Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Yahoo! may have successfully deterred a Microsoft takeover, but it cannot escape the fact that it still has to work with the software maker in its other products. Barring all indifference’s with Microsoft, Yahoo has quietly made available the new Yahoo! Go 3.0 in beta mode for Windows mobile-powered handsets. And no, Yahoo did not underplay the new version of its mobile web browser to get back at Microsoft. On the contrary, it has transformed Yahoo! Go 3.0 into a powerful mobile web portal with features that even the Microsoft guys would love. These new features are; a new mobile web start up page that displays what’s new since the user’s last visit plus previews of users favorites, an improved oneSearch that now includes up-to-date flight information and content from Yahoo Answers as well as Wikipedia, enhanced design and navigation that gives users an option to use the traditional carousel or the icon display, mobile widgets from eBay, MySpace and other sites that fully support mobile widgets, and other customization features. This is suffice to say that Yahoo has transformed Go 3.0 into a more powerful mobile internet facility for mobile phone users.

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Torrenting is used by many, and I’m sure everyone who torrents has used or at least heard of, TorrentSpy. The website has been closed down since March 24, 2008, and after the latest news its safe to say that it will remain down. Basically, their reason for shutting down is that they had lost too much money from court cases, and according to the statement on their site the “legal climate in the USA for copyright, privacy of search requests, and links to torrent files in search results is simply too hostile.” Now in the latest blow, the MPAA has come out victorious after going at TorrentSpy and not only did they win the court case, but also $110 million. Looks like this will keep them down.

Via [CrunchGear]

It looks like Amazon’s decision to file a lawsuit against New York’s new tax policy on online stores may back fire on them as the Texas Comptroller’s Office is investigating the probability that the online store may actually owe the Texas government millions of dollars in unpaid taxes. If you will recall, in its case against the New York tax policy, Amazon argued that it should not pay the NY government any taxes because it doesn’t have a “physical presence” in New York.

The same reason is now being used by the Texas government as it found out that Amazon has a “physical presence” in the area. Apparently, Amazon has operated a distribution center at 2700 Regent Boulevard in Irving from 2006 to 2007. This was pointed out by the Dallas Morning News when it called Amazon to ask why it is not charging sales taxes to its online customers.

Amazon has not yet issued a statement confirming that it actually owns the distribution center. But if the presence of an Amazon flag outside the building is any indication of ownership, then Amazon may indeed own the distribution center.

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The recently released Photoshop Express, which is a free web-based photo editor has just added support for Flickr. With the newly added support users can now take images from their Flickr account, edit them in Photoshop Express and place the hopefully nicer images back into their Flickr photo stream for everyone to enjoy. If you are new to Photoshop Express, you can check out the recent review from our own Debbie Cook.

Via [Lifehacker]

$899 million euros or $1.4 billion is definitely a huge sum of money and it seems like Microsoft would not just want to lose that amount over an anti-trust ruling that the EU has slapped Microsoft in February 2007. The fine was a result of a case filed against Microsoft for failing to comply with a 2004 ruling. So, Microsoft is appealing the EU ruling and hoping against all hopes that the EU would heed its plea to overturn the ruling or at least reduce the fine.

If you recall, sometime in 2004, the EU slapped Microsoft with a $768 million fine after it failed to comply with an anti-trust ruling that ordered Microsoft to provide rival companies with data that would allow their servers to connect to the Windows platform which was the predominantly used operating systems in majority of the PCs in 2004. In return, Microsoft is allowed to charge reasonable royalties for giving rival companies access to its Windows Platform.

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Well, it was a long time coming, but YouTube has finally made its localized Indian version go live. Now, YouTube users from India are given access to a highly personalized version of the site, featuring content that’s filtered through a so-called “Indian lens.” The live video charts show what videos are being watched by users in India, and the featured videos are now targeted towards an Indian audience. Literally dozens of local partners have also been signed-up by YouTube to provide home-grown content to the users. And they even launched an official Indian YouTube Blog. So if you’re looking for some original South Asian video goodness, head on over to http://in.youtube.com.

Read [YouTube India Blog]

While rumors about buyouts, mergers and partnerships continue to swirl around them, the number one and number two social network websites are announcing new features and services. MySpace, the top social site, is taking the wraps off of “data availability,” which allows members to easily share public profile information and user-generated content with Yahoo!, Ebay, Flickr and Photobucket.
And Facebook, after hearing complaints from state attorneys general about the threat from child predators and cyberbullies on its website, has agreed to tighten up security to protect its under-18 users. The social network will work with a task force to make sure identities and ages of members can be verified while trying harder to keep inappropriate content - including alcohol and tobacco advertising - from underage eyes. 

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If you’ve been monitoring news in another language like I’ve been doing this morning, you might have also noticed that the homepage of Google’s Translation service has undergone a bit of a makeover. And if you mess around with it a little you’ll find a few new features that haven’t even been announced by Google yet.

In addition to the thirteen languages that Google Translate already supports, it now offers translations for eleven new languages, which are Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hindi, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian and Swedish. So now you can translate text and web pages in 25 languages, plus there’s a cool new feature that lets you translate something even if you don’t know the language of origin. It’s called Detect Language, and lets you translate text and web pages without asking you for the original language you are trying to translate from. It’s a godsend for people like me who don’t know their Simplified Chinese from the Traditional, and I’m sure a lot of other people are going to like this new feature as well.

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I just hate goodbyes. And I especially hate it when I have to say goodbye to something that has been dear to me even for just a while. But sadly, Google doesn’t seem to be planning on taking back its announcement regarding the shutdown of Picasa’s photo sharing service, Hello. On Hello’s home page, all you will be able to find now is this: “Hello will be shut down on May 15th.” Followed by a short and optimistic message from the Hello Team. In case you’re not familiar with Hello, you can find a copy of their old home page here, and a copy of their “how it works” page here. Well, there goes another startup, I guess.

Read [Hello] Via [Google Blogoscoped]

Universal Music Group is joining the ranks of music companies who are giving away their music for free and in a legal way. The company has announced that it has reached an agreement with file-sharing site Qtrax to offer free, legal downloads of all its digital music. If you would recall, Qtrax announced sometime in January that it has the support of “all major music labels” in its revenue generating ads music download service. But some of this music companies denied Qtrax’s claim, including UMG. Prior to these events, Qtrax was forced to shut down its service a few months after it was launched in 2002 to avoid some legal troubles.

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