Blackhacker

Microsoft offers $44.6 bln for Yahoo; targets ‘dominant player’ - MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Microsoft Corp. on Friday offered to buy search-engine operator Yahoo Inc. for $31 a share, or $44.6 billion, in an effort to better compete with online-advertising juggernaut Google Inc.

The article goes on to say that the point of the offer is so the MSFT can compete with Google.  Which makes sense, Yahoo! has been losing share price, just posted a quarterly loss, a announced layoffs, making it vulnerable to a take over bid.

Lots of times these deals are more trouble than they are worth, thins AOL(link) and Time Warner, HP and Compaq. Time will tell.

WARNING: rant mode is in FULL tilt.

There is no other way to describe it. Apparently, even if My iPod filled with ONLY legal downloaded I am thief just because somebody out their is “gankin’” their stuff off the internet.

Red Hot Chili Peppers, QOTSA, T.I. Rock For Zune
Microsoft is working with all major and independent labels to establish similar revenue-sharing agreements. According to published reports, UMG is expected to receive more than $1 for each $250 device and sources at UMG have confirmed that half of all the proceeds from the device’s sales will be shared equally among all its artists.

This is YET ANOTHER example of why Music sales are so low. They treat customers like idiots by putting out formulaic crap, and we are expected to think it is hot because they shake some flesh in a video and pay the radio stations to spin a gazillion times. Then they treat us like criminals, with statements like this. So what do people do? They steal the stuff. Don’t get it twisted. Theft is theft. And all theft is wrong. And the industry has a right to protect itself from thieves, but I am not thief. And people who are like me are not thieves. And I am sure most of the people currently being sued by the RIAA, are not thieves.

QUESTION: How much of the Zune “kickback” is going to back to the artists?

ANSWER: Not a red cent. Actually 50 red cents. Sometimes a I get a head of myself

They know they are not going to be able to sue their way to stopping file sharing. So they now want a “piece of the action.” But if one of their legal questionable “witch hunters” discover that the name of a file on my hard drive that might happen to match the name of one of their artists, or the title of a song and BAM!!!

“You have been served.”
The big thieves hang the little ones. — Czech Proverb

Dap: Boing Boing

Microsoft beats Apple to the TV with Xbox Live Video
Beginning on November 22, Xbox 360 owners will be able to buy and rent over 1,000 hours of programming using the new Xbox Live Video Marketplace. The Marketplace will see Microsoft selling programming from CBS, MTV Networks, Paramount Pictures, Turner Broadcasting, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. “CSI,” “South Park,” “Batman Forever,” and “Nacho Libre” are a few of the titles that will be offered by year’s end. At launch, TV shows will be offered as download-to-own, while movies will only be available as 24-hour rentals.

Today must really be a special day. I’m doing MSFT dirty work and telling you about Zune. In case you where under the same rock as me, (I just found out about this today) Zune will be MSFT’s answer to the Apples iPod. The link just points you to a stupid little flash movie and then asks you for your email addy and those of your “family & friends”, a reference to the old MCI promotion. Engadget Has a good write up on what is known about the MSFT soon coming portable media player.

I will say this, if the player is half decent, Apple could have a fight on their hands because, MSFT as something that AAPL dosen’t. All that liquid cash sitting around like Scrooge McDuck’s money bin. And also according the enageget they play to use it, to pay for you to re-download all of the DRMed up itunes media, making switching MUCH easier.

Don’t forget that MSFT’s gonna need that money ’cause, AAPL’s secrete weapon is good will. People who use Apple LOVE Apple. People who use Microsoft, tolerate it. Its gonna need to spend ALOT of money to get people to switch to this new player. And it gotta do at the expense of partners in PlaysForSure, like Napster.

Well it should be interesting.

Yahoo! and Microsoft Bridge Global Instant Messaging Communities: Beta testing of unprecedented interoperability between Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger with Voice lets users communicate across IM services.
SUNNYVALE, Calif., and REDMOND, Wash. — July 12, 2006 — Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: “YHOO”) and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: “MSFT”) today will begin limited public beta testing of interoperability between their instant messaging (IM) services that enable users of Windows Live® Messenger, the next generation of MSN® Messenger, and Yahoo!® Messenger with Voice to connect with each other. This interoperability — the first of its kind between two distinct, global consumer IM providers — will form the world’s largest consumer IM community, approaching 350 million accounts.1

One of the most frustrating things about IM is that people on different systems can not communicate. AOL(link), Yahoo! and Microsoft have kept it this way. Only Google has opened it network in a standard way that allows interoperability. Unfortunatly NONE of the large IM services have taken GOOG up on the offer yet. Well YHOO and MSFT are holding a limited public beta to test interoperability between those two services. Naturally they wish to combine forces and take on AIM(link) which I believe is still the dominant IM and the ever looming threat of Google. Maybe someday ALL of the big IM services will embrace XMPP or some other open standard that allows any service to “talk” with any other service and we will have a truly ubiquities IM communication that would surpass the phone, the postal system and even email. And hopefully this will happen before I loose my sight to cataracts.

C|Net reports that the next version of Windows will have a “black box” that will record data and send it back to Redmond in the event of system crash.

SEATTLE–In a move that could rankle privacy advocates, Microsoft said Monday that it is adding the PC equivalent of a flight data recorder to the next version of Windows, in an effort to better understand and prevent computer crashes.

The tool will build on the existing Watson error-reporting tool in Windows but will provide Microsoft with much deeper information, including what programs were running at the time of the error and even the contents of documents that were being created.

Definition: Any program that runs in the background collecting data about my PC, its applications, data, files, or user inputs is called Spyware.

All of these “convenience” features, allowing a MS CSR have remote access to your computer, sending data to Microsoft when my system crashes. All this is doing is adding complexity to an already complex system and juicy target for crackers to exploit. (Remember complexity is where crackers live.) The whole idea behind cracking is find the weakness that is not obvious. Given the “treasure trove” of information a cracker could get if he where successful is enough incentive for them to start working on an exploit as soon as he can get his hands on some code.

C|Net:Religious right turns eye on tech?

According to an article in Seattle’s Stranger newspaper, Microsoft has withdrawn support for a gay-rights bill in the Washington state legislature, after being pressured by a local conservative megachurch pastor who threatened a national boycott of the company’s products.

All other internet companies
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bow

Google is now an ICANN-accredited registrar of domain names, providing it with yet another potential line of expansion. The fast-growing search provider is approved to sell names in seven top-level domains (TLDs) including .com, .net, .org, .biz., info, .name and .pro.

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How does Google plan to use its new status as a domain registrar? Speculation abounds. One of the most intriguing theories, outlined at Datamonitor, is that Google will use its access to the list of recently sold domains to clean up its search results, resetting a site’s "PageRank" when its domain changes hands.