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Micorost and Yahoo search deal delayed
Yahoo and Microsoft have missed a deadline for finalizing their search and advertising deal, and have now extended the process for an unspecified period. When the companies announced in July that Microsoft’s Bing search engine would power Yahoo’s search results, they said that they planned to finalize the deal by Oct. 27 or use an arbitration panel to hammer out their differences, although they haven’t yet called in the arbitration panel. Yahoo and Microsoft initially estimated it would take them two years to fully implement the deal, which also involves Yahoo providing premium search advertising services for both companies.
Google enhances music search
Google is changing the way it resolves music-related search queries through a variety of partnerships designed to help it provide more relevant and useful results. The updates are significant, given that Google gets millions of queries every day about recording artists, albums and songs. The results will now include links to audio previews of songs, thanks to partnerships with Lala.com and MySpace, which owns iLike. Google said it will also be better able to recognize snippets of lyrics, which could be useful when people know a few lines from a song but not its title. And its search results will include links to music sites Pandora, iMeem and Rhapsody.
Twitter users warned of scam
Twitter has warned its users of a new phishing scam designed to trick people into giving up their user names and passwords. The latest message reads, “hi. this you on here?” and includes a link to a fake Web site designed to look like a Twitter log-in page. After entering a user name and password, victims land on an empty blogspot page belonging to user NetMeg99. Victims get these direct messages only from people they follow on Twitter, so they seem more believable than other types of spam. Once a user has been phished by the attack, the criminals are then able to direct message all of the victim’s contacts with the phishing spam.
Taiwan manufacturer sees better times ahead
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing reported its best quarterly net profit and sales in a year on Thursday, and predicted even better times ahead as the impact of the global recession fades. The company also raised its forecast for spending on new chip production lines, due to strong demand for high-end chips.