Yahoo-Virgin mobile contract for British mobile search deal

Yahoo Inc and Virgin Mobile Network have agreed a deal making Yahoo search the exclusive pre-installed search service for Virgin's 4 million mobile subscribers in Britain, the two companies said on Monday.

Yahoo is hoping to steal a lead on rival Google in the nascent mobile search and advertising markets, having lost the battle for dominance in the desktop computer search market, and is spearheading its European efforts in Britain. "We will continue to focus on investing in this area. It falls squarely within our strategy of indispensable starting points," the head of Yahoo's mobile operations in Europe, Mitch Lazar, told Reuters by telephone.

Yahoo aims to make itself a favorite starting point for Internet consumers, providing easy access to popular services and relevant information without needing to own those services and information itself. The Virgin deal will bring Yahoo's coverage of the British population using mobile search up to 80 percent from about 76 percent previously through its partnerships with operators, Yahoo said, citing m:metrics data.

Christmas 2008 : Right time to choose right gadget gifts

Friends, now this is the peak time that you take a decision as the Christmas is round the corner. This Christmas, you would definitely come across a lot and special festive offers. But, this is the right time to get up, compare best of the deals, and to pick withe the best possible gifts. After comparing the christmas mobile phone deals in the market, you would definitelyget to the difference.

Keeping in our mind about all types of preferences for the UK residents, We are offering a lot of special gifts and offers withe mobile phone deals available in the UK market. Now, you can afford the best deals in the market. To shop and enjoy this Christmas festival to the fullest, log on to http://www.mobilephonedealsfreegifts.co.uk/

McDonald's charged for Nude Photo Leak to Internet

Phillip Sherman and his wife, Tina, are demanding $3 million from the McDonald’s burger chain for "emotional distress, embarrassment and damage to their reputations." Why?

Because Phillip Sherman accidentally forgot his phone at a McDonald’s this past July. On the phone, Phillip kept nude pictures his wife had sent him. Not long after he retrieved the phone, the naked pictures of his wife appeared on the Internet! The furious couple are now suing McDonald’s, as well as the owner and the manager of the Fayetteville McDonald’s restaurant where the phone was forgotten.

Probably not a scandal that will have much effect on the corporation which has spread across the world. Hopefully, however, the employee who leaked the footage will pay the price.

Google shutting down 'Lively'

Once thought to be its answer to virtual worlds like Second Life, Google's Lively launched this summer to much fanfare. Lively was Web-based and allowed anyone to set up virtual spaces, such as rooms, that could be embedded onto blogs or Facebook pages.

But the project never picked up much steam. Now, Google has decided to shut the project down.

"Despite all the virtual high fives and creative rooms everyone has enjoyed in the last four and a half months, we've decided to shut Lively down at the end of the year," Google said on its official blog Wednesday evening. "It has been a tough decision, but we want to ensure that we prioritize our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business."

The post said that those who were working on the Lively team would be reassigned to other areas within Google, suggesting that the move does not mean layoffs. Google also said that because the project is being shut completely down, it is encouraging "all Lively users to capture your hard work by taking videos and screenshots of your rooms." More news on google.

Extrasolar Planets : First Pictures Disclosed

Beautiful new images reveal our first visual glimpse that other solar systems share planets just like ours does

One of the central themes both to science fiction and to real-life space progress was the drive to find and eventually travel to extrasolar plants. In recent years, constantly improving computer processing and better imaging technology have allowed scientists to at last confirm what many have long fantasized -- there's a wealth of planets outside our solar system.

From water bearing planets to ultra-hot ones, and even with a few that resembled larger versions of Earth, extrasolar planets thus far have shown great variety. Most of these planets were detected using Doppler, or "wobble," technique to locate stars which were tugged at by the gravity of orbiting planets, leading to a wobble. Thus far, infrared images from the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope and spectral analysis of composition had provided us of our clearest picture of these worlds. However, the public has never seen a picture of an extrasolar planet -- until now. Writen by Rahul Vishela SEO.

President Obama using Web videos for addressing

US elected President Barack Obama is planning to tape a weekly address not just for radio listeners, as presidents have for years, but for YouTube Internet viewers, too.

Well, what else would you expect from a president born at the tail end of the baby boom? Connecting the White House hearth to the American home, Franklin Roosevelt talked to the people through the radio, with crackling broadcasts delivered near a crackling fire. John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan mastered television. For Obama, who built a big part of his campaign on the Internet, it's YouTube.

About 75 years after Roosevelt used a new medium to reach out during troubled times, the president-elect is doing the same with Web videos. Obama was recording a four-minute address Friday at his transition office in Chicago. It will be posted Saturday through a YouTube link on his transition Web site, http://www.change.gov. And he will continue to do the videos when he takes office on Jan. 20.

Gmail Launches Video Chat Today

Google launched Gmail voice and video chat, making it simple for people around the world to chat in high-quality video for free right within Gmail. All you need is a webcam and a small web browser plugin, and you can start video chatting with your friends, family, and coworkers on Gmail and Google Apps. Gmail voice and video chat lets you start a video chat without switching to another application or signing up for another account. And if you don't have a webcam, you can simply chat by voice. We've made it easy enough that your mom -- or your employees -- will actually use it.

The launch comes as video communication grows in popularity; many of the latest lines of laptops, for example, come with built-in webcams. Businesses stretched across continents and timezones want more face-to-face collaboration among their employees, but in this economic climate, they're looking for ways to cut travel and IT expenses. Having a meeting with a colleague over video allows communications to continue in person without the expense of traveling there. Whether it's a coworker demoing a new product, or a first-time grandmother saying hello to her new grandson, sometimes there's no substitute for speaking to and seeing someone. Google is offering browser-based voice and video chat as a natural extension to webmail and instant messaging, allowing people to choose how they want to communicate at each moment -- by email, instant message, voice, or video.

Apple's iPhone beats RIM's Blackberry to number two spot

When it comes to smartphone sales numbers, Apple's iPhone is now number two globally, after less than a year and a half in the market. While there has been some percieved inflation in Apple's numbers, no one can deny that after less than a year and a half, Apple's iconic smartphone has changed the gadget landscape.

During last month's Q4 earnings call, Steve Jobs boasted that Apple had beat RIM. He gave a figre of just under seven million units for the quarter compared to RIM's just over six million. UK based Canalys has just backed up those numbers and has declared Apple the number two smartphone maker in the world.

It is indeed impressive - especially when you consider a number of factors:

* Apple not only passed RIM but also embattled Motorola which fell to 4th
* A large portion of Nokia's "smartphones" (like the popular N95, Nokia N96) have no QWERTY entry, all but eliminating them from real mobile messaging capabilities
* In most markets (like the US with AT&T) Apple is only on one national carrier, while the other companies like HTC (HTC mobile phones) are carrier agnostic.

US Mobile Phone Market : Winner is Samsung

Samsung Electronics Co. became the largest mobile phone maker in the U.S. by market share for the first time during the third quarter, knocking Motorola Inc. from the perch, according to research by independent consulting firm Strategy Analytics.

Despite the economic crisis, mobile phone shipments in the U.S. rose 6.2% to 47.4 million in the quarter. Samsung registered a 22.4% market share in the U.S., helped by its growing retail presence and high-end cellphone portfolio, Strategy Analytics said.

Samsung posted a 44% slump in third-quarter net profit on a sharp fall in prices of chips and flat panels. Margins fell at its cellphone business, although the company did ship 22% more phones than the year earlier. Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM), maker of the BlackBerry smartphone, maintained its double-digit percentage market share for the second straight quarter as it continues to see solid demand.

Apple Inc. reached sixth place, helped by AT&T Inc. subsidies for the iPhone. Global mobile handset shipments grew 5.4% in the third quarter, Strategy Analytics said last week.

Top 10 cars, that Americans hate

Times are so difficult for the auto industry that even Toyota and Honda have now experienced the kinds of double-digit sales dips that have been plaguing American auto giants General Motors and Ford all year. Sales for the entire industry were down 26.6 percent collectively in September as consumers grew skittish about making big-ticket purchases.

In good economic times and bad alike, however, there are some vehicles that American consumers seem to abhor outright. And they're not just the big, gas-guzzling SUVs that are currently out of favor. It turns out, the cars American consumers hate the most come in many different shapes and sizes, and they're disliked for a wide array of reasons.

"Buyers make the same choices and buy the safe brand," says Jessica Caldwell, manager of pricing and industry analysis at Edmunds.com, an automotive consumer information Web site. "They are not thinking outside the box and buying something that may stand out as an odd purchase."

But then there's well-earned hatred, particularly due to quality issues, which is the case with the Jaguar XJ, of which only 10,852 were sold (the leader in the segment, the Cadillac DTS, saw sales above 135,000). The Jaguar brand was sold last year to Indian company Tata Motors, and when Jaguar lost its British edge it also lost favor with American buyers, says Caldwell. Even though the quality problems of Jaguars, to that point, had been well-known among consumers, the idea of having a British car parked in the driveway was, for a long time, enough to attract loyal American buyers. Written by Rahul Vishela