By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

In February, Robert Scoble wrote that Microsoft researchers showed him something that made him cry. At the time, he couldn’t write about it, but it turned out to be this project, the Microsoft WorldWide Telescope.

It’s a desktop application, so you do have to download and install it. Think of it as a Google Earth for space. It’s dedicated to Jim Gray, the Microsoft Researcher who sailed out of San Francisco Bay in late January of 2007 and was never seen again. The first inklings of this project appeared in a 2002 paper he wrote with Alexander S. Szalay.

Before you ask: Windows only. Yep. You can run it on a Mac with Boot Camp, but …

In a press release, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said:

“The WorldWide Telescope is a powerful tool for science and education that makes it possible for everyone to explore the universe. By combining terabytes of incredible imagery and data with easy-to-use software for viewing and moving through all that information, the WorldWide Telescope opens the door to new ways to see and experience the wonders of space. Our hope is that it will inspire young people to explore astronomy and science, and help researchers in their quest to better understand the universe.”

Microsoft is probably also thinking that the galaxy is much cooler than silly old Earth, and they don’t have to worry about security or privacy issues - or lawsuits - a la Google Earth or Google Street View.

Playing around with it … it’s cool. You pick something from a collection, and it scrolls around, or you can scroll yourself. It does need 3D acceleration, and although it will work with 1 MB 0f RAM, they recommend 2 MB.

Some of the coolness is shown above with Jupiter. Zoom in on something, right-click on it and you get more details. Just to be clear, it’s pre-release software, and you’ll run into bugs, such as artifacts and the like.

It does seem to be somewhat of a resource hog, as it sure slowed down my system while it was running. Still, I was impressed. It didn’t make me cry, but the images sure blew me away.

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

McAfee and Yahoo! announced on Tuesday a new feature for Yahoo! Search which will supposedly make searching safer: the flagging of potentially unsafe Web sites appearing in Yahoo search results.

The initiative uses McAfee’s SiteAdvisor technology to mark risky sites in search results. SiteAdvisor itself is already free, but not having to install it makes life a whole lot easier for those who might move from PC to PC, or even browser to browser.

According to Yahoo!’s press release:

SearchScan will be turned on by default for all users in the U.S., Canada, UK, France, Italy, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and Spain, and will scan for three types of risks in our search index:

• Browser Exploits — These are sites that can stealthily harm a user’s computer or install malware simply by visiting the site. Beginning today, any such sites or pages included in McAfee’s data will be removed from search results automatically.
• Dangerous Downloads — SearchScan will display warnings next to search results for sites that offer potentially dangerous software, such as viruses, spyware or adware. Users often may be unaware that these can be passed along with the screensavers, games and other software downloads.
• Unsolicited Email — SearchScan will alert users to scanned sites that send unsolicited emails or inappropriately share email addresses with third parties.

SearchScan will be on by default but users can turn off or even filter all sites with warnings from their results.

This is a feature that’s been available for some time for Google users, as Google has teamed with StopBadware.org. Interestingly, the site flagged above is not flagged in Google’s results. Who are you supposed to trust?

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

Certainly, there’s no lack of accidental data breaches. Companies, even countries like the U.K. have accidentally exposed sensitive information about customers or citizens. But to do it deliberately? Whoa.

Just days before it is scheduled to leave power, the outgoing administration in Italy posted the 2005 tax returns of every citizen on their tax agency’s website on Wednesday. The information included included names, birthdates, addresses, income and tax paid, arranged alphabetically and according to municipality. It was available for nearly 24 hours before being taken down.

Interestingly, the outgoing government said it was surprised at the uproar, saying it was simply “democratic transparency.”

At any rate, the site was nearly taken down by the sheer number of people trying to see the information of their neighbors - or celebrities - before it was taken down for good by Italy’s privacy agency.

Of course, tax evasion is high in Italy and both Silvio Berlusconi, the incoming PM, and outgoing PM Romano Prodi, pledged to tackle the issue. This, of course, is a little over-the-top.

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

A mashup is “a web application that combines data from more than one source into a single integrated tool.” For example, you might combine data from one site that tells you the leg room on available flights with a travel site to determine which flights have the greatest leg room.

While this is a great way to extend and combine the power of different sites, there’s no way my mother-in-law or my wife could create their own mashups, much less find one that did what they wanted (short of perhaps searching for it via Google). Certainly everyone’s needs are different, and even if you found a mashup it might not do everything you wanted.

This is the set of problems Intel Mash Maker, an Intel Research project, wants to solve. First to allow non-programmers the ability to create such useful applets - and to share them, and second to make it easy to discover the available mashups for a site. As Intel told me, “it allows you to have the information you want, presented the way you want it.”
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By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

Wednesday Yahoo! announced that it would be starting a limited trial of Google AdSense for Search service. This would deliver Google ads alongside Yahoo!’s search results, rather than Yahoo! ads. Yep, essentially Yahoo! is trying outsourcing Search Ads to Google.

It’s clear that this move is one of the alternatives Yahoo! is looking at in response to Microsoft’s unsolicited takeover bid. As you may recall Microsoft pretty much threw down the gauntlet, giving Yahoo! three weeks before Microsoft will start what sounds like a hostile takeover attempt.

According to Yahoo!’s press release,

The test will apply only to traffic from yahoo.com in the U.S. and will not include Yahoo!’s extended network of affiliate or premium publisher partners. The test is expected to last up to two weeks and will be limited to no more than 3% of Yahoo! search queries.

As previously announced, Yahoo!’s board of directors is exploring strategic alternatives to maximize stockholder value, including exploration of potential commercial business arrangements. The Company noted that the testing does not necessarily mean that Yahoo! will join the AdSense for Search program or that any further commercial relationship with Google will result. The Company further stated that it would not comment on the nature or timing of any potential relationship.

To say Microsoft was not pleased is an understatement. In fact, they shot off their own press release, with Brad Smith, Microsoft’s General Counsel saying:

“Any definitive agreement between Yahoo! and Google would consolidate over 90% of the search advertising market in Google’s hands. This would make the market far less competitive, in sharp contrast to our own proposal to acquire Yahoo! We will assess closely all of our options. Our proposal remains the only alternative put forward that offers Yahoo! shareholders full and fair value for their shares, gives every shareholder a vote on the future of the company, and enhances choice for content creators, advertisers, and consumers.”

We Say: If anyone thought the drama was decreasing over Microsoft - Yahoo!, it sure ain’t.

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

I am sure when the founders of HotPads came up with their website business, the idea was to tap into the red-hot housing market. Sadly, things have changed and now the word “hot” has a whole new meaning.

Hotpads is a free service that lets you compare rentals and homes for sale in many top US cities. Even more interesting is the site’s heatmap feature. As shown here, foreclosures in the San Francisco Bay Area are indeed heating up.

We Say: Why not throw in a gasoline price tracker heat map and we an all just drown ourselves right now.

Alice Adds: If you truly want to depress yourself, check out Gas Buddy. San Francisco has hit $4.11 a gallon. sigh…

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

When we last visited Wal-Mart’s attempt at DRM-free music, they had only managed to get EMI and Universal Music Group signed up for the DRM-free portion of their store. They’ve now decided to go all-MP3, but they’re still stuck without Warner Music Group and Sony BMG, which are unfortunately the top two record labels.

Most likely they will eventually match Amazon MP3, which has all four major record labels signed, but it’s surprising that Wal-Mart made this move without working out deals - and that they haven’t been able to work out a deal since August. When Amazon MP3 launched it was understandable that they were missing labels, as they vowed to be all MP3 from the start, but Wal-Mart?

The store redesign means that only those with IE can use the new store; others using, for example, Firefox are greeted with the following message:

We notice you’re not using Internet Explorer. Other browsers may be able to access our original Music Downloads store which has fewer user features than our latest version but offers the same music. We will be making enhancements to our updated version in the future to support the Firefox browser. If you want to take advantage of all the features in our updated design now, please get the latest version of Internet Explorer.

Of course, since Firefox is my browser of choice, I fell back on IE Tab.

No Mac or Linux support for their download app; in fact, Linux isn’t even mentioned, and for Mac their site says:

At this time, it isn’t possible to shop and download songs directly from Wal-Mart Music Downloads to a Macintosh computer. However, you can transfer the MP3 files from a Windows computer to a Macintosh using a CD or other storage device.

How convenient for end users!

We Say: I suppose Wal-Mart isn’t all that worried about the challenge presented by iTunes; if they were, they might have pushed the store out when it was fully formed, instead of rushing it out; the lack of a) two major labels, b) alternate browser support, c) Mac and Linux support is pretty behind-the-times in this day and age (all right, all right, I know lack of Mac / Linux support is pretty common).

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

You can forget ever having to send a “belated” Birthday email again with Gmail’s new Custom Time feature (although if the person doesn’t rate more than an email - not even an emailed greeting card - why bother?). Using an e-flux capacitor to resolve issues of causality, the new feature allows you to send emails to the past, but only to April 1, 2004, the day Google launched Gmail. You also get only 10 Custom Time emails a year. When asked about the limitations of the feature, Google said:

If we were to let you send an email from Gmail before Gmail existed, well, that would be like hanging out with your parents before you were born — crazy talk.

and …

Our researchers have concluded that allowing each person more than ten pre-dated emails per year would cause people to lose faith in the accuracy of time, thus rendering the feature useless.

The feature has already garnered a great number of fans and praise, with Delivery Girl Miriam S. saying:

“The entire concept of ‘late’ no longer exists for me. That’s pretty cool. Thanks Gmail!”

On the other hand, Epistemology Professor Michael L. said:

“This feature allows people to manipulate and mislead people with falsified time data. Time is a sacred truth that should never be tampered with.”

Please note that I personally hate time travel — too many paradoxes. This is why I hated every single Star Trek: TOS / TNG / DS9 / Voyager / Enterprise — and lets not forget B5 or any other TV show episode / movie ever written. Don’t get me started on “dream” episodes either.

BTW, since I Custom Time emailed myself the results of 9 sporting events and bet heavily on them, I no longer need to work, so this will be my last post ever. With the 10th Custom Time email I sent myself the location of Jennifer Aniston after Brad Pitt broke the news about Angelina Jolie to her, figuring she could use some comforting — so I’m also Mr. Aniston now.

We Say: I’m assuming by now you remember that it’s April 1. I hate this day, actually — it’s too hard to sort out the pranks and find real news!