Some homes for sale will soon sport a new detail on their lawn signs — a code that will link prospective buyers to details about the property when entered into a Yahoo search page.

Prudential Real Estate Affiliates Inc. is working with Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO) on the Online Seller Advantage program.

Prudential agents can send daily e-mail alerts to home sellers with real-time updates on the number of people who have viewed their property online and the latest selling prices for nearby homes. The idea is to help sellers price their homes more competitively.

As part of the program, a Yahoo sign can be attached to “For Sale” lawn signs in front of homes being sold by Prudential. The unique ID number on it will help prospective buyers learn more without having to search through pages of listings.

The program is initially available in 47 states and Washington, D.C. Prudential says it will eventually be expanded to Arkansas, South Dakota and West Virginia.

Source: AP

The World Wide Web Consortium has approved the Web Services-Addressing specification as a standard.

The standards organization announced on May 9 that Web Services-Addressing 1.0—consisting of the core specification and the SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) binding—is now a W3C Recommendation. That means the specification is now a standard, officials of the organization said.

The WS-Addressing specification is an interoperable standard for addressing Web services messages.

It provides a transport-neutral mechanism for addressing objects in Web services applications built on top of URIs (Uniform Resource Identifiers), W3C officials said. This new method is called an endpoint reference, or EPR.

Source: eWeek

A little more than four months after Palm released the Windows Mobile-based Treo 700w on Verizon Wireless’ EV-DO (Evolution Data Optimized) network, it is set to announce a Palm OS version that can connect to EV-DO networks, CNET News.com has learned. The company on Monday will unveil the new model, which is expected to be called the 700p, according to sources familiar with its plans.

Source: News.com

A former Google Inc. advertiser sued Wednesday to block a proposed $90 million class-action settlement, arguing the amount grossly understates how much the online search engine leader has benefited from a ruse known as “click fraud.”

The complaint, filed by Joseph Kinney in Arkansas state court, targets two small businesses — Lane’s Gifts & Collectibles and Caufield Investigations — leading a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of thousands of merchants and entrepreneurs who have bought ads through Google’s search engine since 2001.

Source: AP

Sony Electronics is counting on profitable devices like flat screen TVs and Vaio computers to help bankroll the slow, pricey development of growth gadgets like the Blu-ray next-generation DVD player, its president said on Wednesday.

Source: Reuters

Google Inc. faces mounting competition in the Internet search advertising market, but expects such battles to drive up prices and increase revenues across the entire industry, Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said on Wednesday.

“There is a surprising, if not bizarre (fact that) more competition in auction can actually produce more revenue, rather than less,” Schmidt said in introductory comments at the company’s annual press day at its Mountain View, Calif. headquarters.

Source: Reuters

Police in 12 European Union countries and the United States searched more than 150 houses and arrested several people suspected of being involved in child pornography, the European police agency said on Wednesday.

The operation, codenamed “Baleno”, is the result of a worldwide investigation led by the Dutch National Police Agency, Europol said in a statement.

The Dutch police provided initial intelligence to 76 countries related to an Internet message board whose members’ activities included possession and distribution of child abuse material, the statement said.

Source: Reuters

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced new technologies to enhance and improve the search experience. Three new products – Google Co-op, Google Desktop 4, and Google Notebook – advance the state of the art in search by helping users worldwide find and share more relevant information. The products all incorporate new capabilities that leverage user communities, enabling users to either share more information with others or benefit from other users’ expertise to improve the accuracy of search results.

The company also introduced Google Trends, a new tool that enables users to examine billions of searches conducted on Google to gain insight into broad search patterns over time.

Google Co-op beta is a community where users can contribute their knowledge and expertise to improve Google search for everyone. Organizations, businesses, or individuals can label web pages relevant to their areas of expertise or create specialized links to which users can subscribe.

Once a user has subscribed to a provider’s content, all of that provider’s labels and subscribed links are added to the user’s search results for relevant queries. These contributions serve as meta information that helps Google’s search algorithms connect users to the most relevant information for their specific query. Users interested in contributing can get started at http://www.google.com/coop

Also announced today, Google Desktop 4 beta – available in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, and Brazilian Portuguese – offers another way for users to improve their search experience, by personalizing their desktops with the introduction of Google Gadgets. These gadgets are mini-applications that reside on users’ desktops and deliver a variety of personalized information such as games, media players, weather and news. Google Desktop can also recommend new gadgets and can automatically create a personalized homepage for users based on the subjects they frequently search and access.

Available today from Google Labs at http://www.google.com/trends, Google Trends builds on the Google Zeitgeist to help users find facts and trends related to Google usage around the world. Google Trends enables users to learn how popular a particular search term has been on Google over time and see the relevant news articles that ran on that subject.

Google Notebook is a simple way for users to save and organize their thoughts when conducting research online. This personal browser tool permits users to clip text, images, and links from the pages they’re browsing, save them to an online “notebook” that is accessible from any computer, and share them with others.

Google Notebook is an interactive scratch pad for every website a user visits, offering a single online location to collect web findings without having to leave the browser window. For example, if a user were planning a vacation, she could clip the most relevant materials on the pages she visits and add personal notes to help organize all of her research.

Users can make their Google Notebook public and share the notes they’ve taken with others. As a result, the time and effort put into their research can be harnessed by the online community as a whole.

Google Notebook will be available next week from Google Labs at http://www.google.com/notebook.

Don’t you hate it when you get home late from work and you realize you’ve missed the first 15 minutes of your favorite show? If you’re a Time Warner digital video subscriber, those worries could be a thing of the past.

On Wednesday the company said its Start Over feature for digital cable customers will be available free in Greensboro, NC, Rochester, NY and San Antonio, TX this summer. Start Over allows customers to jump to the beginning of a program in progress without any preplanning or in-home recording devices.

Source: News.com

Spyware soared in the first quarter this year - infecting an estimated 87 percent of consumers’ PCs, according to security firm Webroot, which released its State of Spyware report Tuesday.

That’s quiet a pop from the previous two quarters, when spyware had infected an estimated 72 percent of consumer PCs, according to Gerhard Eschelbeck, Webroot chief technology officer.

Source: News.com

NASA has made public some truly splendid hi-res snaps of planet Earth - lovingly cobbled together from a “a collection of satellite-based observations”

Source: The Register

A British computer expert accused by Washington of the world’s “biggest military hack of all time” should be extradited to the United States to stand trial, a court ruled on Wednesday.

Gary McKinnon, 40, was arrested last June following charges by U.S. prosecutors that he illegally accessed 97 government computers — including Pentagon, U.S. army, navy and NASA systems — causing $700,000 worth of damage.

Britain’s Home Secretary (interior minister) will make the final decision on deportation.

Source: Reuters