In a conference call yesterday live-blogged by Search Engine Land, representatives from Yahoo gave a live demonstration to reporters and analysts of new features of their principal Web applications that they believe will attract new users. Included on their list were ways that Yahoo plans to improve search.

This after Yahoo signed away its search infrastructure to Microsoft in an historic deal late last month, which many perceive as Yahoo opening its floodgates to Bing. In an effort to minimize the appearance of the deal having any impact on Yahoo's search strategy, the company's senior vice president for search, Prabhakar Raghaven, told reporters Yahoo can still innovate with regard to the experience users receive from search. Maintaining the search engine itself, however, was a battle Yahoo could no longer afford to fight.

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After debuting two new products in its Reader family at the beginning of the month, including the lowest-priced e-reader yet, the $199 "Pocket Edition" PRS-300, and the $299 touchscreen model aptly called the "Touch Edition," Sony has fully stepped up its e-reader game. As the company announced this morning, it is finally endowing one of its Readers with wireless connectivity, the critical feature which has already pushed Amazon's Kindle into the top of the class.

Kindle has offered 3G wireless connectivity from Sprint from the start, allowing users to acquire new content and update subscriptions effortlessly. But come this December, Sony's new $399 Daily Edition will have a 3G wireless connection through AT&T, and a 7-inch touchscreen display which can be used in portrait or landscape mode.

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I guess I stirred up quite the beehive of activity with my last column, Windows 7 is coming: Don't upgrade. Before I continue, I wanted to share a few final thoughts on what's clearly been the most controversial piece of writing I've published in a while.

First, I'm a big boy, and I've got a thick skin. If you didn't agree with what I had to say (and many of you didn't) I promise you I didn't skulk back to my office with a sniffle in my nose and a tear in my eye after reading the comments. Pro or con, agree or disagree, if I get readers to think critically about a given issue, I've accomplished my goal. I don't particularly enjoy fanboys agreeing with my every word, so don't expect my writing to reflect some kind of middle-of-the-road festival of milquetoast mutual admiration.

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A little over one month after one of the most promising WebKit-based Web browsers for Windows Mobile introduced what its manufacturer called, "a whole new level of Internet capabilities to mobile devices," the manufacturer of IrisBrowser has found itself suddenly acquired by BlackBerry maker Research in Motion. The announcement was made this morning on Torch Mobile's blog:

"Our team of developers will join RIM's global organization and will now be focused on utilizing our WebKit-based mobile browser expertise to contribute to the ongoing enhancement of the BlackBerry platform," the latest blog post reads.
If you're wondering whether that means the end of the line for Iris Browser for Windows Mobile -- one of the two platforms Torch supports, the other being the Linux-based Qtopia -- apparently the answer is yes. Links to the latest downloads for the Windows Mobile version of Iris, including several that still appear on Torch Mobile's company blog, take the user now to a notice which includes the above excerpt.

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As NPD recently showed, more than 72% of all phones being sold are feature phones, and though there are a few examples of app stores for these phones, the mobile app trend has largely missed the majority of phone owners. Today Microsoft announced its move to change that with OneApp, a mobile app environment which gives feature phones access to smartphone-style applications.

With applications for Facebook, Twitter, Windows Live Messenger, news, weather, sports, stocks, games, and RSS feeds, OneApp is available on several dozen feature phones: Nokia (3555, 5320, 6300, 6500, 6600, E50, E51, E63, E65, E66, E71, N70, N72, N73, N78, N80, N81, N82, N85, N95, N96) Samsung (U900, Soul) and Sony Ericsson (C510, C902, C905, G705,K610i, K800i, K805i, T650i, W200i, W580i, W595, W660i, W980.)

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Now that it's a known fact that Apple rejects something in the neighborhood of 88,000 iPhone apps a year, companies are getting wise and publicizing their applications before Apple has a chance to finish reviewing them.

RealNetworks has submitted an app for its subscription music service Rhapsody to Apple for approval. The application will let subscribers access Rhapsody's 8 million song database for streaming over EDGE/3G/Wi-Fi. Though it hasn't passed Apple's review yet, Real is already publicizing the app.

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On September 1, Microsoft announced this morning, it will be making upgrade editions of Windows 7 available to European customers, as originally planned, apparently with Internet Explorer 8 included. These editions will be publicly available on the originally planned global availability date of October 22, although pre-orders will begin September 1.

This leaves a one-week window in which European customers may continue to pre-order full versions of Windows 7 Home Premium at the upgrade price, which is currently €119.99 for most European customers, £79.99 in the UK.
While we do know that €119.99 will be the upgrade price for Home Premium from September 1, and that the full version price will be somewhat higher, we do not know as of yet the specific breakdown for the upgrade prices for the Professional and Ultimate SKUs. These prices did not yet appear on Microsoft's online retail sites in foreign countries, as of 12:15 pm EDT Monday afternoon.

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It was last February when Terry Childs, a former employee of the City of San Francisco's IT department, sat down with InfoWorld's Paul Venezia in a jailhouse interview about his bizarre case. He was a high-level administrator of his division's computers, but after learning in July 2008 he would be reassigned to a different department, he sent those systems into a state of lockdown that only he could undo.

There's no doubt it was Childs who held city services in a virtual cryogenic state. Upon his surrender to authorities, he gave the Mayor the keys needed to unlock city systems. Childs faced four counts of tampering with city property and shutting down access. But last Friday, a judge tossed out the three tampering charges, reported the San Francisco Chronicle, leaving only the single count pertaining to the lockdown.

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Mac OS X Snow Leopard, the incremental update to which has been a topic of discussion for more than a year will finally be available on August 28, The Apple Store now says.

As an incremental upgrade for Leopard users, Snow Leopard will only cost $29.99 for a single user license and $49.99 for the family pack (five licenses.) Also, any Mac purchased after June 8th is eligible for a $9.95 upgrade. Pre-ordering is open today for delivery on Friday.

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Today, Finnish mobile phone leader Nokia introduced its first notebook PC, the Nokia Booklet 3G.

Mobility is still the name of the game for the 25-year cellular phone pioneer, as the 10" Booklet 3G is designed for portability, with an aluminum chassis only .79" (2 cm) thick that weighs only 2.75 lbs (1.25kg). Naturally, it will also feature built-in 3G, HSPA, A-GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity.

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Like clockwork, the FCC has released the statements from AT&T, Apple, and Google which respond to the Commission's inquiries into why the Google Voice app was rejected from the iTunes App store.

Since AT&T denied any involvement early on, we have been eagerly awaiting Apple's take on the situation. Cupertino replied with a six-page letter.

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We already knew that AT&T claimed it had no involvement in the rejection of the Google Voice app for the iPhone that triggered an FCC investigation. Today, AT&T released a more complete and loquacious denial.

"We appreciate the opportunity to clear up misconceptions related to an application Google submitted to Apple for inclusion in the Apple App Store. We fully support the FCC's goal of getting the facts and data necessary to inform its policymaking," said Jim Cicconi, Senior Executive Vice President of external and legislative affairs for AT&T.

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In a summary judgment this morning, a three-judge panel of the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court ruling that Yahoo's Launchcast music service does not have to pay performance royalties in addition to licensing fees, on account of the fact that like terrestrial radio, the service is not interactive.

Today's finding may set precedent for both online and broadcast radio, for having affirmed the legal notion that in order for a presentation of music to count as a performance, it must be directly requested by the listener. While Congress remains split over whether conventional broadcast stations should be responsible for performance royalties to the same degree as Internet providers such as Last.fm and Pandora, US law presently states that the distinction between the two classes deals specifically with interactivity -- the degree to which the listener has explicit control over what she's hearing. If no such control exists, the judges affirmed today, then there's no "performance," thus no royalties for performance apply.

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Swedish stock market regulators have suspended the trading of Global Gaming Factory X's stock in the Aktietorget marketplace today on the suspicion that the company's reported assets and actual assets may differ.

In June, Global Gaming Factory X made a $7.7 million bid for The Pirate Bay, but authorities today would like assurance that GGF has enough money to complete the transaction.

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This morning a USA Today article discussed the FCC's investigation into why the Google Voice App was banned from the iPhone. The article goes on to say that Google could "soon find itself in the hot seat" because Android cannot use Skype, proposing that Google itself blocks VoIP to force users into traditional voice calls.

Andy Rubin, Google's Vice President of Mobile Platforms, had to step forward and call USA Today out.

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