Chairman of the Mozilla Foundation Mitchell Baker says: "It's clear that when people are looking for information on the web, search is the number one activity. We've devised ways to bring that power into areas that are closer to your individual life".

Typing "cameras", for example, into the url bar, will bring up a list of the sites that the user recently visited that have cameras in their names.

"If you buy a shoe, that’s all you need to remember - we will use search, as you've come to expect it, to help you find the places that you have been visiting," - says Ms Baker.

"It will be faster, sleeker, and even easier to use. In terms of features, we've tried very hard not to bloat the interface but to keep it simple, the way people like it, and to have new things appear when you need them." -she said.

The other substantial change will be the ability to do much more offline, with the browser "remembering" key data that is usually lost when an internet connection goes down. This is designed to allow the user to continue to work when traveling or in remote areas where wireless access is patchy. Firefox is currently the second most popular browser, although its 12% share is dwarfed by that of Microsoft's Internet Explorer. It has, however, substantially grown from its launch - first as Phoenix in 2002, then as Firebird, and finally ending up as Firefox in February 2004.

Ms Baker said that when Mozilla issued Firefox 1 they had one staff member, but hundreds working on different aspects of it. Now they have 150 employees around the world, and "tens of thousands" working on the software. Mozilla is run as a not-for-profit organization, and advocate of open source coding.

Also it is to admire that Mozilla Messaging; the new mail focused subsidiary of the non-profit Mozilla Foundation, has already begun operations on February 19. The initial focus for Mozilla Messaging is the development of Thunderbird 3, which will deliver significant improvements, notably integrated calendaring, better search and enhancements to the overall user experience.

“We're excited to renew the focus of our open source community on the future of Thunderbird. Each and every one of us is committed to building a great email product that people will love to use and that serves as the foundation for choice in a critical area of Internet software.” - said David Ascher, CEO, Mozilla Messaging.

“Thunderbird email is a vital part of the Mozilla project which brings freedom to hundreds of millions of internet users worldwide,” said Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL AB.

References:

"Air is going to allow applications that run on the web today - that run in the browser - to be brought down to the desktop. It's about taking existing web applications and adding extra functionality whether you want to work offline or whether you want to access data on your disk " – says Andrew Shorten, platform evangelist at Adobe.

Mr. Shorten said that the technology is not about replacing the web browser: "It's about delivering the best experience depending on where you are and what you need to get from the application. If I'm on the road with my laptop maybe I want to use the desktop version of my application. If I pop into an internet cafe I can still access it through the browser."

The software is part of a growing number of technologies that aim to make the transition between the on and offline worlds seamless. In 2006, Microsoft unveiled its Silverlight technology. And last year http://www.google.com/ Google launched Gears.

The tool does not allow the creation of new content but does allow web applications to be used offline. For example, the developers of the free online office package Zoho use Gears to give users similar functionality to normal desktop office programs. Similarly, Adobe is looking into provide Air versions of many of its popular programs such as Photoshop. A host of other companies and web services have already built Air applications. For example, Ebay has built a program that allows users to do much of the legwork required in setting up auctions offline. The next time the user connects to the internet the listing would be posted to the website.

The application also allows users to keep up to date with auctions and bids without the need to have a browser open at the eBay page. The corporation is currently building prototype versions of several applications such as the news ticker, which displays headlines on a desktop, and mini Motty, which provides desktop football commentary. The current versions of the programs only work on PCs. Other programs exploit Air's ability to access both web content and files on a computer's disk. For example, the web-version of Finetunes allows users to stream music over the internet

"If you install the Air version on your desktop it can also look at what you have in your iTunes library and then suggest music based on what it finds. So it's really taking the essence of what works on the web, brining it to the desktop and then making it more personal to you " - explained Mr. Shorten.

Some commentators have pointed out that the ability for an application to delve between the web and a computer's hard drive raises security implications.

"Our advice would be to only install applications from sources that you trust," - said Mr. Shorten.

Corporate Telecommunications presents the service that gives the users opportunity to diagnose their headsets: who is using which headset, which ones need repairing, which are out of warranty, which ones need new voice tubes or need upgrading. These are achieved by unique identity codes and specially-designed software that monitor the lifecycle of each headset.

Access to information does not require separate software. It is automatically stored on a secure web-based database. All changes are updated directly onto the system.

Chan Bansal, business development manager at Corporate Telecommunications said: "Trying to keep track of headsets using an Excel spreadsheet or databases might work in the short term, but manually inputting information on scores of headsets is a time consuming task. And if the administrator is on holiday, sick or leaves the company, it doesn't take long for the spreadsheet to become out of date. Not to mention the security risks of losing potentially sensitive information."

A comprehensive audit trail for each headset, with multiple reporting options is provided by Accucheck software. A history of each change in use or status is created for both headsets and agents.

Bansal announces that "Developments in business culture, such as health and safety laws, regulatory changes and tight cost controls, mean sketchy asset records are not acceptable. Not managing your assets effectively, wastes time, costs money and risks falling foul of regulations."

Apple (AAPL) shares are down sharply to their lowest level since June, as several analyst reports have triggered fresh concerns about the state of demand for iPhones and iPods.

Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst at Bernstein Research, has published the transcript of a recent conference call he held with investors on the subject of unlocked iPhones, what they mean to Apple, and what options the company has to deal with them. In a summary of the call, he contends that, while the iPhone has the potential to drive material earnings growth for Apple, the company faces two “significant challenges”: demand appears to be falling short of expectations, and the incidence of unlocking is much higher than expected.

Sacconaghi admits that the iPhone will be 6% of Apple’s revenues in FY ‘08, but could be nearly a quarter of the total by FY 2012, driving half of the company’s revenue growth over the next four years; and he notes that since the iPhone has a higher gross margin than other Apple products, it could drive 70%-80% of the company’s profit growth.

Sacconaghi says that weekly run-rate sales in the December quarter were about 180,000 units or less than 10 million on an annualized basis in the busiest quarter of the year for consumer electronics sales. That leads him to conclude that the goal of selling 10 million units in 2008 is optimistic, “particularly if Apple insists on carrier revenue-sharing, without significant price cuts or new model introductions.” He says European sales of the iPhone have been “particularly disappointing,” falling short of carriers’ initial expectations. Sacconaghi is projecting 1.45 million units in the December quarter, 6.9 million for the September 2008 fiscal year and 7.9 million for calendar 2008.

Sacconaghi, who kicked off the “missing iPhones” debate in January, pointing out the wide gap between the number of iPhones Apple has sold and the number of iPhone customers AT&T (T) as the exclusive U.S. carrier has signed up, repeats his previous estimate that 25%-30% of iPhones sold to date have been unlocked for use with carriers other than the one authorized by Apple. He notes that, if Apple sold 10 million iPhones this year but 30% were unlicked, the company would be losing out on $1.1 billion-$1.3 billion of revenue and 80-85 cents a share in EPS over the following two years. He also notes, not for the first time, that the unlocked phones pose a strategic issue, limiting the company’s ability to provide a truly exclusive relationship to carriers, and so reducing their willingness to kick back some subscriber revenue to Apple in return for an exclusive deal.

J.P. Morgan’s Bill Shope on Friday wrote that “with relatively slow unit growth in the holiday season” and the recent price cut for the iPod Shuffle, “signs point to iPod saturation and some macro sensitivity.” He says the Shuffle price cut “is likely intended to boost Shuffle momentum and iPod units overall.” In a separate note, Shope also says that Apple “still seems comfortable with Mac momentum, which remains the critical component of the story at these levels.” He says that Apple execs in a recent meeting would not comment on iPod and iPhone demand concerns, but did say that Mac product family is better positioned than in the last economic downturn.

Morgan Stanley noted Friday that MacBook distributor inventories are “near all-time lows” for the third straight week, but that iMac units are above historical average levels. The iPod Touch, they say, is selling well, with low channel inventory, while Shuffle inventory, which had accumulated in recent months, is down sharply ahead of the arrival of recently unveiled 2GB model.

The iPhone is an Internet-enabled multimedia mobile phone designed and marketed by Apple Inc. It has a multi-touch screen with virtual keyboard and buttons. The iPhone's functions include those of a camera phone and a portable media player ("iPod"), in addition to text messaging and visual voicemail. It also offers Internet services including e-mail, web browsing, and local Wi-Fi connectivity. It is a quad-band mobile phone that uses the GSM standard, and hence has international capability. It supports the EDGE data technology.

Following the success of iPods, Apple announced the iPhone in January 2007. The announcement was preceded by rumors and speculations that circulated for several months. The iPhone was introduced, first in the United States on June 29, 2007 with much media frenzy and then in the United Kingdom, Germany and France in November 2007. It was named Time magazine's Invention of the Year in 2007.

Microsoft is warning Windows Vista users that a forthcoming service pack for the operating system may stop some third-party programs working. The software giant has released a list of programs that may be broken by the SP1 update for Vista. Most of the software hit by the upgrade are security programs that prevent Windows users falling prey to viruses, Trojans and booby-trapped web pages.

The Windows Vista update will be released to the public in mid-March. Service Packs are among the biggest updates Microsoft issues for its various operating systems. The software firm said SP1 makes Vista more secure and reliable and introduces some new features.

Microsoft has also been forced to withdraw an update to Vista that was required before Service Pack 1 could be applied. Writing on the Windows Vista blog, Nick White, Microsoft product manager, said the company had withdrawn the preparatory update while it investigated. Isolated reports suggest that some machines on which the preliminary update has been applied go into an update loop. He wrote: "We are working to identify possible solutions and will make the update available again shortly after we address the issue."

"It picks up electrical activity from the brain and sends wireless signals to a computer. It allows the user to manipulate a game or virtual environment naturally and intuitively“ - said Tan Le, president of US/Australian firm Emotiv.

The brain is made up of about 100 billion nerve cells, or neurons, which emit an electrical impulse when interacting. The headset implements a technology known as non-invasive electroencephalography (EEG) to read the neural activity.

Ms Le said: "Emotiv is a neuro-engineering company and we've created a brain computer interface that reads electrical impulses in the brain and translates them into commands that a video game can accept and control the game dynamically."

Headsets which read neural activity are not new, but Ms Le said the Epoc was the first consumer device that can be used for gaming. "This is the first headset that doesn't require a large net of electrodes, or a technician to calibrate or operate it and does require gel on the scalp. It also doesn't cost tens of thousands of dollars. " - she said.

The use of Electroencephalography in medical practice dates back almost 100 years but it is only since the 1970s that the procedure has been used to explore brain computer interfaces.

The Epoc technology can be used to give authentic facial expressions to avatars of gamers in virtual worlds. For example, if the player smiles, winks, grimaces the headset can detect the expression and translate it to the avatar in game. It can also read emotions of players and translate those to the virtual world. "The headset could be used to improve the realism of emotional responses of AI characters in games," - said Ms Le.

"If you laughed or felt happy after killing a character in a game then your virtual buddy could admonish you for being callous," - she explained.

The $299 headset has a gyroscope to detect movement and has wireless capabilities to communicate with a USB dongle plugged into a computer. The Emotiv said the headset could detect more than 30 different expressions, emotions and actions.

They include excitement, meditation, tension and frustration; facial expressions such as smile, laugh, wink, shock (eyebrows raised), anger (eyebrows furrowed); and cognitive actions such as push, pull, lift, drop and rotate (on six different axis).

Gamers are able to move objects in the world just by thinking of the action. Emotiv is working with IBM to develop the technology for uses in "strategic enterprise business markets and virtual worlds"

Paul Ledak, vice president, IBM Digital Convergence said brain computer interfaces, like the Epoc headset were an important component of the future 3D Internet and the future of virtual communication.

• Sensors respond to the electrical impulses behind different thoughts; enabling a user's brain to influence gameplay directly;
  

• Conscious thoughts, facial expressions, and non-conscious emotions can all be detected;
  

• Gyroscope enables a cursor or camera to be controlled by head movements;
  

• The headset uses wi-fi to connect to a computer.

However, the main site was taken offline after the court ordered that Dynadot, which controls the site's domain name, should remove all traces of wikileaks from its servers. The court also ordered that Dynadot should "prevent the domain name from resolving to the wikileaks.org website or any other website or server other than a blank park page, until further order of this Court." Other orders included that the domain name be locked "to prevent transfer of the domain name to a different domain registrar" to prevent changes being made to the site.

Wikileaks claimed that the order was "unconstitutional" and said that the site had been "forcibly censored".

The case was brought by lawyers working for the Swiss banking group Julius Baer. It concerned several documents posted on the site which allegedly reveal that the bank was involved with money laundering and tax evasion. The documents were allegedly posted by Rudolf Elmer, former vice president of the bank's Cayman Island's operation. A spokesperson for Julius Baer said he could not comment on the case because of "pending legal proceedings".

The court hearing took place last week and Dynadot blocked access from Friday evening. Wikileaks says it was not represented at the hearing because it was "given only hours notice" via e-mail. A document signed by Judge Jeffery White, who presided over the case, ordered Dynadot to follow six court orders.

As well as removing all records of the site form its servers, the hosting and domain name firm was ordered to produce "all prior or previous administrative and account records and data for the wikileaks.org domain name and account". The order also demanded that details of the site's registrant, contacts, payment records and "IP addresses and associated data used by any person...who accessed the account for the domain name" to be handed over.

Wikileaks allows users to post documents anonymously. The site was founded in 2006 by dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and technologists from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa. It so far claims to have published more than 1.2 million documents. It provoked controversy when it first appeared on the net with many commentators questioning the motives of the people behind the site. It recently made available a confidential briefing document relating to the collapse of the UK's Northern Rock bank. Lawyers working on behalf of the bank attempted to have the documents removed from the site. They can still be accessed.

Each of the four companies - the Tribune Company, the Gannett Company, the Hearst Corporation and The New York Times Company - is transferring a portion of its online ad space to quadrantONE, a new company that will be announced Friday.

The purpose of the joint venture, which will be based in Chicago and will hire 17 people, is to let national advertisers place ads on local Web sites with a single phone call. The sites belong to papers like The Los Angeles Times (which is a Tribune property), The Des Moines Register (Gannett), The Houston Chronicle (Hearst) and The Boston Globe (The New York Times Company).

Some of the companies’ flagship sites, however, will not be included, because they are not considered local. These include the sites of USA Today, a Gannett paper, and of The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune, which are owned by the Times Company.

In total, quadrantONE will be able to reach about 50 million unique visitors a month, its executives said, citing Nielsen Online data.

The effort is at least the third in the last decade involving major newspaper companies joining forces to sell online ads. But quadrantONE comes as newspaper companies are being wooed by companies like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, which would like to sell premium ads on the newspapers’ sites.

“We want to control our own destiny,” - said Lincoln Millstein, senior vice president for digital media at Hearst Newspapers.

Executives involved said the newspaper companies understand the local market better than Google, Yahoo and Microsoft and can best help national advertisers place their messages on local sites.

But not everyone agrees.

“I don’t think the alignment of newspaper companies will solve the issue,” - said Shar VanBoskirk, an analyst who covers online advertising at Forrester Research. “They need that alignment with a technology company that will bring them the set of skills that they need to monetize their content.”

Several of the newspapers involved in quadrantONE are part of Yahoo’s newspaper consortium, which provides advertising technologies and sales, and all of the companies are partial owners of the Newspaper National Network, a network that allows national advertisers to place ads across thousands of papers’ print editions and, more recently, Web sites. The companies were also all part of the New Century Network in the late 1990s, which failed.

Executives at the newspaper companies said quadrantONE will fare differently because it will have a central repository of advertising inventory, and thus will not have to call the newspapers individually to fill each order.

The group is inviting other newspapers to submit ad inventory, though not to join as owners.

But while Sutton disguised himself as a cop, a window washer and a Western Union messenger, cyberthieves use a different type of subterfuge - phishing - to cover their identities and wipe out bank accounts. Phishing occurs when fraudulent e-mails that appear to be from a legitimate source are sent in an effort to obtain sensitive information from a user. Those computer exploits and others are detailed in a survey of security threats and vulnerabilities for 2007 by the IBM Internet Security Systems X-Force. Of the top 20 companies targeted by phishing in 2007, the report says, 19 are in the banking industry. Computer users are often tricked into visiting fraudulent sites because of "danger, danger" e-mail subject lines like "account security measures," "important notice" or "(your bank name) security notice."

One sneaky thing some malware (malicious threats) does is to modify a user's server information. For example, a user types www.bankofamerica.com into his or her browser. But instead of the computer using the service provider's server, which would take the user to the real Bank of America server, the computer uses a bogus server run by phishers and that takes the user to a fake Bank of America server. The phishers take the user's login information and empty the account. Most users, even the savvy ones, wouldn't know that their server settings have been hijacked.

Just a few years ago, computer viruses and worms seemed designed for bragging rights and a hacker's 15 minutes of fame, but the game has changed. Now, instead of creating chaos by shutting down or paralyzing computer systems, the bad guys are getting more bang for their buck by taking over systems and using them to commit crimes.

The IBM Internet security report shows that nearly 90 percent of all vulnerabilities allow this type of remote exploitation.

"The authors [of this malware] realize they are better off as parasites than they are killing their hosts," - said Chris Rouland, engineer and chief technology officer for IBM Internet security.

Rouland said that some other malicious trends include growth in Web browser exploitation, especially for Windows Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. He said that although fewer vulnerabilities were disclosed publicly last year, the number of "high-severity vulnerabilities" increased by 28 percent compared with 2006.

The X-Force collected and analyzed 410,000 new malware in 2007. That's a third more than they analyzed in 2006. And wildly popular social networks like MySpace and Facebook are now prime targets for exploits.

What's an average computer user to do?

Though tech-savvy, proudly paperless home computer users may shun those so-20th-century snail mail bank statements, it might be worth it to go retro and compare your online banking information with the paper record.

Rouland says criminals in Brazil have figured out ways to wipe out bank accounts and leave no trail in an individual's online account. And bank customers may be out of luck if the theft goes unnoticed for a while.

Usually, banks give only 90 days to remediate an account problem. In the old days of worms and viruses and denial of service attacks, many of us learned, often the hard way, that computer security was often an afterthought compared to "user friendliness."

But these days, with organized criminals around the globe stealing with such great stealth, the bank with the best security might turn out to be the big business winner.

At a press conference held in midtown Manhattan, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose charitable organization, Bloomberg Philanthropies, contributed $2 million to conduct the study, joined top WHO officials to present the findings. Among the litany of sobering statistics: 5.4 million people die each year - one every six seconds - from lung cancer, heart disease or other illness directly linked to tobacco use. Smoking killed 100 million people in the 20th century, and the yearly death toll could pass 8 million as soon as 2030 - 80% of those deaths will be in the developing world, where tobacco use is growing most rapidly. "We're on a collision course," - said Dr. Douglas Bettcher, director of WHO's Tobacco Free Initiative.

The 369-page WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, 2008, bound like a high school yearbook and bundled with a "cigarette pack" of colored markers, called on governments to adhere to six tobacco control policies it calls MPOWER: monitor tobacco use; protect people from secondhand smoke; offer help to people who want to quit; warn about the risks of smoking; enforce bans on cigarette advertising; and raise tobacco taxes. The report also breaks down tobacco consumption and prevention efforts country by country. To date, it is the most comprehensive study of its kind at a global level, said WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan.

The collected data should equip countries around the world to begin implementing anti-tobacco policies, Chan says, including smoking bans, aggressive anti-tobacco campaigns and massive tobacco tax hikes. According to the report, nearly two thirds of the world's smokers live in 10 countries - China, India, Japan, Indonesia, Bangladesh, the U.S., Brazil, Germany, Russia, and Turkey. China alone accounts for nearly 30% of all smokers worldwide. Currently, only 5% of the world's population lives in countries - predominately in Western Europe - that have any antismoking policies in place. "These are straightforward and common sense measures within the reach of every country, regardless of income level," - said Chan.

According to the study, the most effective tactic globally has been simply to raise prices. Lower income people smoke significantly more than the wealthy, and spend a much higher proportion of their income on tobacco - 20% of the most impoverished households in Mexico spend as much as 11% of their household income on tobacco - mostly due to the tobacco industry's objective to get people addicted to nicotine, according to the study.

Another vulnerable group: women. Though women still smoke at just one quarter the rate of men, tobacco advertisers are increasingly targeting this largely untapped market. Among adolescents in European Union member nations, girls may now be even more likely to smoke than boys. Globally, Chan said, "the rise of tobacco use among girls and young women is among the most ominous trends."

As with virtually all public-health problems, a major hurdle to reducing smoking, the study said, is lack of public education. People are not fully aware of the hazards of smoking, and it's a weakness that the tobacco industry is quick to exploit, Bettcher said.

Asked whether he would back a federal ban on smoking in the workplace or public spaces, Bloomberg said he would, but added, "I don't think the federal government should prohibit the manufacture or sale of cigarettes," but that combatting tobacco should mean diminishing the demand.

Once a smoker himself, Bloomberg said he was able to quit only when he truly understood the consequences. "As I became more mature and started thinking, 'Do I want to live or not?' it was an easy decision." For those who want to smoke, however, he feels it should be their right, so long as they aren't harming others. "I happen to agree with those who think you have a right to kill yourself," he said.