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Yahoo to use Bing as its search engine
Microsoft and Yahoo have agreed to the terms of an online search and advertising deal that’s likely to be announced today, according to reports. The two sides are close to signing a partnership that, in a shift from earlier plans, would see Yahoo playing a greater role in search advertising, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, citing unnamed sources. A separate report in the Journal’s All Things Digital blog said that “while it is not clear if the actual papers have been inked, sources said negotiations are complete” and that the deal “will be announced” within the next 24 hours. The deal reportedly involves Yahoo agreeing to use Microsoft’s search engine on its Web sites, with Yahoo handling the sale of text ads that appear alongside the search results for its own sites and some of Microsoft’s.
Verizon and Qualcom join to create wireless services
Verizon and Qualcomm on Tuesday announced they are forming a new joint-venture company designed to support so-called machine-to-machine wireless services. In their most basic form, machine-to-machine systems automatically transmit data between a device and a network. An example is a water meter in a home that sends data about water usage back to the water company. But more recently, devices like Amazon’s Kindle have been lumped into the category, because the Kindle wirelessly downloads books and transmits other data to and from Amazon, without the end-users directly paying for the connection or explicitly knowing that they are using the wireless connection. The joint venture, yet to be named and equally owned by Verizon and Qualcomm, will aim to make it easier for product and application developers to bring their offerings to market.
Tech market has hit bottom: Gartner
A new report by Gartner showing that software spending will increase worldwide next year indicates there may be truth to the general belief that the technology market has hit bottom. According to results of a Gartner survey of about 1,000 IT professionals worldwide conducted during April and May, 28 percent of companies in North America expected to increase their software budgets in 2010, while 25 percent of companies in Europe, Middle East and Africa and 30 percent in the Asia/Pacific region expected the same. Many second-quarter financial results for major sellers of software such as Microsoft and IBM showed a decline in year-over-year revenue in that segment. However, companies in general reported that though they were not out of the woods financially yet, there would be growth over the next year.
Obama reading your e-mail?
U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration needs to answer several questions about the privacy implications of a new version of a computer intrusion detection system that can reportedly read e-mail, a privacy and civil rights advocacy group said. The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), a report released Tuesday, called on the Obama administration to release information about the legal authority for the so-called Einstein intrusion detection system, a version of which has been rolled out at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The CDT report also asks the Obama administration to release information about the role of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) in the development and operation of Einstein 3, a new version of the software reportedly being developed. While Einstein 2 is able to detect malicious code using predefined code signatures, Einstein 3 will also be able to read e-mail and other Internet traffic.
…And those are the top stories from the IDG Global IT News Update, brought to you by the IDG News Service. I’m Sumner Lemon in Singapore. Join us again later for more news from the world of technology.
