The on again off again courtship between Yahoo and Microsoft has taken another turn. The Redmond software giant, is in talks to buy Yahoo Inc.’s search business for $20 billion. Microsoft does not plan to bid for all of the Internet-services giant, after it abandoned a $47.5 billion proposal last summer. Under a deal the companies are planning, Microsoft also would support new management for Yahoo, possibly led by Jonathan Miller, the former chairman and chief executive of AOL. Two weeks ago, Jerry Yang, Yahoo’s co-founder, stepped down as CEO.

Tags: Microsoft, Yahoo

Google’s new voice-recognition search tool for the iPhone has problems understanding Australian accents, leading to some bizarre answers to spoken queries.

Users down under have noticed searches for the word “iPhone” can return pages of results for “priceline”, “mustang” or simply a message saying “try again.”

The number eight becomes a search for “ike”, seven turns into “Clinton”, and don’t even try searching for the number six.

Google recommends the tool, which is available as a free download for the iPhone and iPod Touch in Apple’s Application Store, works best with a North American accent.

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Tags: Google, iPhone

Don’t send the money back

A VARIANT of the extremely popular Nigerian 419 scam is possible via Paypal, the INQ has discovered. On paper it looks bulletproof but it’s still a big con.

The 419 scam is named after the relevant section of the Nigerian Criminal Code and the premise is always the same. Somebody offers to pay money into your account and give you a cut when you send it back.

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Tags: 419, Nigerian, PayPal, scams

The Australian government’s plans to set up a Chinese style firewall and censor the web so that it only says good things is facing a backlash from important political activists.

The group which helped free David Hicks and abolish Work Choices scheme, GetUp, has now set its sights on the Government’s censorship plans.

GetUp plans to run mainstream ads and offline action that will be as elaborate as its ‘Free Hicks’ campaign. A petition on its website has attracted over 22,000 signatures in just a day and GetUp said it had received more emails urging them to act on this issue than any other campaign in recent history.

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Tags: firewall, government

DELL AND VODAFONE will offer the computer maker’s compact netbook computer for nothing as part of a mobile broadband plan in Australia and New Zealand.

The Dell Mini 9 weighs just over 1kg and, with a small 8.9-inch screen. It is part laptop, part smartphone and we think a badger might have been involved in the conception. It has a built in 3G modem under the bonnet.
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Tags: Dell, Vodafone

Apple’s Steve Jobs does not like people breaking Apple’s rules and right now he is mightily miffed at the search engine Google which seem to have broken one of his commandments which he set in stone.

When Steve approved the rules of Apple’s iPhone Software Development Kit he demanded developers use APIs that come from his elite team of Mac developers. Innovation is not allowed other than from the font of all innovation, Apple itself.
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Tags: App Store, Google

A Sydney Internet café raided by Australian Federal Police late last year has pleaded guilty to 40 charges of copyright infringement, copping an $82,000 fine, court costs and forfeiting some 60 computer terminals and three servers.

The company, Interville Technology, which was based in Pitt Street in the CBD, plead guilty at Downing Centre Local Court on Tuesday.

The internet café was operating 60 computer terminals and three servers which contained a total of 8 terabytes of infringing movie, TV and music titles.
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Tags: copyright, Internet café

SOCIAL networking company Facebook has recently been in acquisition talks with Twitter, the micro-blogging company, according to a report by the Financial Times.

The negotiations put a valuation of as much as $US500 million ($767 million) on Twitter, which has become one of Silicon Valley’s most closely watched start-ups, the paper said.

The talks, which were first reported by technology news website AllThingsD, were confirmed to the paper by two sources.

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Tags: Facebook, twitter

As we all know BitTorrent piracy is always in the news, both here and overseas. Well iiNet is being sued over BitTorrent piracy by the major film companies and Chanel 7. I’m currently a Westnet customer using ADSL 2 with a combined 60GB monthly limit and now that Westnet is under the iiNet banner this is of interest to me. I’ve personally had a gutful of commercial tv and the programming, which treats all users like complete morons. Now that the old and tried formula is failing on viewers both young and old the heavies are up to the same old tricks of intimidation.

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Tags: BitTorrent, iiNet

AUSTRALIA’S mandatory internet filter is being primed to block 10,000 websites as part of a blacklist of unspecified “unwanted content”, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy revealed in Federal Parliament.

The 10,000 blocked websites would include 1300 websites already blacklisted by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

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Source: news.com.au

Tags: internet, ISP