Google on Tuesday ramped up Internet search speeds by letting people use speech or images to express what they want faster."We at Google will not be happy until we make the Web as easy to flip through as a magazine," Google spokesman Amit Singhal said at an "Inside Search" event in San Francisco. "We measure every millisecond," he continued. "The time it takes Google to return a result is negligible compared to how long it takes the user to enter the query." One the other end of the search, it takes an average of five seconds for a Web page to load once a person has clicked on a link listed in query results, according to Singhal. Members of Google's search team rolled out the California-based firm's latest innovations crafted to deliver the knowledge being sought "in the blink of an eye." Google's latest spanned all gadgets from desktops using Chrome software to browse the Internet to the latest Android-powered smartphones or tablet computers. "In mobile, we are always thinking about how we can make the process of getting those results easier," said Google mobile engineering director Scott Huffman. Google added icons to the bottom of mobile search pages that let people do common searches such as for restaurants, cafes, or bars with a single click instead of having to type in queries. Google also began letting people build queries with simple "plus" buttons and providing instant previews of search results pages that could be glimpsed with simple swipes of a finger on a touchscreen. Visit us at FastFind
Windows users are being warned about a new fake virus attack, which tricks users into installing malicious software, by posing as a Microsoft security update. Affected users will see an almost exact replica of the real Microsoft update page - the only difference being that the bogus page appears while surfing with third party browser, whereas the genuine Microsoft update site requires Internet Explorer. The report by Sophos, makes an observation that such fake anti-virus attacks have become more professional in approach and appearance which leads to people getting tricked easily. The use of the Microsoft update disguise takes advantage of the monthly 'Patch Tuesday' security updates that Microsoft regularly issues, and that users are encouraged to install to defend their computers. "Users need to be more vigilant than ever before as bogus security alerts pop-up in their browsers. Fake anti-virus attacks are big business for cybercriminals and they are investing time and effort into making them as convincing as possible," said Graham Cluley, Senior Technology Consultant at Sophos. "Malicious hackers are using smart social engineering tricks more and more often, and the risk is that users will be scared by a phoney warning into handing over money to fix problems that never existed in the first place." 
Nokia and Apple have just announced that they signed a patent license agreement, which settles all the patent litigation between the companies. Apple will make a one-time payment to Nokia and on-going royalties for the term of the agreement and both sides will withdraw their patent complaints. After several months of court battles and several lawsuits filled by the parties it all ended with a settlement, rather than a court order. Obviously it was Nokia that had the stronger arguments in their favor as Apple has agreed to make pay an undisclosed amount upfront as well as on-going royalties to the Finnish company. Unfortunately, given the confidential nature of the agreement we'll probably never learn the actual numbers. Here is the relevant part of the official Nokia press release: The financial structure of the agreement consists of a one-time payment payable by Apple and on-going royalties to be paid by Apple to Nokia for the term of the agreement. The specific terms of the contract are confidential. "We are very pleased to have Apple join the growing number of Nokia licensees," said Stephen Elop, president and chief executive officer of Nokia. "This settlement demonstrates Nokia's industry leading patent portfolio and enables us to focus on further licensing opportunities in the mobile communications market." 
Nokia has lost initiative in smartphone market to Apple's iPhone & Google Inc's Android devices. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd will become the world's largest smartphone maker this quarter, overtaking struggling Nokia which has lead the market since 1996, Nomura said on Monday. In the next quarter Nomura also sees also Apple Inc overtaking Nokia, pushing the Finnish company to No. 3 in the rankings. "Nokia looks set to relinquish its smartphone crown to Samsung and Apple," Nomura analysts said in a research note. "Further emphasising the shift in power to Asia is our forecast for HTC to almost match Nokia during 2012." Research firms Gartner and Canalys both said they saw Nokia - which created the smartphone market with its 1996 launch of the Communicator model - losing smartphone volume leadership later this year. "If Nokia's new phones are not well received in the third quarter and (with) the Galaxy S2 ramping up, Samsung might overtake them and become the smartphone leader in Q3," said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi. Nokia has lost initiative in the smartphone market to Apple's iPhone and Google Inc's Android devices, and at the lower end to more nimble Asian rivals. Overall, Nokia still makes more cellphones than Samsung due to its strong position in basic cellphones and its wider distribution network in emerging countries. The company is switching to Microsoft Corp's software from its own Symbian platform as part of an overhaul of its phone business set out in February by new Chief Executive Stephen Elop. 
Google has purchased Admeld, a yield optimization firm, in a move to simplify the process of buying display ads. The acquisition, which had been rumored last week, was confirmed on The Official Google Blog on Monday. In the post, Neal Mohan, Google's vice president of display advertising, explained the purchase as a way for Google to become more of a one-stop-shop for advertisers. "We often hear from major website publishers that ad management today is still mind-numbingly complicated and inefficient," Mohan wrote. "We've been investing in our publisher tools to try and improve this landscape and have made great progress, but we think we can do even better." Mohan goes on to explain that there are a few different ways for publishers to sell ads — directly, indirectly via an ad network, or via an ad exchange or technology platform. The three options lead some publishers to hire a yield optimization provider like Admeld. Such firms supply technology "to select ads from across these many indirect options, while providing personalized service and support." The goal of the Admeld buy, Mohan writes, is to make display advertising simpler and more efficient. Google's pending purchase comes as the display ad business is booming. The company, which just got into the business in 2009, has already surpassed Yahoo in market share, according to IDC. But, the Admeld purchase, which was reported to be in the $400 million range (Google did not confirm the figure), is likely to undergo heavy scrutiny from government regulators since Google is already dominant in search advertising. 
According to the Spanish police Twitter feed, the hackers were arrested in Spanish cities of Barcelona, Alicante and Almeria and a server hosted in Gijon was seized, as well. They also claim that they have dismantled the Anonymous hacker group in Spain who were responsible for attacking the PlayStation Store. The police said that these individuals have the capacity to make decisions and direct attacks. They also claim that the group has the ability to coordinate DDoS attacks to collapse Web sites around the world and are considered a threat by NATO. According to a report, these arrests were made after investigation which began in October 2010. The Spanish police say that the arrests were made after going through millions of lines of chat logs to discover who was behind the group's activity. The report goes on to say that some of the attacks made by the group's members used a web based tool called Loic to fill the targeted sites with the required data. 
Facebook said it is dabbling with a Twitter-like feature that alerts members in real time to what their friends are up to on thesocial network. The feature, reportedly called "Happening Now," is being tried by a "fraction of a percent" of Facebook's more than 600 million members, according to the world's leading online social network. "We are currently testing a feature within News Feed that gives people the ability to see what their friends are commenting on and 'liking,' as these actions are being taken on Facebook," the California company said in an email reply to an AFP inquiry. "In the coming weeks, as we learn more from this test, we'll keep making improvements and may expand it to more people." The feature was seen by some as a potential challenge to global microblogging service Twitter, which lets people share what they are thinking, doing, or seeing instantly in messages of 140 or fewer characters. The new Facebook feature for now apparently alerts people to what friends are doing at the social network. 
According to the Hacker News, Anonymous posted an image on the website with their logo along with a statement to the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saying that this time they speak to the government of India through the NIC homepage and sub-domains. The post also goes on to say that there was no use trying to secure the websites or the need to get in forensics to help resolve the situation. The last line seems like a direct taunt at the government with the image saying that they do not like to talk too much and that it was their world, so expect them.
According to their Twitter posts, the group hacked the website in retaliation to the attacks on Baba Ramdev and to awaken the government. They have also started a movement on Twitter account named OperationIndia and have also started a group on Facebook -http://www.facebook.com/OperationIndia. Anonymous have even issued a press release stating their cause and their intentions to fight against the removal of corruption in India in all its forms. They also stress on their support to Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev and other individuals who support the Jan Lokpal Bill. One of their requests included the request for severe punishment to be doled out to corrupt officials. Anonymous warned the government through their press release that until the above demands were met the 
Google Chrome 12 is now the stable release of Google's web browser, bringing several improvements in security, privacy and graphics capabilities. Chrome now checks downloaded files for malware, and Google claims it has designed the feature in such a way that it doesn't have to know which URLs you visited or which files you downloaded to be able to detect malicious files. You can now also fine tune the data that websites store on your computer, including Flash Player's Local Shared Objects (also known as Flash cookies), directly from Chrome. On the graphics front, Chrome 12 includes support for hardware-accelerated 3D CSS, which enables some nifty effects such as rotating and scaling videos. Try this 
India's largest mobile service provider Bharti Airtel has earned the dubious distinction of being the company facing the largest number of consumer complaints, according to latest government data. As per the latest data available with the National Consumer Helpline (NCH), as many as 2001 complaint calls were received against Bharti Airtel between March 2010 and February 2011. This was highest number of complaints against a single company, followed by state-owned telecom major BSNL (1986 complaints), PSU giant Indian Oil (1940), Anil Ambani-led telecom firm Reliance Communications (1792) and Nokia India (1616). Other companies in the top-ten list in terms of number of complaints included Samsung India (1560), SBI (912), BPCL (872), LIC (626) and ICICI Bank (569). NCH is a public service project of the Consumer Affairs Ministry run by Delhi University and has been functional since March 2005. It helps consumers in dealing with problems related to defective products, deficiency in services and unfair trade practices. There are as many as five telecom-related companies in the top ten. It also consists of five public sector firms. Out of total calls, the maximum complaints (21 per cent) were for defective products followed by telecom (17 per cent) and banking sector (7 per cent). "This list shows these companies have not been able to handle the issues being faced by their customers, which forces the customers to seek our guidance," NCH's Principal Investigator Sri Ram Khanna told PTI. It also sheds light on the management practices, especially customer redressal process of these companies, he added. This shows that these companies failed to solve the problems being faced by their customers, Khanna pointed out. NCH provides advice to consumers on a three tier model. In the firs