US to review Internet control in 2008

The US Commerce Department said on Friday it would retain its oversight of the company that manages Internet domain names, renewing an agreement that was scheduled to expire this weekend. The government signed a new three-year agreement with the ICANN, which controls addresses such as ".com" and country domain names. The new agreement aims to eventually turn over control of ICANN to the private sector, and calls for a review in 2008 of ICANN's progress toward becoming more accountable, the government said.

"We are committed to working with ICANN to ensure that they have the established transparency and accountability mechanisms necessary to be a stable, lasting and independent institution."

The current agreement between the U.S. government and ICANN was scheduled to expire on September 30. The Commerce Department said it consulted with more than 700 companies, trade groups, foreign governments and individuals before deciding to renew the agreement. Some critics say the U.S. government has too much control over ICANN, which has evolved into a crucial engine for global commerce, communications and culture. The US government has pledged to cede control of the net to private sector hands at an unspecified future time. - US takes big step to end Internet oversight - ICANN independence closer - NDTV.com - Political Gateway - New York Times - Los Angeles Times

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How to Launch A Business in Your 20s

If you've got the job jitters or are feeling burned out, it may be time to put out feelers before starting an all-out employment search, says CareerJournal.com.

"It's better to lay the groundwork for a job search before you get burned out. It's often easier to find a new job while you are still employed."

There are many safe harbors where you can informally network, without alerting your employer that you're job hunting. CareerJournal.com offers these ways to get started: Look before you leap. You way want to explore employment opportunities within your own company before deciding to look for jobs elsewhere. Make yourself visible -- discreetly.

"The Internet has made it easier to raise your career profile through social-networking like ecademy, Linkedin.com, openBC, Ryze, Soflow or Zoominfo.com . You can connect with colleagues at companies you're interested in and raise your visibility without quitting your job."

Work your industry associations. Participating in a business organization with which your company is affiliated won't raise the eyebrows of your colleagues or boss. Attending monthly meetings and mingling can boost a job search and allow you to network with potential employers. Network like a headhunter. Target 10 or 15 companies you want to work for. Then use Web search engines to identify some of their former employees and their current contact information. Phone them, and ask them about the company, the potential boss and the department you're interested in. Rebuild your network. When you know you're going to need your network in the next few months, start putting it in place now. You need to figure out who is going to be an important contact for you. Do some self-assessment. Think about what you really want to do. Take into account your strengths, weaknesses, likes and dislikes. Ask yourself what you want more and less of so you can pursue a more satisfying career. - Social networking sites a hacker's paradise? - Spoke frees up its database - Submit Express - Red Herring - Akron Beacon Journal - Digital-Lifestyles.Info

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Google launches open source hosting centre

Google has started to add open source project hosting to Google Code. The new site might go up against the most popular open source project hosting sites like SourceForge or Tigris. Google’s new hosting service will be without ads. Google will use the open source version control system Subversion, to which several Google developers contribute. The Subversion repository will store projects’ code and other data in Google’s BigTable database, which is also the data store behind Google Reader. BigTable can run on thousands of inexpensive computers for load balancing and reliability. Google’s new source code hosting service is not yet ready for production use. According to a post by Greg Stein on Sunday night

We just pushed out a fix for the Subversion performance. Please let us know if you see any continued problems.

However, when integrated with Google Groups, GMail, Google Talk and other services, the offer could become very popular with developers. To entrer into Google Code a free projcet code source it should be one of theses licences:

• Apache
• Artistic
• GNU General Public License
• Lesser General Public
• Mozilla License
• BSD
• MIT

Uo to now approximately 2,000 projects have been created on Google Code including 239 Java projects, 149 in Python, 71 in Ruby, and 19 mentioning Eclipse. - Google to host open-source projects - Google Sets Up Open Source Service - Builder AU - LinuxWorld.au - WebProNews - itWorldCanada.com

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The Miracle of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates

Warren Buffett today signed over much of his $44 billion fortune to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, uniting the world's two richest people in a bid to fight disease, reduce poverty and improve education. The roughly $30.7 billion donation doubles the Gates Foundation's size to $60 billion, five times larger than any other U.S. charitable group and larger than the gross domestic product of Kuwait. Bill Gates, the world's richest man, co-founded and remains chairman of Microsoft Corp.. Warren Buffett built his fortune running Berkshire Hathaway Inc., an insurance and investment company.

"I am not an enthusiast for dynastic wealth, particularly when the alternative is 6 billion people having much poorer hands in life than we have."

Gates said he plans in July 2008 to step down from his day-to-day Microsoft role to focus on his foundation, one of the goals of which is to improve access to technology in U.S. public libraries. Buffett pledged 10 million Berkshire Class B shares to the Gates Foundation. He also pledged 2.05 million Class B shares to foundations in the name of his late wife, Susan, who died in 2004, and for his three children, Susie, Howard and Peter. The total donations of about $37.1 billion amount to roughly 85% of Buffett's net worth, and constitute the largest single act of U.S. charitable giving ever. Buffett made the donations fewer than four months after he said Berkshire's board had identified a successor for him. Gifts to the Gates Foundation will be made in stages, and are conditioned on money being distributed the year it is donated. The foundation gave away $1.36 billion in 2005, so Buffett's first gift of $1.5 billion, in July, may double its spending.

"This is his life's work. Now that the money is going to be as much Warren's as the money my job helped generate, it's almost scary."

Time magazine last year named the Gateses and Irish singer Bono of the band U2 its "Persons of the Year" for 2005, citing their charitable and philanthropic pursuits.

"I've watched Bill and Melinda Gates for a number of years. It was clear that an outstanding mind with the right goals was focusing intensely with passion and heart on improving the lot of mankind."

Both Buffett and Gates emphasized the importance of keeping philanthropy separate from Berkshire's operations. Buffett's donations of Berkshire shares means the ultimate value of his gifts will be tied to the company's share price.

"I would be surprised, disappointed, if we can't manage Berkshire well enough so the increase on value, on average, (isn't) more than 5% a year."

Berkshire owns large stakes in such blue-chip companies as American Express and Coca-Cola and owns some 50 businesses, including Dairy Queen ice cream, Fruit of the Loom underwear and Geico auto insurance. Berkshire shares have lagged the Standard & Poor 500 index over the last two years, but have far outgained the benchmark since Buffett took over Berkshire, then a struggling textile maker, in 1965. - Warren Buffett's Unprecedented Generosity - Buffett accelerates philanthropy with Gates gift - Washington Post - Forbes - Financial Times - MSNBC

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Pakistan bans Da Vinci Code film

Under the Motion Pictures Ordinance of 1979, the government of Pakistan has banned the Ron Howard’s contentious movie The Da Vinci Code for including material that is offensive to both Christians and Muslims.

The Da Vinci Code is a mystery and detective novel by the American author Dan Brown and published in 2003 by Doubleday Fiction. It became a worldwide bestseller with more than 60.5 million copies in print as of May 2006 and has been translated into 44 languages. It might be the sixth biggest selling book of all time. Combining the detective, thriller and conspiracy fiction genres, the book is part two of a trilogy that started with Brown's 2000 novel Angels and Demons, which introduced the character Robert Langdon. In November 2004, Random House published a "Special Illustrated Edition", with 160 illustrations interspersed with the text.

In a recent statement, according to India News, any viewing of The Da Vinci Code or distribution of the film will be met with stern action:

"In a statement issued by the country’s Central Board of Film Censors, the government warned of strict action against screening of the movie and those involved in its sale and purchase."

Although The Da Vinci Code continues to be a financial windfall for Sony Pictures, having grossed $475 million worldwide to date, Fox News elaborates on the reasons for the action taken by the government of Pakistan and the film being banned,

"Although the film has not been screened in any theater in mostly-Muslim Pakistan, authorities decided to ban it out of respect for the feelings of the country's minority Christians."

Christians in Pakistan staged two protests earlier in the week, calling for a worldwide ban of The Da Vinci Code, which came amid other protests against the film in India. The the screening of the film in Pakistan, or possession of it on video cassettes or discs, was prohibited and unlawful, said Jalil Abbas

"The film is sacrilegious to all religions, that's why we did this."

Police had been ordered to conduct raids and confiscate pirated copies of the film available in markets of the Muslim-dominated country, he said. Christians make up about 3% of Pakistan's overwhelmingly Muslim 160 million people, while in India Christians hold only 2% of the total population. Also late last week, two more Indian States banned The Da Vinci Code, doubling the number of states to take strict action against the film, authorities in southern Andhra Pradesh state and Meghalaya in the Christian-dominated northeast blocked the film late on Thursday. Two other states, Punjab and Tamil Nadu, had earlier banned the film. Despite the protests and the film being banned, it appears not all have agreed with the recent backlash, most notably members of the Indian film industry. According to The Hindu News

"... the Film and Television Producers Guild of India has asked the Governments there to reconsider their decision. The Guild has written to the Governments of all the states, specifying how the film was cleared by the censor board and asking that they help to clear its release..."

In addition to the uproar in Pakistan and India, and the film being banned, The Da Vinci Code appears to be making waves in Egypt as well, as the San Francisco Chronicle reports,

"Police seized 2,000 pirated DVDs of 'The Da Vinci Code' on Saturday, and the Egyptian Coptic Christian church demanded the film be banned in Egypt."

To date, no decision has been made by the Egyptian government on whether to ban the film in that region. Since its publishing began in 2003, The Da Vinci Code has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide, netting author Dan Brown $442 million. The Da Vinci Code has been released in paperback in the United States and has sold 500,000 copies. The Da Vinci Code movie stars Tom Hanks, Ian McKellen, Alfred Molina, Audrey Tautou and Jean Reno. The movie is directed by Ron Howard .'The Da Vinci Code' heresy - India extends Da Vinci Code ban - Times of India - People's Daily Online - The Conservative Voice

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Yahoo personalizes new homepage

Yahoo Inc. launched a redesign of its popular Internet home page at www.yahoo.com, displaying a more prominent section for Web searches and reconfiguring its display menu. Like Google and Microsoft, Yahoo is introducing clickable tools to let users customize what they see. Alongside the search box will be an assistant that tells people if new messages are in their Yahoo e-mail inbox, a section for popular searches and an expanded news section. In making the changes, Yahoo is the last of the big three search firms to re-focus its main web presence on what users want to do. There will be a variety of new and enhanced features, including:

• Yahoo! Pulse: People can instantly discover what's hot on the Web in this unique new section of the home page - including the most popular and interesting Yahoo! searches, as well as the latest trends, music, videos, photos, people and opinions. Yahoo! Pulse highlights what the estimated half a billion monthly users of Yahoo! branded services are looking for, reading, viewing, listening to, rating or sharing online.
• Expanded Content: Thought-provoking feature stories, fresh entertainment, sports and finance content, as well as more of the latest national, world and video news are all hand-picked and updated by Yahoo!'s home page editors.
• Enhanced Search Box: The newly designed and positioned Yahoo! Search box offers consumers a more prominent gateway to the Web, news, multimedia content, local information, shopping and Yahoo!'s directory to help them find exactly what they want quickly. Additionally, home page visitors can leverage the collective knowledge and experience of real people by accessing Yahoo! Answers just beneath the Yahoo! Search box.
• Simple Navigation: Buttons near the top of the page link to Yahoo!'s other popular starting points, My Yahoo! and Yahoo! Mail. Other frequently used Yahoo! products and services are easy to find in a simple column of links, and new content tabs deliver more of the day's important news right on the home page.
• More Control: Colors are easily tailored to fit a person's preferences with only a click of the mouse. Complementing My Yahoo!, the most popular personalized start page, the new yahoo.com gives consumers a home page that is immediately more useful and relevant for them.

The new Yahoo! home page is available as a beta, or test, version for the next month to assess how users repond to the alterations in the United States at www.yahoo.com/preview, with local preview versions in the UK and Ireland, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. More enhancements to the page will be added over the coming months, and it will be made generally available in all global markets later this summer. The new look pages aim to move away from the old-fashioned static site where people were simply presented with a page listing everything a web portal did. Users will now be able to customise what they see, remove the bits they never look at and add those others parts of the Yahoo empire that they regularly use. They will also be able to change the layout and the colour of the page. The driving force behind these acquisitions has been the desire to get hold of ready-made communities to sell to. - Internet war between China and US - Should Microsoft Give In To Investor Panic? - eWeek - Telecom Asia Daily / Wireless Asia - All Headline News - kgw.com (subscription)

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Search engines will remain Google's future

Google has unveiled a new wave of software and desktop gadgetry in its ongoing quest to dominate users' experience of the internet. The world's most popular search engine, which faces mounting competition from rivals Microsoft and Yahoo, showcased innovations while pledging to focus renewed energies on its core business of online search technology. At a meeting with reporters from around the globe, Google introduced several new search enhancements, including a way to subscribe to health research from experts and tools that let people save portions of websites in a pop-up box that can be shared via e-mails. Google's share of online searches rose to 42.7% in March from 36.4% a year ago. Yahoo's and MSN's shares fell, says research firm ComScore Media Metrix. Page says 98% of what will exist in 10 years "has yet to be done, and we won't get there by looking at what other companies are doing." The new tools are:

• Google Co-op. Users can sign up at www.google.com/coop/directory to subscribe to free health information from several organizations, including the federal Centers for Disease Control, the Mayo Clinic and Kaiser Permanente. Their tips on the best health data will show up in search results. Google Co-op also offers city guide information for more than 300 cities, including London and New York. Co-op is designed to let organizations label Web pages relevant to their areas of expertise.

  "We're going to take the Tom Sawyer view and see how our users paint the fence"

• Google Desktop 4An extension of Google's tool to search for items on your computer now comes with more than 100 "Gadgets" — little widgets that do things such as list friends' birthdays, show videos and play music.
• Google Trends. Lets users examine searches for market trends. For example, a search for "surfers" will show that most searches come from Hawaii and Australia and link to news stories about surfing. "For the first time ever, Google is making it possible to sift through billions of search queries from around the world to see what people are thinking about," said Mayer. Trends is targeted primarily toward marketers.
• Google Notebook lets people save a portion of a website to a box that can be shared with others. Google showed an example of shopping for shoes, saving a certain pair and writing a note about it, then sending it to friends. The tool works in conjunction with Desktop 4.

Executives denied the new products, especially an upgraded Google Desktop with a multi-media player, were a challenge to the dominance of Microsoft's Windows operating system. Eric Schmidt said he saw "no limit" to the company's growth, adding that Google would devote 70% of its resources to search technologies during the next 50 years. Elliot Schrage said Google's goal is more transparency and to be more open about what Google is doing and what not.
Google Strengthens Focus on Search with Four New Tools - Google goes after Microsoft - PC Magazine - Forbes - USA Today - iTWire

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