The real acquisition of Yahoo's search interests by Microsoft may have begun in earnest in December 2008, when Microsoft hired Dr. Qi Lu, the architect of Yahoo's search-driven advertising platform, appointing him to the very prominent role of President of Online Services. Now, according to a just released US Securities and Exchange Commission filing by Yahoo dated last Wednesday, under the agreement between the two companies, Microsoft will transition no fewer than 400 Yahoo employees from its search technologies departments to Microsoft, offering them competitive salaries; and in addition, will assist in the compensation of as many as 150 other Yahoo employees who will assist in the transition.

"Following the Commencement Date [July 29], Microsoft will hire not less than 400 Yahoo employees (the 'Transferred Employees') and will offer the Transferred Employees market competitive compensation packages," Yahoo's SEC filing reads. "In addition, Yahoo and Microsoft will mutually agree on a retention plan to be paid for by Microsoft to assist in retaining the Transferred Employees and an additional 150 Yahoo employees to be mutually agreed upon between Microsoft and Yahoo to assist with providing the transition services."

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The Mozilla store has been shut down since yesterday after a security breach was discovered at GatewayCDI, the St. Louis-based third party vendor that runs the back end of the Mozilla Store.

"Mozilla immediately reached out to GatewayCDI and encouraged them to quickly inform individuals whose data had been compromised," The company said in its blog. "GatewayCDI is currently investigating their systems and determining the cause and extent of the breach.  Mozilla Store customers who are affected will be contacted directly by GatewayCDI."

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Sometimes it takes a few days for a long financial report to ruminate before a professional journalist manages to find a juicy tidbit lurking in the middle. Not surprisingly, the first journalist to find one in Microsoft's annual report filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission last Friday was TechFlash's Todd Bishop. In his report yesterday, Bishop noted that Microsoft -- the company which European regulators continue to allege abuses its dominant position in multiple markets for even greater gains -- paints a picture of itself facing significantly greater threats from stronger competitors in two key market areas: the "UX" brands of operating systems, including Linux and Unix; and netbooks, whose rise in popularity has opened up a toehold for Windows' rivals.

The Client division of the company, Microsoft's annual report states, "faces strong competition from well-established companies with differing approaches to the PC market. Competing commercial software products, including variants of Unix, are supplied by competitors such as Apple, Canonical, and Red Hat. Apple takes an integrated approach to the PC experience and has made inroads in share, particularly in the US and in the consumer segment. The Linux operating system, which is also derived from Unix and is available without payment under a General Public License, has gained some acceptance, especially in emerging markets, as competitive pressures lead OEMs to reduce costs and new, lower-price PC form-factors gain adoption. Partners such as Hewlett-Packard and Intel have been actively working with alternative Linux-based operating systems."

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Google announced today that it will be acquiring video compression company On2 Technologies for an estimated $106.5 million, pending stockholder approval and regulatory consent.

"Today video is an essential part of the Web experience, and we believe high-quality video compression technology should be a part of the Web platform," Sundar Pichai, Google's vice president for product management, said this morning. "We are committed to innovation in video quality on the Web, and we believe that On2's team and technology will help us further that goal."

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Digeo today unveiled a new addition to its Moxi product line as well as a feature-enhancing software update to its flagship Moxi HD DVR.

Digeo's Moxi HD DVR is a cableCARD-ready digital media recorder that does not require a monthly subscription fee. Today's new add-on is called the Moxi Mate and adds multi-room functionality to the HD DVR at less than half the price of a new standalone unit. The Moxi Mate carries a retail price of $399, while the HD DVR costs $799.

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The almost four-year long battle between TiVo and former sister companies Dish Network and EchoStar over DVR timeshifting technology rages on. The US Patent and Trademark Office has given a preliminary rejection to TiVo's software claims that could be used to find EchoStar in contempt of court and thus responsible for a billion dollar payout.

In the short term, EchoStar may be on course to avoid the contempt of court suit that would earn it huge legal penalties for allegedly disregarding the court's order to change its DVRs so they no longer infringed upon TiVo's patents.

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A coalition that includes three of the four leading alternative Web browser manufacturers -- Mozilla, Google, and Opera Software -- along with graphics processor leaders AMD (ATI) and Nvidia, announced this morning their intention to produce a royalty-free mechanism for producing hardware-assisted 3D graphics using JavaScript-enabled Web pages, for initial distribution during the first half of next year.

Based on OpenGL ES, the WebGL language could conceivably open up the field of Web applications to classes of software traditionally reserved for local, on-system installation, including computer-aided design and engineering, rich visualization, and of course, gaming. While the <CANVAS> element in HTML 5 is already geared for 3D geometry, what WebGL would enable is the ability for JavaScript developers to utilize the GPU to produce fast, fluid, rendered scenes, effectively extending the already proven OpenGL ES system used by Sony's PlayStation 3, to the realm of Web apps.

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Claiming that sites such as MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter pose a "haven for malicious actors and content," the United States Marine Corps has instituted an immediate ban on social networking sites for soldiers and officers using the Marines' internal network.

According to a notification issued yesterday, the Marine Corps says social networking sites put the military at risk of "information exposure, user generated content and targeting by adversaries" and that they "expose unnecessary information to adversaries and provides an easy conduit for information leakage that puts [Operational Security], [communications security], personnel, and [The Marine Corps Enterprise Network] at an elevated risk of compromise."

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Even though domain theft has occurred for years, it has never been treated as a criminal offense until now.

The $160,000 domain name P2P.com was allegedly stolen in 2006 by Daniel Gonclaves, a 25-year old computer tech from New Jersey. Gonclaves then sold the domain on eBay for $110,000 to professional basketball player Mark Madsen. Gonclaves claimed he had purchased the domain for $1,500 from its owners Albert and Lesli Angel.

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The White House acknowledged this afternoon that Melissa Hathaway -- chosen by the President last February to lead the nation's cybersecurity review, and the person seen as most likely to be appointed to the "Cybersecurity czar" post -- will instead resign her appointment on August 21, letting someone else fill the post.

In an e-mail obtained yesterday by Federal Computer Week, White House spokesperson Nick Shapiro credited Hathaway for her contribution to the federal cybersecurity effort, including spearheading the 60-day review of the nation's security status ordered by President Obama. Hathaway, previously a Bush administration appointee, had been reporting to the Director of National Intelligence, though she was expected to be elevated to a "czar" style post (the term having originally been coined by then-Senator Joe Biden) that would report to Mr. Obama, by way of both the National Security Council and the National Economic Council.

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Download Mozilla Firefox 3.5.2 for Windows from Fileforum now.

Perhaps the Mozilla organization's most valuable contributor to its Web browser's integrity is the tester who goes by the handle moz_bug_r_a4. On multiple occasions now, this developer has located and privately reported to Mozilla extremely serious issues, including a potential page hijacking exploit last December.

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Yahoo's social bookmarking service Delicious today has received an upgrade with a Twitter mashup component originally designed for Yahoo News.

TweetNews took Yahoo News articles (which are ordered chronologically) and compared them to Twitter's trending topics (which are based on a subject's popularity.) The result was a news search that could not only determine the freshest articles, but also those based on the most popular subject at the moment. The app also used social commentary to determine the pertinence of authoritative news sources when determining search results.

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Canadian mobile network operator Bell Mobility will be getting the Palm Pre on August 27.

In May, Palm Inc. announced that it would be bringing its flagship touchphone to Bell Mobility "in the second half of 2009" with no specific date.

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In the European Commission's first public comment on the matter since Microsoft changed its mind last Friday, a spokesperson for the EC's Office of Competition Policy told Betanews this morning that it has yet to make up its mind on the matter of whether Microsoft's bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows is specifically unlawful. This despite the EC having sent Microsoft a formal Statement of Objections last January which, although still officially private, Microsoft publicly interpreted as saying such bundling was unlawful.

"The Commission has not taken a final view on the lawfulness of Microsoft providing Windows with Internet Explorer preinstalled," stated EC press officer Maria Javorova this morning. "This issue is the subject of pending proceedings, the outcome of which cannot be prejudged, and the fact that Microsoft has announced its intention to continue this practice in the latest version of Windows to be shipped in Europe does not change that."

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Following the resignation of Google CEO Eric Schmidt from Apple's Board of Directors, Google and Apple face further scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission for more potential problems.

The FTC first began investigating Google and Apple's relationship in May, and Schmidt's position as CEO of Google was causing an increased amount of conflict as an Apple director, especially as Google started working on the Android Operating System. Schmidt's resignation yesterday looked like it could have brought a swift end to the potentially anti-competitive relationship.

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