Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, believes that when he is listening to the radio in his car, radio ads should personally address him about his needs. For example, while driving past a clothing store, a radio ad should remind Eric that he needs a pair of pants and instruct him to turn left at the upcoming clothing store.

Source: ZDNet

Sun Microsystems has announced new moves to bolster its support for and its place in the world of AJAX development.

The company announced on June 16 that it is deepening its involvement in the AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) community by joining the OpenAJAX Alliance and the Dojo Foundation, in order to help build standards for AJAX tooling and work to promote and increase interoperability across AJAX implementations, the company said.

Source: eWeek

Currently, Yahoo Finance is the most popular personal finance Web site in the U.S., according to research from Hitwise, The Yahoo Finance portal had a 34.9 percent share of the market, as of the week ending June 10, 2006. The next most popular personal finance Web site was MSN MoneyCentral with a 13.67 percent share followed by CNN Money with a 4.50 percent share.

By comparison, Google Finance ranked number 38 for the week ending June 10, capturing only 0.28 percent of all visits to major financial sites. Hitwise measured 988 sites altogether for the June 10 report.

Source: NewsFactor

A U.S. appeals court has upheld a ruling that Microsoft’s Office software infringes on a Guatemalan inventor’s technology, lawyers for the inventor said Friday.

Morrison & Foerster said that on Wednesday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington affirmed a verdict that Microsoft’s Office software infringed on a patent held by Carlos Armando Amado. In June 2005, an Orange County, Calif., jury awarded Amado $6.1 million, ruling that Microsoft’s method of linking its Access database and Excel spreadsheet infringed on Amado’s technology.

Source: News.com

Microsoft wants to get into the online bookmarking market, just like del.icio.us, Microsoft debut Windows Live Favorites.

Just like all the other online bookmark sites, you can manage your favorites, tag and share them with the latest Windows Live Favorites site.

Source: Blut

PayPal has fixed a flaw in its Web site to block a sophisticated scam designed to obtain sensitive data from members, the payment service said Friday.

By exploiting the flaw, attackers were able to redirect people from a PayPal Web page to an online trap located in South Korea, a representative for the service said. The page actually has a real PayPal URL, but hosts malicious code that presents a message warning members that their account had been compromised. It then redirects them to a “phishing” Web site.

Source: News.com

Anti-digital rights management activists dressed in bright yellow toxic waste suits staged what can best be described as sparsely attended protests at seven Apple Computer stores nationwide on June 10.

The group, organized by the Free Software Foundation, carried “Eliminate DRM” pickets and handed out fliers as part of its “Defective by Design” campaign, to draw attention to the restrictions placed on digital music purchased from the iTunes Music Store.

Many greeted the spectacle with the sort of disdain normally reserved for fans at a “Star Trek” convention. But even if the tiny uprising seemed easy to dismiss, it’s harder to ignore the increasing calls for interoperability among digital music services and devices around the globe. Apple, as the digital entertainment industry’s reigning champ, gets much of the criticism.

Source: Reuters

Though the HD DVD format launched less than two months ago, Universal Studios Home Entertainment has announced it will already be dropping the list price of all its current and upcoming releases on the format. The studio will slash the price of its entire HD DVD library to $29.95; most current releases from the studio retail for $34.95. The only Universal HD DVD titles not to be affected by the new pricing tier will be the studio’s upcoming HD DVD/DVD hybrid discs. The first two titles announced earlier today, ‘National Lampoon’s Animal House’ and ‘Unleashed,’ will retail for $34.95.

Source: highdefdigest.com

Microsoft has forwarded a cease-and-desist order to VistaTorrent.com, asking the site’s operators to stop their distribution of the latest beta test version of the Windows Vista operating system.

Company spokesmen noted that it is Microsoft’s standard practice to stop third parties from unauthorized distribution of its products, as the software giant said it cannot guarantee the authenticity or security of any code that is not supplied via its own channels.

Source: eWeek