Yahoo! posts

Filed under: Macintosh, Yahoo!, Social Software, Beta

Yahoo! Messenger beta 3 for the Mac adds voice calling

by Simon Kerbel Mar 26th 2008

Yahoo! has just released Yahoo! Messenger Beta 3 for the Mac, with the long-awaited, much-crowed for addition of voice calling.

With the latest version of Messenger for the Mac, users can make free PC-to-PC calls (yes, a Mac is a PC too) to other Messenger buddies. You can also sign up for a Phone Out account to make calls to landlines and mobile phones. Or, if you want to go all the way, you can sign up for a Phone In account, which assigns you a number so people can call you on your PC.

In other words: picture Skype, but with a big yellow smiley face instead of a cool blue talk bubble.

Check out the Yahoo! Messenger blog for a complete rundown of the new features and a handy screencast.

[via TUAW]

Tags: Mac, Messenger, Voice, Yahoo!

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Yahoo!

Yahoo! Maps update includes more neighborhoods and worldwide coverage

by Simon Kerbel Mar 6th 2008

Yahoo! has rolled out a major update to Yahoo! Maps, with expanded worldwide coverage, new and more focused neighborhood data, and many stylistic improvements.

The new neighborhood data allows you to get more specific information for any given location, with lower zoom levels and more localized data, including schools, rest areas, resorts, restaurants, and so on.

300 cities have been updated in all, from Palo Alto to Chicago, and 12,000 new neighborhoods have been added, from "Lower East Side" (New York, Milwaukee, Bridgeport) to "Lower Collegetown" (Ithaca). The expanded worldwide coverage adds or improves on a good portion of Eastern Europe.

Style improvements include adjusted label colors for better legibility and lighter map tiles.

While we appreciate the improvements made to Yahoo! Maps, we're still put off by the noisy advertisements in the bottom left corner which is flashier than anything you'll see at Google Maps or Microsoft Live Maps.

Tags: Yahoo!, Yahoo! Maps, Yahoo!Maps

Filed under: Web services, Yahoo!, Search

Yahoo! opens search platform to 3rd parties

by Simon Kerbel Feb 26th 2008

Yahoo! Search will soon be open to 3rd party development, and the expected results look very useful.

Yahoo! Search's new open platform will give site owners much greater control over what is presented when their page shows up in Yahoo! Search results. Instead of a simple title and an abstract URL, they can present ratings, reviews, images, etc... to display right in the results.

This will have a mutually beneficial effect for users and site owners: users don't have to waste unnecessary clicks on a link that might not have the information they're looking for, and the website owners get more focused, quality traffic.

First responses to the proposed changes are for the most part favorable, though a lot of users are wondering how Yahoo! will keep this system from being abused, i.e. become another tool for those nefarious, moustache-twisting spammers. There's no word back from Yahoo! on that front.

Yahoo! has yet to implement the new open Search, but their sneak preview is enough to whet our appetites. Kudos to Yahoo! for continuing to move forward in the highly competitive world of online search.

Tags: search, Yahoo!

Filed under: Photo, Web services, Microsoft, Yahoo!

Flickr users laugh at Microsoft-Yahoo! deal

by Jay Hathaway Feb 10th 2008

When Yahoo! snubbed Microsoft's first buyout offer last week, no one was happier than the 3,000-plus members of a Flickr photo pool called "Microsoft: Keep Your Evil Grubby Hands Off Of Our Flickr." The group has posted a collection of funny images that protest Microsoft's attempts to buy Yahoo!, which currently owns Flickr. Their photos range from clever to cynical to downright obscene.

Some of the running themes in the pool include mashups of the Microsoft and Flickr logos, parody Windows dialog boxes, and pictures of Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates gloating about their impending domination of the photo-sharing market. It's easy to see from the photos that a lot of users aren't happy, but we also found some serious discussion in the comments about how Microsoft might change Flickr.

Some users seem to have posted their funny photos so they can laugh to keep from crying. The pictures are cross-posted to another group called "If Microsoft Acquires Flickr [Yahoo] I'm Committing Suicide." Microsoft should be on notice that it's about to put its evil grubby hands on some potential new customers who take photo sharing very seriously.

Tags: Flickr, Microsoft, Photo, Yahoo!

Filed under: Business, Internet, Web services, Yahoo!

Yahoo! now offering "unlimited" web hosting

by Simon Kerbel Feb 6th 2008

Loosen those belts and belly up to the bar, because Yahoo! Web Hosting has gone all-you-can-eat. Beginning today, Yahoo! is offering unlimited web hosting for all of its small business customers.

What does unlimited mean? In this case:

Unlimited disk space
Unlimited data transfer
Unlimited email storage
1,000 email accounts

Along with the above, Yahoo! Web Hosting offers a wealth of website design tools, a free domain name, and automatic submission of your site to top search engines.

At $11.95 a month, you've probably spent more at Sizzler's buffet bar. Who can resist popcorn shrimp?

All in all, an interesting development by Yahoo! sure to tighten the web hosting race.

Tags: web hosting, WebHosting, Yahoo!

Filed under: Audio, Internet, News

Yahoo! hands its music business to Rhapsody

by Brad Linder Feb 4th 2008

Yahoo! is preparing to dump its Yahoo! Music Unlimited service and replace it with a partnership with RealNetworks' Rhapsody. A few weeks ago we reported on a rumor that Yahoo! was exploring the idea of launching a DRM-free music store to compete with Apple and Amazon. It looks like the company decided to go another direction.

Both Yahoo! Music Unlimited and Rhapsody allow users to access a large library of on-demand music for a subscription fee. But while Yahoo! has been charging $5.99 to $8.99 per month, Rhapsody charges $12.99 per month. Existing users will have their accounts automatically transferred to Rhapsody, with their music libraries intact. But when you're contract runs out, you'll be charged the higher rate.

Yahoo! and Rhapsody are also exploring collaboration on other projects, including music downloads.

Tags: music, realnetworks, rhapsody, yahoo!

Filed under: Weekend Review

Download Squad Week in Review

by Brad Linder Feb 2nd 2008

We know you've had a busy week, John Edwards and Rudy Giuliani. But now that you both have so much more free time on your hands, we thought you might want to spend some time catching up on the news you might have missed this week.

Microsoft seeks to acquire Yahoo!

If you've been living under a rock for the last 24 hours, you might not know this yet, but Microsoft has put in an offer to acquire Yahoo!. It's all part of the company's grand scheme to take over the world... before Google does. Microsoft has offered $44.6 billion buyout, and while it's not exactly a done deal yet, there's a pretty decent chance Yahoo! will accept the offer. And we've been meaning to ask, how's the insulation on a rock? Does it keep you warm in the winter?

Ask DLS: Recovering photos from a corrupted flash card

It's happened to all of us. You snap some wonderful vacation photos, or record your child's first steps on your digital camera, only to realize that your flash card is corrupted and you're computer can't make heads or tails of it. Before you reformat the card, take a moment to check out our list of applications for recovering photos from a bad card. All hope might not be lost. Make sure to read the comments too, because many of our readers chimed in with their favorite applications for recovering photo and other data.

Tags: corrupted-flash-card, microsoft, pandora, photos, puppy-linux, synctv, yahoo, yahoo!

Filed under: Internet, Security, Yahoo!

CAPTCHA hacks could lead to a flood of junkmail

by Brad Linder Jan 30th 2008

You know those annoying "please enter the code" requests you see when signing up for online services, leaving blog posts, or otherwise trying to prove that you're human and not a machine? Yeah, it turns out that the machines are getting pretty good at reading them too.

The basic idea behind the CAPTCHA (which stands for Completely Automated Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart is that computers can't read text if its hidden in an image file. But a Russian researcher claims that he received word that there was an automated CAPTCHA detection system floating around in the wild. So he decided to build his own and managed to create a system which he claims has a 35% accuracy rate.

The claim has some credence, since a Yahoo! spokesperson tells TMCnet that the company is aware of attempts to hack the CAPTCHA system and is working on improvements. In the meantime, if this thing catches on there's a chance you'll see a lot more junk mail letting you know about an opportunity to make $1,000,000 or enlarge certain body parts coming from Yahoo! Mail accounts and other free email services. While the CAPTCHA system was originally developed for Yahoo!, it is now widely used by other services and we're going to go out on a limb and say that if Yahoo!'s implementation of CAPTCHA can be hacked, we'll probably be seeing other sites hacked soon as well.

We suppose Yahoo! can always just make their CAPTCHAs harder to read. Or you know, impossible to read.

[via Slashdot]

Tags: captcha, hackers, junk-mail, spam, spambot, yahoo!

Filed under: Internet, Windows Mobile, E-mail, iPhone, Beta, Search

Yahoo! Go 3.0 Beta gearing up for launch

by Simon Kerbel Jan 7th 2008

The latest version of Yahoo!'s own mobile platform, Yahoo! Go 3.0 beta, is headed for prime-time tomorrow.

The biggest news in this release is the inclusion of the Mobile Widget Platform, which allows access to third-party widgets on the Yahoo! Go and Yahoo! Mobile pages. Widget makers include such big boys as eBay, MySpace and MTV--and with the release of the SDK to developers in the next few weeks, expect to see an explosion of third-party widgets.

Yahoo! Go will also feature an updated UI, optimized for--you guessed it--the mobile device. The home page is heavily customizable and includes new email at a glance, upcoming appointments on your calendar, weather, news, etc...

Of course this type of feature-rich release is not going to work on that old phone you have sliding around in your glove box. Upon its release, the Yahoo! Go 3.0 beta will be available only on high end mobile browsers such as the Apple iPhone, several Nokia Series 60 devices, including the N95, and select Windows Mobile devices (though it will be available for more devices "soon").

[Via Mashable]

Tags: mobile, widget, yahoo, yahoo!, yahoo! go, Yahoo!Go

Filed under: Business, Design, Developer, Internet, Productivity, Web services, Yahoo!, Search

Yahoo! pumps up search with Search Assist

by Chris Gilmer Oct 2nd 2007

Hot on the tail of Google and Mahalo, Yahoo! aims to help searchers get to where they want faster.

The goal of Yahoo! OneSearch is "to get things done." Now Yahoo! has integrated a little feature called Search Assist.

Yahoo!'s integrated a real time query suggestion tool earlier this year that helped users refine search queries. With the newly launched Search Assist from Yahoo!, they are suggesting formatting for queries and concepts related to the specific search. This is done through better understanding user's intent and providing them with the information they are looking for in one single search.

It's all about bringing users to the content they want faster, and Yahoo! has done a good job at cutting down the time and provided users with search suggestions, and related concepts to do just that.

Yahoo! has also integrated multimedia into search results. Users can now watch video, view images and listen to audio directly within search results without having to leave a results page.

Tags: google, mahalo, onesearch, results, search, search assist, SearchAssist, yahoo!

Filed under: Business, Internet, Yahoo!

Jerry Yang takes over as Terry Semel resigns

by Chris Gilmer Jun 18th 2007

Big news on the Yahoo front as Terry Semel officially departs from Yahoo. The news came down the pipes on Sunday when Terry made the announcement.

Through a conference call this afternoon, Jerry Yang went over the details including the management changes. Jerry Yang will be taking over the CEO position, and Sue Decker as the President. Terry wanted to leave sooner rather than later as he said that Yahoo has had a difficult and challenging year.

Supposedly Terry will be keeping his role as chairman and consult the company on an ongoing basis. Although we aren't sure how that will play out as even though Terry had helped Yahoo through the .com bust, quarter profits were nothing special for many years since, with Terry, of course, continuing his outrageous yearly pay.

Tags: ceo, jerry yang, JerryYang, president, resign, sue decker, SueDecker, terry semel, TerrySemel, yahoo, yahoo!

Filed under: Fun, Internet, Photo, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Blogging, Web services, Yahoo!, Freeware, Browser Tips

Better Flickr : Firefox add-on of the day

by Jason Clarke Jun 4th 2007

In the spirit of the amazing Better Gmail Firefox extension released by Gina Trapani comes the latest Lifehacker code: Better Flickr. Gina is a self-professed Flickr nut, so it was probably only a matter of time before she put something like this together.

There are an amazing number of Greasemonkey hacks and existing extensions to extend and improve on Flickr's built-in functionality. Gina's done a great job of honing on on the best ones, and including only those in her new extension.

For example, Better Gmail includes extra features that enable EXIF image information to show overlaid on an image if you leave the mouse pointer hovering on the image. There is a feature that adds more user links, and one that adds some rich editing capabilities to the text forms on Flickr. A couple more of the features include an instant magnifier, and one that turns the All Sizes link into a menu, so you can jump right to the size that interests you most.

Better Gmail requires Firefox on any operating system that will run it.

Tags: Better Flickr, Better Flickr Firefox extension, BetterFlickr, BetterFlickrFirefoxExtension, Firefox, Firefox add-on, Firefox extension, FirefoxAdd-on, FirefoxExtension, Flickr, pictures, Yahoo!

Filed under: Business, Design, Internet, Social Software

Ryan Block interviews the SVP of AOL's new web portal

by David Chartier May 3rd 2007

The reaction to AOL's new web portal wasn't entirely warm, as it looks just a little too much like one of its major competitors. Instead of scratching his head on the matter, our own Ryan Block of Weblogs Inc. / Engadget decided to ask David Liu, SVP of AOL Portals, five questions on the new design and its motivations. As you would imagine from a VP, Liu's answers were riddled with PR-speak that doesn't actually reveal much other than 'yea, we were inspired,' but his final answer does offer some interesting snippets about an upcoming revamp of myAOL.com, another of the company's portals (really guys - how many do you need?). Liu promises some intriguing innovation for the new portal, and even MIchael Arrington of TechCrunch was apparently impressed with some early demos he got his hands on.

While we wait to see those promises fulfilled, check out Ryan's interview with David Liu to gain at least a little insight into why AOL's new portal looks just a little too familiar.

Tags: aol, david liu, DavidLiu, interview, portal, portals, ryan block, RyanBlock, svp, yahoo, yahoo!

Filed under: Internet, Social Software

DLS Tip: Use a new Yahoo! account for Flickr

by David Chartier Apr 1st 2007

Whether you made the switch to using your Yahoo! ID on Flickr ages ago, or you simply stepped into rank with the rest of us on March 15th, you might find yourself at one point or another wishing you could change which Yahoo! ID you have tied to Flickr. You could beg Flickr support for some help, check out the forums to see if you aren't the only indecisive person to pull this stunt, or you could simply visit the recently redesigned account management section. We aren't sure how long it's been there, but a new pref section titled 'Your Yahoo! Account' offers a really simple process for changing the account you log into Flickr with. Easy breezy, and no waiting for customer service.

Tags: account, flickr, id, login, yahoo, yahoo!

Filed under: Business, Developer, Internet, Web services, Yahoo!

Yahoo steals the mobile world, and opens it up for publishers

by Chris Gilmer Mar 27th 2007

Hot off the presses; Yahoo keeps trucking along with its mobile announcements, this time they take aim at publishers wanting to enter the mobile market.

In continuing its mobile success streak, Yahoo is now looking for Publishers interested in providing mobile content. The newly launched Yahoo! Mobile Publisher Services is a suite of services that helps publishers increases the distribution and monetization of their content on mobile devices. The goal of this service is to deliver tools to advertisers and publishers that help them enable the growth of the mobile internet to benefit consumers. By joining, publishers will have access to the Yahoo! Mobile Ad Network, Mobile Content Engine, Mobile Media Directory and the Mobile Site Submit.

The Yahoo! Mobile Ad Network will enable publishers to serve syndicated advertising in mobile content, in a variety of formats including video, in game placements and sponsored links.
An innovative tool that Yahoo has come up with is the Yahoo! Mobile Content Engine. This will allow publishers who do not have a mobile site, the ability to create mobile content to distribute on mobile devices efficiently and effectively.
The Mobile Media Directory will make it easy for publishers to make their mobile media accessible through Yahoo's oneSearch, by submitting their list of products for review by Yahoo, who will then rank and review it.
Mobile Site Submit, like a regular web site submit, will allow mobile publishers the ability to provide information on their mobile site with a description and tags to ensure proper indexing in Yahoo oneSearch.

Talk about growth, Yahoo has been taking the mobile application world by storm lately. We will be following this one closely to see how Yahoo!'s Mobile Publisher Services really does help out publishers.

UPDATE: I took out the underlines, and replaced with bold. Sorry Jeffrey, my bad.

Tags: ad, content, mobile, network, onesearch, publishers, yahoo, yahoo!

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

View more Time Wasters

Featured Galleries

Defective by Design, London: Protest Pictures

Download Squad at the Crunchies After-Party

Android First-look: Amazon.com MP3 Store

Flickr Pool

www.flickr.com

Download Squad bloggers (30 days)

#	Blogger	Posts	Cmts
1	Jay Hathaway	108	5
2	Lee Mathews	76	23
3	Sebastian Anthony	67	248
4	Brad Linder	35	4
5	Jason Clarke	23	0
6	Dolores Parker	7	2
7	Grant Robertson	6	2
8	Victor Agreda, Jr.	5	1
9	Nik Fletcher	5	0
10	Matt Heerema	3	2
11	Paul O'Brien	2	0
12	John Burke	2	0
13	Download Squad Staff	1	0

More Tech Coverage

Control Shift It's all about the experience
Somewhat Frank Perspectives on tech as it fuses in everyday life
Switched Gadgets, web news and commentary
Urlesque Exposing bits of the web

Download Squad