Word that Microsoft had a crack team of developers in Silicon Valley working on a cutting-edge search project is news to the company's head of search and advertising.

"When they get it done, I hope they'll send me a link to it so I'll know about it," Satya Nadella, corporate vice president of Microsoft's search and advertising platform group, jokingly said late on Monday at the Search Marketing Expo in Seattle.

He was responding to a question about a rumor making the rounds online that a team of engineers at Microsoft's Mountain View office is working on a new search engine to replace its existing one.

While Nadella denied any specific effort to build a new search engine, he did say that his group, as a very young search operation compared to some other giants, would need to take risks in order to improve its position. Microsoft search is just over 3 years old and has about 10 percent of the market, he said. "We'll experiment," he said.

Longer term, Nadella wants to experiment with and "reconceptualize" the search user interface. There's a "ton" of innovation that can be done on the user experience side, he said.

In addition to innovating on new products, Nadella's group will get more scientific in researching how customers use Live search. "The crux of our problem is how do we get existing searchers to use it more," he said. To figure out how to do that, he wants to have more data about things like abandonment rates.

Source: InfoWorld

A noted security researcher Monday disclosed four new zero-day vulnerabilities in Microsoft Corp. and Mozilla Corp.'s browsers, including a critical flaw in Internet Explorer (IE) and a "major" bug in Firefox.

Michael Zalewski, who regularly publishes browser flaw findings, posted details on the Full-disclosure mailing list for cookie-stealing, keystroke-snooping, malicious downloading and site-spoofing bugs.

The most serious of the four, said Zalewski, is an IE6 and IE7 flaw he rated "critical." Dubbing it a "bait-and-switch" vulnerability, he said that the Microsoft browser gives hackers a window of opportunity to run malicious JavaScript to hijack the PC.

But Mozilla's browser also suffered at Zalewski's hands. A new IFrame vulnerability in Firefox 2.0 can let attackers plant keyloggers or drop malicious content into a legitimate Web site. The flaw, rated as "major," is related to a similar bug discovered last year; although Mozilla patched that problem, Zalewski said the fix hadn't plugged all the holes.

Mozilla is aware of both Firefox bugs -- they have been posted to its Bugzilla management system -- and a Microsoft spokeswoman said the company's security team is looking into Zalewski's claims. "Upon completion of this investigation, Microsoft will take the appropriate action, which may include issuing a security advisory or providing a security update," she added.

Source: PC World

A noted security researcher Monday disclosed four new zero-day vulnerabilities in Microsoft Corp. and Mozilla Corp.'s browsers, including a critical flaw in Internet Explorer (IE) and a "major" bug in Firefox.

Michael Zalewski, who regularly publishes browser flaw findings, posted details on the Full-disclosure mailing list for cookie-stealing, keystroke-snooping, malicious downloading and site-spoofing bugs.

The most serious of the four, said Zalewski, is an IE6 and IE7 flaw he rated "critical." Dubbing it a "bait-and-switch" vulnerability, he said that the Microsoft browser gives hackers a window of opportunity to run malicious JavaScript to hijack the PC.

But Mozilla's browser also suffered at Zalewski's hands. A new IFrame vulnerability in Firefox 2.0 can let attackers plant keyloggers or drop malicious content into a legitimate Web site. The flaw, rated as "major," is related to a similar bug discovered last year; although Mozilla patched that problem, Zalewski said the fix hadn't plugged all the holes.

Mozilla is aware of both Firefox bugs -- they have been posted to its Bugzilla management system -- and a Microsoft spokeswoman said the company's security team is looking into Zalewski's claims. "Upon completion of this investigation, Microsoft will take the appropriate action, which may include issuing a security advisory or providing a security update," she added.

Source: PC World

Once upon a time, Microsoft proposed a huge network of media, music and gaming that would span multiple devices: Windows computers, Xbox game consoles, and even Zune media players. It was quite the proposal, given the vast level of competition on almost all of the aforementioned fronts. The company has been moving forward with this "Live Anywhere" initiative, and the next step toward world domination has been unveiled: Ignition, a cross-platform soapbox for the world's musical talent.

This new network of music and music videos will be available via any of Microsoft's many devices and platforms in the hopes of leveraging the music industry to bring in new users while helping out budding artists by providing a huge audience.

"The Ignition program is designed to help artists connect with a substantial consumer audience," explains Microsoft's director of music marketing Christina Callo. "Consumers are looking for ways to find new music, and Ignition helps connect artists with potential new fans by giving them multiple opportunities to listen to, watch, or read about the artist across Microsoft's online platforms."

On the Xbox 360 front, Xbox Live members have enjoyed some occasional music videos via the "Artist of the Month" promotions, but Ignition will likely offer a more expansive offering of content that may or may not have timed availability. The UK's Maxïmo Park will be the first group to be promoted; their album Our Earthly Pleasures and the single "Our Velocity" will mark the first available free downloads for the Ignition system and will be available via the Zune Marketplace and the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Source: Ars Technica

Once upon a time, Microsoft proposed a huge network of media, music and gaming that would span multiple devices: Windows computers, Xbox game consoles, and even Zune media players. It was quite the proposal, given the vast level of competition on almost all of the aforementioned fronts. The company has been moving forward with this "Live Anywhere" initiative, and the next step toward world domination has been unveiled: Ignition, a cross-platform soapbox for the world's musical talent.

This new network of music and music videos will be available via any of Microsoft's many devices and platforms in the hopes of leveraging the music industry to bring in new users while helping out budding artists by providing a huge audience. 

"The Ignition program is designed to help artists connect with a substantial consumer audience," explains Microsoft's director of music marketing Christina Callo. "Consumers are looking for ways to find new music, and Ignition helps connect artists with potential new fans by giving them multiple opportunities to listen to, watch, or read about the artist across Microsoft's online platforms."

On the Xbox 360 front, Xbox Live members have enjoyed some occasional music videos via the "Artist of the Month" promotions, but Ignition will likely offer a more expansive offering of content that may or may not have timed availability. The UK's Maxïmo Park will be the first group to be promoted; their album Our Earthly Pleasures and the single "Our Velocity" will mark the first available free downloads for the Ignition system and will be available via the Zune Marketplace and the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Source: ars technica

Once upon a time, Microsoft proposed a huge network of media, music and gaming that would span multiple devices: Windows computers, Xbox game consoles, and even Zune media players. It was quite the proposal, given the vast level of competition on almost all of the aforementioned fronts. The company has been moving forward with this "Live Anywhere" initiative, and the next step toward world domination has been unveiled: Ignition, a cross-platform soapbox for the world's musical talent.

This new network of music and music videos will be available via any of Microsoft's many devices and platforms in the hopes of leveraging the music industry to bring in new users while helping out budding artists by providing a huge audience. 

"The Ignition program is designed to help artists connect with a substantial consumer audience," explains Microsoft's director of music marketing Christina Callo. "Consumers are looking for ways to find new music, and Ignition helps connect artists with potential new fans by giving them multiple opportunities to listen to, watch, or read about the artist across Microsoft's online platforms."

On the Xbox 360 front, Xbox Live members have enjoyed some occasional music videos via the "Artist of the Month" promotions, but Ignition will likely offer a more expansive offering of content that may or may not have timed availability. The UK's Maxïmo Park will be the first group to be promoted; their album Our Earthly Pleasures and the single "Our Velocity" will mark the first available free downloads for the Ignition system and will be available via the Zune Marketplace and the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Source: ars technica

In a blast from the past, the Netscape Browser, which was resurrected in 2005 by AOL, has become Netscape Navigator once again for version 9.0. The new release, currently in beta, brings a number of new features such as built-in news, URL correction, and link-sharing.

As expected, Netscape Navigator 9 (screenshots) closely integrates with AOL's new Netscape.com site, which lets users vote on stories and leave comments. A new Friends' Activity Sidebar and Tracker provides a quick view of recently posted news and comments on the site.

In addition, a Link Pad enables users to store interesting links that don't merit bookmarking. Navigator 9 can also run any Firefox 2-compatible extension for further customization. On the user interface side, developers have combined the stop and reload button, and brought back the "throbber" from Netscape 7.

Download: Netscape Navigator 9 beta 1

View: BetaNews

Toshiba will ship HD DVD drives in all of its laptops beginning in 2008, its senior vice president said Tuesday. While it is unclear what effect the decision will have on the prices of its laptops, typically bundling the high definition drives have resulted in higher retail costs.

Doing so, however, holds promise for the future of the format. According to data from IDC, the company sold 9.2 million notebooks last year, and is in the top five overall in shipments. The company is also planning to use flash memory in its laptops beginning this month, as prices on NAND chips have fallen far enough to make them feasible for such use, it said.

Source: BetaNews

Asus and Intel have teamed up to develop a $199 notebook PC, the companies announced here on Tuesday.

In a keynote address given by Sean Maloney, an executive vice president at Intel and chief marketing and sales officer, Jonney Shih, chairman and chief executive of ASUS, was invited on stage to unveil the "Eee PC," an inexpensive laptop designed to help spread computing to poorer regions.

Two models were demonstrated: a $199 and $299 model. They represent part of what Intel is now calling its "World Ahead," market initiative, giving virtually anyone around the world a chance to own a PC. Rival AMD has had its own initiative, more dedicated to seeking partners in impoverished companies to provide low-cost computers, which it calls its "50x15" plan.

View: ExtemeTech

MSN reopened Soapbox to the public this weekend after a two-month hiatus while the company implemented a content filtering system on the site. Soapbox now uses a combination of "proactive automatic filtering technology" by Audible Magic and automated tools of its own that will comb through videos uploaded by members. "As a software company, we have a deep belief in the responsible use and aggressive protection of intellectual property and see these as important steps to ensure the viability and success of our user-generated video service over the long term," Rob Bennett, general manager of Entertainment and Video Services at MSN, told Ars.

Audible Magic's filter checks for "fingerprinted" content—that is, content where the audio track matches an audio track contained in Audible Magic's database. This allows the software to compare the two relatively quickly and determine whether a clip is an exact copy of something that has been registered by a content owner.

"In addition, Microsoft is building tools to help content owners with automating certain parts of notice and takedown for anything that might not be caught during proactive filtering," Bennett said. "These tools do not use fingerprinting—they help content owners find content that might have slipped through the filtering, then allow them to more easily determine if it needs to be taken down, and to let us know in an easy, seamless fashion."

View: Ars Tehnica