Industry / technology news update 17/04/08

‎18-04-2008

Some people think that I know what's going on in the technology and internet industry so I'm about to be found out. That is, unless you can help me! On a weekly basis, normally Thursdays, I'm going to post a roundup of industry news that caught my eye. If you think there's other equally (or more) interesting technology / industry news then just add a comment to the blog with details and a link to the story. Anyway, let's get down to business::

So, perhaps the story that most made my heart run with fear was that PlusNet may be up for sale. Fortunately, I'm very pleased to say, it's NOT US but another ISP with the same name (yes, you're probably thinking the same as me).

One ISP that we know is already up for sale is Tiscali and news today suggests that Vodaphone, BSkyB and Orange have all joined the race. Expect more details on the sale by the end of this month.

Sticking with the ISP theme, certain US ISPs have been "outed" and accused of inserting ads into their users' webpage requests. This effectively means that you could be innocently surfing the web and an advert appears on a webpage that you request even though the host of the website did not deliver it to you. While this isn't a new practice, it has only just come to light how many ISPs were allegedly involved.

One of my favourite initiatives is the semantic web. I'm not sure how successful it will be after so much hype and uncertainty, but finally we may start to see something as Powerset announce that they expect their search engine to be available within weeks. (They actually announced it last week but I thought it was interesting enough to include for this week.) Just take a look at the screenshot and pay special attention to the search criteria, and then look at the results.

ispy with my little phone something beginning with "£100 cheaper". O2 and CPW announce that they will slash the price of the current iPhone model in anticipation of the new 3G model due in June.

While I'm dotting the i's, Seagate are in a right solid state about their patents allegedly being infringed by (amongst others) the iPhone and iPods. The suit could be far reaching for future costs of devices with SSDs.

SaaS is apparently driving the 60 fastest growing companies in the world, according to cnet. This is interesting news and shows just how the software licensing model is rapidly changing from in-house deployment of purchased software to third-party hosted services.

Just after Microsoft told Yahoo! that they only have 3 weeks to agree a deal, Yahoo! go and throw a spanner in the works by agreeing to a trial with Google to add Google AdWords to a portion of Yahoo!'s search results.

Perhaps more interestingly for Yahoo! fans is that after purchasing Indextools, they have announced that 80% of their web analytics gem called Omniture will be free. Omniture is generally highly regarded so this is a real bonus to anyone looking for a good analytics solution.

Microsoft announced yesterday that the last major enhancement to Windows XP (in the guise of SP3) will be available to businesses and system builders as of next week, and then about a week later for everyone else. This is effectively reading the last rights to XP, which has arguably been Microsoft's best Windows operating system.

Google have announced that businesses can now add YouTube videos to their profiles on Google Maps. This is a subtle enhancement but very powerful for a small business. This would certainly have helped me choose a nicer hotel when I was looking for accommodation closer to the start of the Great North Run last year! And maybe it could help people choose their broadband supplier as well, who knows!

As vigilant as we already have to be with our computer and online security, the University of Illinois believe this could get almost impossible in the future by the possibility of having your CPU compromised. Don't panic too much, though, it's not believed likely to happen even though it is possible.

Just to round things off, I read a blog this week detailing the "6 must have Firefox extensions". I must admit, I'm now starting to use Nuke Anything and Reload Every to great effect.

Well that's it from me this week, but remember if you've got an interesting industry news item then let us know - feel free to just add a comment detailing the story and including a link if possible.