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On the milkround with Google

Forget Sir Alan Sugar. Ever wondered what a job interview with the world's biggest search engine involves?

Buying a house with your mouse

I'd like to sell my flat. I'd like to buy a house. If you watch television, you'll know that everyone in England is either fixing up, buying, or selling their property. Sadly, as a geeky male, I find the idea of buying a house about as interesting as watching paint dry, and it turns out that selling a house involves doing up your own property, which means that I will have to watch paint dry. How can we make this whole grisly process more interesting? Why, the web of course. Buying property has always been a game of cat and mouse, but luckily we mice-wielding types may now have the upper hand.

Remote control, international style

Leo Lewis, Tokyo Correspondent of The Times, has recently enjoyed something of a technological epiphany. It involved a mug of hot chocolate, a C-list American actor and a rather impressive gadget from Sony that lets you turn on your home TV and watch from anywhere in the world. Click here for full details.

Is Microsoft plotting an ad barrage for XBox 360?

Is Microsoft secretly preparing to blast Halo fans with ads? News reports out of the US say the software giant is in talks to buy Massive Inc., a privately held company that places ads for the likes of Coca-Cola and Honda into video games. Last month, Massive signed up video game publisher Acclaim to inject ads into some of its multi-player online games. The speculation is Microsoft would do the same for Xbox 360, the state-of-the-art console for multiplayer online gaming, a machine that is still losing money for the company.

Google pays out for Firefox conversions

The campaign to dislodge Internet Explorer from its position of dominance has taken an aggressive and potentially lucrative turn. Explorer Destroyer, a website run by four friends in Massachusetts, is offering webmasters the chance to bar IE users from their site and make cash by converting them to Mozilla’s Firefox browser.

The money comes from Google, which pays webmasters a referral fee of about $1 for each user who signs up for Firefox and the Google toolbar. "Mozilla built us a wonderful tool. Google gave us a carrot. Now take the stick and beat IE's ass," the Explorer Destroyer site enthuses.

Bad news for TiVo from Yahoo?

Steady on. Before you go blowing oodles of moolah on an expensive digital video recorder, take a peek at this.

Yahoo! has just released a test version of a piece of software that turns your PC into a DVR. After installing the free download, Yahoo Go for TV, you can you should be able to plug your computer into your TV's video and audio input sockets. The computer can then record and play back shows - like a standard DVR.

Or at least it can if you're in the US. Unfortunately, it doesn't work in the UK yet. But a British version has got to be in the pipeline, right?

Nokia's Berlin launch

Nokia, the company that did more than any other to make mobile phones accessible to everyone, has lost its way in the last few years. Its phones have looked comically dull compared to Motorola’s iconic Razr, and woefully under-featured compared to the magnificent Sony Ericsson K750i.

This has been compounded by announcing phones up to a year before their actual launch, alienating phone enthusiasts who want to get their hands on the latest model right now. So this week Nokia had a big ol’ press shindig in Berlin and announced three phones it hopes will change the market once more, and CNET.co.uk’s Andrew Lim was there. As it did with the basic phone, Nokia wants these three models – the N72, N73 and N93 – to bring smart phones from the business realm to the consumer.

Can Microsoft's IE 7 finally slow Firefox?

Internet Explorer, arguably the single most neglected piece of Microsoft software, is finally getting the proper attention it so plainly requires. The software giant announced this week it would be unveiling a new test version of IE 7 (for those keeping score, this will be the third beta for IE 7) that seems to have fixed the freezes and hitches suffered by the previous test versions. For the dwindling number of IE devotees, the re-vamp couldn't come soon enough.

Coming soon to your iPod: ads?

"Apple - a brand that prides itself on the purity of the user experience - will soon put up billboards on its popular iTunes service," says adage.com, citing "content partners who have been briefed on the plan".

There's more: "The introduction of visual ads could be the first step to allowing ads in other content areas or on iPods."

A brush with anonymity

Jonathan Weber, one of Tech & Net's regular columnists, writes from the United States about a recent furore. A Los Angeles Times journalist, Michael Hiltzik, used psedonyms to post on his blog and others, praising his own work and rubbishing his critics. The duplicity was uncovered when an arch-rival noticed that pseudonymous postings were coming from the same IP address as those bearing Mr Hiltzik's name.

The case highlights one of the many lurking dangers that await traditional newspapers trying to incorporate the energy of the web into their coverage. The Los Angeles Times has already had a brush with the dangers posed by anonymity: last year it was forced to abandon open reader forums after repeated attempts to post pornography on its site. The BBC was forced to close a cricket-related forum after rivalry between India and Pakistan supporters spilled over into racist abuse.

How d'ya like 'em Apples, Microsoft?

Where wouldn’t you expect to find a lovingly kept collection of Apple ephemera? How about at a Microsoft lab. Interesting to see how Bill keeps tabs on Steve.

And is it just us, or has Microsoft got a lot keener of late to welcome the great unwashed public into its offices?

The EC in the dock

Microsoft’s lawyers are hard at it in Luxembourg, doing their best to prove the EC was wrong to slap their client with a €500 million fine in 2004 for breaking competition laws.

These chaps bill by the hour, so don’t expect an Adlai Stevenson moment any time soon.

Rather, after eight years-worth of preparatory legal wrangling, we’re in for a week of attritional arguments from the EC and Microsoft, followed by the best part of a year’s worth of deliberation from the 13 judges, who will then deliver a verdict which the losing side is likely to appeal.

But that's not to say the action won't be worth following.

Don't let the kids catch DVD

If you're a parent, you need to understand a new threat to your children's health: the possibility of infection with the DVD virus. Your children can now be exposed to DVDs at the homes of their friends, in supermarkets and shopping centers – even public libraries are no longer safe. My son is only two years old, and first became exposed to DVD during a single encounter with Monsters, Inc. at a party.

After seeing this DVD once, for ten minutes, at the house of a friend, his mood changed. His face became red. He then asked to watch "Scary Bear", as he called it, at ten-minute intervals every day for the next two weeks. This produced irritation, mood swings, and increasing anger until we finally gave in and bought a copy. He has now seen Monsters, Inc. 374 times. Be warned. This could happen to you.

The all-singing Opera...

Opera, the browser maker which desperately wants to be (the next) Mozilla, today announced the first public beta of Opera 9. We got a demo yesterday, and there are some rather neat little features that are likely either to:

a) win Opera a huge new following and help it topple Microsoft; or

b) "inspire" Microsoft, Mozilla and others to include similar features when they roll out the own updated browsers in the next year or so.

Apple signals cheaper iPods in store

Is the iPod showing signs of mortality? Apparently, so. And this could be good news for you holdouts who refuse to join the iPod masses until the price of a Nano falls under £100 or the £300 60Gb device is finally discounted. Well, that discount could be here by summer.

Cyber squatters set up shop on eBay

It was always going to end in tears. The introduction of the .eu domain created the perfect opportunity for cyber squatters, those opportunistic individuals who register web addresses such as www.twentyfirstcenturyfox.com in the hope that large corporations will pay through the nose to get their names back. Now some of the newly registered addresses are on sale on eBay, with rowntrees.eu, ask-jeeves.eu and eurodisneyparis.eu each attracting bids of more that £20,000.

Web administrators had tried to prevent such a problem by giving companies, governments and other large organisations a three-month period to register site names before they went on sale to the general public. Some companies, however, were slower than they might have been and others not sufficiently imaginative when it came to variations of their brand names.

Learning to get shirty

After years of being seen as a nation of people who would grumble to each other about shoddy treatment but never pluck up the courage to do anything about it, Britain is making a stand against poor customer service.

Only 11 per cent of Britons now put up with companies that don't meet their expectations. Slightly more will try to find a way to get better service, while 27 per cent will switch immediately to a different provider and 43 per cent will warn as many people as possible to steer clear of the company. The same proportion will complain to enforcement bodies such as Trading Standards or to the media, and 85 per cent will confront the service provider directly.

Psst...wanna scam somebody's ID?

There really is no need to go to the trouble of employing Russian hackers to scam the average person out of his or her vital personal details. It's much more cost-effective just to take a clipboard to the local train station and, masquerading as a survey taker, ask people for their full name, date of birth, address, post code, mother's maiden name and a pet's name. Chances are you'll be walking out of the station with enough bits of information to open a stack of fictitious bank accounts or to steal the identities of the duped.

Apple in the dock - again

Apple, fresh from its legal wrangles with Apple Corps, the Beatles' record label, and France's lawmakers, is in the dock again. 

After achieving a $60 million settlement with Microsoft, Burst.com, an American firm that specialises in audio and video software, has now alleged that Apple has infringed four of its patents in its iTunes online music store, its QuickTime media products, and the now iconic iPod.

If the preliminary filings are anything to go by, the case could be a humdinger.

A brief introduction to global gadget warming

There's a painful force at work in the gadget world. Gadgets all over the world are losing their cool rapidly. From Seoul to Sidney, we're seeing global gadget warming, and it's going to get worse. Remember how cool the PSP was? I first touched one a year ago. It froze the tips of my fingers. It made my eyeballs bleed. Now I couldn’t care less. This is a problem. If you write about gadgets for a living you know: you open boxes and take out shiny silver things and see if your heart sings. Every now and then we see products so cool, so mind-numbingly hip that we have no alternative but to lick them. We can't help it. They're just that delicious. Well, we haven't had our tongues on anything worth licking for months. We're all out.

Google's 'Valley Song' follows Beijing's tune

Vocal protest from the great unwashed may get things done in Paris – but online, money talks. At least that appears to be the message from Google.

Digital music from Sonos

Over here at CNET.co.uk we're big fans of the Sonos Digital Music System. This is great technology that streams all your digital tunes from the PCs and digital storage devices around your home, over cable or wireless connections. There are plenty of wireless streaming products around but what makes Sonos so neat is its impeccable audio quality, and a very functional, easy to read iPod-like remote control, which means you can scroll through all your music and playlists, which beats squinting at a distant LED or sitting in front of your PC. If you've already made the jump to digital music and have lots of audio on your PC, it's well worth checking out Sonos, although it's still not exactly cheap: it's easy to spend over a £1,000 on a basic system. The original Sonos shipped with a built-in amplifier, but now Sonos has come out with a very cute, smaller unit, called the Sonos ZP80, which you can plug into your existing hi-fi. Chris Stevens has the skinny on the latest model, as well as a review of the original system, (which won a rare 9.6 Editor's Rating, marking it out as "Spectacular.")
 

The tipping point?

Carphone Warehouse's much-hyped "free broadband forever" offering will come as part of a package that will cost more than £280 in the first year, the company revealed today.

One could quibble over the semantics. But that’s not to say the new parcel doesn’t represent a very good deal. Indeed, it could herald a revolution in the way we access the net.

Virtual art

Art and technology tend to keep themselves to themselves, but Andy Deck is an artist whose work draws upon both fields. He uses high-tech media to produce his art, much of which also satirises technology and the way it’s used, especially by large corporations, governments and media organisations.

It also often seems to express a fear that the internet and other technological advances can stifle creativity, which perhaps explains why his website pays such little heed to conventional design rules. For those who prefer their art to inhabit the physical world, some of Deck’s work will be on show at the HTTP gallery in London until April 22.

Knowing your RSS from your elbow

I know something you don't. I know where to get the latest high-res images of Isaac Newton's alchemical notebooks. I know there's a useful CNN profile about how Bill Gates gets things done. I know where to find pictures of people clubbing seals to death, a fascinating news story about police in Paris sealing so-called "death clubs" and the hot gossip about Paris Hilton, who's apparently dying to go clubbing with Navy Seals. Want to get the good stuff? Here’s how to do it.

It's all about RSS feeds. RSS, which stands for Really Simple Syndication, allows you to subscribe to loads of different information sources, making it much easier to see what's new on the web. I use Bloglines, which is a browser-based reader, but there are loads of others you can try. The information is then pushed to you. It's as though all the blogs or websites you care about decided to come round to your house, instead of you having to schlep your way around to theirs.

PlayStation 3 - costly confusion

Has Sony just announced that the PlayStation 3 will cost €500 (£350) when it goes on sale? Yes, according to many technology news websites, which pounced on comments made by Georges Fornay, head of Sony Computer Entertainment in France. No, according to other news outlets, which report that his words have been mistranslated or misinterpreted.

Speaking on a French radio station, Europe 1, M Fornay is supposed to have said: "It will be expensive if we only look at the game aspect of the machine, but it will be very cheap if we account for the set of technologies that it will integrate." However, GamesIndustry.biz quoted a Sony spokesman who said that his colleague had been talking about the value of the new console, not its price.

Apple XP – the recriminations begin

You might think the news that Apple computers will run Windows XP would put a smile on the face of Mac users. Now they'll have the choice of two operating systems and access to a much wider range of software and games, but Apple aficionados are a funny bunch and to some of them practicality comes second to exclusivity.

The cold, hard analysts of the financial markets gave Apple a pat on the back and a 6 per cent share-price boost, but pro-Mac bloggers were feeling betrayed. The object of their desires had just announced its intention to sleep with the enemy.

High and rising: Britain's £1bn illegal download habit

Illicit “free” music downloads are proving a tricky habit to kick for many Britons, a report from the music industry suggests.

While the music execs faced with sagging global sales scratch their heads over how to stem the tide, other will ask why so many otherwise law-abiding types think it's fine to steal music.

Hollywood finally puts its faith in the net

Hollywood has finally entrusted its blockbusters to the web with six major studios joining forces for the first time to make new films available to download over the internet on the same day they are released on DVD.

The cost savings for the studios - who will save themselves a bundle on distribution costs - are obvious. As obvious as the piracy threat from the so-called darknet, which Microsoft engineers said would inevitably "become more widespread" in a paper posted on the bearcave site.

The question is: what's in it for movie buffs?

Cyborgs - a step closer

Scientists have successfully fused a link between mammalian neurons and silicon chips. “The news is described as a crucial first step in the development of so-called 'cyborgs' that combine silicon circuits with living animals,” vnu.net reported.

Digital landmark

Another milestone in the march of digital music passed last night as Crazy, by Gnarls Barkley, reached No 1 without a single disc exchanging hands. More than 31,000 people downloaded the song from digital music stores, making it the first record to reach the top spot through online sales alone.

The Official UK Charts Company recently changed its rules to include digital sales, but only if hard copies of the disc go on sale within a week of the digital release. Crazy, which features in TV adverts for a Radio 1 show, is released as a CD today.