Microsoft made a beta version of Windows Vista publicly available for download, kicking off what it called its "Customer Preview Program," a testing period in which the software maker hopes millions of tech enthusiasts will kick the tires on the new operating system.
Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications, is designed to validate whether a copy of Windows has been legitimately acquired. However, it also checks in with Microsoft on a daily basis.
This has alarmed some people, such as Lauren Weinstein, a civil liberties activist, who likened it to spyware in a blog posting.
Read MoreGoogle launched a Web-based spreadsheet program that will allow people to view and simultaneously edit data while conducting "in-document" chat.
With the launch Google is directly competing with Microsoft's desktop-based Excel spreadsheet program.
Read MoreThis morning the Washington Journal reported that Adobe might be planning to sue Microsoft over the inclusion of export-to-pdf functionality in Office 2007. As a result of this, Microsoft has agreed to remove the Save as PDF functionality from Office 2007.
Firefox 1.5.0.4 and Thunderbird 1.5.0.4 provide improved security and stability. Thunderbird also contains Universal Binary Support for Mac OS X which provides native support for Macintosh with Intel Core processors.
Read MoreWith the acquisition of Macromedia’s products, many people expected Adobe to cut its own Web authoring tool, GoLive, in favor of further developing Dreamweaver. Adobe did not dispute the importance of Dreamweaver for the future of the company’s products.
An Adobe representative says “Adobe plans to continue to support GoLive and Freehand and develop these products based on our customer’s needs.”
Read MoreYahoo launched a new video Web site at video.yahoo.com. The new video page displays featured videos among viewers and includes a search box at the top. Users can also browse for video by categories or user-generated tags.
Ask.com has launched a new blog search service this week. Blogs become more and more popular for news or information on local or specialised topics. Ask.com is using the index already created and updated by subscribers to its popular Bloglines site.
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