of questions, the industry executive said. This step, known as a "second request" for information, can suggest that a proposed acquisition raises more serious antitrust issues. But legal experts said the request is mainly a sign that the agency is closely scrutinizing the Google deal. Read more...

News,Google,FTC

World's largest MP3 store launches

Posted by T. Michael Testi (Blogcritics.org , PhotographyToday, ATAEE)

From Boing Boing:

PayPlay has just launched "the world's largest MP3 download store" -- a store selling more than 1.3 million indie music tracks, with a search engine that allows you to search for your fave artists and get similar indie artists in the catalog. Previous to this PayPlay sold only DRM-crippled WMAs for $0.77, the MP3s sell for $0.88. I guess that we could take that as a tacit admission that DRM makes music worth less, but it does seem a little weird to charge a premium for music that doesn't treat you like a crook. The service says that this reflects the cost of retooling to host MP3s instead of WMAs. Another unfortunate legacy is the service's name, which reflects a time when the business was built on DRM and tried to offer artist the opportunity to get paid for their work. But "PayPlay" doesn't really sell the service to the public, who don't perceive having to pay as a benefit. Read More...

 

News,Music,MP3,PayPlay

The new Microsoft Coffee Table...

Posted by T. Michael Testi (Blogcritics.org , PhotographyToday, ATAEE)

  You gotta check this out. From Popular Mechanics is the video of Microsoft Surface; the first completely new computing platform since the PC. Hear the story about Microsoft's new product...a coffee table.

 

From the press clipping

" The software giant will announce at the D5 conference today that it’s built a new touch screen computer—a coffee table that will change the world. Go inside its top-secret development with PopularMechanics.com, then forget the keyboard and mouse: The next generation of computer interfaces will be hands-on. " Read more...

The final days of Google

Back in the 1990s Bill Gates said the company that would eventually beat Microsoft probably had yet to be founded - some people believe that company is Google. But what about Google itself, who will kill Google? An interesting analysis of who is most likely to form "the next big thing".



read more | digg story

reddit has been hacked

Digg competitor reddit has just been hacked with a major XSS exploit. Interestingly, reddit's founder was aware of the exploit months ago, but neglected to fix it.



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Top 20 Temporary and Disposable Email Services

Now a days Internet has become a home to spam. Millions of spam bots crawl the web daily to find email addresses and then bombard them with spam emails thus destroying their efficiency and creating problems for users. The best solution to this is to get a temporary or disposable email inbox which automatically expires after a certain time period.



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