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Microsoft’s top technical executive, Ray Ozzie, has recently said that Google success in finding in advertising revenue “was a wake-up call within Microsoft”. But he said Microsoft plans to do more than simply mimic Google by rolling out Web-based versions of desktop programs or following its particular search and advertising model.

Instead of jumping belatedly into the fray with Web-only programs, he said Microsoft will pursue a mix of software loaded on PCs and Internet services that also work with the growing array of mobile devices, a strategy he called ‘’software-plus-service'’.

He said he sees free, Web-based, ad-supported software as a way to extend Microsoft Office’s reach, but gave no specifics. ‘’Advertisers do want a targeted audience,'’ he said. If Microsoft can deliver it, ‘’I don’t see a reason why advertisers won’t move'’. What comes next? Only time will tell.

BitTorrent is planning to use its widely used file-sharing software to launch a legal download site, called the BitTorrent Entertainment Network, that will distribute more than 5,000 titles including digital movies, TV shows, games and other media.

Considering that BitTorrent have got a well-deserved reputation for quickly file distribuition and an existing user based of 135 million, they could be a serious competitor for the increasing online video market, which current heavy players as YouTube, Joost, Babelgum, Brightcove among others.

The battle’s just begun and another important issue is to reach agreements with content owners. Joost has just partnered with Viacom so has BitTorrent with Hollywood studios like 20th Century Fox, Lions Gate and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios. What comes next? Only time will tell.

Just a few days from being launched and Yahoo Pipes is putting lots of minds to work:

- five cool ways to use Yahoo! Pipes

- New York Times thru flickr

- del.icio.us flavored web search

- YMI Podcasting MegaFeed

- Amazon price watch

- eBay price watch

- Google Blog Search

- Cricket on YouTube

Lots else. What comes next? Only time will tell.

Yahoo! has just launched a new service called Yahoo Pipes which offers users the ability to easily create data mashups from remixing popular feed types, including Yahoo! Search, Google Base, Flickr photos and any RSS feed on the web. Yahoo! describes it as an interactive feed aggregator and manipulator that allows you to create feeds that are more powerful, useful and relevant.

Pipes also provides a set of functional modules to let users manipulate and transform data in oder to get the desired output. This set includes a powerful content analyzer, several data formatters, sorting modules and even translating services using BabelFish translating engine.

All these modules are integrated in an easy-to-use visual drag and drop editor that simplifies the job of building a mashup without writing a single line of code. The resulting feed can be for private use or shared with the Internet community. As Tim O’Reilly has defined it:

Yahoo!’s new Pipes service is a milestone in the history of the internet. It’s a service that generalizes the idea of the mashup, providing a drag and drop editor that allows you to connect internet data sources, process them, and redirect the output.

According to Google, their mission is to organize the information. In this case Yahoo! has won a battle letting the users create more organized, filtered and useful information by theirselves. Could it be a step towards Web3.0 in which users not only contribute but can take advantage of the rest of information their own way and share it? What comes next? Only time will tell.

According to Wikipedia, a firewall is an information technology security device whose basic task is to control traffic between computer networks with different zones of trust.

By definition, network traffic is bidirectional which means that your personal firewall should protect your private home network from both, inbound traffic and outbound traffic. Whereas the former type of traffic has been generally thought to be a potential danger since the Internet was born, the latter one had not been considered a real danger until the proliferation of malware during the last few years. Right now outbound traffic have become a real danger.

Nevertheless while this seems obvious for everybody it looks like Microsoft disagrees. Windows XP’s built-in firewall, the current most-extended personal firewall, has no protection at all for outbound traffic giving users a false sense of security.

It was expected to be solved in brand-new Windows Vista as Microsoft states that new Vista’s firewall is now two-way. And it is true, but a closer look at the way it works reveals a particular way to understand security. By default, most firewalls, the good ones, allow no outbound connection unless explicitly authorized by the user, usually presenting a convenient wizard to program a particular rule the first time an application tries to connect to the Internet.

On the other hand, Windows Vista’s firewall by default allows all outbound connection until a rule is explicitly created to deny it by the user. Even worse, configuring these rules is no piece of cake at all. What does Microsoft say about this decision? Well, according to Matt Parreta, a spokesperson for Microsoft’s PR agency, they think that having to walk through the many wizard-driven pop-ups that would occur shortly after the first time Vista gets installed would be a poor out-of-the-box experience.

A false sense of security again, this time in the name of a “better user experience”. What comes next? Only time will tell.

Scientists at Purdue University have developed a portable generator that turns trash into electricity. About a small van size, the device can process several types of trash, including food waste, plastic and paper.

This device uses two different process depending on the type of waste: food material goes into a bioreactor that uses the yeast ferments to create ethanol and other materials go to a gasifier and are converted into propane gas and methane, which then fuel a diesel engine that creates electricity.

The machine, called a tactical biorefinery, has been designed for the U.S. military and unfortunately is going to be for military use only, but it could have widespread civilian applications in the, hopefully, not-so-far future. What comes next? Only time will tell.