Michael Jackson’s death thrust the singer to the top of yahoo.com Internet searches in 2009, putting an end to Britney Spears’ four-year reign and helping bump the President Barack Obama from the top 10 list.

Although the year was dominated by recession, the most clicks still went to what distracts web surfers. NASCAR, actress Megan Fox, reality star Kim Kardashian, and the film “Twilight” replaced four actresses on last year’s top list.

Until June, when Jackson died of a drug overdose, Obama’s inauguration garnered the most web traffic, said Vera Chan, web trend analyst at Yahoo Inc.

The World Wide Web Consortium has published a draft of an interface that browsers can use to manipulate files better, one of a series of steps aimed at gradually improving the sophistication and polish of Web site interfaces.

The draft File API (application programming interface) defines a number of ways that browsers and Web sites can handle files better. One big part of it: being able to select multiple files for upload, such as on photo-sharing sites or Web-based e-mail, a task that often relies on Adobe Systems’ Flash today.

But there are other aspects, too. For example, the Files interface governs the use of “blobs,” or packages of raw binary data such as video files. Google has touted blobs for its Gears browser plug-in as a way to divide large videos into small chunks so that uploads can be more easily resumed if a network problem interrupts the process.

Another benefit: files are handled asynchronously, which means the browser won’t freeze up while a file is being uploaded or otherwise handled, and the browser reports progress on file transfers.

Firefox 3.6, in beta testing now, will support most of the Files API, according to Blizzard.

Increasing numbers of English-language Web sites are spreading al-Qaida’s message to Muslims in the West. They translate writings and sermons once largely out of reach of English readers and often feature charismatic clerics like Anwar al-Awlaki, who exchanged dozens of e-mails with the Army psychiatrist accused of the Fort Hood shootings.

The U.S.-born al-Awlaki has been an inspiration to several militants arrested in the United States and Canada in recent years, with his Web-based sermons often turning up on their computers.

“The point is you don’t have to be an official part of al-Qaida to spread hatred and sectarian views,” said Evan Kohlmann, a senior investigator for the New York-based NEFA Foundation, which researches Islamic militants.

“If you look at the most influential documents in terms of homegrown terrorism cases, it’s not training manuals on building bombs,” Kohlmann said. “The most influential documents are the ones that are written by theological advisers, some of whom are not even official al-Qaida members.”

Most of the radical Islamic sites are not run or directed by al-Qaida, but they provide a powerful tool for recruiting sympathizers to its cause of jihad, or holy war, against the United States, experts who track the activity said.

The number of English-language sites sympathetic to al-Qaida has risen from about 30 seven years ago to more than 200 recently, said Abdulmanam Almushawah, head of a Saudi government program called Assakeena, which works to combat militant Islamic Web sites.

In a case that raises questions about online journalism and privacy rights, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a formal request to an independent news site ordering it to provide details of all reader visits on a certain day.

The grand jury subpoena also required the Philadelphia-based Indymedia.us “not to disclose the existence of this request” unless authorized by the Justice Department, a gag order that presents an unusual quandary for any news organization.

Kristina Clair, a 34-year-old Linux administrator living in Philadelphia who provides free server space for Indymedia.us, said she was shocked to receive the Justice Department’s subpoena. (The Independent Media Center is a left-of-center amalgamation of journalists and advocates that, according to their principles of unity and mission statement, work toward “promoting social and economic justice” and “social change.”)

Web developers have waited for what seems like ages for this month to come along. Internet Explorer remains ahead of the rest of the competition, but since month after month it continues to lose ground to all other browsers, Firefox has now finally surpassed IE6, which is easily the most hated version of Microsoft’s browser. Firefox’s steady gain continues, Safari remains in a nonthreatening third place, Chrome is happily carving out a small niche for itself, and poor Opera can’t seem to budge from fifth place. In October, all browsers except for IE and Opera showed positive growth.

BitTorrent Inc. is about to launch a completely improved implementation of the BitTorrent protocol that will benefit both users and ISPs. uTorrent 2.0, which is currently being tested by thousands of people, will eliminate the need for ISPs to throttle or stop BitTorrent traffic, and will optimize the download experience for its users.

The nonprofit body that oversees Internet addresses approved Friday the use of Hebrew, Hindi, Korean and other scripts not based on Latin characters in a decision that could make the Web dramatically more inclusive.

The board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - or ICANN - voted to allow such scripts in so-called domain names at the conclusion of a weeklong meeting in Seoul, South Korea’s capital.

The decision by the board’s 15 voting members was unopposed and welcomed by applause and a standing ovation. It followed years of debate and testing.

The result clears the way for governments or their designees to submit requests for specific names, likely beginning Nov. 16. Internet users could start seeing them in use early next year, particularly in Arabic, Chinese and other scripts in which demand has been among the highest, ICANN officials say

Yahoo released a “final notice” on Wednesday reminding GeoCities users that the free site creation service will be closing up shop later this month.

“On October 26, 2009, your GeoCities site will no longer appear on the Web, and you will no longer be able to access your GeoCities account and file,” Yahoo wrote in a statement to GeoCities users.

The company said any GeoCities user that wants to maintain the site will be able to port it to Yahoo’s Web Hosting service, which would cost $4.99 per month for a year and $9.95 per month afterward. GeoCities Plus customers can port their sites to Yahoo Web Hosting at no additional charge.

Yahoo first announced that it would be closing GeoCities in April. At the time, the company didn’t divulge when the service would finally close.

Microsoft Corp and Google Inc secured separate agreements to access real-time content from Web phenomenon Twitter, intensifying their battle for a search market that Google dominates.

Google, and Microsoft’s 5-month-old Bing, each announced deals to access Twitter’s store of public data in real time on Wednesday, in the latest sign of escalating competition between the two search engines.

The long-expected deals are expected to ramp up the efficacy and lure of search results, by allowing users to scan real-time Tweets: 140-character stream-of-consciousness messages that Twitter hosts on its popular website.

The back-to-back announcements underscored how real-time data in search results is shaping up to be a pivotal battleground in the search arena.

With the current H1N1 flu (swine flu) pandemic under way, many public health officials are concerned that critical healthcare resources could be stretched thin as people flood hospital emergency departments and physicians’ offices to determine whether they have the illness. In response, Microsoft Corp. announced a new Web site, H1N1 Response Center (http://www.h1n1responsecenter.com), which provides users with timely and relevant content and enables consumers to gauge symptoms and receive guidance using an H1N1 self-assessment service.

“If current estimates are correct, many emergency departments across the nation could be overwhelmed by two groups of patients — those who have H1N1 and those who believe they have H1N1,” said Angela Gardner, M.D., FACEP, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians. “It is going to be essential that we use every tool and service at our disposal to contain this illness, and online H1N1 self-assessment tools, such as the one offered by Microsoft, can be helpful in providing people with ways to determine whether they should seek emergency care.”

Designed to help people decide what to do if they are worried that they or someone they know might have H1N1, the site offers consumers a self-assessment licensed from medical and public health experts at Emory University. The service assists people in deciding whether their symptoms could be caused by the H1N1 flu virus and provides guidance on what they can do next.

Adobe Systems has announced the availability of Adobe Flash Platform Services for Distribution, a new service that enables advertisers and content publishers to promote, measure, and monetize applications across social networks, desktops and mobile devices.

Adobe Systems has announced the availability of Adobe Flash Platform Services for Distribution, a new service that enables advertisers and content publishers to promote, measure, and monetize applications across social networks, desktops and mobile devices.

Adobe Flash Platform Services are online, hosted services that allow developers to add innovative capabilities to Web applications with a predictable, cost efficient deployment model, said Adrian Ludwig, group manager for the Flash Platform at Adobe. Developers, advertisers and publishers are now using Adobe Flash Platform Services to make Web applications sharable, social, and collaborative, he said.

“What we are doing is announcing the first of a series of platform services for the Flash Platform,” Ludwig said. “This service makes it easy for developers to make their applications and Flash-based content shareable.”

For 38 years, TV show Tomorrow’s World wowed audiences with its coverage of futuristic developments from the world of science and technology. It was axed in 2003, but now the BBC has brought the show back from the dead, sort of.

From today, anyone after an insight into how advancements in technology led to computerised banking, mobile phones – described as “experimental” in 1979 — touchscreen computers and, of course, compact discs can do so through a dedicated digital database.

The BBC archive doesn’t list every episode of Tomorrow’s World ever aired, but instead features a cherry-picked selection of clips and full-length episodes.

For example, the archive starts with the show’s first installment – broadcast in 1965. The 35-minute episode focuses on kidney dialysis, flood defences and the possibility of life of Mars.