Yearly Archives: 2011

Search engine, Baidu, is developing its own web browser in an effort to cement its hold over China’s Internet market, reports PCWorld.

“Starting this month, Baidu began testing an early beta version of the product within the company, according to an industry source familiar with the browser. The browser is built to be integrated with the company’s search applications. Baidu has also incorporated its “box computing” strategy into the design, a concept which allows users to not only search for results, but also execute commands like launching an application in the browser, or directly accessing an online service.”

Baidu holds a 75.5 percent share of China’s search engine market.

Read more: http://www.pcworld.com/article/223453/chinas_baidu_testing_new_web_browser.html#tk.rss_news

Microsoft has agreed to buy 666,624 IP addresses from bankrupt Canadian company Nortel for $7.5 million. This works out to $11.25/ip, writes Milton Mueller.

“Wake up call for our friends in the Regional Internet Registries. Nortel, the Canadian telecommunications equipment manufacturer that filed for bankruptcy protection in 2009, has succeeded in making its legacy IPv4 address block an asset that can be sold to generate money for its creditors. The March 23 edition of the Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Report has reported that Nortel’s block of 666,624 IPv4’s was sold for $7.5 million – a price of $11.25 per IP address. The buyer of the addresses was Microsoft. More information is in its filing in a Delware bankruptcy court.”

More: http://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2011-March/034547.html

Google has launched Chrome 11 browser with some new features, one of which is added support for the HTML5 speech input API, enabling you to talk to your PC.

With this API, developers can give web apps the ability to transcribe your voice to text. When a web page uses this feature, you simply click on an icon and then speak into your computer’s microphone. The recorded audio is sent to speech servers for transcription, after which the text is typed out for you.

Speech input test site: http://slides.html5rocks.com/#speech-input

The Chrome 11 beta also offers a sneak peek of GPU-accelerated 3D CSS, said Google.

More info: http://chrome.blogspot.com/2011/03/talking-to-your-computer-with-html5.html

Twitter has added a user setting that lets you always use HTTPS when reading and writing on Twitter.com. Twitter is adopting the encryption protocol, in steps.

For some time, users have been able to use Twitter via HTTPS by going to https://twitter.com. Twitter have made it easier for users to do this by adding the option to always use HTTPS.

To turn on HTTPS, go to your settings and check the box next to “Always use HTTPS,” which is at the bottom of the page.

“There are also a few instances where turning on HTTPS in your settings does not force HTTPS. For example, when accessing Twitter from your mobile browser, you need to go to https://mobile.twitter.com to use HTTPS for now. We are working on a solution that will share the “Always use HTTPS” setting across twitter.com and mobile.twitter.com, so you don’t have to think about which device you’re using when you want to check Twitter. If you use a third-party application, you should check to see if that app offers HTTPS.”

More info: http://blog.twitter.com/2011/03/making-twitter-more-secure-https.html

Google is removing Gears from its Chrome browser as many gears features are available in HTML5.

“It’s finally time to say goodbye to Gears,” said Gears team member Aaron Boodman in a blog post. “There will be no new Gears releases, and newer browsers such as Firefox 4 and Internet Explorer 9 will not be supported. We will also be removing Gears from Chrome in Chrome 12.”

Google have implemented the HTML5 File API, which is very similar to the Gears Blob functionality.

More: http://gearsblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/stopping-gears.html

Blogger presented a preview of it’s “next-generation user interface” at SXSW.

Blogger will be launching a new design user interface that is cleaner and more modern and uses Google Web Toolkit.

In 2010, Blogger introduced template designer, real-time stats, comment spam filtering, mobile templates and web fonts .

According to Alexa, Blogger users published more than half a billion blog posts in 2010, which were read by more than 400 million active readers across the globe.

More: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/whats-new-with-blogger.html

Google is relaunching it’s Street View Website adding new info about different Street View vehicles Google uses to collect images and how those collected images are processed.

In addition to the places on the site homepage, Google have included highlights from around the world in a gallery that lets you see ski slopes, UNESCO World Heritage sites, and places on all seven continents.

Google says the new site is only available in the US, and will be launched in other countries later this year.

More info: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2011/03/street-view-showcase.html

Google has launched a version of its Person Finder tool for Web users looking for people in the region affected by the 8.9 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunamis in Japan.

The tool is available in English and Japanese. Users can click on the “I’m looking for someone” link or the “I have information about someone” link and enter ant information they have.

Google say: All data entered will be available to the public and viewable and usable by anyone. Google does not review or verify the accuracy of this data.

Person finder website:

English: http://japan.person-finder.appspot.com/?lang=en

Japanese: http://japan.person-finder.appspot.com/?lang=ja