Internet pioneer and giant Yahoo will not sell out to Microsoft for 41 billion US dollar.

Read more on CNN

A message from Chris Mills, Opera:

Hi there,

We are filing a complaint with the European Commission against Microsoft, to try to force them to support web standards properly, and to decouple Internet Explorer from Windows. We think these actions are essential for the evolution of web standards and the open web, which Microsoft is hindering due to it’s dominant market share controlling consumer choice in web browsers and trying to force web developers to adopt proprietary technologies and techniques (ie hacks, and things like
Silverlight.) For more information, check out:

1. Håkon Wium Lie’s open letter to the web community at http://people.opera.com/howcome/2007/msft/
2. Opera’s press release on the subject at http://www.opera.com/pressreleases/en/2007/12/13/

We are doing this because we care about web standards and the open web, not because we are seeking any kind of monetary (or other) gain from the hopefully positive outcome.

Obviously decoupling IE from Windows might sound a bit strange - what would you do then, even if you did want to download another browser?
We are not asking for IE to be taken off Windows, rather we are requesting that users be given more of a choice in some way, or for other browsers to at least be acknowledged. The European Commission itself says that anything more than 40% market share begins to become illegally anti-competitive. Surely this rule applies here.

If you agree with us in this, then show your support by:

1. Blogging about it
2. Forwarding this to others in your network/company/group of friends 3. Getting your company to issue a press release about this in support, if appropriate

Thanks for listening.

Chris Mills
Developer Relationship Manager
Opera Software ASA

Facebook users attacked Beacon as a flagrant violation of privacy. The tool enables Facebook to track its users’ purchases and actions at dozens of Web sites and then broadcast the data on the pages of their listed friends within its social network.

“We’ve made a lot of mistakes building this feature, but we’ve made even more with how we’ve handled them,” Zuckerberg wrote on Facebook’s blog. “We simply did a bad job with this release, and I apologize for it.”

Read it all: Facebook sorry over Web tracker

The software industry in the future will be dominated by two types of software platform - open-source Linux and the proprietary Microsoft Windows platform - said Jim Zemlin, the executive director of the Linux Foundation.

Read More

Here are the news from Bangok Post (www.bangkokpost.com on this issue). Oral sex is not allowed in Singapore, chewing gums are not, but at least this game passed the ban after the second trial (only after international pressure). Ok, the test below is from Bangkok post, don’t sue me, Bangkok Post.

Censors lift ban on sci-fi game with same-sex scene

Singapore - Censors have lifted a ban on an Xbox video game for buyers 18 and older, reversing an earlier decision to impose a total ban over sex scenes between a woman and a female alien, news reports said Saturday.

The role-playing space adventure from Microsoft will be sold with an M-18 label, the first time a console or computer game has been issued a rating in the city-state.

In a statement published in The Straits Times, Singapore’s Board of Film Censors (BFC) said it would “selectively use games ratings to enable highly anticipated games to be launched in Singapore” before an official ratings system was due to take effect in January.

A video-game classification system will provide more choice for adults while protecting youths, the BFC said.

The ban was announced last week because of a scene depicting the human-alien couple in a brief love scene, which ends with the alien saying, “By the Gods, that was incredible, Commander.”

Homosexual acts are criminal in Singapore and rarely depicted in films or other works.

The earlier ban triggered a furore among gamers in the city-state and internationally. Singapore was the only country to ban the game ahead of its release.

Gamers and Microsoft welcomed the decision to rate and release Mass Effect.

“We will continue to work with MDA on promoting responsible gaming here,” said Ian Tan, Xbox 360 marketing communications manager for South-East Asia.

Microsoft submitted Mass Effect last week to the MDA as part of a routine procedure to get the game distributed.//DPA

Happy Birthday to a 10 year old with an old mans wisdom and expertise. The anti-virus and internet security company Kaspersky has been my favourite for years, probably 4 now, after I skipped Symantec’s Norton (mainly due to the heavy system resources), but Kaspersky has also proven the last years to outmatch any other anti-virus software out there in many conducted tests! Briefly;

This Russian security company (which is now 10 years old) can boast to probably have the best detection rate of protecting you against new and undiscovered viruses, still it is much more light-weight than say Norton and McAfee, meaning smaller installation and draws much less system resources giving you the capability to work more freely while knowing you are protected by the BEST.

You can have hourly updates, or choose how often it should update itself, or do it manually; you have the choice. The Internet Security Suite comes with anything you could want to stay secure; all are superb utilites AND you can customize them or turn off any of them whenever you wish; you are in control if you are a power user. They include:
Mail Anti-Virus, Web Anti-Virus, Proactive Defense, Anti-Spy, Anti-Hacker, Anti-Spam.
- Too much to digest? To put it in a more common laymans language; you are protected! It’s like wearing multiple condoms at the same time.

Viruses? They won’t get to you, internet firewall (anti-hacker as they call it, somebody get a bit confused) very good, spam filter ok (needs a bit of training though), and with all the other active defenses your computer is as safe as Fort Knox. One thing though, is that it will ask or inform you with a small pop-up in the right-down corner whenever it detects something suspicion or straight out dangerous. I like that! I want to know. If you don’t, you can tell it not to do in most cases.

Want to know more? Kaspersky Labs 10 year birthday
Want to scan your computer for viruses online? Kaspersky free virus scanner
And if you haven’t guessed it: Kaspersky Homepage

A few weeks ago Denis Dyack in Silicon Valley Knight said he wished an end to the game consol “war” would come soon. So that companies such as Microsoft, Sony, Sharp, Dell, Toshiba and others would create a platform which would use the best from all worlds and create games which would support 1 - one - consol.

Read more: BBC reports: EA wants ‘open gaming platform’

Following the earlier launch of the .eu domain name now it’s Asia’s turn with .asia. This domain name extension is believed to becomer a hot seller so if you wish to secure one act swiftly.

There are several places where you can apply and pre-register a .asia domain name, this is one: http://www.simply.com/asia-domains.html

If so, check out the link below, it may also inclue some more regional news.

Bangkokpost’s Database

Please note that we/I am not affiliated with Bangkok Post in any way and do not take any responsibility for the content on their site, still I think it is rather good.