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World News - Massacre in Mumbai

The deadly attacks on India's financial capital of Mumbai early Thursday by a group of suspected Muslim militants left more than 100 people dead, according to reports. The massacre came without warning with hostages taken in luxury hotels. Unlike previous outbursts of violence, the terrorists targeted foreigners, especially Americans and Britons.

Indian commandos moved painstakingly, room-by-room, through two massive five-star luxury hotels in a bid to free dozens of people trapped by suspected Muslim militants. Frequent gunshots and explosions, and orange flames billowed from the prestigious Taj Mahal hotel.

The gunmen, armed with assault rifles, hand grenades and explosives, also attacked a popular restaurant, a crowded train station, a Jewish center and at least five other sites.

India is no stranger to deadly terrorist attacks, but this time, the massacre in Mumbai is one of the worst incidents ever to take place in this city. Ever since the mass bloodletting of Partition gave birth to the Indian state in 1947, the Indian government has often struggled to accommodate the demands of numerous religious and political sectarian movements that have waged a variety of low level campaigns against the Delhi government.

The Britney Brigade Will Not Leave Spears Alone

When you are a celeb like Britney Spears, wherever she goes, the paparazzis will follow. So Britney is off to Germany for a Euro gig. And as expected the Britney media circus was all over her as she arrives in Los Angeles airport for her flight.

Global Financial Crisis Dominates Apec

The global financial crisis remains at the forefront of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Lima. As the APEC meeting draws to a close 21 leaders from Pacific Rim economies backed free trade to help ease the economic crisis.

The leaders are meeting at a time when economies around the world are taking a slamming from the crisis. The group includes Russia, Indonesia, Australia, Canada, Mexico and the U.S. The member states account for more than half of global output.

World Economy - Asia Facing the Global Financial Crisis

Earlier this year, most businessmen and investors hoped that Asia's emerging economies could withstand the economic and financial turmoil in the developed world.

Now, however, stock markets seem to be betting on a rerun of Asia's deep recession after its own crisis in 1997-98. Share prices in the region have plunged by an average of two-thirds (in dollar terms) from their peak in 2007 almost as much as they fell during the Asian financial crisis.

Is Asia really heading for such a painful economic slump?

Meanwhile, leaders from Asia-Pacific countries have pledged not to respond to the global financial crisis by raising trade barriers over the next year.

In a statement issued at an Apec summit in Peru, they said protectionism would only worsen a difficult situation.

US President George W Bush urged Apec countries, which account for half the world's economic activity, to rely on free markets to resolve the crisis.

The meeting is Mr Bush's last scheduled foreign trip as US president before Barack Obama takes over as the 44th U.S. president. The statement was issued at the half-way point of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit.

Barack Obama In Historic, Landslide Victory

It's a historic, landslide victory for Democrat Senator Barack Obama who will become the 44th president of the United States of America.

Being the first African-American to be elected as a black president, Obama has turned into reality what many considered the politically impossible.

Civil rights icon Martin Luther King spoke of his dream for America on August 28, 1963. In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed.

On January 20, 2009, President-elect Obama will appear on the US Capitol to seal his historic triumph with just 35 words: the presidential oath of office.

Race to the White House: The Final Dash

Front-running Democrat Barack Obama, seeking to become the first African-American president, and Republican John McCain enter the final lap Tuesday in their race to the White House.

After an epic campaign, Democrats are targeting big gains in the Senate and House of Representatives, after eight turbulent years under President George W. Bush.

Senator Obama is the hot favorite with wide leads in national polls and the edge in a string of battleground states which could swing the election either way.

The US is facing its worst financial crisis since the 1930s and with American troops embroiled in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, both Obama and McCain have pledged to restore the frayed self-confidence of the world's lone superpower.

The World: People and Places

Google Chrome - The Future of Web Browsing?

I can't remember the date but I can remember that one American journalist who witnessed the first Bruce Springsteen concert went back and wrote "I saw the future of rock and roll..."

So am I seeing the future of web browsing in the form of Google Chrome? As I write this, it's day three since I downloaded this beta version of Chrome and to my delight this baby sure can fly!

If you scout the Internet, you will probably get the impression that a gadzillion of browser users have downloaded and tried out Chrome and the feedback is that most agreed that this one moves in the fast lane.

Google use the same webkit as Apple's Safari browser and that says a lot about its speed. We all like fast loading browsers and Chrome definitely showed us what it can do. Chrome is an open source browser like Mozilla Firefox.

Chrome comes with some nifty features like Incognito that allows you to browse the web while staying under the radar - Goog do not keep tabs on your movements or clicking habits. The History feature shows you all the sites that you have visited and it allows you to delete any site from the list. Bookmarking looks like a breeze to use, too.

While there are many bouquets for Chrome, there are bound to be brickbats as well. There's one report that says Google's new browser has many technical issues that need to be addressed. Also, Google is working to disable a problematic security flaw in the software.

Many ardent Firefox users may argue that they will miss their plug-ins and add-ons if they were to switch to Chrome, but they forget that it's still beta and knowing Google with their great resources, who knows what the Mountain View giant can do to improve on Chrome.

Although Chrome has yet to prove itself as a revolutionary web browser, the beta version shows great promise. What more, when it sheds off its beta shell we might be seeing a truly cutting edge browser. That will be the day.

Take a peep at this video:

For more reading:

Why Google Chrome won't crash Windows

Great Bolt of Lightning Strikes Olympics

Credit: hannahspanna


Credit: hannahspanna


The man they love to call Lightning Bolt became just the ninth man in modern Olympic history to complete the 100m and 200m sprint double, shattering the world records for the two events.

Usain Bolt now joins an exclusive club following his two victories at Beijing's Bird's Nest.

The 21-year-old Jamaican knocked 0.03 seconds off his own record in winning the 100m title with a sensational 9.69 run on Saturday.

Then Bolt stormed to victory in the 200 metres final at the Bird's Nest on Wednesday with a new world record. He clocked 19.30secs to crack American Michael Johnson's 12-year-old record of 19.32 secs.

He is the first man since Carl Lewis at the Los Angeles Games in 1984 to complete the feat.

World: Conflict in Georgia

2008 Olympics: A Spectacular Show in Beijing, China

China kicked off the 2008 Olympic Games with a spectacular show in the Bird's Nest stadium in Beijing on Friday - considered an auspicious day for the Chinese because of the date 08-08-08.

Athletes from more than 200 countries took part in the opening ceremony. Chinese basketball superstar, 7ft 6in Yao Ming carried the Chinese flag leading the national contingent which is the biggest among the competing nations.

China's 1984 Olympic gold medallist, gymnast Li Ning, had the honour of igniting the Olympic cauldron to close the dazzling ceremony in spectacular fashion by completing a lap of the arena, suspended in mid-air.



> Beijing's big moment

Big Plan for Friendster in the Asia Pacific Region

Forget MySpace and Facebook. In the Asia Pacific region Friendster is the king of social networking sites. Numero uno.

Last Tuesday, Friendster appointed a new CEO - Richard Kimber, the former regional managing director of South Asia at Google.

Along with Kimber, Friendster will get an injection of $20 million in funding from IDG Ventures which, according to the social networking site, will be used to push Friendster's presence in the Asia Pacific region.

In retrospect, for those short on memory, Friendster was once the leading social network everywhere but it slipped up along the way and allowed MySpace, Facebook and some others to steal its thunder.

Dumped mainly by U.S. audience, Friendster had quietly remain active in the Asian region and, according to new chief Kimber, it is growing strongly in Asia-Pacific. So far, Friendster has built up a 75 million user base. That's not bad for a social network site ignored in the West but loved by many in the East.

Now You Can Say They Are Truly Delicious

It's about time, too. Wonder why it took this social bookmarking service so long to make their site "the tastiest bookmarks on the web"? At last, users can truly say that it's NOW Delicious -- and NOT Del.icio.us.

We couldn't remember how to spell the word when it was interspersed with a couple of dots. It was so confusing that a gadzillion of users have misspelt it over the years. Try "de.licio.us" or "deli.cio.us" or "del.licio.us" and everyone ends up banging heads.

Well, it was a clever play of the word but in the end it was an idea that was just not on.

Thank goodness, the delightful folks at Delicious.com (that's in plain English now) have wised up to the situation and they have done a lot of background work to give us a new-look web site and some new features while retaining the uniform blue throughout.

Delicious.com has an updated user interface, overhauled its search engine to make it faster and more powerful, and moved its new infrastructure to a new platform to keep up with traffic growth.

Now it shouldn't be a problem for you to key in the word and get to the site.

Try New Search Engine Cuil for Size

A search result by Cuil

Size does matter for the folks at Cuil.com. If being the "biggest search engine on the planet" with an index of more than 120 billion pages is not cool, then who else is cool?

Cuil (pronounced as COOL) is the new search engine that was launched on July 28 with great fanfare and, according to some pundits, it has the potential to nudge market leader Google down a peg or two. Google has seen off a long line of search challengers and it will be interesting to see whether Cuil will pose a real threat this time.

Cuil is an ancient Celtic word for Knowledge, reflecting the background of co-founder and CEO, Tom Costello, who hails from Drogheda, Ireland.



The other co-founders of this exciting new search engine are former Googlers Anna Patterson and Russell Power of the TeraGoogle Project.

According to Cuil, their goals are to index the whole Web which has been growing exponentially in the last 15 years. Cuil scour the Internet, indexing more pages than anyone else, Google included. They are doing it with a new approach in search, creating an entirely new architecture and breakthrough algorithms.

One good aspect coming out of Cuil is that they don't collect data of users unlike Google.


Of related interest:
Google is Goog but Cuil IS Cool

Updated Video News Feeds

Microsoft gives up bid for Yahoo

A shotgun marriage that appeared to be boiling up eventually fizzled out. We are talking about Microsoft's ongoing three-month flirting with Yahoo. Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer, according to the BBC website news, had formally pulled back the $47.5bn offer to buy Internet company Yahoo. The main reason was that the two parties could not agree on an acceptable sale price.

The Seattle company that dominates PC usage with its Windows operating system was rebuffed by Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang who had insisted on at least $53bn or $37 a share before any deal could be closed.

Microsoft had earlier offered to buy Yahoo at $44.6bn but raised the offer to $47.5bn at $33 per share - but, obviously, Yahoo was not keen to take the bait and instead demanded more.

The lucrative Internet advertising market was worth $40bn in 2007 and is predicted to double to $80bn by 2010. Microsoft has been looking for a good buyout as it seeks to counter the dominance of Google in Internet advertising.

According to the BBC's Peter Bowes, analysts believe the breakdown in talks may have an adverse affect on Yahoo shares and generate uncertainty among investors about the company's management.

Why Is Adsense Revenue Dropping?

As we all know, Google AdSense has been a cash cow for many website and blog publishers since 2003. But since November 18 last year, there have been a number of reports that Adsense revenue have dropped for these publishers. Many reasons were given as to why the Adsense earnings were dropping.

At Joel Comm's Internet Marketing Tips site, one viewer had posed the question: "Why did my AdSense revenue drop in half starting November 18,
2007? And what can I do about it?"

According to Joel (Yes, he's the guy who wrote best selling book "The Adsense Code") he's got this theory on the drop, and also he has some encouraging answers to allay the fear of publishers regarding Adsense.

Syndicating Your Blog And Make Money

WebProNews talked with President of Newstex Larry Schwartz about the benefits and disadvantages of syndicating blogs. It seems syndication is an easy way to make money from blogging. In this video, Schwartz hands out some tips along with other various topics of syndication. Dig in!

Blogging And Commenting

How to get readers to your blog and get them to leave their comments? And how do you cope with negative and spammy comments? All this can be quite a challenge to most bloggers. WebProNews reporter Abby Prince managed to talk to Leo Laporte, host of TWiT.tv and blogger of Leoville.com, as well as Matt Mullenweg, founding developer of WordPress and blogger of photomatt.net about these very issues. Catch their views on this video clip.

The Best Company To Work For In America

Understanding MSN Live Search

WebProNews Mike McDonald took Jeremiah Andrick, Product Manager of Live Search Webmaster Tools on a wild, Kentucky escapade while picking his brain about Webmaster Tools at MSN.

Andrick discusses indexing issues, cloaking detection, and goes into detail about why Adsense showed up in their search results.

Also discussed: Why transparency is key and why people should stay away from paid links.

Are You Ready For ChaCha?

ChaCha.com has launched a powerful new mobile initiative. WebProNews Reporter Abby Prince sat down with Brad Bostic, ChaCha's President and Co-Founder, to talk about the new service.

All About Google Quality Score

Google Quality Score has received both positive and negative attention. WebProNews spoke with Andrew Goodman, the Founder and Principal of Page-Zero Media, about Google’s Quality Score. He explains Google’s perspective of the Quality Score, but he also talks about the difficulties people experience with it.