It seems that taking the Bing Challenge could make your computer more vulnerable to malware. PCMag reports that a new study from German independent testing lab AV-Test has found that searches conducted with Microsoft’s (MSFT) Bing search engine retrieve five times as many malicious websites as searches conducted with Google. After studying around 10 million search results from each search engine, AV-Test found that Bing retrieved 1,285 malicious links while Google retrieved just 272 malicious links. Both Google and Bing were still vastly safer than Russian search engine Yandex, which returned a total of 3,300 malicious links out of 13 million search results studied.
Internet auction giant eBay (EBAY) recently announced plans to begin sharing the browsing habits of its customers with third-party advertisers. The move follows similar strategies of other online companies such as Google (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN) and Facebook (FB). EBay traditionally used its proprietary user data to help grow its eBay Marketplaces business and promote products from various merchants to users who had shown interest in similar items on its website.
Crowdfunding websites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo experienced tremendous growth in 2012 and became a significant source of financing for independent businesses, Reuters reported. Consumers eagerly backed projects and companies for a total amount of $2.66 billion last year, an increase of 81% from $1.47 billion in 2011. The bulk of money raised came from North American users who invested $1.6 billion in various projects, an increase of 105% from 2011. One of the most popular crowdfunding projects of all time was the Pebble smartwatch, which raised more than $10 million from 66,434 backers who bought 85,000 watches. Research firm Massolution believes that crowdfunding will continue to increase in 2013 and could grow as high as $5.1 billion.
AT&T (T) on Tuesday announced plans to build an advanced fiber optic network that is capable of speeds up to 1Gbps in Austin, Tex. The company’s announcement came shortly after Google (GOOG) confirmed that it will launch its gigabit broadband Internet service, known as Google Fiber, in the city later next year. AT&T didn’t reveal additional details such as an estimated launch date, although the company said it is anticipating that it will “be granted the same terms and conditions as Google on issues such as geographic scope of offerings, rights of way, permitting, state licenses and any investment incentives.” AT&T’s press release follows below. More →
Time Warner Cable (TWC) doesn’t seem too concerned about Google’s (GOOG) ultrafast fiber service encroaching on yet another one of its territories by launching in Austin this week. In a statement given to The Wall Street Journal, a Time Warner Cable spokesperson said that the company is “prepared for added competition and believe that any innovation in broadband technology is good for all of us.” Praising Google for providing “innovation in broadband technology” is an intriguing thing for Time Warner Cable to say since its CTO earlier this year said that the company doesn’t plan to build out fiber to the home because there’s no evidence that American consumers actually want super-fast networks. It will be interesting to see if Google Fiber’s plan to expand to more markets spurs more aggressive network upgrade investments from rival ISPs, especially ISPs that have been dismissive about the need to boost network speeds.
Google’s (GOOG) gigabit broadband Internet service has been well received by the lucky few who have it, while the rest of us have been left eagerly awaiting for it to arrive in our hometowns. Google Fiber is currently available in Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas, and is rumored to be launching in Austin, Texas later this year. Carlos Kirjner and Ram Parameswaran of Bernstein Research estimate that it cost Google $94 million — $42 million in Kansas and $52 million in Missouri — to build the Fiber infrastructure and connect homes in its current markets, TechCrunch reported. The analysts believe the rumored Austin rollout will cost the same or even less than the offerings in Kansas City, although they remain skeptical of a nationwide build out. More →
Rumors about Google (GOOG) bringing its high-speed fiber network to Austin, Texas gained a little more steam over the weekend when unnamed sources told Austin-based station KVUE that Google would indeed announce plans to expand its fiber service to the city this week. And now Engadget has got hold of a leaked embargoed press release from the Gig.U initiative congratulating the city of Austin for getting hooked up with Google Fiber, thus making it the second city to have access to the service that first launched in Kansas City last year. Google Chairman Eric Schmidt late last year insisted that Google Fiber “isn’t just an experiment,” but rather “a real business” that the company is “trying to decide where to expand next,” so it’s not all that surprising that Google has decided to slowly roll it out to other markets. More →
Google (GOOG) and the City of Austin, Texas on Friday sent out press invitations for a special announcement slated for next week. Unnamed sources have told Venture Beat that the event could involve Google Fiber and potential plans to bring its gigabit broadband Internet service to the city. It is also speculated, however, that the announcement could be for a new Austin-based Google campus or perhaps some other partnership between the two parties. Google Fiber is currently available in Kansas City and the company recently announced plans to expand its high-speed Internet service to residents in Olathe, Kansas later this year. Google’s event is scheduled to take place on April 9th at 11:00 a.m. CDT/12:00 p.m. EDT.
Shortly after launching its “Operation Free Korea” initiative, notorious hacking group Anonymous has fired its first shots at North Korea. The group had demanded supreme leader Kim Jong-un resign, in addition to abandoning his nuclear ambitions and installing free democracy across the Asian country. Earlier this week, hackers belonging to Anonymous claimed to have stolen the passwords of 15,000 users from the North Korean propaganda website Uriminzokkiri. After its demands were not met, the group has begun to take down various properties belonging to Pyongyang. More →
New licensing agreements with Google Play, Microsoft (MSFT) and other services helped musicians generate more royalties in the U.K. from digital music services than radio for the first time last year, The Guardian reported. Songwriters earned a total of £51.7 million in the U.K. (roughly $77.7 million USD) in digital royalties, an increase of 32.2% from £39.1 million in 2011. Digital music services are now the single biggest source of income for musicians in the U.K., surpassing radio and live events. Online licensing revenues have doubled in the county since the arrival of download and streaming services such as Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes Store and Spotify in 2008.
Apple (AAPL) may be under more competitive pressure than it’s faced in a while but that doesn’t mean its iPhones and iPads aren’t still the dominant devices for browsing the mobile web. The latest numbers from NetMarketShare show that Apple’s Safari browser has actually increased its lead among smartphone and tablet users and now accounts for 62% of mobile web browsing, followed by Google’s (GOOG) Android browser at 22% and Opera Mini at 8%. Safari’s share actually marks a significant increase from the previous month when it accounted for 55% of mobile browsing, so it seems that Apple’s dominance of the mobile web isn’t in danger of shrinking anytime soon.
Samsung (005930) would love to lessen its dependence on Google (GOOG) services and now the company plans to team with Mozilla to create a next-generation browser engine that will presumably power non-Google web browsers on future Samsung devices. Mozilla says that the new engine, dubbed Servo, “is an attempt to rebuild the Web browser from the ground up on modern hardware” that entails “addressing the causes of security vulnerabilities while designing a platform that can fully utilize the performance of tomorrow’s massively parallel hardware to enable new and richer experiences on the Web.” Needless to say, giving a Servo-powered future version of Firefox a prominent place on Samsung devices would do wonders for Mozilla’s mobile browser market share and would give Samsung an alternative to both the default Android browser and Google’s Chrome on its smartphones and tablets.
