Microsoft's latest operating system

Software giant Microsoft on Tuesday unveiled Windows 7, saying its latest operating system won't be as annoying.

At the company' Professional Developers Conference here, Microsoft said the new version will not have the rampant notifications that have irked many users of Windows Vista.

People can choose to see fewer alerts and warnings from their computers in the new Windows 7, said the company, adding that people will be able to test out the next version of Windows early next year.

The design of Windows 7 will make it easier for people to switch between open windows, files and applications.

It also is supposed to give PC users faster access to recently used files, making home networking more automatic, according to the company.

And overall, the version is faster and can run on less-powerful computers, said the company.

Windows 7, the successor to Windows Vista, is scheduled to premiere in early 2010.

Microsoft expects that the new product would eliminate some of the problems that hampered Vista's premiere two years ago and continue to define the operating system's reputation.

Users have complained that the Vista system requires much more memory than its predecessor Windows XP and fails to run some applications.

Many corporate users even reportedly asked to have their computers downgraded to XP.

Computer viruses make it to orbit

A computer virus is alive and well on the International Space Station (ISS).

Nasa has confirmed that laptops carried to the ISS in July were infected with a virus known as Gammima.AG.

The worm was first detected on Earth in August 2007 and lurks on infected machines waiting to steal login names for popular online games.

Nasa said it was not the first time computer viruses had travelled into space and it was investigating how the machines were infected.

Space news website SpaceRef broke the story about the virus on the laptops that astronauts took to the ISS.

Nasa told SpaceRef that no command or control systems of the ISS were at risk from the malicious program.

The laptops infected with the virus were used to run nutritional programs and let the astronauts periodically send e-mail back to Earth.

The laptops carried by astronauts reportedly do not have any anti-virus software on them to prevent infection.

Once it has scooped up passwords and login names the Gammima.AG worm virus tries to send them back to a central server. It targets a total of 10 games most of which are popular in the Far East such as Maple Story, HuangYi Online and Talesweaver.

Nasa is working with partners on the ISS to find out how the virus got on to the laptop in the first place.

The ISS has no direct net connection and all data traffic travelling from the ground to the spacecraft is scanned before being transmitted.

It is thought that the virus might have travelled via a flash or USB drive owned by an astronaut and taken into space.

The space agency also plans to put in place security systems to stop such incidents happening in the future.

Nasa told Wired News that viruses had infected laptops taken to the ISS on several occasions but the outbreaks had always only been a "nuisance".

AP

Users urged to report abuse sites

Web users are being urged to help spot illegal and obscene content online.

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) is running an awareness campaign to tell web users how to report images of child sexual abuse.

The campaign comes in response to IWF research which suggests 77% of people who find illegal content do not know how to report what they have seen.

Banner adverts, e-mail messages and information pages are being used to educate people about how to report.

Sarah Robertson, a spokeswoman for the IWF, said that in 2007 the organisation handled 34,781 reports from members of the public who stumbled across illegal content.

While some find links to illegal content from legal pornographic sites many people accidentally stumble across such material too, she said.

Many sites hosting images of child sex abuse were run by organised crime gangs who charged for access. As commercial concerns, she said, many advertised their wares via spam campaigns.

"People might get unsolicited e-mails and not know where the link leads and could end up somewhere they did not want to be," she said. "The message is that it's important that they do report it to us."

Illegal content, be it images of child sex abuse, obscene pornography or race hatred, can be reported by clicking a big red button on the IWF home page.

Those finding illegal content can report what they have found anonymously or can leave contact details if they want to find out what has been done about the pages they found.

Many other sites are running banner adverts, circulating e-mail messages and placing notices on intranets inside organisations letting people know how to report what they find to the IWF.

The IWF monitors publicly viewable illegal content and relied on members of the public to alert it to the new sites traffickers in child sex abuse imagery have set up.

Ms Robertson said the work of the IWF had led to less than 1% of child abuse image sites being located in the UK.

The organisation produces a list of sites known to host illegal material that is circulated to net suppliers to ensure that UK users cannot reach these sites.

Ms Robertson cautioned concerned net users to leave it to the IWF to chase and shut down sites hosting illegal content.

"It's an offence to seek out this content to view it for any reason," she said. "It's against the law."

Reuters

Internet Explorer gets makeover

It remains unclear when a final version of the program will be shipped, with the test version currently available for download.

IE8 offers a few surprises compared to the initial beta version released in March.

New features will include improved privacy and search functions, and ways to keep track of portions of web pages.

The release debuts two functions that were not available in the March release. However, many in the blogosphere have noted that several of the improvements in IE8 have been available on other browsers for some time.

One feature new to the release is the "smart address bar". Microsoft senior product manager James Pratt pointed out at that 80% of the time, internet users were visiting sites they had been to before.

To address that, the new release archives visited sites based on their titles as well as their addresses. That means a search in the address bar for words and phrases will find previously visited sites, as well as bookmarks.

Another new set of features makes web searching easier; search terms entered in the search bar at the top of the browser now instantly display potential results in real time as the search term is typed. Results are shown from user-defined search engines and websites, with rich visual content.

For websites with changing content, such as items on eBay or status pages on Facebook, IE8's Web Slices allows users to keep up with the content without going to the webpage directly, accessible through the Favourites bar.

Google launches internet browser

Google is set to introduce on Tuesday a new Web browser designed to more quickly handle video-rich or other complex Web programs to compete with Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Google Inc plans to launch a web browser called Google Chrome in a challenge to Microsoft Corp's (MSFT.O) Internet Explorer, the Wall Street Journal reported on its website on Monday.

The browser is designed to be lightweight and fast, and to cope with the next generation of web applications that rely on graphics and multimedia.

Called Chrome, it will launch as a beta for Windows machines in 100 countries, with Mac and Linux versions to come.

"We realised... we needed to completely rethink the browser," said Google's Sundar Pichai in a blog post.

The new browser will help Google take advantage of developments it is pushing online in rich web applications that are challenging traditional desktop programs. Google has a suite of web apps, such as Documents, Picasa and Maps which offer functionality that is beginning to replace offline software.

"What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build," Mr Pichai, VP Product Management, wrote.

The launch of a beta version of Chrome on Tuesday will be Google's latest assault on Microsoft's dominance of the PC business. The firm's Internet Explorer program dominates the browser landscape, with 80% of the market.

- Download Link -

The Wall Street Journal

Web browser to get 'privacy mode'

Microsoft is planning a "privacy mode" for the next release of its Internet Explorer (IE) web browser.

By clicking a button, users of IE8 will be able to limit how much information is recorded about where they go online and what they do.

Microsoft watchers have spotted two patent applications covering ways to manage the amount of information a browser logs.

When introduced the privacy mode will match features found on other browsers.

Australian blogger Long Zheng has found two patent applications made by Microsoft on 30 July for ideas it calls "Cleartracks" and "Inprivate".

The applications deal with methods of erasing data that browsing programs log, turning off features that record sites visited or notifying users of what sites are doing to log a visit.

While many browsers already have menu options that let people alter security settings and clear history files it typically has to be done on a use-by-use basis.

Users may wish to turn on the privacy mode if they are planning a surprise party, buying presents or researching a medical condition and do not want others users of the same computer to find out.

Internet Explorer 8 is due to go on general release late in 2008 though early trial versions are already available.

By comparison Apple's Safari browser already has a privacy mode and developers working for Mozilla, creators of Firefox, are reportedly working on a similar feature for future versions.

Other browsers, such as Xerobank, take a more thorough approach to privacy and try to anonymise all web use.

Firefox claims download success

Mozilla is claiming a download record for the release of Firefox 3.0.

In the first 24 hours the web browser was available the software was downloaded more than eight million times, says its creator Mozilla.

Statistics from the download servers are being scrutinised to produce an official figure that will be passed to the Guinness World Record organisation.

But the launch was marred by news from computer security firms who have found the first flaws in the software.

The attempt to set the download record was scheduled to begin at 1300 PST (2000 GMT) on 17 June.

However, the record attempt was almost wrecked from the start as the servers handling the downloads collapsed under the weight of visitors checking to see if new version was available.

Once the servers were up and functioning normally the record attempt began.

At their busiest the servers were handling more than 9,000 downloads per minute. Within five hours the number of downloads for Version 3.0 exceeded the 1.6 million set by Firefox 2.0 in October 2006.

In total Firefox 3.0 was downloaded 8.3 million times over the 24 hour record setting period. The figure beats the five million Mozilla predicted before the day.

Logs from the download servers have been handed to the Open Source Labs at Oregon State University for auditing. The scrutiny will ensure duplicate and unfinished downloads are not counted. The verification process could take a week to complete.

The surge of interest in Firefox 3.0 has continued and Mozilla has reported that the software has now been downloaded more than 10 million times.

However, some of the shine of the launch was removed by reports that a security firm had already found a flaw in the browser.

DV Labs/Tipping Point reported a flaw only five hours after Firefox 3.0 debuted. The flaw potentially lets an attacker take over a PC if a user clicks on a booby-trapped link.

Google to get new space age home

Google is to get a new home after signing a 40-year lease to build a high-tech campus on land owned by Nasa.

The 1.2m sq ft site will include a huge office complex, and research and development facilities.

The search giant will pay an initial base rent of $3.66m a year for the undeveloped land at the Nasa Ames Research Centre in Mountain View.

Google says it needs the space for the thousands of workers it expects to hire as the company expands its business.

"This long-term lease agreement is a key component of Google's strategy for continued growth in Silicon Valley," says David Radcliffe, Google's vice-president of real estate and workplace services.

In the last four years, Google has added more than 17,000 employees to boost its payroll to 19, 156 workers.

This workforce expansion has spurred the company to lease or buy many of the smaller offices circling its Googleplex headquarters, a 1 million sq ft campus that Google bought for $139m two years ago.

The deal is being seen as a win-win situation for Nasa as it endeavours to establish itself as a high-tech centre of excellence

"With this new campus, we will establish an era of expanded collaboration with Google that will further enhance our Silicon Valley connections," says Ames director S. Pete Worden.

"This major expansion of Nasa Research Park supports Nasa's mission to lead the nation in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research."

Nasa will use the money for improvements and maintenance costs at the Research Park.

Mr Radcliffe agrees the agreement will enhance Nasa's reputation and allow the company to draw on the brain power that will be available on its new doorstep.

"We believe this collaboration between Google, Nasa and the city of Mountain View is emblematic of the mutually beneficial partnerships that can be created between the public and private sectors. "

Google has not said how much it will cost to build the new campus, which is also expected to include housing for employees, sports, conference, dining and child care facilities and perhaps some retail outlets.

Building work is expected to get under way no later than 2013 with the final phase of work starting in 2022.

After the 40-year lease expires, the agreement could be extended by as much as 50 more years.

Microsoft demos 'touch Windows'

Microsoft's next operating system (OS) will come with multi-touch features as an alternative to the mouse. It is hoped the successor will have a better reception than the much-maligned Vista OS, released last year.

Scheduled for release in 2009 the new fingertip interface lets users enlarge and shrink photos, trace routes on maps, paint pictures or play the piano.

"The way you interact with the system will change dramatically," said Microsoft chairman Bill Gates.

Speaking at the All Things Digital conference in San Diego, the Microsoft Chairman said Windows 7 would incorporate new forms of communication and interaction.

"Today almost all the interaction is keyboard-mouse. Over years to come, the role of speech, vision, ink - all of those things - will be huge."

Chief executive Steve Ballmer described the limited demo of the multi touch screen at the conference as "a small snippet" of the next version of Windows after admitting he wants "to do better" than Vista.

Even though Vista has suffered from a poor public image and a lukewarm welcome from many firms and users, Ballmer said the company has shipped 150 million copies of the programme.

Touch enabled

Industry watchers say Microsoft is hoping that Windows 7 can change the way people interact with PCs in the future.

"Touch is quickly becoming a common way of interacting with software and devices," writes Windows product manager Chris Flores in a blog post.

"Touch-enabled surfaces are popping up everywhere including laptop touch pads, cell phones, remote controls, GPS devices and more."

When challenged as to who will get to market first with a new touch screen device, Microsoft or Apple, Mr Ballmer said it was not much of an issue.

"We'll sell 290 million PCs and Apple will sell 10 million Pcs."

"They're fantastically successful and so are we and our partners. But it's a different job. Steve (Jobs Apple CEO) can flip his hand and sell a few models and I don't take a thing away from him."

Website Beta News reports that "beta testing of the product should begin later this year although a lack of touch-screen devices could slow widespread trials of the new interface".

We walked away

During the conference, CEO Steve Ballmer also talked about the company's failure to buy Yahoo, following its offer of $47.5 billion.

"Look, we made a bid for Yahoo. It was out there for three months and there was a difference between bid and ask."

"We thought we could accelerate our business. We were going to be financially disciplined about it. We walked away. We are talking with them about other ideas but we are not re-bidding on the company. We reserve the right to do so. That's not on the docket."

Gates said: "I've been supportive of everything Steve has done. Totally supportive."

bbc

Gamer anger at Nokia's 'lock in'

If a gamer changes or upgrades to a different Nokia handset they have to purchase the games again if they want to continue playing.

The issue was uncovered by website All About N-Gage.

"It's a bad idea for everyone... the N-Gage platform, gamers and third party publishers," the site said.

Nokia said it had made the decision to prevent piracy and to ensure its "partners receive their rightful revenues from our platform".

Nokia relaunched its N-Gage mobile gaming platform last month.

About 30 games are available on a limited range of Nokia handsets, which are bought and downloaded direct to the phone.

It is the company's second attempt at making mobile gaming a success. In 2003 it released a dedicated handset for gaming, but the device never took off.

But the new platform has provoked anger amongst gamers.

Writing on the official N-Gage forums, one gamer said: "Changes need to be made soon, and sticking one's head in the sand will not change anybody's mind."

When gamers sign up for the service they have to agree to terms and conditions, part of which explains that games cannot be transferred between devices.

It states: "Content shall be... limited to one private installation on one N-Gage compatible Nokia device only."

But gamers have complained that the detail is buried in the terms and conditions and it is not clear enough at the point of purchase.

A statement from Nokia said: "Our policy is that the N-Gage activation codes only work on the device where they were first activated.

"As with any digital media there is a potential risk of piracy and this policy is one of the ways we are dealing with piracy and ensuring our partners receive their rightful revenues from our platform.

"If users need to repair their device, the activation codes will be reissued."

Reuters

Intel seeks wireless unification

Intel is the biggest supporter of Wimax, which offers high-speed, long-range wireless connections designed for the mobile net.

"In our view they ought to be harmonised," said Sean Maloney, head of sales and marketing at Intel.

LTE is a technology based on existing mobile networks and has broad support from many mobile bodies.

Mr Maloney's comments are likely to be welcomed by the mobile industry, which fears the impact two rival standards could have on the market.

Earlier this year, Vodafone chief executive Arun Sarin said he believed the two standards could be brought together.

LTE is proving popular with handset manufacturers and mobile carriers because it is seen as an evolution to existing 3G networks.

By contrast, Wimax has won favour in the computer industry because its roots lie with wi-fi.

Both technologies have supporters who are in the two camps.

For instance Vodafone is currently trialling Wimax in Greece and Malta and its US subsidiary Verizon is trying out LTE.

The two systems are non-line of sight, and offer "optimal" broadband performance in a cell network between three and five kilometres in size.

LTE is also expected to offer higher speeds than Wimax, peaking at 100 Mbps download and 50 Mbps uploads.

Microsoft's cooperation with HP

In a bid to boost its Web search traffic, Microsoft Corp. on Monday announced a deal that will make its Live Search the default on Hewlett-Packard Co. personal computers shipped in the U.S. and Canada, starting in January.

The deal also calls for HP, the world's largest PC maker, to install copies of Internet Explorer with an extra Live Search toolbar on those computers. Microsoft said the toolbar also links to HP services such as its Snapfish digital photo printing site.

Since Microsoft called off its $47.5 billion offer to buy search competitor Yahoo Inc., the company has been under pressure to prove it has a new plan for attracting more people to Live Search.

Google Inc. fields more than 10 times Microsoft's search traffic and has parlayed that into billions of dollars in advertising. Yahoo, the No. 2 search engine in the U.S., attracts more than twice as much as traffic as Live Search.

Microsoft has already made a similar arrangement with the much smaller, China-based Lenovo Group, while Google has a distribution deal in place with Dell Inc. and Mozilla's Firefox Web browser.

"Every Dell machine we buy at home that comes with the Google toolbar, it's not a good day in my family when that happens," Ballmer said to a gathering of employees on May 1. He told them Microsoft is now willing to invest more in distribution deals.

Microsoft would not reveal financial details of the deal or say how much additional search traffic it expects to gain.

Angus Norton, a senior director in Microsoft's Live Search group, said about 40 percent of Web surfers use whatever search engine is set as the default on their PC.

The Washington Times

Google accused over privacy law

The search engine giant is being asked to write the word "privacy" alongside other information links.

"It's a short, seven letter word and in the world of privacy it's a very important word," said Beth Givens of Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.

Google says its policy is easy to find and it gives "accessible information".

The issue has been building momentum following a series of blogs in the New York Times questioning Google's compliance with the California Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003.

The law requires any commercial website that collects personal information about its users to "conspicuously post its privacy policy on its website".

Google maintains that it already does and that its privacy policy can be found by going through its search engine or by clicking on "About Google".

In a conference call, a coalition of privacy organisations told journalists that was not good enough and it has written to Google.

The groups involved include the Electronic Privacy Information Centre, the World Privacy Forum, Consumer Action, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU of Northern California.

Reuters

WWT will take you to infinity

Computer users now can fly through the universe, viewing stars, planets and celestial bodies as an astronomer would, with the introduction of the WW Telescope by Microsoft.

A free program launched today will effectively turn every computer that downloads it into a mini-planetarium capable of displaying high resolution images of millions of stars, planets and other celestial bodies.

The project, called the WorldWide Telescope (WWT), is the result of several years of hard labour by a small team at Microsoft Research, the software company's key R&D centre.

It has drawn lavish praise from some of the world's leading space scientists and educators, including Dr Roy Gould of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics.

"Galileo's telescope started to give us views of the universe that no one else had seen before and we started asking what was out there and why. And I think the WorldWide Telescope is going to do the same thing for the rest of us," he said in a telephone interview.

"In terms of pushing the envelope, this really pushes the envelope.

The program works in the same way as many online mapping tools, allowing users to zoom around on an interactive canvas combining images and data drawn from the world's leading astronomical research organisations.

At launch, the WWT has access to 12 terabytes of data - enough to fill the equivalent of 1.2 million books. But like the universe, this will expand as new images are added.

Dr Gould believes the WWT will give amateur astronomers and even complete novices an opportunity to assist the scientific community in furthering their research.

"This is going to change our relationship with the night sky in a significant way," he said.

WWT is being offered without strings attached from today as an educational tool and was created to honour the memory of the late Dr Jim Gray, a leading Microsoft computer scientist who was lost at sea in 2007.

Dr Gray believed that the vast amount of space data being collected would change astronomy from being an observational science into a computational one, said Dr Curtis Wong, a leading Microsoft research scientist and the head of the WWT project.

With the growth of the internet and the increasing processing power of standard computers, Gray could see the internet becoming the platform for a worldwide virtual observatory which anyone could use.

A key feature of the program is the ability of users - any user, not just the experts - to create rich media tours to showcase features found on the WWT database.

For instance, one of the tours takes you across the Martian landscape using images captured in the Mars Rover program.

"For millennia ... every different culture has their own story about the heavens," said Dr Wong in a telephone interview. "The WorldWide Telescope is an opportunity for people to create and share those stories."

The Microsoft project is being launched almost nine months after Google rolled out its Google Sky service, a layered map of astronomical images that its part of its Google Earth program.

But there is no sense of a space race between the two giants of the technology world. Both projects have no commercial application and exist as public service tools.

Dr Wong would not be drawn on making comparisons between the two although it has been previously reported that the WWT packs in much more data and imagery than its Google counterpart.

The WWT comes as a 20MB download and is available from the WorldWide Telescope site. The program only works on the Windows operating system.

Stephen Hutcheon

Facebook sets new safeguards

Top US state attorneys have announced that Facebook has agreed to get tougher on keeping its young website users safe from bullies, porn, pedophiles and other online hazards.

Top US state attorneys have announced that Facebook has agreed to get tougher on keeping its young website users safe from bullies, porn, pedophiles and other online hazards.

Facebook has agreed to a child protection pact similar to the one sealed with leading social-networking website MySpace in January, according to Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal.

"This agreement marks another milestone step for social networking safety -- protecting kids from online predators and pornography," he said in a statement.

"We are raising the safety bar, first for MySpace and now Facebook, and soon for other sites as we fight for an industry gold standard. Facebook and MySpace are showing how to aim higher and keep kids safer."

A goal of the coalition headed by Blumenthal and his North Carolina counterpart Roy Cooper is the development and implementation of technology that verifies ages and identities of people using social networking websites.

The host of safety enhancements agreed to by Facebook includes severing links to pornographic websites and booting users linked to incest, pedophilia or "cyberbullying," according to Blumenthal.

"Building a safe and trusted online experience has been part of Facebook from its outset," Facebook chief privacy officer Chris Kelly told AFP.

"The attorneys general have shown great leadership in helping to address the critical issue of Internet safety and we commend them for continuing to set high standards for all players in the online arena."

Facebook has grown to more than 70 million users worldwide since it was launched in early 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg while he was a student at Harvard University.

The Palo Alto, California-based company has been fast closing the popularity gap News Corp-owned MySpace which boasts more than 110 million users.

AFP

Yahoo kicks off re-wiring project

Yahoo users will soon have one place where they can manage all the services they use on the popular website.

The company has begun a mammoth re-engineering project that will unify the disparate services Yahoo runs.

It hopes the project will transform the site into a vast social network where Yahoo users can quickly find and communicate with each other.

The project should also aims to make it easier for web developers to use Yahoo data and services for their own ends.

Monkey magic

"We are literally in the process of rewiring Yahoo from the inside out," said Ari Balogh, chief technology officer at Yahoo in a speech at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco.

By re-engineering its internal workings it hopes to tear down the walls between its web sites and services so each user only has to visit one place to view and manage everything they do at Yahoo.

Yahoo has built up its online presence using both home-grown services and by acquisitions. Recently it has bought photo-sharing site Flickr, bookmarking site Del.icio.us and social calendar site Upcoming.

Yahoo is providing information so developers can call on the search engine and users can tune their sites to appear high up in keyword results.

The re-engineering project is part of a larger strategy, dubbed Y!OS (Yahoo Open Strategy) that is due to be unveiled in late 2008.

The announcement came two days before the expiration of a deadline set by Microsoft for Yahoo to agree to a merger. Microsoft has threatened to mount a hostile takeover if Yahoo refuses the offer or does not respond.

Reuters

Israel's newest soldier: Robot

Israel's newest soldier can see at night, never nods off on sentry duty and can carry 300 kilograms without complaining.

The Guardium, an unmanned ground vehicle commissioned by the Israeli military and shown to The Associated Press on Monday, is essentially a robotic soldier, among the first in the world to be operational. It can replace human soldiers in dangerous roles, cutting casualty rates.

Like the pilotless drones that have become a mainstay of air forces in Israel, the U.S. and elsewhere, the four-wheeled Guardium is operated from a command room that can be far from the front line. It can be mounted with cameras, night-vision equipment and sensors, as well as more lethal tools like machine guns.

Following pre-programmed routes, it can navigate alone through cities — the vehicle knows how to deal with intersections, traffic and road markings. It can patrol borders, its cameras scanning 360 degrees at all times, and alert operators if it spots anything suspicious.

The Guardium never mentally wanders or falls asleep, as soldiers have been known to do during mind-numbing guard or patrol missions. And it doesn't have a family that will miss it when it's away on reserve duty.

Guardium autonomous observation and target intercept system, developed by IAI/Lahav is based on the M-Guard unmanned security vehicle (USV) which can be operated from a command center, carry out routine patrols and quickly respond to evolving emergencies.

"Representatives of armies with troops who are taking high casualties in asymmetric warfare, from threats like roadside bombs, get excited about this product," said Erez Peled, general manager of G-Nius Unmanned Ground Systems, the company that developed the robot.

The control panel includes two large screens and a joystick. If the operator wants to take control, he can do so from a steering wheel and gas and brake pedals that lend the console the look of a video arcade game.

"Any kid who grew up with a PlayStation will be able to come in here and learn this in seconds," Peled said.

A vehicle alone costs approximately $600,000 (€385,000). With the operating system, the price runs to several million dollars, depending on what equipment is installed on the robot.

The Israeli military said the Guardium has yet to enter operational service, and would provide no further comment.

John Pike, director of the Virginia-based military think tank Globalsecurity.org, said there is only one other similar vehicle operational — a South Korean robot used to patrol the demilitarized zone with North Korea. With the details of the Korean vehicle classified, Pike could not say which was more advanced.

Robots like this are potentially the future of ground warfare, Pike said.

"A robot does what it's told, and you'll be able to get them to advance in ways its hard to get human soldiers to do. They don't have fear, and they kill without compunction."

But more importantly, he said, "A robot means you don't have to write a condolence letter."

AP

Google launches Friend Connect

Google has launched a preview version of Friend Connect which allows non-technical website owners to add a range of social networking features.

Mussie Shore, a product manager at Google, wrote on the company's official blog: "There are a number of great social networking sites out there that let you stay connected, but the rest of the web typically hasn't been social. Yet."

Website owners can use free code segments to add a range of interactive features and applications which visitors can access through AOL, Google, OpenID or Yahoo log-ins.

Google hopes that the new service will connect sites and users from around the world with similar interests by adding web 2.0 functionality to previously static web pages.

"You will be able to see, invite and interact with new friends or, using secure authorisation APIs, existing friends from social sites on the web like Facebook, Google Talk, hi5, LinkedIn, Orkut, Plaxo and others," wrote Shore.

Friend Connect will initially be limited to a handful of applicants while Google gathers feedback from site owners, developers and users to refine the service and expand the gallery of applications.

iPhone sold out online

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- Apple Inc. said Monday its online stores in the U.S. and UK are sold out of the iPhone, a sign supplies are being winnowed ahead of the launch of the device's next generation featuring faster Internet surfing speeds.

The Cupertino-based company confirmed that the iPhone is out of stock online, but added that brick-and-mortar stores run by Apple and iPhone carriers including AT&T Inc. might still have units available.

Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris declined to comment on reasons for the shortage and on Apple's plans for an update to the device, which is widely expected to be unveiled in June at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

The paucity of iPhones for sale in some markets comes as Apple is hustling to meet its goal of selling 10 million of the hybrid iPod-cell phone-Internet surfing gadgets by the end of 2008. So far, Apple has sold 5.4 million iPhones, according to the latest data as of the end of March.

One way Apple is expanding the iPhone's reach is by inking deals with wireless carriers around the world, even breaking with its pattern of requiring exclusivity to sell in a certain country.

On Monday, four mobile providers in the Asia-Pacific region announced partnerships with Apple to bring the iPhone to their regions later this year.

SingTel will sell the gadget in Singapore, Bharti Airtel Ltd. in India, Globe Telecom Inc. in the Philippines and Optus in Australia, the companies said in a brief joint statement, without giving details.

SingTel owns Optus and holds a 30.5 percent stake in Bharti and 44.5 percent in Globe.

SingTel has about 2.3 million mobile subscribers in Singapore and around 7 million in Australia, according to data as of December 31, 2007. Bharti currently has about 64 million subscribers, while Globe reported a 21.3 million mobile subscriber base for the quarter ended March 31.

Last week, the top mobile phone operator in Latin America, America Movil SAB, also announced plans to deliver the iPhone to its region. America Movil has 159.2 million subscribers in 16 countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico.

In recent weeks Apple has also signed deals with Rogers Communications Inc. to sell the device in Canada; Milan-based Telecom Italia SpA to sell the iPhone in Italy; and Vodafone Group PLC, the world's biggest mobile company by sales, to sell it in a total of 10 countries, including Australia, India, Italy and Turkey.

Until the spate of the latest deals, Apple adhered to its policy of exclusivity with one carrier in each country.

The exclusive deals for the iPhone were with AT&T Inc. in the United States, O2 in Britain, T-Mobile in Germany and France Telecom's Orange wireless arm in France.

Industry observers say some people may be holding off on buying an iPhone until the much-rumored next-generation of the device is launched, and the phone is officially rolled out in more countries.

It takes some technical gymnastics, but it's still possible to get the phone in some markets where Apple doesn't have arrangements with wireless carriers.

Many of the phones sold so far have been bought legitimately in one country, modified to work on any cellular network, and resold in countries where Apple doesn't have agreements to sell the iPhone. The trend expands the iPhone's reach but deprives Apple of some of the subscriber fees that Apple splits with its carrier partners.

Apple is also planning a software update for this summer that makes the iPhone work better with corporate e-mail, a necessary upgrade to help the iPhone compete with Research in Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry and Palm Inc.'s Treo smart phones.

Google Wants to Facebook Friend You

Thanks to a new Google project, soon any Website can be its own Facebook.

Upping the stakes in its ongoing battle with the popular social network, Google announced today that it was getting into the "social plumbing" business — giving every website a way to add a limitless number of applications and a means for those sites' users to communicate among themselves.

The initiative is called Friend Connect and it begins tonight when any site can apply to be in the Google pilot program (they call it a "preview release") here. Note: that site won't be live until Monday night. During the next few days, Google will choose one or two dozen sites to participate. Over the course of the next several months, the company will collect site, user and developer feedback on how the program is working. Then, if all goes well, in a few months Google will open up Friend Connect to any website or blog that wants to participate.

Here's how it'll work. (And forgive me for using my blog as an example; we need the traffic.)

My wife and I have a teensy blog that covers real estate and other stuff of interest to people in our hometown in Northern California. It's hosted via Blogger, which happens to be Google's free hosting service. (The Friend Connect program, however, is open to any website or blog — you'll just have to cut and paste a few lines of code onto your site.) Anyway, when we first set up the blog, we chose from a short a la carte menu of standard features we wanted to add — things like "blogrolls" which recommend our favorites blogs, post archives, pictures and so on.

Once Friend Connect is up and running on blogs, however, we'll be able to go to a page and choose from thousands of applications, and add them, free, to our site. (Here's a list of some of the applications. As Friend Connect grows, expect the list of applications to explode; Google, like Facebook before it, is trying to create a "platform" for developers to make money by reaching an audience of millions.)

But users will have to sign in if they want to use all those cool new apps. How? Google's using a standard known as OpenID, which many of the world's biggest sites — from Google (of course) to AOL — utilize. So, for instance, sign into AOL, or your g-mail account, and you're logged into Friend Connect. One of the advantages of this system is it makes it easier for users to take their friend lists with them. Having signed in, users can follow the activities of their friends on Friend Connect sites. So, in my real estate blog example, if I installed a Wall app (just like the one on Facebook) people could comment on stories. However, those comments would only be visible to their friends; if a user didn't sign in, they wouldn't even see the Wall.

Better yet, as Friend Connect picks up steam, perhaps some applications developer will create a specialized app for all the real estate blogs out there (there are tons of them) and make it easier for, say, real estate agents and home sellers to connect with home buyers. Or, consumers searching out contractors in a specific area.

If Friend Connect works, the ramifications are huge, of course. It's another smart move for Google, which would be able to serve up even more targeted advertising to users — and make even more money. Through a project called OpenSocial, Google has been working to fight back against Facebook's closed network while mimicking, on the wide-open Web, Facebook's core advantages — Facebook is a place where a user not only defines his or her set of friends, but the applications he or she wants to use. Those two things — your friend list and the things you like to do — create a pretty good idea of who you are, which is priceless to advertisers. Only five months in, 2008 is shaping up to be a pivotal year in the Web's development. I can't wait to see what happens next.