Bing To Integrate Facebook Features in Search Engine Soon

You may start seeing some familiar faces in Bing search results soon.

Microsoft deepened its corporate friendship with Facebook Wednesday, announcing tighter integration with the social network into Bing's search results.

Bing will display data from Facebook, such as user profiles and pages your friends have "Liked," to complement Web searches.

For example, if you search Bing for Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's 26-year-old chief executive, you might find a link to his personal profile, with buttons for sending him a message or adding him as a friend. That's in addition to the standard links to Wikipedia articles and news stories.

A link on that same results page to the website for "The Social Network" could show pictures of your friends who have inidicated on Facebook that they "Like" that movie.

The new Bing features will also show up in searches made from Facebook's website.

Microsoft's Yusuf Mehdi was unambiguous about his excitement for the Facebook partnership.
"This is going to profoundly change how we search," Mehdi, the company's senior vice president for its online audience business, said at the news conference.

Last week Yahoo added new features to its search results pages, which are powered by Bing. In addition to slideshow enhancements and a new shortcuts feature, Yahoo began pulling in some photo albums from Facebook.

Despite advancements by rival search engines, market leader Google continues to gain.

Google was used for 66 percent of internet searches in September, according to market research firm comScore. During that period Yahoo had 17 percent and Bing had 11 percent, the report said.

But Google has struggled to form partnerships with Facebook. The search giant says it wants to tap into the social network's 500 million users.

United States World's Top Spammers

The United States is now the top source of spam, accounting for almost 19 percent of all junk e-mail sent throughout the world, according to a new report out today from Sophos.

The security firm's "Dirty Dozen" report highlighted the top 12 countries responsible for the world's supply of spam during the third quarter. With the United States generating almost 2.5 times more spam than second-place India, the country now accounts for almost one in five junk messages. The United States' 18.6 percent share of all global spam also showed a significant jump from its 15.2 percent share in the second quarter.

Click To Enlarge Image!

Among the other top sources of spam, according to Sophos, are India with 7.6 percent of all global junk mail, Brazil with 5.7 percent, France with 5.4 percent, and the U.K. with 5 percent.

The report also highlighted the growth in spam from social-networking sites over the third quarter. Last month, Twitter users were hit by a "MouseOver" exploit that redirected them to third-party spam sites if they simply hovered over a link in a tweet. And over the summer, Facebook users faced their own scams, ones that attempted to trick them into filling out bogus surveys, with the information then used to spam their friends.

Much of the spam now being generated around the world isn't coming from the spammers themselves but from botnets, networks of infected computers directed to send junk mail to other unsuspecting users.

"You should never even be tempted to open a spam message out of curiosity, as it can only take a second to effectively hand over control of your computer to the spammers," Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, explained in a statement. "If your computer does become part of a botnet, you're also inviting further malware infections, which may compromise your personal or banking information."

Windows Phone 7 Is Real Facebook Phone

When Microsoft and Facebook announced that they were partnering to integrate Facebook and Bing for social network-powered search, it confirmed something I thought Monday: Windows Phone 7 is the real Facebook phone.

I don't know whether Facebook has a secret team working on a phone where they control the OS. But the company don't need one. It's already deeply integrated into Android and iOS. Now with the Microsoft partnership, it's tied to the most socially optimized smartphone ever brought to the market.

"This is, I think, one of the most exciting partnerships we've done on the platform so far," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at the Bing announcement Wednesday. "Our view is that over the next five years we expect that almost every industry is going to be disrupted by someone building a great product that's deep in whatever area that industry is, plus is extremely socially integrated."

The first Windows Phone 7 handsets are due in stores November. The OS is Microsoft's complete do-over on mobile, after its predecessor Windows Mobile tanked in popularity and market share in the wake of more consumer-savvy handsets such as Apple's iPhone and Google's Android-powered smartphones.

Every aspect of Windows Phone 7 is geared to social networks: phone, contacts, gaming, photos, even Office. Focusing the phone around Hubs doesn't just mean that local client apps and cloud apps are grouped next to each other. It means that the local client and cloud work together.

Microsoft tried to explicitly build a social networking phone featuring Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and MySpace with the Kin. The Kin failed and was killed by Microsoft, mostly because it wasn't a full-featured smartphone (it was a fork of Windows Phone 7), but required a smartphone's data plan.

Microsoft Launches "Cloud" Version of Office

Microsoft Corp launched a fully online version of its popular Office suite of applications on Tuesday as it looks to extend its customer base and beat back rival Google Inc.

The new service, called Office 365, is available as a limited test from Tuesday, and will be on sale on a subscription basis worldwide next year.

Combining some of Microsoft's existing cloud-based services, it will be available through most browsers and on mobile devices.

That means customers can get access to Office programs like Outlook e-mail and SharePoint websites without installing software, from virtually anywhere.

The move strikes a blow against rival Google, which has had some success with its Google Apps service, which provides a low-cost, Web-based alternative to Microsoft's traditional Office software.

Shares of Microsoft were down 2.7 percent at $25.12 in morning trading, while Google fell 1.1 percent to $610.95.

Microsoft is doubling down on its commitment to the cloud with the launch of Office 365, a service that combines Microsoft Office, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online and Lync Online with the cloud.

Announced at a press event in San Francisco by Kurt DelBane, president of Microsoft's office division, Office 365 is a subscription service that integrates cloud-based syncing, collaboration, and accessibility to businesses and organizations worldwide. So long as a device supports ActiveSync, customers can access their e-mail, calendars, team websites and office web apps from anywhere. The inclusion of Lync also means that Office 365 has videoconferencing capabilities.

There are two editions of Office 365. Office 365 for Small Businesses is designed for organizations of one to 25 people. It's a pre-built package that includes Office Web Apps, Lync, e-mail sync, and more. It doesn't require IT support on the user's end and will cost $6 per user per month.

The second version is Office 365 for Enterprises. Unlike the small business version, the enterprise edition can be customized based on an organization's needs. It can be customized so different teams have different access levels to Office 365's features. The enterprise edition comes with everything in the small business version, plus single sign-in, Office Pro Plus (via subscription), internal social networking tools, voicemail in the inbox, and more. It costs anywhere between $2 to $27 per user per month, depending on which features the company chooses to utilize.

The beta will be available to a few thousand organizations starting today; its full launch will occur sometime next year in 40 countries. Sometime in late 2011, Office 365 will add Microsoft Dynamics CRM to its suite of products.

Microsoft is extraordinarily bullish on the cloud. DelBane said that the company believes the cloud is as radical of an innovation as the graphical user interface. Office 365 just makes sense though; the rising demand for enterprise-level cloud apps like Dropbox and Box.net is due to its ability to help teams collaborate and coordinate their efforts.

Hacker Hits Kaspersky Website

Scammers who try to trick victims into downloading fake antivirus software can strike almost anywhere. On Sunday they hit the website of Kaspersky Lab, a well-known antivirus vendor.

Someone took advantage of a bug in a Web program used by the Kasperskyusa.com website and reprogrammed it to try and trick visitors into downloading a fake product, Kaspersky confirmed Tuesday. Kaspersky didn't identify the flaw, but said it was in a "third-party application" used by the website.

"As a result of the attack, users trying to download Kaspersky Lab's consumer products were redirected to a malicious website," the antivirus vendor said. The website caused a pop-up window to appear that simulated a virus scan of the user's PC, and offered to install an antivirus program that was in fact bogus.

This is a typical trick for fake-antivirus scammers, who are constantly looking for new ways to trick victims into buying their products. In the past they've been known to pose as legitimate online advertisers and then suddenly switch their ad inventory from legitimate-looking ads to these fake pop-up messages.

Security experts say the safest thing to do when one of these fake antivirus messages pops up is to simply kill the Web browser. On Windows, this can be done by hitting ctrl-alt-delete and ending the browser process in the Task Manager.

According to Kaspersky, its website was redirecting users to the rogue antivirus site for about three-and-a-half hours Sunday. The company did a complete audit of its websites afterwards "to ensure they're running fully updated code."

In discussion forums, users complained that the site was trying to download fake antivirus software called Security Tools.

This isn't the first time Kaspersky has had to audit its websites after an incident. In February 2009 a hacker was able to break into the company's U.S. support site after discovering a Web programming flaw. That flaw could have given the hacker access to customer e-mail addresses and product activation codes via a common attack technique called SQL injection.

Nobody's information was compromised in Sunday's attack, Kaspersky said. "However, Kaspersky Lab takes any attempt to compromise its security seriously," the company said. "Our researchers are currently working on identifying any possible consequences of the attack for affected users, and are available to provide help to remove the fake antivirus software."

Google Block 188 Million Emails Spam

You may have seen slightly less spam coming into your email inbox recently, but those messages were more likely than usual to contain a virus, according to a report by Google.

The amount of spam being transmitted dipped slightly in August and September, the study found. Spam in the third quarter of the year was down 24 percent compared to the same period last year, the report said.

In August viruses in emails processed by Google increased by 111 percent, compared to the same month last year, the company said in its statement. Google's system blocked a record-setting 188 million emails containing viruses in just one day.

This malware is increasingly being housed in messages purporting to break news about a celebrity's death. The virus can unleash itself when the recipient clicks on a file attached to an email.
For the study, Google analyzed more than 3 billion messages processed by its system each day during a three-month period.

Samsung I8700 Omnia 7 Smartphone Review

After the huge success of Samsung Galaxy Tab P1000, Samsung is again introducing its yet another Windows Phone 7 based Smartphone Samsung I8700 Omnia 7, Which experts think is Samsung one of the finest made Smartphone ever.

With the Galaxy smart phone doing great business and the Galaxy Tab tablet out later this year, Samsung's invasion of the touch screen market is well and truly underway. But it's not only the Android operating system that's tickling the South Korean tech giant's toes; the Omnia 7 GT-i8700 is the company's first handset to run Microsoft's shiny new Windows Phone 7 operating system.

Blockhead
The Omnia 7 sports a pleasing square design. The edges are rounded, though, so the phone won't slice through any major arteries as it sits in your pocket. It feels quite large, but that's to be expected with the 4-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen this bad boy boasts. Samsung has done a good job of bringing the edge of the screen right up to the edge of the device, so there's no wasted space.

The phone feels pleasingly light. While that's often a sign of compromised build quality, it doesn't seem to be the case with the Omnia 7.

Super screen
That display has a resolution of 800x480 pixels, and it's rather spiffy. Super AMOLED displays are always divisive -- some people think they look too garish and bright. That's something you'll have to make up your own mind about.

One of the Omnia 7's most interesting features is a 1GHz Qualcomm QSD8250 processor. It should give the phone plenty of speed, and, indeed, we noticed the Windows Phone 7 interface moving extremely swiftly and fluidly. This processor will also come in handy when playing games, for example.

Around the back, you'll find a 5-megapixel camera, which, as well as handling your snaps, is capable of shooting 720p video footage. These kinds of specs are par for the course when it comes to high-end smart phones these days.

Outlook
The Windows Phone 7 operating system looks really cool, and the Samsung Omnia 7 GT-i8700 looks like a tasty piece of kit. If we have any early complaints, it's that there doesn't seem to be much that distinguishes the Omnia 7 from the rest of the pack.

Check this Video for Samsung I8700 Omnia 7 UI Demo

MySpace Leak User Data With Advertisers

As we know MySpace is one of the promising Social Networking website like facebook. But it has been observed and reported by the Wall Street Journal on Friday that sister News Corp. property MySpace has been giving advertising companies data that could identify members of the social networking service.

MySpace and some third-party applications popular at the online community transmitted unique ID numbers that could be used to find profile pages that could contain names, pictures, gender, and more about a person, the Journal reported.

"Knowledge of a public user ID does not give anyone access to private user data," a MySpace spokesman said in response to an AFP inquiry.

"We share non-personally identifiable information with advertising companies as part of our ad serving process."

MySpace maintained that its terms of service prohibit third-party developers from sharing any user data, including public ID numbers.

"It has recently come to our attention that several third party app developers may have violated these terms and we are taking appropriate action against those developers," the spokesman said.
Actions taken "regularly" to enforce terms of use at the online community include suspending or removing offending applications, according to MySpace.

Social networking king Facebook on Thursday said it planned to start encrypting user identification data that had been inadvertently leaking out through games and other outside applications synched to profile pages.

The move came just days after a Wall Street Journal article exposed the problem, making no mention of the situation at MySpace.

Internet Usage Hits 2 Billion Users

According to a report out Tuesday, there will be 2 billion Web dwellers by the end of this year.
The number of internet users worldwide has doubled in the past five years according to the report, from the International Telecommunication Union.

Much of the big number can be attributed to internet growth in developing countries. The report said 162 million of the 226 million new Internet users in 2010 will live in those countries, where Web access is still growing.

But the gap between access in high-tech countries and those still developing remains big.
About 65 percent of Europeans are on the internet, the report said, compared to less than 10 percent of Africans.

The report also focuses on the growing availability of, and demand for, faster broadband service, which allows users to easily download or share larger files, such as photos and videos.
The ITU, an agency of the United Nations that monitors communication technology issues, said these high-speed internet connections, which are increasingly needed to view modern Web content efficiently, are the key to continued growth.

"Broadband is the next tipping point, the next truly transformational technology," Secretary-General Hamadoun Toure said in a written statement. "It can generate jobs, drive growth and productivity, and underpin long-term economic competitiveness."

Only about 8 percent of the world will have broadband access this year, according to the report.

Beware of Google TV Hackers

Users Should aware of Google TV Hackers because like Apple TV, Google's new TV platform is getting the attention of hackers: AndroidForums user Apeman made an attempt to root his Google-powered Sony Blu-ray player.

The video above shows how Apeman managed to get into the player's Recovery Menu by holding down the Power button. Note the System Update with USB there. This might allow hackers to gain root access to the Android-based Google TV OS, and potentially install apps onto it before Google launches the Android Market for Google TV next year.

Members on various Android and developer forums are currently debating all the cool apps and other custom hacks that could come into being if this hack works--imagine playing Angry Birds on your TV screen.

Successful Facebook Advertisement Strategy

Today we know facebook is one of the effective platform for marketing and advertising. Every website wants to get connect with facebook and get their potential customers. Now facebook advertisement leaves all other advertisers and publishers behind and has become one of the most successful advertisement arena. Facebook is going after brand advertisers as their primary revenue channel, hoping to take dollars away from television advertisers as their share of the attention economy continues to increase. It appears that the strategy is a smart one as Facebook now accounts for 23 percent of all ad impressions in the United States. Contrast that with Google who accounts for 2.3 percent of impressions.

This was a strategy highlighted by Fred Vogelstein’s 2009 article about the “Great Wall Of Facebook“. The company has been incredibly effective at driving attention to their site, with users spending hours on the site every month. For Facebook that attention has translated into impressions, many of which still haven’t been monetized (there is plenty of unfilled homepage inventory).

While Facebook’s self-serve advertising platform has produced tremendous results, the company is still at the very beginning of their push for brand advertisers. With numbers like the one’s published by comScore today, there’s no doubt that the company should have no problem in attracting those advertisers as they now own one quarter of the impressions in the U.S.