HTC Acquires Abaxia To Strengthens Its Software Capabilities

HTC Corporation, a global designer of smartphones, announced it has acquired Paris-based Abaxia, a leader in custom software for mobile operators and handset manufacturers around the world.

“HTC is committed to creating the best possible mobile experience for our customers today, tomorrow and into the future,” said Peter Chou, CEO of HTC Corporation.  “The addition of Abaxia deepen and broaden our software development capabilities so that we can innovate at an even faster pace.”

“HTC and Abaxia have worked closely together in the past and our businesses complement each other well,” said Cedric Mangaud, CEO of Abaxia.  “We’re excited to be joining such a significant and emerging mobile brand.”

Founded in 2001, Abaxia is a leading software developer specializing in mobile solutions that quickly promote and monetize operator and handset manufacturer services on smartphones.

Abaxia has 22+ million software deployments, across 36 countries on 60 different handset models with tier-1 network operators, and 10 global technical contracts with major handset manufacturers.

Google Increases Search Security With Encrypted Google Web Search

When people spend lot of time on the internet, they want more control over who access their communication. There are may internet services which provides security using secure http connection i.e. https which uses Secure Socket Layer (SSL) connections to encrypt information that travel between your computer and the services. Banking and e-commerce websites use this technology to secure data communication.

Years ago Google added SSL encryption to products ranging from Gmail to Google Docs and others. Like banking and e-commerce sites, Google’s encryption extends beyond login passwords to the entire service. This session-wide encryption is a significant privacy advantage over systems that only encrypt login pages and credit card information.As a part of continuous improvement, google rolled out a choice to search more securely at: https://google.com

When you search on https://www.google.com, an encrypted connection is created between your browser and Google. This secured channel helps protect your search terms and your search results pages from being intercepted by a third party on your network. The service includes a modified logo to help indicate that you’re searching using SSL. Remember to check the start of the address bar for “https” and your browser lock indicators:

This release comes with a “beta” label for a few reasons. First, it currently covers only the core Google web search product. To avoid misunderstanding, when you search using SSL, you won’t see links to offerings like Image Search and Maps that, for the most part, don’t support SSL at this time. Also, since SSL connections require additional time to set up the encryption between your browser and the remote web server, your experience with search over SSL might be slightly slower than your regular Google search experience. What won’t change is that you will still get the same great search results.

A few notes to remember: Google will still maintain search data to improve your search quality and to provide better service. Searching over SSL doesn’t reduce the data sent to Google — it only hides that data from third parties who seek it. And clicking on any of the web results, including Google universal search results for unsupported services like Google Images, could take you out of SSL mode.

To learn more about using the feature, refer to our help article on search over SSL.

Smart Rescheduler for Google Calendar

Google has recently added a Smart Rescheduler in Google Calendar which is a Google Lab output. People spend lot of time in checking calendar, scheduling or rescheduling meetings, investigating other people's calendars, finding replacement conference rooms and rescheduling conflicts.

In order to help people, Google came up with a gadget called Smart Rescheduler to help you re-schedule an event by analyzing everybody's schedule, evaluating conflicts, obtaining conference rooms and proposing the best meeting times.

It uses some of Google's search experience to the problem of scheduling. Google experimented with using ranking algorithms to return the most relevant meeting times based on specified criteria like attendees, schedule complexity, conference rooms, and time zones. Just like Google search ranks the web, scheduling search algorithm returns a ranked set of the best candidate dates and times.

Once you turn it on, just select an event you'd like to reschedule, then click "Find a new time...":

You'll see ranked list of possible times for your meeting. By investigating the calendars others have shared with you, Google Calendar can make some educated guesses about how easy it might be to reschedule a conflicting meeting and even find you a replacement conference room nearby. This process is 100% automated — no Google employees are doing any work behind the scenes. You can refine the results by marking people as optional, changing the meeting duration, ignoring certain conflicts, or specifying the earliest and latest times you'll accept. The results will immediately update to reflect your new requirements.

Send Attachment via Gmail While You Are Offline

Gmail offers lots of useful feature for personal as well as business use. Recently gmail team has announced the addition of a new feature which enables users to send attachments even when they are offline. This is one of the most requested features for Offline Gmail to include attachments in messages composed while offline.

Now attachments work just the way you would expect them to whether you are online or offline (with the exception that when you're offline you won't be able to include inline images). Just add the attachment and send your message.

If you have Offline Gmail enabled, you'll notice that all your mail now goes through the outbox, regardless of whether you're online or offline. This allows Gmail to capture all attachments, even if you suddenly get disconnected from network. If you're online, your mail will quickly be sent along to its destination.

Visit the Labs tab and follow these instructions to get started:

1. Select Enable next to Offline Gmail.
2. Click Save Changes.
3. After your browser reloads, you'll see a new "Offline" link in the upper righthand corner of the Gmail page, next to your username. Click this link to start the offline set up process and download Gears if you don't already have it.

Which Are The Best Websites Of 2009 ?

Have you ever thought about the best websites of year 2009 ? Well, time.com. Well, time.com has published a list of 50 best websites of 2009. Below is a list of top 10 websites as per time.com:

1. Flickr
2. California Coastline
3. Delicious
4. Metafilter
5. popurls
6. Twitter
7. Skype
8. Boing Boing
9. Academic Earth
10. OpenTable

This list also includes other popular websites such as Google, Youtube, Facebook, Amazon, Wikipedia etc…

You can find complete list of these 50 websites at:

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1918031,00.html

Google Now Provides New Site Hierarchies In Search Results

When you search something on Google, Google usually shows a green web address, or URL, at the bottom of each search result to let you know where you're headed. Today Google is rolling out an improvement that replaces the URL in some search results with a hierarchy showing the precise location of the page on the website.

The new display provides valuable context and new navigation options. The changes are rolling out now and should be available globally in the next few days.

Some web addresses help you understand the structure of the site and how the specific page fits into the site hierarchy. For example, consider a search for the biography of Vint Cerf (Google's Internet Evangelist). The URL for one result, "www.google.com/corporate/execs.html," shows that the page is located in a page about "execs," under "corporate," which is on the "google.com" site. This can provide valuable context when deciding whether to click on the result.

Often, however, URLs are too long, too short, or too obscure to add useful information. For example, consider this result from ProductWiki for the query [spidersapien reviews]:

The URL of this result is "www.productwiki.com/spidersapien," which doesn't provide much additional information about the site or this result. Now take a look at the result with the new site hierarchy display:

The new text provides useful information about the page. You can tell that the ProductWiki site has information about many different products, organized in different categories, and you can even tell that Spidersapien is a robot toy.

In addition, each phrase in the green line is actually a link. For example, clicking on "Toys & Games" takes you to ProductWiki's listing page for all toys, and clicking on "Robots" takes you to a list of their robot toys. This way if you realize that you're interested in a more general category than this specific product (there are a lot of cool robot toys out there) you can easily access information on broader topics.

The host and domain for the site (in this case www.productwiki.com) will always be shown, so you always know what website you're going to before you click. There's not always enough room to show the complete hierarchy, so sometimes we use ellipses to replace some of the intermediate levels, like in this result for [how to make granola]:

The information in these new hierarchies come from analyzing destination web pages. For example, if you visit the ProductWiki Spidersapien page, you'll see a series of similar links at the top, "Home> Toys & Games> Robots." These are standard navigational tools used throughout the web called "breadcrumbs," which webmasters frequently show on their sites to help users navigate.

Apple TV 3.0 Software With Redesigned User Interface

Apple introduced new Apple TV® 3.0 software featuring a redesigned main menu that makes navigating your favorite content simpler and faster, and makes enjoying the largest selection of on-demand HD movie rentals and purchases, HD TV shows, music and podcasts from the iTunes® Store even better on your TV.

You can now enjoy iTunes Extras and iTunes LP in stunning fullscreen with your Apple TV, as well as listen to Genius Mixes and Internet radio through your home theater system. The new Apple TV software is available immediately free of charge to existing Apple TV owners, and Apple TV with 160GB capacity is available for just $229.

“The new software for Apple TV features a simpler and faster interface that gives you instant access to your favorite content,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of Internet Services. “HD movies and HD TV shows from iTunes have been a huge hit with Apple TV customers, and with Apple TV 3.0 they get great new features including iTunes Extras, Genius Mixes and Internet radio.”

The redesigned main menu on Apple TV gives you instant access to your favorite content. Recently rented or purchased movies, as well as other content including TV shows, music, podcasts, photos and YouTube, are accessible directly from the new main menu. The new software also allows Apple TV users to enjoy stunning fullscreen iTunes Extras and iTunes LP, including great new movie titles such as “Star Trek” or classics like “The Wizard of Oz” and albums such as Taylor Swift’s “Fearless (Platinum Edition)” and Jack Johnson’s “En Concert.” iTunes Extras gives movie fans great additional content such as deleted scenes, interviews and interactive galleries. iTunes LP is the next evolution of the music album, delivering a rich, immersive experience for select albums on the iTunes Store by combining beautiful design with expanded visual features like live performance videos, lyrics, artwork, liner notes, interviews, photos, album credits and more.

Now Apple TV users can enjoy Genius Mixes through their home theater system and listen to up to 12 endless mixes of songs that go great together, automatically generated from their iTunes library. Customers can also enjoy Internet radio, allowing them to browse and listen to thousands of Internet radio stations, as well as tag favorite stations to listen to later. Apple TV’s support of HD photos is enhanced with iPhoto Events, which simplifies finding your favorite photos on Apple TV, as well as iPhoto® Faces, which gives access to photos organized by people identified in iPhoto.

Apple TV users have direct access to a catalog of over 8,000 Hollywood films on iTunes including over 2,000 in stunning HD video available for rent or purchase. Users can also choose from a selection of 11 million songs, 10,000 music videos and over 50,000 TV episodes to purchase directly from their Apple TV or browse and enjoy the iTunes Store podcast directory of over 175,000 free video and audio podcasts. Purchases downloaded to Apple TV are automatically synced back to iTunes on the user’s computer for enjoyment on their Mac® or PC or all current generation iPods or iPhones.* iPod touch® or iPhone® users can download the free Remote app from the App Store to control their Apple TV with a simple tap or flick of the finger.

Pricing & Availability

The new Apple TV software is available as a free automatic download to all Apple TV customers. The 160GB Apple TV is available from the Apple Store®, Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $229 (US). Apple TV requires an 802.11b/g/n wireless network or 10/100 Base-T Ethernet networking, a broadband Internet connection and a high definition widescreen TV. Video availability varies by country.

Apple TV easily connects to a broad range of widescreen TVs and home theater systems and comes standard with HDMI, component video, analog and optical audio ports. Using high-speed Wi-Fi, Apple TV automatically plays your iTunes content without setup or management.

*Movie rentals work on iPod classic®, iPod nano® with video, iPod touch, iPhone, iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS.

Google Introduced AdWords Comparison Ads Making Comparison Of Multiple, Relevant Offers More Easy

Google announced a new feature of AdWords called AdWords Comparison Ads, which lets users compare multiple, relevant offers more easily. Comparison Ads is part of Google’s continuing effort to make ads more relevant and useful to users and to help you, advertisers, reach the people who are most interested in your products and services.

AdWords uses a host of targeting and relevancy signals to determine the best ads for each query. However, sometimes a user's query doesn't provide enough information to confidently predict what they want. For example, users who search for "mortgage." Do they want a new home loan or a refinance? Do they want a fixed rate or an adjustable rate loan? Comparison Ads improves the ad experience on Google.com by letting users specify exactly what they are looking for and helping them quickly compare relevant offers side by side.

With Comparison Ads, you can also target your offers at a more granular level, leading to more valuable, qualified leads. To see how it works, let's use mortgage example. Users searching for "mortgage" on Google.com may see a promotion from Comparison Ads prompting them to select the type of loan they are looking for and to compare various rates.

If they click the promotion, users are taken to a page with more detailed sponsored results. They can choose directly from the offers listed on that page, or they can further refine their search by providing additional information like income and home value. By giving users the ability to refine their search on a number of relevant attributes, it can show more targeted ads and provide more valuable leads.

Once users find an offer that matches their specific needs, they can either call you directly or request a quote. If a user requests a quote, Google automatically anonymizes the user's phone number and sends you a unique code that you can use to contact the user. You only pay if a user calls the phone number on your offer or fills out a form to request a quote.

While Comparison Ads is still an early-stage feature, Google has focused on a number of ways to enhance the user experience:

• Speed -- Comparison Ads shows targeted offers in less than a second. There are no long forms for users to fill out - Users see specific offers immediately and only need to fill in additional information if they wish to further refine their results.
• Transparency -- Comparison Ads only shows real products. There are no teaser rates, or bait and switch offers. Comparison Ads also standardizes the information presented to users, making it easy for them to sort and compare offers on a side by side basis.
• Privacy -- Comparison Ads won't send advertisers any user information, including anonymized phone numbers, unless the user explicitly requests more information about an advertiser's offer.

At this time, Comparison Ads will only show to a small number of users in select U.S. states and is only available to a limited number of advertisers in the mortgage/refinance space. Over time, Google will increase the number of users who see Comparison Ads offers as well as the number of advertisers able to participate.

Twitter Is Going To Add Support For More Language

Twitter is growing very fast. Twitter is currently available only in English and Japanese. To attract more users, twitter will soon be rolling out support for French, Italian, German, and Spanish. These languages are commonly referred to using the acronym FIGS and are often the starting point for services like Twitter when its time for more language support.

Later, Twitter will add support for several other languages. Starting from yesterday, Twitter is offering a simple tool for people with experience in other languages to suggest translations for the Twitter web site.

Twitter is inviting a small group of people to become volunteer translators at first. As more folks volunteer, the translation suggestions should accumulate faster and then there will be enough material to respond by making Twitter available not only in English and Japanese but also French, Italian, German, and Spanish.

Twitter will distribute the translations to Twitter platform developers making it easier for them to offer multiple language support as well.

Amazon Lowers Kindle Price to $259 & Introduces New Addition to the Kindle Family of Wireless Reading Devices

Amazon.com, Inc. today announced that it is lowering the price of its #1 bestseller Kindle to $259, down from $299. Also today, Amazon.com introduced a new addition to its family of portable reading devices - Kindle with U.S. & International Wireless. Kindle with U.S. & International Wireless now enables readers to wirelessly download content in over 100 countries and territories.

Readers can pre-order Kindle with U.S. & International Wireless starting today for $279 at www.amazon.com/kindle and it ships October 19. 

“Kindle is the most wished for, the most gifted, and the #1 bestselling product across the millions of items we sell on Amazon, and we’re excited to be able to lower the price,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “We’re also excited to announce a new addition to the Kindle family—Kindle with global wireless.  At home or abroad in over 100 countries, you can think of a book and download it wirelessly in less than 60 seconds.”

Kindle wirelessly downloads books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and personal documents to a crisp, high-resolution 6-inch electronic ink display that looks and reads like real paper. Kindle utilizes the same 3G wireless technology as advanced cell phones, so you never need to hunt for a Wi-Fi hotspot or sync with a PC. Readers can wirelessly shop the Kindle Store, download books in less than 60 seconds, automatically receive newspaper and magazine subscriptions, receive personal documents, and read from their library—now in over 100 countries and territories.

“Kindle has revolutionized the way we purchase and read books, by making it mobile, easy and intuitive,” said Randall Stephenson, chairman and chief executive officer of AT&T. “We are excited to work with Amazon to help readers access books even faster and from significantly more places than ever before, including more than 100 countries and territories around the world through AT&T’s global wireless coverage.”

The U.S. Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlestore) now has more than 350,000 books, including New Releases and 104 of 112 New York Times Bestsellers, which are typically $9.99 or less.  More than 75,000 books have been added to the U.S. Kindle Store in just the last five months. Starting today, Lonely Planet guides are now available in the Kindle Store, joining existing travel guide selection from publishers Rick Steves, Frommers and Michelin.

“Lonely Planet is excited to make a vast selection of travel guides from Australia to Zanzibar available to Kindle customers around the world,” said Lonely Planet CEO Matt Goldberg.  “Travelers can now pack as many Lonely Planet guides as they want into Kindle’s 10.2 ounces and download new guides wirelessly while travelling around the world.”

Over 50 top U.S. and international newspapers such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Washington Post, Financial Times, The Times (UK), Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and the Shanghai Daily are available in the Kindle Store for single purchase or subscription, and can now be delivered wirelessly in over 100 countries and territories. Over 35 top magazines, such as The Economist, Newsweek, Time, The New Yorker, Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic, Forbes, Fortune, PC Magazine, and The New England Journal of Medicine are also available for single purchase or subscription, and can also be delivered wirelessly in the U.S. and abroad. U.S. Kindle customers can also continue to take advantage of the Kindle Store’s selection of over 7,000 blogs and receive new posts while traveling overseas.

Kindle with U.S. & International Wireless offers customers the same features that have helped make Kindle with U.S. Wireless the #1 bestselling product on Amazon.com, including:

• Slim and Trim: At just over a third of an inch thin (0.36 inches) and weighing just over 10 ounces, Kindle is pencil thin and lighter than a typical paperback.

• Reads Like Real Paper: Kindle’s 6-inch electronic ink display reads like printed words on paper because the screen works using real ink and doesn’t use a backlight, eliminating the eyestrain and glare associated with other electronic displays.

• Stores Up To 1,500 Books: Kindle’s 2 GB of memory holds up to 1,500 books and Kindle books are automatically backed up by Amazon so customers can re-download titles from their library.

• Read For Weeks On A Single Charge: Kindle’s electronic ink display sips battery power so users can read for over two weeks with wireless turned off and up to four days on a single charge with wireless on.

• Read-To-Me: With the experimental Text-To-Speech feature, Kindle can read most newspapers, magazines, blogs, and books out loud.

• Automatically Syncs With Kindle and Kindle Compatible Devices: Amazon’s “Whispersync” technology automatically syncs customers’ last page read, bookmarks, notes, and highlights across Kindle with U.S. & International Wireless, Kindle with U.S. Wireless, Kindle DX, and Kindle compatible devices like Kindle for iPhone.

• Wirelessly Receive and Read Personal Documents:  Wirelessly send, receive, and read personal documents in a variety of formats such as Microsoft Word and PDF.

• Instant Dictionary Lookup:  Kindle comes with the New Oxford American Dictionary and over 250,000 definitions that appear instantly at the bottom of the page.

• Choose Text Size:  Kindle lets readers customize their reading preference by providing six different text sizes.

• Bookmarks, Notes, and Highlights:  By using the QWERTY keyboard Kindle users can add annotations to text, as well as highlight and clip key passages and bookmark pages for future use.

Kindle with U.S. & International Wireless will be available for shipment to customers in over 100 countries around the world on October 19.  Media can visit the Kindle Media Room at http://www.amazon.com/pr/kindle for additional media resources and to request an interview.

Related  Article:

• Amazon Kindle Got Bigger Screen with Kindle DX

Skype Rolls Out Business Funded Click-to-Call

Skype today announced a new business funded click-to-call product and a strategic partnership with European Directories that will turn online search for businesses into calls for businesses.

Skype's business funded click-to-call delivers great value and convenience by making it easier and free for consumers who are using Skype to call local businesses they search for anywhere on the internet. A call that is funded by a business will be highlighted with a blue "Free Call" button that appears anywhere online where a phone number is displayed, including search engines, internet yellow pages or local search sites. This automatic phone number recognition allows Skype's more than 480 million registered users to call a participating business for free. Calls that are not funded by a business can still be connected via Skype, but at a low cost charged to the Skype user.

The partnership between Skype and European Directories will offer consumers free calls to up to 700,000 businesses across Europe. Participating European Directories advertisers will have the opportunity to be highlighted with Skype's blue "Free Call" button anywhere their number appears on the internet.

"Partnering with European Directories is a key part of bringing our new business funded click-to-call product to market and providing advertisers with solutions that can help them connect with customers in new and innovative ways," said Don Albert, GM and VP of Americas and Advertising for Skype. "When a call is free and only one click away, we believe it can have a positive impact for a business because there are fewer barriers to start a call. That can result in more qualified leads, more engagement, and possibly a higher rate of conversion for a business."

"This partnership is a great example of our evolution from a print centric company to one truly focused on lead generation. By working with Skype, European Directories can now offer its advertisers leads from yet another source in addition to existing channels such as mobile applications, print publications, our own online search sites and those of our partners. The new Skype 'Free Call' button will turn search for businesses into calls and leads for businesses. It will make our advertisers stand out from competition everywhere on the internet, including in search engines," said Cornel Riklin, CEO of European Directories.

"Skype is in a unique position with more than 480 million global subscribers that use it to make free and cheap calls," said Michael Boland, Analyst and Program Director for BIA/Kelsey. "Working with European Directories to drive calls to its local advertisers is a natural extension, and a revenue diversification move that taps into the $31 billion global Yellow Pages market."

Skype's business funded click-to-call product requires a user to have the latest version of Skype for Windows 4.1 and the latest Skype browser plug-ins in order for the blue "Free Call" button to be displayed. To download Skype for Windows 4.1, visit http://www.skype.com/download/skype/windows/.

Google Trends With Google Search

Google released a new web search feature which will help to stay in touch with latest trends on the web. Google trends is now part of google web search. Google Hot Trends lists the fastest rising searches on the web at any given hour. Now, when you search Google.com and your query matches one of the top 100 fastest-rising search terms, it will show you a graph at the bottom of page, with more information - like how popular the query is, how fast it's rising over time, and other useful data.

Below is a picture of what you'd find today if you searched for william h macy, which is the top in google trends today (But make sure you search for these examples today - nothing stays hot for long.)

Google has also reduced the number of trends listed on the Google Hot Trends homepage to 40 from 100. This feature, however, will show up for any query that matches the top 100. This new feature is available in the U.S. and Japan.

Contribute Helpful Information To Any Webpage With Google Sidewiki

When you are searching for some topic and arrived to some webpage. After going through that webpage, you find that you can add some more useful information on that topic which will help others who are looking for the same information.

What if everyone had an easy way of sharing their insights with you about any page on the web? What if you could add your own insights for others who are passing through?

Now you can. Google announced Sidewiki, which allows you to contribute helpful information next to any webpage. Google Sidewiki appears as a browser sidebar, where you can read and write entries along the side of the page.

Rather than showing most recent entries first, it shows most relevant entries first. Google ranks Sidewiki entries using an algorithm that promotes the most useful, high-quality entries in real-time. It will also take your entry about the current page and show it next to webpages that contain the same snippet of text. For example, an entry on a speech by President Obama will appear on all webpages that include the same quote.

It also brings in relevant posts from blogs and other sources that talk about the current page so that you can discover their insights more easily, right next to the page they refer to.

Google Sidewiki is also available as a feature of Google Toolbar (for Firefox and Internet Explorer) and it will be soon available in Google Chrome and elsewhere too.

For developers, Sidewiki API are available to let anyone work freely with the content that's created in Sidewiki.

Google Opens New DoubleClick Ad Exchange To Help Advertisers And Publishers

Today, Google announced that it is opening the new DoubleClick Ad Exchange, a real-time marketplace for display advertising space. By establishing an open marketplace where prices are set in a real-time auction, the Ad Exchange enables display ad space to be allocated much more efficiently and easily across the web.

"Better technology can help make display advertising work better for all involved," said Neal Mohan, Vice President of Product Management at Google. "We're focused on growing the display advertising pie for everyone. The DoubleClick Ad Exchange is a major part of that goal."

The new DoubleClick Ad Exchange has been rebuilt using Google's technology and infrastructure. It contains a wide variety of key features that will help improve returns for advertisers and enable publishers to get the most value out of their online content.

Key benefits for sellers include:

• Real-time dynamic allocation to maximize yield. Publishers can automatically generate the highest return for every impression, using real-time data and bids to allocate ad space to the sales channel that pays the most at that second.
• Access to many more advertisers. The Ad Exchange offers publishers access to new buyers, including AdWords advertisers, bringing higher quality ads and more competition for ad space on their sites.
• Hassle-free payments managed by Google. It manages the billing and payments from networks so publishers get one monthly payment and minimize having to manage multiple relationships.
• Greater controls. Publishers can decide what advertisers, networks, ad formats, and bid types to allow.
• New easy to use interface with enhanced reporting. It uses the simplicity of Google's user design principles to help publishers easily find out how their sites are performing, to help them make the right decisions about their ad space.

Key benefits for buyers include:

• Access to more publishers and more ad space. Hundreds of thousands of AdSense publisher sites are now available on the Ad Exchange to Google-certified ad networks. And as more publishers join the Ad Exchange to take advantage of its yield management capabilities, more high quality inventory is being added all the time.
• Real-time bidder. The Ad Exchange has a new real-time bidder feature that allows buyers to use their own data, optimization and ad serving technologies to bid on their desired inventory on an impression-by-impression basis, choosing only the sites, audiences, or particular type of ad space they want to reach.
• New easy to use interface with enhanced buyer reporting capabilities. Redesigned reports are simple to use and understand, so buyers can easily see how their campaigns are performing to help them make the right decisions.
• More control and precision. Buyers control where their ads appear and don't appear. They can use frequency capping, pacing and other features to precisely control ad delivery.
• Centralized clearing system. Google makes all payments to publishers, reducing complexity with a single billing and payment point. Buyers benefit from managing one business relationship instead of many.
• A new API - Ad networks and agency networks will have access to an API which enables them to integrate their own functionality and systems when working with the Ad Exchange.

Features of the new Ad Exchange include a completely new interface; a "real-time bidding" feature to allow ad networks to use their own technology to bid on an impression-by-impression basis; a "dynamic allocation" system, which automatically generates online publishers the highest return for every impression by allocating ads to the highest-paying sales channel, based on real time data; more granular publisher and advertiser controls; payments and clearing managed by Google; and a new API to allow ad networks to extend the functionality of the Ad Exchange.

Below video gives a look at Google's plans to make display advertising more useful to users, advertisers, and publishers.

Additional information:

• More about today's announcement and Google's approach to display advertising
• Specific features of the new DoubleClick Ad Exchange
• About the DoubleClick Ad Exchange

Google Acquires reCAPTCHA To Improve Books and Newspaper Scanning

Google today announced that they have acquired reCAPTCHA, a company that provides CAPTCHAs to help protect more than 100,000 websites from spam and fraud. reCAPTCHA is a free CAPTCHA service that helps to digitize books, newspapers and old time radio shows.

Since computers have trouble reading squiggly words like these, CAPTCHAs are designed to allow humans in but prevent malicious programs from scalping tickets or obtain millions of email accounts for spamming. But there’s a twist — the words in many of the CAPTCHAs provided by reCAPTCHA come from scanned archival newspapers and old books. Computers find it hard to recognize these words because the ink and paper have degraded over time, but by typing them in as a CAPTCHA, crowds teach computers to read the scanned text.

Many of us have seen such CAPTCHA while entering comments to some blogs or websites :

In this way, reCAPTCHA’s unique technology improves the process that converts scanned images into plain text, known as Optical Character Recognition (OCR). This technology also powers large scale text scanning projects like Google Books and Google News Archive Search. Having the text version of documents is important because plain text can be searched, easily rendered on mobile devices and displayed to visually impaired users.

Google will apply the technology within Google not only to increase fraud and spam protection for Google products but also to improve their books and newspaper scanning process.

You can see more details about reCAPTCHA here.

Bing Introduced Visual Search

A study conducted by Microsoft Research shows that consumers can process results with images 20% faster than text only results.  So it’s clear that images play a big part in helping consumer’s with a variety of search activities. This makes Bing to add a new feature called Visual Search.

Visual Search is a new way to formulate and refine your search queries through imagery, particularly for sets of results that tend to be more structured. Simply go to www.bing.com/visualsearch and install Silverlight if you don’t have it already. What you’ll see is an amazing new visual search experience. Visual Search allows you to quickly scroll through the galleries or do a one-click refinement using the quick tabs on the left, which are specifically relevant to the type of results you are browsing through.

Below are few examples of visual search galleries and how to use them:

Product Search

When researching products online, research shows people want to gather as much information on the product before they make a purchase, images play a large role in this decision making process. For example, for holiday shoppers Visual Search can help you look for products from laptops to handbags. It’s like searching through a large online catalogue.

Books

Love Books? With Visual Search, you can search visually to find the best books faster. Again you narrow your results with 1-click filters such as author, format, or category to make it even easier to judge a book by its cover.

Cars

Looking for a new car? Sometime search feels like the classifieds, with all the long lists of results that make researching cars feel like a chore. Visually searching for cars on the other hand is like going to a massive virtual car showroom, you can search to your heart’s desire by simply clicking through the aisles. It saves a lot of time versus having to keep typing in all those search queries.

Visual Search helps to search faster with a more organized search experience.

Google Fast Flip Makes Your Online News Reading Experience Faster

One problem with reading news online today is that browsing can be really slow. A media-rich page loads dozens of files and can take as much as 10 seconds to load over broadband, which can be frustrating. To overcome this, Google came up with innovative web application called “Goole Fast Flip”.

Google Fast Flip is a web application that lets users discover and share news articles. It combines qualities of print and the Web, with the ability to "flip" through pages online as quickly as flipping through a magazine. It also enables users to follow friends and topics, discover new content and create their own custom magazines around searches.

Like a print magazine, Fast Flip lets you browse sequentially through bundles of recent news, headlines and popular topics, as well as feeds from individual top publishers. As the name suggests, flipping through content is very fast, so you can quickly look through a lot of pages until you find something interesting.

At the same time, it provides aggregation and search over many top newspapers and magazines, and the ability to share content with your friends and community. Fast Flip also personalizes the experience for you, by taking cues from selections you make to show you more content from sources, topics and journalists that you seem to like.

In short, you get fast browsing, natural magazine-style navigation, recommendations from friends and other members of the community and a selection of content that is serendipitous and personalized.

To build Google Fast Flip, Google has partnered with three dozen top publishers, including the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Salon, Fast Company, ProPublica and Newsweek. These partners will share the revenue earned from contextually relevant ads. This gives publishers an opportunity to introduce new readers to their content.

 

Mobile version of Fast Flip is also available with tactile page flipping for Android-powered devices and the iPhone, so you can browse on the go. This is accessible at the same address.

Intuit to Acquire Mint.com for ~$170 Million

Intuit Inc. signed a definitive agreement to purchase Mint.com, a leading provider of online personal finance services in a cash transaction valued at approximately $170 million. Privately held Mint.com, based in Mountain View, Calif., has successfully used its advanced technology to provide consumers with an easy and intelligent way to manage their money.

"With this transaction, Intuit will gain another fast-growing consumer brand and a highly successful Software as a Service (SaaS) offering that helps people save and make money," said Brad Smith, Intuit CEO.  "This move will enhance Intuit's position as a leading provider of consumer SaaS offerings that connect customers across desktop, online and mobile."

"Mint.com brings a wealth of experience in creating and building innovative, easy-to-use online products," said Dan Maurer, senior vice president and general manager of Intuit's Consumer Group. "Mint.com's employees are proven inventors and pioneers in developing innovative SaaS offerings with their unique ‘ways to save' engine, data analytics and popular UI to their credit."

Intuit to Keep Mint.com and Quicken Online Offerings

Intuit intends to keep both the Mint.com and Quicken Online offerings, with each serving separate and equally important purposes. Mint.com will become the primary online personal finance management service that is offered directly to consumers by Intuit. Quicken Online will connect Quicken customers across desktop, online and mobile to deliver easy, anytime-anywhere access.  This will help accelerate Intuit's ability to create products and services that make managing money easier for all Intuit customers.

After the transaction is complete, Mint.com will become part of Intuit's Consumer Group, which includes both Quicken and TurboTax products. Aaron Patzer, Mint.com's founder and CEO will become GM of the Personal Finance group reporting to Dan Maurer, SVP of Intuit's Consumer Group. Patzer will be responsible for online, desktop and mobile consumer personal finance offerings.

The transaction is expected to close during the fourth quarter of calendar year 2009 and is subject to regulatory review and other customary closing conditions.

More details

HTC Introduces the HTC Hero™ in India

HTC Corporation announced the launch of the Android-powered HTC Hero in India. The HTC Hero with its distinct sleek design marks the debut of HTC Sense, an intuitive and seamless device experience that will be introduced across a portfolio of phones.

HTC Hero continues HTC’s leadership in introducing cutting-edge innovation and technology and enhancing the communication experience for Indian mobile phone users. Featuring beveled edges and an angled bottom, the HTC Hero is contoured to fit comfortably in your hand and against your face while you’re on a call. The HTC Hero is built to last and is equipped with an anti-fingerprint screen coating for improved smudge resistance and a longer lasting, clearer display. The white HTC Hero includes an industry-first, Teflon coating, resulting in an improved, durable white surface.

The HTC Hero comes with a special offer exclusively for 100 million Airtel users in India, wherein Airtel customers will get free data download of 100 MB per month for six months. Airtel customers will also be able to avail many utility-based applications such as Portfolio Manager, Hello Tune Manager, Weather Channel, Mobshare, In-mobile search and City Search on the HTC Hero.

The HTC Hero comes equipped with access to Android Market, where users can search and download applications to personalize and customize the phone.

With its 3.2-inch HVGA display, the HTC Hero is optimized for Web, multimedia and other content while maintaining a small size and weight that fits comfortably in your hand. It also boasts a broad variety of hardware features including a GPS, gravity-sensor, 3.5mm stereo headset jack, a 5 mega-pixel autofocus camera and expandable MicroSD memory. HTC Hero also includes a dedicated Search button that goes beyond basic search, providing you with a more natural, contextual search experience that enables you to search through Twitter, locate people in your contact list, find emails in your inbox or search in any other area in Hero.

HTC Sense – A Customized User Interface Debuting on HTC Hero

HTC Sense is focused on putting people at the centre by making your phone work in a more simple and natural way. Built on a culture of innovation and a passion to enhance people’s lives, HTC shapes the mobile experience around the individual. Debuting on the HTC Hero and available on all new HTC devices moving forward, Sense delivers on three basic principles: Make it Mine, Stay Close and Discover the Unexpected.

Specifications

Processor : Qualcomm® MSM7200A™, 528 MHz

Operating System : Android™

Memory : ROM: 512 MB, RAM: 288 MB

Dimensions (LxWxT) : 11.2 cm x 5.62 cm x 1.435 cm

Weight : 135 grams with battery

Display : 8.128 cm TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with 320x480 HVGA resolution

Network

• UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA (900/2100 MHz)
• GSM/GPRS/EDGE:
  850/900/1800/1900 MHz

(Band frequency, 3G network availability, and data speed are operator dependent.)

Device Control : Trackball with Enter button

GPS : Internal GPS antenna

Connectivity : 3.5 mm audio jack, Bluetooth® 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate
Wi-Fi®, HTC ExtUSB™ (11-pin mini-USB 2.0 and audio jack in one)

Camera : 5.0 megapixel color camera with auto focus

Audio supported formats : MP3, AAC(AAC, AAC+, AAC-LC), AMR-NB, WAV, MIDI and Windows Media® Audio 9

Video supported formats : MPEG-4, H.263, H.264 and Windows Media® Video 9

Battery : Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery

Capacity: 1350 mAh

Talk time: Up to 240 minutes

Standby time: Up to 120 hours

(The above are subject to GSM/GPRS network and phone usage.)

Expansion Slot : microSD™ memory card

AC Adapter : Voltage range/frequency: 100 ~ 240V AC, 50/60 Hz
DC output : 5V and 1A

Special Features

• G-Sensor
• GPS
• 3.5 mm audio jack

Pricing and Availability:

The HTC Hero will be available at a market operating price of Rs. 34,600/- in Maharashtra and Rs. 31,990/- in the Rest of India at all leading authorised HTC resellers across the country.

Check out PR for more details.

Orkut Now Suggests Friends

Orkut already has a search feature which one can use to find friends. However when you start searching for someone, you might get lots of profile having the same name and finally you will end up with going through each of them. Up until now, there hasn't been an easy way to find your friends that you wouldn't think to search for.

In order to help users, orkut added a new suggestion feature which offers suggestions of people you might want to be friends with on your orkut home page. With the new orkut friend suggestions feature, it automatically creates a list of people on orkut who you might know, and display it right below your birthday reminders.

Not only does the friend suggestions feature make it easy to find new friends, it also lets you add them to your friends list and send them a short message without ever leaving your home page. Just click the "add as friend" link below your friend's photo, customize the message you want to send (or use the predefined message we've created for you), and click "send invite."

Originally this feature was developed to help people who were new to orkut to quickly and easily find all of their friends who had already joined. Now this feature is made available to all users.