Companies Google should buy in 2010

Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in September that the search leader will buy up one company a month in 2010. Here's a look at some of the leading contenders.

Twitter

What it is: A microblogging social network sensation that has taken the world by storm 140 characters at a time.

Why Google should buy it: With more than 60 million unique users a month, Twitter is one of the most popular and fastest growing social networks on the Web, according to comScore. Google's first foray into social networking, Orkut, didn't exactly take off, and its newest attempt, Google Wave, hasn't yet won over skeptics. Social network users spend more time online than the average Web user, and Google's advertising partners are keen to take advantage.

Why Google shouldn't buy it: Twitter's business model has yet to be determined, and they don't sell ads. Twitter also has had several security lapses recently. And because Twitter is such a hot brand, Google could face intense regulatory scrutiny if it bought the company.

Will it happen? A remote possibility. If a company can make money from Twitter, it's probably Google, but the jury's still out on whether social networks will ever be profitable.

 

Digg

What it is: Digg is a Web site that displays the Web's most popular content based on how many users share or "digg" an article or video.

Why Google should buy it: Unlike Yahoo and Aol, Google does not produce its own content, but it makes money by driving people to others' Web sites. That matches up perfectly with Digg's business model, including obvious synergies with Google News. It also plans to launch a feature in 2010 that shows what users are "digging" in real time.

Why Google shouldn't buy it: Digg isn't exactly the hottest Web property anymore. With Facebook and Twitter practically taking over the Internet, Digg lost heavy amounts of traffic in the past two months, tumbling 15% in November.

Will it happen? Probably. Two months of traffic declines don't mean the end has come, and live digs could help revitalize the brand.

Jumptap

 

What it is: Jumptap is a mobile advertising company that targets users with contextual ads.

Why Google should buy it: Google acquired AdMob, a rival mobile ad company, in November, and the move was widely praised as Google makes a big push into mobile. Like AdMob, Jumptap would offer Google its own array of international advertising and publishing partners. It could hurt rival Microsoft, which analysts say is in danger of missing the boat on mobile. Since most analysts view mobile phones as the next frontier for Web browsing and advertising, Google could use its muscle to corner the market before it explodes.

Why Google shouldn't buy it: The AdMob purchase hasn't been approved yet, and it is already facing some heat from government regulators. Buying up another big mobile advertising firm would probably raise more eyebrows in Washington.

Will it happen? Don't bet the house, but it could happen. With Google acquiring AdMob, a deal with Jumptap is a little less likely, but putting a nail in Microsoft's mobile coffin would give Google's board room a big reason to smile.

 Yelp

What it is: The local business review site lets users give their opinion about restaurants, museums and other attractions around cities and towns.

Why Google should buy it: As more people use the mobile Web to help them make decisions about where to go, there is a growing market for local businesses to advertise online. Yelp is the most successful company so far to tap into the local market. A marriage between the two companies would help Google improve its social networking capabilities and it would open the door to partnerships with a huge number of local businesses that want to advertise.

Why Google shouldn't buy it: Yelp may be asking for too much. A more-than $500 million deal was reportedly agreed to, but Yelp pulled out at the last minute.

Will it happen? A good bet. A number of analysts think that Yelp broke the deal after the story leaked, hoping to get a higher bid from another potential suitor. But in the end, Google will probably win out.

 Cellfire

What it is: Cellfire is a digital coupons company that allows users to access coupons on their mobile phones based on their location.

Why Google should buy it: Digital coupons aren't so different than the text ads that Google displays on its search results pages that offer deals and discounts. A deal for Cellfire could help Google's advertising partners bring their marketing tools to the physical world of supermarkets and stores. That could be a good deal for Google, its partners, and consumers.

Why Google shouldn't buy it: Digital coupons are cool, but not everyone is embracing them. Procter & Gamble recently ended what it called a digital coupon "experiment," and other advertisers and companies have yet to sign on.

Will it happen? Seems like it. If digital coupons take off, Google could strike advertising gold with a company like Cellfire. If not, it probably won't need to invest too much to buy it.

Yandex

What it is: The "Google of Russia," Yandex is the largest Internet company and leading search Web site in Russia and its surrounding countries.

Why Google should buy it: Like Baidu in China, Yandex has relegated Google to a distant second in another fast-growing market, Russia. Yandex's search engine has been able to master the wildly complex Russian language much better than Google's engine, so the quality of Google's Russian language results leaves much to be desired. And Yandex is eagerly looking to expand to the United States, building an office in Mountain View, Calif. close to Google's headquarters.

Why Google shouldn't buy it: Yandex won't come cheap, and since it is a mature business, it may be getting a little late for Google to scoop it up.

Will it happen? Wait 'till next year. The financial crisis hurt Yandex's ability to launch an initial public offering, and a financial white knight may be an attractive alternative. But Yandex will probably will want to see how it performs in the global markets before it will listen to deals.

Top 10 tech news stories of the decade

As hard as it may be to remember now, the dot-com boom was nearing its dizzying peak as the decade started. But just as the bust hit a few months later, Google was pairing a savvy business model with great technology, Apple was most decidedly getting its mojo back, and Bill Gates was becoming exasperated with those pesky trustbusters.

Since then, Google became a giant, the iPhone broke through the smartphone design barrier, and social media went mainstream. But what was the biggest story? As the decade comes to an end, we offer our list of the 10 most important tech stories of the decade.
10. Hewlett-Packard acquires Compaq
It was the decade of tech mega-mergers. Oracle bought a good portion of the enterprise software industry. Once business picked up, Cisco Systems went on a buying spree, buying everything from Flip camera maker Pure Digital to set-top box manufacturer Scientific Atlanta. And other big companies like IBM and EMC gobbled up smaller players.
But for sheer drama, nothing came close to the HP-Compaq merger, which played out from May 2001 to June 2002. Old-line HP folks, led by family scion Walter Hewlett, aggressively fought against the merger.
But HP's board, led by flamboyant CEO Carly Fiorina, convinced shareholders they had to get bigger in order to compete with tough companies like Dell and IBM. The fight was the subject of two books and an endless stream of invective (pro and con) from the tech press.
Ultimately, Fiorina may have been vindicated. HP looks to be emerging stronger than ever from the recession while Dell stumbles. But her focus on the big picture and inattention to detail proved to be her undoing.
She was forced out and replaced by NCR CEO Mark Hurd in March 2005, who has proven to have the management chops Fiorina lacked.
9. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates retires
Although Bill Gates handed over the CEO reins to Steve Ballmer back in January 2000, Gates' move to step away from full-time employment at Microsoft in 2008 marked a significant changing of the guard, leaving a new team led by Ray Ozzie in charge of the company's technology plans.
Gates made the exit slowly, announcing his plan to leave in June 2006, but not making the shift to part-time work until the end of June 2008.
Although Gates was there to preside over the beginnings of Microsoft's shift to cloud computing, that focus has intensified in the 18 months since Gates retired.
The shift also freed Gates up to spend even more time on his philanthropic efforts, in which the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation aims to reshape global health efforts as well as the U.S. education system.
8. Google acquires YouTube and legitimizes social media
You can argue Google's $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube in 2006 was more about bringing television to the Web than offering legitimacy to social media. Either way, it was a milestone for the tech industry.
If Google or another big suitor had not gobbled YouTube, it's not hard to imagine the video-sharing site, despite its popularity, failing because of rising costs and litigation with content owners. Google offered a buffer for YouTube (still does) while it worked on becoming more than a neat idea.
The eye-popping price tag, which even Google CEO Eric Schmidt acknowledges was mighty steep, also helped spark a run on Web 2.0 investments and primed the market for other social-media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter.
Of course, the great question with these social-media companies is profitability. Facebook, for example, recently announced it turned cash positive, but any accounting student will tell you that's not the same thing as being profitable. Still, if any company can provide a model for turning a hugely popular social-media site into a cash machine, it will be Google.
7. Craigslist and the slow fade of traditional newspapers
Google News and other news aggregation sites have become a favorite bete noire of traditional media magnates such as Rupert Murdoch. But the latest shoving match ignores Craigslist, the little company that has laid salt to newspapers' biggest moneymaker, classified ads.
Critics like to joke that Craigslist is just "Bolshevism with a smile," but there's no doubting its impact. Today, in most major cities, it's Craigslist calling the classified shots.
No surprise then that newspapers from Boston to San Francisco have seen major layoffs, while local pubs in cities such as Detroit and Seattle are trying to recast themselves as online publications.
Unfortunately, earlier this year Craigslist's "erotic" advertisements also drew plenty of scrutiny from prosecutors and pundits who argued that those listings created a virtual bordello.
Making matters worse, a Boston area medical student was accused of robbing escorts -- and even killing one -- whom he found advertising on Craiglist. As a result, the site attempted to tone down the ads by removing the erotic section, and setting up a new "adult" area instead.
But there's no toning down Craigslist's impact on newspapers. At left, empty newsstands sit in a lot in San Francisco, which is also the home of Craigslist.
6. Yahoo plays Hamlet with search
To search or not to search? That was a question first asked with Yahoo's unwise decision to outsource its search business to Google in 2000, giving its upstart competitors a huge vote of confidence and limiting Yahoo's ability to innovate in the business.
But in 2004, Yahoo brought the search business back in-house. By then, Google had become the dominant search engine and, well, a verb.
In February 2008, Yahoo was reeling and Microsoft came calling, offering an unsolicited $31-per-share bid, roughly a 62 percent premium above the trading price for Yahoo shares. So what happened? Jerry Yang & Co. said no. They even tried to outsource the search business (again!) to Google, only to be foiled by a threatened federal antitrust lawsuit. Eventually, Microsoft walked away.
But the search yo-yo still wasn't finished. After Jerry Yang stepped down in late 2008, one of new CEO Carol Bartz's first orders of business was to, yes, get out of search and outsource the business to Microsoft's new Bing search engine. The latest pairing is still waiting on government approval.
5. Apple releases the iPhone and changes mobile technology
Apple has always been able to turn product releases into events, but nothing came close to the hysteria leading to Apple's June 2007 release of the iPhone.
Customers camped out for days outside Apple stores across America as the (some would argue overly fawning) tech press heaped praise on Steve Jobs' landmark product.
For once, however, the hoopla was warranted. The iPhone was the first smartphone that captured the attention of the average consumer, and it was an enormous breakthrough in user-interface design on a small screen. It was, in effect, the Macintosh of the mobile market.
The iPhone's release also forced rapid development from competitors ranging from Microsoft and Research In Motion to Nokia and, now, Google.
Most of the real innovation in today's tech industry is in mobile computing, and we have the iPhone to thank for that.
4. Pffft goes the dot-com bubble
In March 2000, the tech-led stock bubble peaked. Not long after, all heck broke loose. Within months, tales of Silicon Valley janitors driving Ferraris were replaced by Wall Street Journal ride-a-longs with repo men taking back the Ferraris.
Now it all sounds pretty silly. Did we really expect grocery delivery services and pet food stores to be the next great American enterprises? But the impact of the tech bust wasn't just to start-ups.
Several companies, such as Cisco and Oracle, cut fast and are now more powerful than ever. Others, such as Sun Microsystems (currently waiting for regulatory approval to become Oracle's latest acquisition), never really recovered from losing so many customers so quickly.
The end of the bubble also changed the way start-ups were financed in Silicon Valley. Gone were the days of massive -- and let's face it, questionable -- venture financing for unproven companies and execs. What emerged was a flintier, but perhaps more sustainable financing approach to start-ups.
3. Microsoft and the feds make a deal
Remember this? The antitrust suit humbled Microsoft, cost it billions in fines paid out to rivals, (possibly) kept Sun alive by handing it $2 billion in 2004, and perhaps most importantly cleared the way for the rise of Google and cloud computing. That would have happened to some extent anyway, but keeping Microsoft execs distracted and less competitive than they were in the 1990s only helped.
Of course, it wasn't Microsoft's only run-in with regulators. Also in 2004, the European Union hit Microsoft with a big old antitrust fine.
And Microsoft was beset with antitrust issues throughout a good portion of the decade. There's no doubt that antitrust fears have forced the once rabidly aggressive Microsoft to act more judiciously.
2. Apple unveils iTunes
Nothing changed entertainment and the fortunes of Apple more than iTunes.
iTunes enabled Apple to become the juggernaut in entertainment, retail, and hardware it is today. Without iTunes, the iPod is just another digital music player. The music store paved the way for the iPod, the iPhone, and 100,000 applications and led to the revamping of the music industry. It might also change the television and film sectors as well.
iTunes turned Apple from a niche PC manufacturer to one of the most important companies in American industry. Think of it like this: six years after it launched, there's still no legitimate challenger.
1. Google launches Adwords and becomes tech's most important company
Without Adwords, Google is a terrific search engine in search of a business model. Launched in 2000, Adwords added the little contextual ads next to the billions of searches conducted on Google engine.
By the close of 2009, those little ads, along with the contextual ads run on partners through the Adsense service, brought in the vast majority of Google's estimated $17.39 billion in annual revenue.
Sure, it's a question of the chicken or the egg. You can't sustain a business without revenue. And you can't bring in revenue (in this case through one very smart acquisition) without a compelling product. The combination of the two is what makes Google Google.
But without those little ads, the Google story becomes a tale of a technical curiosity rather than the rise of a business powerhouse to rival Microsoft and, arguably, the most important company in tech.
Interestingly, as the decade comes to an end, Google is drawing the sort of unwanted government scrutiny that Microsoft received in the '90s. Will Google be humbled by the trustbusters in the coming years?
Or will it learn from Microsoft's mistakes and make nice with the feds before business plans get squashed? For the tech press, that's likely to be the biggest story of all in the coming decade.

CNET's Jim Kerstetter, Ina Fried, Tom Krazit, Declan McCullagh and Greg Sandoval reported this story.

Google Nexus phone to debut Tuesday?

Google's much-anticipated new phone, the HTC-designed Nexus One, could make its debut next week.
Google has scheduled a press event for Tuesday, January 5 at its Mountain View, California, headquarters. Though the company hasn't mentioned Nexus One, the invitation mentions Android, Google's mobile operating system for phones, and the company is widely expected to show the device that has had smartphone industry watchers buzzing for weeks.
The invitation-only event will be held two days before the Consumer Electronics Show begins in Las Vegas and just one day before many CES exhibitors have scheduled major press conferences.
It's a move straight out of the Apple playbook. In January, 2007, Apple famously upstaged CES when it unveiled the first iPhone at an event in San Francisco -- even as most technology journalists and executives were huddled in Las Vegas for the trade show.
Google hasn't commented about Nexus One. But recent online leaks suggest the Nexus One will be a GSM-device with a 3.7-inch AMOLED touchscreen, 5-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi connectivity, accelerometer and compass. It is expected to run the latest version of the Android operating system, Android 2.1.
Where Google could really innovate is how the phone is sold. The Nexus One is likely to be sold unlocked, which means consumers don't have to be tied into long-term contracts with telecom carriers.
T-Mobile, which offered the first Google phone, could provide "billing, coverage, features and rate plans," says TMONews, a blog that tracks T-Mobile.
The Nexus One could also go on sale the morning of Jan. 5, says the site, though there's no word yet on possible pricing.

Will Google offer expensive unlocked handsets in the United States -- a la Nokia -- or can it come up with a clever model to subsidize the device cost through mobile advertising or carrier support? Google's press conference next week should answer that question.

R U Buzzed? An iPhone App Can Tell You

Fee iPhone Application Calculates Blood Alcohol Level and Helps Call a Cab

 

n time for arguably the wildest night of the year, the Colorado Department of Transportation has launched a free iPhone application to help partygoers calculate their blood alcohol levels and call a cab.

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How effective are personal breathalyzers?

The app, called R U Buzzed, launched earlier this month and, according to the Wall Street Journal, has been downloaded more than 40,000 times.
The application prompts users to enter weight, gender, hours drinking and the amount of beer, wine and liquor consumed. (The calculator assumes that one drink is equal to 12 fluid ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of hard liquor.)
Then it calculates and displays a blood alcohol content number. Even if you're under the legal limit of 0.08 percent, it might say "You're buzzed!" and warn you that "You could be arrested for impaired driving. Designate a sober driver."
The app includes a disclaimer that the estimates aren't accurate enough to be considered legal evidence. It also says that individuals may vary in alcohol tolerance and may be influenced by food, medication, health and psychological condition.
A GPS feature also helps users locate a taxi. But non-Coloradoans take note -- because the applications was built for the state Department of Transportation, estimates are based on Colorado law and the GPS feature may not work for out-of-staters.
The Colorado Department of Transportation also advises that the best plan is to designate a sober driver before people start drinking.
R U Buzzed is just one of about 100,000 applications available in Apple's App store.
Here is a sampling:

Virgin Atlantic App Helps Fight Fear of Flying

If a fear of flying keeps you grounded, Virgin Atlantic has a new iPhone application just for you.
Launched in partnership with developer Mental Workout, the new application is based on (and named after) the airline's Flying Without Fear course, which the company says has a 98 percent success rate.

 

10 best PlayStation 3 games of 2009

With a slew of excellent exclusive games, the PS3 is finally hitting its stride

Sony’s PlayStation 3 hasn’t had it easy ever since it debuted in 2006, with its competition (Nintendo’s Wii and Microsoft’s Xbox 360) outselling the machine sometimes by leaps and bounds. But things are really starting to look up for this powerful and feature-rich game console.
This year has seen the release of some excellent PS3-exclusive games, as well as a hefty price cut for the console and the introduction of the new PS3 Slim machine. And there are so many great PS3 games to choose from this holiday that it wasn’t easy to narrow the list down to a mere 10. But we did it.

'DJ Hero'

Rating: Teen
Price: $119.99
Like the many “Guitar Hero” and “Rock Band” games crowding the market today, “DJ Hero” is a rhythm game – but this one boldly struts down its own unique road.
The game comes with a specially created turntable controller, a compact and well-constructed device that won’t take up too much room in closets already overstuffed with fake plastic guitars and drum peripherals. Using the controller, players simulate the music mixing and mashing of turntable-ism. Tap colored face buttons, swish the turntable back and forth and manipulate a crossfader as you meld two songs together like the best of the beat masters.
Meanwhile, the track list is simply fantastic. “DJ Hero” is chock full of great music from the likes of David Bowie, 50 Cent, Daft Punk and Queen. This game will rock you.

 'Street Fighter IV'

Rating: Teen
Price: $29.99
Fighting-game fans had a very good reason to rejoice this year, as the long-running “Street Fighter” franchise got one seriously awesome makeover and update. “Street Fighter IV” brings back the tried-and-true brawling action that gamers have grown to love, but it adds a whole lot of excellent upgrades and new flourishes.
Players can take many of the classic characters they love into the fight (Chun-Li and Ryu among them), but the game adds some butt-kicking new characters to play as well (Crimson Viper and El Fuerte, for example). Meanwhile, the visuals have been given a gorgeous, beefed-up overhaul and the combat system now includes Focus Attack, Super Combo and Ultra Combo systems.
Ultimately, what makes this game great is that it’s approachable enough for brawling newbies and yet so packed full of depth and detail that seasoned “Street Fighter” fans will enjoy duking it out for eons.

'Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time'

Rating: E10+
Price: $59.99
Ratchet and Clank – that adventure-seeking lombax and his trusty robot friend – are two of the most beloved Sony game characters. And with “Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time,” the dynamic duo returns in excellent form.
“A Crack in Time” is the sequel to two of the most recent R&C games (“Tools of Destruction” and “Quest for Booty”) and finds Ratchet setting out on a quest to save his robo-buddy Clank from the clutches of Dr. Nefarious. The game is chock-full of puzzles to solve, shooting and lots of runnin’ and jumpin’, and it tosses in some great space-flight missions to boot. Meanwhile, not only does this newest adventure look fantastic, but as the title implies, it includes some excellent time-manipulation segments to tweak your brain.
With their zany sense of humor and deep, polished gameplay, “Ratchet & Clank” games tend to be tons of good fun ... and this latest adventure is exactly that.

'Flower'

Rating: E
Price: $9.99 (download from PlayStation Network)
One of the year’s most original games can be found only for the PlayStation3. It’s called “Flower,” and as its name implies, it’s a game about ... flowers. Seriously. And yes, it’s amazing.
“Flower” begins with a single petal riding on a breeze. You send it sailing across grassy meadows, collecting petals from other flowers until you’ve become a swirling trail of petals with the power to affect the environment around you. Sometimes you bring light to the landscape, sometimes you bring color. But no matter what you’re doing, you soar through the air with an unparalleled feeling of grace.
Developed by indie favorites ThatGameCompany, “Flower” features dazzling graphics and simple controls. Tilt the PS3’s motion-sensitive controller to steer your petals where you want them to go, and push any button you like to propel them forward on the breeze. Despite its seeming simplicity, “Flower” is deeply absorbing and a testament to just how creative and inspiring video games can be.

'inFAMOUS'

Rating: Teen
Price: $39.99
Will you be a good guy or a bad guy? That’s the question this excellent, action-packed PS3 exclusive asks players.
In this game, gamers take on the role of Cole, a bike messenger given electrical superpowers during a mysterious blast that devastated the city around him. Cole is beset with tough choices from the get-go as he tries to figure out what’s happened to him and his city. That is, “inFAMOUS” gives players a choice: Be a good guy who sacrifices himself in order to do right by the troubled world around him, or be a bad guy who uses his newly found powers for his own gain. The game uses a karma system, an omnipotent score keeper that tallies your good actions and your bad ones. Cole and the environment around him change depending on the choices you make.
But no matter how you play this game, you’ll have a blast. Whether you’re exploring the open world, scaling massive buildings with ease or wielding some pretty fantastic super powers, “inFAMOUS” is a thrill to play.

'Assassin's Creed II'

Rating: M
Price: $59.99
This gorgeous and epic action-adventure game is not just beautiful to look at, but it’s a thing of beauty to play as well. An open-world game, “Assassin’s Creed II” delivers many welcome improvements over its predecessor, as well as many hours of superb gameplay and a stellar time-spanning story of assassination and intrigue.
This game’s tale moves between past and future as you play Desmond Miles, a man training to become an assassin by slipping into a device that allows him to live the life of his ancestor, a young Italian man from the 15th century who is learning to become an assassin himself. The presentation is amazing. With jaw agape, you will marvel at the stunning Renaissance-era vistas laid out before you. Meanwhile, running, leaping and scaling your way around this world is exhilarating. You’ll execute stunning acrobatics and jump into beautifully animated fights and assassinations. And it’s a real blast to use gadgets created by the young Leonardo da Vinci.

'Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2'

Rating: M Price: $59.99 War ain’t pretty and “Modern Warfare 2” makes sure players know it. Of course, when it comes to video game wars, war can be a lot of fun too, and this first-person shooter makes sure players know that as well. The game – a sequel to the hit “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare” – takes players from the slums of Rio to the caverns of Afghanistan as it weaves a tale of a world falling into conflict. This action-filled yarn has you trying to stop a bloodthirsty terrorist, defending American soil and, ultimately, stopping the entire globe from tearing itself apart. As in previous “Call of Duty” games, the single-player campaign lets players live out this adventure from the perspective of several characters, each involved in a different aspect of the conflict. The game includes an especially controversial and bloody scene in an airport and sometimes fails as it tries to piece together a smooth-flowing story. But “Modern Warfare 2” is engaging as all get out with some amazing battles set on American soil and some truly heart-pounding segments set in Rio. War-game and first-person shooter fans will be thrilled to jump into this battle.

'Killzone 2'

Rating: M
Price: $59.99
This action-packed first-person shooter puts players into the thick of an epic, otherworldly war. Playing as Sev, a battle-hardened warrior, players are tasked with joining a team of soldiers on a mission to capture the fascist enemy leader and put a stop to his devastating advances.
The game’s graphics are nothing short of stunning, and the many weapons at your disposal are a blast to put into action. Meanwhile, the game’s pacing is chaotic and intense (and we mean that in a good way), and the massive battles are impressive to behold. Beyond that, “Killzone 2's” multiplayer is absolutely top-notch.

'Batman: Arkham Asylum'

Rating: Teen
Price: $59.99
“Batman: Arkham Asylum” is a masterpiece, plain and simple. This action-adventure game of stealth finds our hero trapped in the prison known as Arkham Asylum, along with a host of crazed killers and the Joker, who is up to some serious no good. To set things right, you’ll find yourself swooping among the gargoyles in the rafters, taking on rooms full of thugs, putting Batman’s super-cool gadgets to work and much more.
The graphics are eye-popping, the stealth action is thrilling and the fighting is so gorgeously choreographed and beautifully implemented you’ll never want to stop taking down Arkham’s many bad guys. Meanwhile the story is gripping and the voice acting is superb. There so much that’s great about this title that we could go on and on. But suffice it to say that “Batman: Arkham Asylum” is among the very best games out there.

'Uncharted 2: Among Thieves'

Rating: Teen
Price: $59.99
Pardon us for a moment as we lavish praise upon this action-adventure game. Thrilling. Gorgeous. Fun. Phenomenal. In short, “Uncharted 2” is � WOW!
From the cliff-hanger of an opening scene on through to the end, you won’t know whether you’re in the midst of a blockbuster movie or a blockbuster game. That is to say, as players take Nathan Drake on a world-hopping adventure to find a lost city and a powerful stone, the game comes together with the best kind of cinematic life complete with a superbly crafted story, excellent voice acting and refined music to boot. Whether you’re shooting, solving puzzles or climbing about the varied and often dynamic environments before you, there’s no better way to show off the power of the PS3 than to toss in this game, which is simply stunning to look at on every level. Meanwhile “Uncharted 2” brings both co-op and competitive online play to the series for the first time.
Xbox and Wii owners, eat your heart out. You won’t be able to play “Uncharted 2” on anything but a PS3.

YouTube's top 2009 videos feature eclectic cast

Susan Boyle mesmerized the world on a British talent show 

 

The year's biggest hits on the Internet's top video channel were anchored by an improbable singing sensation, a groggy boy nursing a sore mouth, a bride and groom dancing down the wedding aisle, supernatural heartthrobs and roller-skating babies.

The eclectic cast of characters starring in YouTube's most-watched videos of 2009 served as a reminder of the quirky appeal of a Web site that accepts about 20 hours of new video every minute.

The list released Wednesday marks the first time that YouTube has ranked its most-watched videos in any year since its 2005 inception.

 

Microsoft Hopes To Win Back Browser Market Share With Internet Explorer 8

Microsoft has a lot at stake with the success of Internet Explore 8 since they lost 7 percent of their browser market to Firefox, Safari, and Chrome browsers. IE8 has been in release candidate since January of 2009 and will mostly likely be a target for criticism for similar features already existing in Firefox, Safari, and Chrome browsers.

Microsoft claims that IE8 offers some new features and hopes that they can win back some of the browser market share they lost. Here are seven new and enhanced browsing features that hopefully will win back some former Internet Explore users.

Smart Address Bar

With the Smart Address Bar, IE8's address bar is transformed into a search field of sorts. By typing a word or phrase into the address bar, IE8 searches through your browsing history, favorites and feeds to find websites related to your word or phrase. The results are based on page titles and keywords within the web address.

Tab Groups

We all know that Firefox was the first browser to come out with Tab Browsing. Microsoft hopes that they can improve Tab Browsing by organizing the tabbed browsing concept with tab Groups.

This is accomplished by organizing tabs, that were opened from the same site, next to one another and using the same tab color. These tabs can then be closed or moved as one single unit.

Web Slices

Web Slices will keep you up-to-date on information that changes often such as weather forecast, stock quotes, sports, etc. Unfortunately not all sites will be compatible with the Web Slice functionality.

Whenever there are new updates the Web Slice section, which appears on your Favorites bar, is highlighted. By clicking on it you see a preview of the latest information and by clicking through to the link you are taken to the site where you can read all the details.

Enhanced Search Box

The enhanced search box on IE8 allows users to select what search engine they want and toggle between their choices. Each search engine will then display its search results in whatever format it chooses. For example, Live Search and Google search results is a drop-down list of text links, whereas eBay and Amazon searches are listed as thumbnails with descriptions.

Compatibility View Button

Sites that are not IE8 compatible will have their text and images misplaced on the page. By selecting the Compatibility View Button, the IE8 browser would use the IE7 rendering engine. IE8 also lets users maintain a list of non-compatible IE8 sites so that they don't have to click the Compatibility View Button every time they visit these sites.

Accelerators

An Accelerator icon, in the form of a blue arrow, appears whenever a word or phrase on a page is highlighted. By clicking on the icon, a list of related services appears related to the word or phase typed in.

Users can manage and add many accelerators for various web services. For instance, Windows Live, Google and Yahoo services, Wikipedia, YouTube, etc. The list goes on and covers most popular Web services.

In-Private Browsing

When you are In-Private browsing, IE8 does not store data about your browsing session. This is accomplished by disabling your Temporary Internet Files, Web Address History, Cookies and Passwords. An In-Private" icon appears to the left of the url in the address bar whenever you are In-Private browsing and can be deactivated by simply closing the window.

 

Google runs TV ads to promote Chrome browser

Google has floated its first US television advertisements, a campaign to promote its Web browser Chrome, which has captured just a tiny share of a market dominated by Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

Google became the dominant search engine on the Web without having to advertise but it has been forced to take a different approach to build up market share for Chrome.

On Friday, Google said it would run its first ad Google Chrome, a silent 30-second spot produced in Japan, over the weekend.

"We designed a Google TV Ads campaign which we hope will raise awareness of our browser, and also help us better understand how television can supplement our other online media campaigns," Google said in a post on the company blog.

"We're excited to see how this test goes and what impact television might have on creating more awareness of Google Chrome," it added.

Google launched Chrome in September but it has failed to enjoy the spectacular success of its search engine.

Chrome is currently the fourth-ranking Web browser with a market share of 1.4 percent, according to Web research firm Net Applications.

Internet Explorer is number one with 66.1 percent followed by Firefox's Mozilla with 22.5 percent and Apple's Safari with 8.2 percent.

Google Chrome extensions to be officially released

Google is expected to release its Extensions Gallery for general users of the new Chrome browser this week, possibly at the Add-On Conference on browser extensions to be held on December 11, 2009. Google is a platinum sponsor of the conference. An extensions site was unveiled a couple of weeks ago, but only for the use of developers.

The Google Extensions Gallery is expected to be similar to the Themes Gallery, with a list of available extensions and a download button for each. The gallery will be the first official release for end users. Extensions and support for them will only be available initially for Windows, but they are also expected to be available in future for the coming Mac and Linux versions.

Extensions expected to be available include SEO (search engine optimization) extensions to assist in Internet marketing, Shareaholic, a social media extension, Gmail compose, which lets you quickly compose an email through your gmail account, and Quicksearch, which speeds up searches using your favorite search engine.

Google Tasks for Chrome will give you complete control of your Google Task List and synchronize it with your Gmail Task List, and for those websites that only work correctly in Internet Explorer, a Chrome IE extension is expected to be available to let you open a tab and view the site in IE without leaving Chrome.

Trials of the developer versions of the extensions have shown they can be added or removed easily without the need to restart the Chrome browser. Since Chrome has been developed in open-source, anyone can develop extensions for it and upload them via the Google Chrome Extension Developer Dashboard. 

The availability of useful extensions for the Chrome browser will mean it is more customizable and possibly a stronger rival to Mozilla Firefox. Firefox can be easily customized by its add-ons, and this is one of the major reasons it has become so popular.

Google Chrome is a free browser that runs web pages extremely fast, and a raft of useful extensions may help it to reach Google's stated of of cornering at least 10% of the browser market share. 

YouTube chief says ad sales soaring

YouTube's chief executive says ad sales are soaring, but there is still no word on whether the popular video-sharing site is making money.

Chad Hurley, a YouTube co-founder, spoke in Jerusalem Tuesday at a launching ceremony for a personal YouTube channel by Israeli President Shimon Peres.

Hurley refused to provide specific figures for YouTube's performance. But he says the company had "two spectacular quarters" and that the site gets more than a billion views a day.

YouTube has been unprofitable since Google bought it for $1.76 billion three years ago, but Google executives have indicated it is getting close to reaching the black.

Peres said he wants to use the YouTube channel to hear ideas from people worldwide and communicate with them directly.

©2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 

Google CEO joins Twitter

Google chief executive Eric Schmidt, who took some flak earlier this year for calling Twitter a "poor man's email system," has joined the hot micro-blogging service.

Schmidt is "tweeting" under the handle @ericschmidt, a Twitter spokeswoman said in a Twitter message on Monday.

The Google's CEO's account was activated on December 1.

Schmidt has sent two "tweets," one of which was a link to an opinion piece he wrote last week in The Wall Street Journal, and has amassed nearly 7,500 followers in less than a week.

Schmidt made his disparaging remark about Twitter at the Morgan Stanley Technology conference in San Francisco in March but quickly backed away from the description in later comments, saying: "We admire Twitter."

"We think Twitter did a very good job of exposing a whole new way to communicate," he said.

Twitter's potential as a real-time search engine has sparked recurring bouts of speculation that Google may be interested in buying the company.

Twitter, which allows users to pepper one another with messages of 140 characters or less, has seen a dizzying surge in popularity since it was launched in August 2006. 

Super-Earths found around sunlike stars

Discoveries raise hopes of finding habitable planets like our own 

 

A computer simulation shows temperature patterns in the global atmospheric flow on the extrasolar planet known as 61 Vir b, which is so hot it glows.

Four newfound planets orbiting two nearby stars add weight to the promise of detecting habitable worlds within the next few years, researchers said today.

Two of the extrasolar planets are considered super-Earths, more massive than Earth but less massive than Uranus and Neptune. Spotting true Earth-sized planets is challenging with current technology, but the presence of super-Earths suggests finding a world like ours is just a matter of time, researchers say.

"These detections indicate that low-mass planets are quite common around nearby stars," said study team member Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "The discovery of potentially habitable nearby worlds may be just a few years away."

The astronomers are not sure if the super-Earths are rocky like our own world or if they have some other composition.

The team found the new planet systems by combining data gathered at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii and the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) in New South Wales, Australia. They inferred the existence of the planets by noting the worlds' gravitational effects on the parent star's orbit. This method is called the radial velocity, or wobble, technique.

The objects have not been photographed.

Three of the exoplanets orbit the star 61 Virginis, which is virtually a twin of the sun and lies 28 light-years away in the constellation of Virgo. (At this time of year, Virgo can be seen rising a few hours before the sun.)

The researchers estimated the minimum mass of each planet as: 5.1 Earth masses for 61 Vir b, 18 Earth masses for 61 Vir c, and 23 Earth masses for 61 Vir d, according study team member Chris Tinney of the University of New South Wales.

"So the smallest one is in the super-Earth mass range, and is the first planet like this to be found around a sunlike star," Tinney told SPACE.com.

Other super-Earths have been found around stars that are cooler and redder than the sun, he said.

Tinney added, "This is exciting, because it demonstrates the ability of our team to find planets at these interesting, small masses around solar-mass stars. If we want to one day find habitable planets that are really like the Earth in systems that are really like ours, then those are the sorts of stars we need to be able to find low-mass planets around."

Australian government to introduce Internet filter

Australia plans to introduce an Internet filtering system to block obscene and crime-linked Web sites despite concerns it will curtail freedoms and won't completely work.

Adopting a mandatory screening system would make Australia one of the strictest Internet regulators among the world's democracies. Authoritarian regimes commonly impose controls. China drew international criticism earlier this year with plans to install filtering software on all PCs sold in the country.
The government said Tuesday it will introduce legislation next year for the filter system to help protect Australians, especially children, from harmful material on the Internet. Critics say it will not prevent determined users from sharing such content, and could lead to unwarranted censorship by overzealous officials.
Communication Minister Stephen Conroy said the government would be transparent in compiling its blacklist of Web sites, but did not give details.
Conroy said the Australian filter was among a number of new measures aimed at strengthening online protection for families. It aims to block material such as child pornography, bestiality, rape and other sexual violence, along with detailed instructions about committing crimes or using illicit drugs.
Such material is already banned from publication on Australian sites, but the government currently has no control over it being accessed on servers overseas.
Conroy conceded it may not be completely successful.
"The government has always maintained there is no silver bullet solution to cyber-safety," he said in a statement. But, "it is important that all Australians, particularly young children, are protected from this material."
Critics say illegal material such as child pornography is often traded on peer-to-peer networks or chats, which would not be covered by the filter.
"The government knows this plan will not help Australian kids, nor will it aid in the policing of prohibited material," said Colin Jacobs, vice chairman of Electronic Frontiers Australia, a nonprofit group that seeks to promote online

"Given the problems in maintaining a secret blacklist and deciding what goes on it, we're at a loss to explain the minister's enthusiasm for this proposal," Jacobs said in an online posting.
The group is concerned the blacklist of sites to be blocked by the filter and the reasons for doing so would be kept secret, opening the possibility that legitimate sites might be censored.
Conroy's announcement coincided with the release of a report on a monthslong trial that found Internet service providers were able to block a list of more than 1,300 sites selected by the government without significantly hampering download speeds.
Telstra, Australia's largest Internet service provider, said blacklisting offensive sites using a filter system was feasible as long as the list was limited to a defined number of Web addresses, but that no single measure would make the Internet 100 percent safe.
"The blocking of a blacklist of sites is one element of the multifaceted approach that is required to create a safer online environment," Telstra Director of Public Policy David Quilty said.
Jacobs said smaller Internet service providers would likely struggle to pay the costs of imposing the new filters. Conroy said the government would help providers implement the filters, without going into details.
The filter would not likely not be in place before early in 2011.
Countries such as Egypt and Iran impose strict Internet controls, and bloggers have been imprisoned. China has a pervasive filtering system.
Controls in democracies that value free speech are less strict, though Internet providers have at times blocked or taken down content deemed to be offensive.
Canada, Sweden and Britain have filters, but they are voluntary. In the United States, Pennsylvania briefly imposed requirements for service providers to block child pornography sites, but a federal court struck down the law because the filters also blocked legitimate sites.
©2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

 

The best holiday iPhone apps

Check out some of our favorite picks that will let you keep track of your spending and eating — and help you make a drink or two.

The holiday season can be stressful: the shopping, the spending, even the parties can be incredibly stressful.
Luckily, all you Apple (AAPL) iPhone users have more than 100,000 apps to help your holiday season go a little smoother. Yes, there's the obvious "Better Christmas List" app or the “Asking Santa” app, but maybe before it gets too close to the yuletide cheer, you should make a trip to the iTunes app store. That'd be one way to make the trip to your in-laws a little more bearable.  All in all, a happy app holiday!
Make your shopping experience easier — and more affordable
Everyone's trying to find the best deals this time of year. And besides tackling someone on Black Friday or being glued to your laptop on Cyber Monday, you can look for apps that can help your shopping. Try Red Laser, priced at $1.99. All you do is take a picture of a product barcode, and it'll recognize the product and search for prices on Google (GOOG) and TheFind. So instead of buying something marked-up, you can see where you can get the item for the cheapest.
Stop using a checkbook and start using an app
There are more than enough apps to help you keep track of your finances. Mint.com, for instance, has caused a small revolution in the iPhone and digital community, showing you how much you're spending and how much you’re actually making. Mint.com is like having a digital version of your loving, but overbearing, scolding mother living in your inbox and iPhone. But for the holidays, try BudgetCare for $1.99. It's especially tailored for individual transactions. So this way if you just want to track your holiday expenses, it's a bit easier to sort through.
I'll be home for Christmas…on Wednesday at 5:32 p.m.
Many of us will be traveling for the holidays, and let's face it, we might enjoy the in-flight movie, but what we all care about is our destination — and whether we'll be home in time to make the holiday festivities. So rather than being preoccupied, you can stay occupied by checking your flight status in real-time with FlightTrack. For $4.99, you can check whether you'll have any delays, if they've switched gate numbers or if you just want to see which other planes are flying in the air with you.
Eggnog, anyone?

So you're finally home and you're in charge of drinks. No fear! Here comes (the free) Mixologist: Drink Recipes to the rescue! You've got almost 8,000 recipes at your disposal. Pick the liquor, pick the spritzer and shake it up–your iPhone, that is. And then you can pick up the real shaker and be the life of the party! This is one holiday app that keeps on giving.
Watch those calories!
Now that the party has really gotten started, it's easy to get stuck eating hundreds of obligatory holiday feasts. That really doesn't do much for your diet though — nor your pant size. So maybe it's best not to completely pig out and use an app that'll give you a handle on your eating. With livestrong.com's $2.99 Calorie Tracker app, you can search a food item, add it to your database and then you can search for the appropriate workout to burn those calories you just added to your system. Might as well get a head start on that New Year's resolution.
Let's make some Christmas cards
And no holiday would be complete unless you took some crazy photos and made them your Christmas card for next year. But why wait until next year, when you can dress them up and send them now? For $2.99, you can take a picture of your holiday antics, lay some Grinch illustrations on top of the faces you and your nephew are making and then send those greetings out to your loved ones right away. Who said the Grinch ruined Christmas?

 

Nine ways of looking at a Google phone

Google (GOOG) announced on its mobile blog Saturday what dozens of staffers had already leaked: the company has given employees around the world free handsets running its Android mobile operating system. The idea, according to the official report, is to have Google's own people test various advanced features and offer feedback to the company's designers — a process known in the business as "dogfooding" (as in "eating your own dogfood").
Not surprisingly, given Google's financial clout and the power it wields over the Internet, the experiment has launched a storm of speculation about what it means. As we sort through the theories, we count at least nine ways of looking at the Google phone:

1. Google is in the process of designing an unlocked cellphone that it plans to sell directly to the public online — bypassing the mobile carriers and brick-and-mortar retailers — sometime next year. This is the line TechCrunch took first and the Wall Street Journal has picked up, citing unnamed sources "familiar with the matter."  This theory underlies much of the theorizing that follows.
2. Google has watched with dismay as smartphone makers tweak the Android OS to suit their needs, fragmenting the software ecosystem and scaring off developers. "By putting its stake in the ground," writes GigaOm's Om Malik, "the company is hoping that it doesn’t make the mistake that Microsoft made by dragging its feet in releasing Zune and ceding the market to Apple’s iPod."
3. Apple (AAPL) has finally met its match in a competitor that has the resources, the partners and the staying power to challenge the iPhone. This, finally, is the real iPhone killer.
4. The iPhone, despite the failure of AT&T's (T) network to keep up with bandwidth demands in high-profile urban markets, continues to sell like crazy. Google realizes it has to move fast or the game will be lost.
5. A Google phone sold without a subsidy from the mobile carriers would be prohibitively expensive — at least $400, and probably more like $500 or $600, according to Ian Betteridge's back of the envelope calculations. (See his comments here.) A carrier like T-Mobile (DT) could sell the same phone for a fraction of the price.
6. Google could subsidize the phone out of its own pocket, perhaps giving it away for free to drive more traffic to its revenue-producing ads — a strategy that's worked for nearly every other project in Google Labs.
7. If Google were to try to sell a smartphone below cost, the company would be facing a 21st century version of the Microsoft (MSFT) antitrust trials, and the start of a long, slow decline.
8. Google is about to alienate the very hardware manufacturers it's counting on to carry the Android flag. Why would customers buy a Motorola (MOT) Droid, for example, when they could get the official Android smartphone from Google?
9. Google has no intention of making its own hardware. The so-called Google phone is actually  the HTC Passion (AKA Bravo), an Android 2.1 smartphone set for U.S. release by T-Mobile in January. The "dogfooding" exercise is exactly what Google said it was — a way to test a bunch of advanced Android features on a friendly user base before they go public.

NASA launches infrared telescope to scan entire sky

NASA launched a new telescope into space on Monday to scan the cosmos for undiscovered objects, including asteroids and comets that might threaten Earth.

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, spacecraft will employ an infrared camera to detect light- and heat-emitting objects that other orbiting telescopes, such as the Hubble, might miss.

WISE launched Monday at 9:09 a.m. ET aboard a Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The launch was postponed from Friday because of a problem with the motion of a booster steering engine.

The unmanned WISE will spend the next nine months in orbit, 326 miles above the Earth, mapping the universe in infrared light. Its lens eventually will cover the whole sky 1½ times, snapping a picture every 11 seconds.

"The last time we mapped the whole sky at these particular infrared wavelengths was 26 years ago," said Edward "Ned" Wright of UCLA, the principal investigator of the mission. He was referring to WISE's predecessor, the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, which launched in 1983 and discovered six comets.

"Infrared technology has come a long way since then," Wright said. "The old all-sky infrared pictures were like impressionist paintings -- now, we'll have images that look like actual photographs."

Watch video of the launch

The solar-powered WISE will not be the first infrared telescope in space. Two others -- NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory -- also catalog images of the universe, although both focus on specific celestial objects instead of surveying the entire sky.

Mission leaders expect WISE to find hundreds of asteroids and comets with orbits that come close to crossing Earth's path. By measuring the objects' infrared light, the telescope also should help determine their size and composition -- data that may help astronomers learn how often Earth can expect to be struck by a hurtling asteroid.

"We can help protect our Earth by learning more about the diversity of potentially hazardous asteroids and comets," said Amy Mainzer, deputy project scientist for the $320 million mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

WISE also will be looking for dim stars called brown dwarfs and millions of far-away galaxies that are shrouded in dust and often can't be seen in visible light.

Watch a video about the mission

Data taken by WISE will be downloaded by radio transmission four times per day to computers on Earth, which will combine the many overlapping images into an atlas covering the entire celestial sphere -- complete with a list of all the detected objects.

The rocket is expected to cross the California coastline shortly after liftoff and head south, out over the Pacific Ocean. About five minutes later, the "fairing" covering the telescope was expected to split open like a clamshell and fall away.

At about 55 minutes after launch, the spacecraft is expected to reach its final orbit and separate from the rocket. Engineers expected to pick up a signal from WISE anywhere from about one to 10 minutes after separation.