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Google Removes Its Help Entry on Censorship, More News — Incredible. Google removed their help entry on censorship, as Gary Price discovered. Here's what it used to read: — "Google does not censor results for any search term. The order and content of our results are completely automated …
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The New Boom … Be careful what you wish for, all of you with the "Please, God, just one more bubble!" bumper stickers. It's getting wild again in Silicon Valley. In recent months, the breathtaking ascent of Google has lit a fire under its competitors, which include practically everyone in the online world.

Change is good! — We have some great changes in MSN Spaces. — Have a picture that has a great story around it...you can now add a description to your photos. Your viewers can now add comment to photos as well as blogs. So make sure to go to someone's photo album and leave a comment on your favorite photo as well.

Predictions and More Speculation on a Google Music Service — Elinor Mills has a brief post reporting that Bear Stearns analyst Robert Peck is predicting that Google will offer a digital music download service in the three to six months. Bear Sterns is using the name the name "Google Tunes" as their "code name" for the service.
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SearchViews
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Richmedia - An Adsense Format Too Far? — I was shocked and disappointed this morning when I saw the news reported by JenSense that Google are going to try "Rich Media" advertising formats through their network … OK, apparently they are more likely to be site targeted rather than contextual …
Discussion:
Publishing 2.0, AdMoolah News and Views, Somewhat Frank, The Kelsey Group and Search Engine Watch Blog

The 5 Problems with Videogame Journalism — In the last year, a lot has been said about videogame journalism and the problems of the field. There is a belief that gaming reviewers play into the hands of the marketing machine instead of being actual critics who can help to improve the quality …
Discussion:
The Game Chair

Venture Capital Blogs? They're About Anything But — BILLBURNHAM was having lunch with a fellow venture capitalist at a restaurant in Mountain View, Calif., two weeks ago when the topic turned to secrecy. His lunch mate had been describing a new Internet search start-up company he was investing in …
Discussion:
Mark Evans

MICROSOFT FISCAL 2006 Q2 RESULTS — This afternoon, Microsoft announced results for its fiscal 2006 second quarter, ended December 31. While the company's seven business units report separate P&Ls, the units are now contained within three larger business groups.

How Not To Deal With Blogs: A Case Study — From time to time, I get asked by people at various companies "about blogs and stuff", in particular how companies can best deal with blogs from a PR and marketing perspective. Two things I stress are sincerity and honesty.

Crecente: Schlock wave — Director's juggernaut of atrocious video game films mystifies critics, players — Uwe Boll makes movies everyone hates. — And he won't stop. — While the German-born director's ability to turn a mediocre video game into a truly reviled film is notorious …

Researchers: Rootkits headed for BIOS — Robert Lemos, SecurityFocus 2006-01-26 — ARLINGTON, Virginia — Insider attacks and industrial espionage could become more stealthy by hiding malicious code in the core system functions available in a motherboard's flash memory …
Discussion:
eWEEK.com Security Blog

Royal Bank of Scotland opts for open source intranet — From Apache and Perl, to Python and Zope... The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has revealed it is working on a large content management system (CMS) based on the open source application server Zope. — At the end of last year …
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Datamation IT News Blog

When It comes to DSL, Speed Sells — As the parade of earnings of phone companies continues, interesting trends emerge. And some proof, that Bells don't need to muck around with the net much to make money. — BellSouth and SBC/AT&T reported weaker than expected DSL additions.

The Coming Irrelevance Of My.Yahoo For Me — After reading Fooled By Randomness, I found myself becoming increasingly annoyed by the information on My.Yahoo page. I've had My.Yahoo as my default home page since 1997 or so and probably have it refresh (deliberately or otherwise) …

Homebrew games and Emulation on PSP 2.50! — Fanjita Releases 2.0 eLoader for v2.00, v2.01 and v2.50 PSP's — PSP Updates forum moderator and hacker guru Fanjita has completed his first release of a new loader for 2.01+ PSP's called eLoader. While 2.60 is not currently supported …

VNU Business Media Europe buys the INQUIRER — VNU Business Publications Ltd, the London-based publishing arm of VNU Business Media Europe (BME), has purchased The Inquirer, www.theinquirer.net, one of the leading technology news sites. The investment is part of VNU's ongoing strategy …

THE STORY DOESN'T CARE: AN INTERVIEW WITH SEAN STEWART — As I mentioned earlier in the week, I'm interested in alternate reality games, not just as an advertising journalist, but as a writer. While working on a recent story for Creativity, I did a long phone interview with sci-fi novelist …