U.S. holiday shoppers continue to turn to the Internet when searching for presents for family and friends, according to data released Thursday by VeriSign. VeriSign provides network security and authentication services to about 120,000 online retailers. Those companies took in $8.8 billion in online spending during the period between the Thanksgiving holiday on Nov. 25 and the Monday after Christmas, Dec. 27. This was an increase of 24 percent compared to the same period last year, VeriS...

I use iTunes to buy music and I think it's great. SAN JOSE, Calif. - With its music downloads selling at a rate of more than a million per day, Apple Computer Inc. said Monday customers have purchased more than 250 million songs from its online iTunes Music Store. The store, now available in 15 countries, is selling 1.25 million songs at 99 cents apiece per day, the computer and multimedia company said. Link

Speculation abound late Monday regarding Google's oft-rumored plans to launch an instant messaging network that would compete with AOL, MSN and Yahoo. The New York Times reported that a Google communications service would launch Wednesday, and the LA Times confirmed it would go by the name "Google Talk." Although such rumors have long proliferated throughout the Internet and are usually taken with a grain of salt, Google has activatedtalk.google.com. In addition, a messaging service util...

I am downloading now, it looks interesting. Yahoo's online music strategy has finally taken shape after a year of development with the launch of the Yahoo! Music Engine, the company's challenger to iTunes and subscription services such as Napster. While it may be late to the party, Yahoo threatens to shake up the industry with prices 60 percent less than its rivals. Betanews link. Link

Microsoft has released the final version of MSN Messenger 7. Link

In response to user complaints, auction giant will offer more widespread phone support. Laura Rohde, IDG News Service Monday, February 07, 2005 In response to complaints from users, EBay will expand customer service in the U.S. and Canada while reducing some of the fees it charges sellers, the online auction company says. Within the next 90 days, EBay will limit automated e-mail responses to customer queries and increase its telephone support, says Bill Cobb, EBay president of N...

Piracy, whether it be of games, movies, software, or music is a pretty hot topic these days.  On one side you have people against piracy who usually claim copyright should be protected and what people are doing is just plain stealing.  On the other side there are people who think attempts to squash piracy are against someones "freedom" and argue that piracy doesn't affect the bottom line in business. I have been looking through a bunch of websites that one could say the readers are ...

Since the political season is heating up even more, and politics is a hot topic on Twitter, we have created our own account for The Political Machine.  It will be regularly updated with links and comments about both the upcoming game, and articles on the PoliticalMachine.com website. There are also some great Twitter clients for both Windows and Mac. Witty Twhirl Visit our Twitter page and click follow to keep updated. The Politic...

I have used Flickr off and on for the last few months, and finally upgraded to a Pro account because it has become and invaluable way to share and organize my photos.  Recently I received a beta invite to Photophlow and have been trying it out for the last week or so. The concept is rather simple, but the developers are doing a fantastic job implementing it.  Basically Photophlow is a way for Flickr users to share in real-time their photos with other users.  This is done in ...

I normally use Google Reader to view all my RSS feeds I am subscribed to.  I don't have an exact number of how many feeds I exactly subscribe to, but it's a decent number.  While I was looking through them today I thought it might be interesting to see what are the top 5 or 10 RSS feeds that our community members subscribe to. Here are some of my favorite feeds: CyberNet News MacRumors Mashable Scobleizer GameSpot News ZDNet News WinCustomize News If you...

A few days ago Microsoft quietly launched a new translation service that is powered by Systran, which is a developer of language translation software. There wasn't much said about this service from Microsoft, and some users are reporting that not all the languages are working correctly.

YouTube is the top video submission site today, there's no doubt about that.  I use it to host my video demos and other video projects, but one thing I have never liked about YouTube was the "look" of the video player. Well YouTube has introduced a custom video player which  you can "customize" to your liking.  Looking through the options you can select and apply a new theme,  change the player layout, and choose the contents of your custom player. There doesn't appear ...

While what he did was very stupid and inexcusable, over 2 years in jail for it is ridiculous.  The sad thing is he got more time for posting hateful messages than he did for having child porn on his computer.  "A man who posted racist messages on a website in memory of murdered black teenager Anthony Walker was jailed for more than three years today. Neil Martin, 30, emailed at least six comments to the website - less than a week after Anthony was killed with an ice axe in a ...

I have some betas for this now.  The first two people to request them will get them. You must have a hotmail account to use this.

If you want to the newest social network Google+, then post or PM me your e-mail address (preferably gmail) and I will send an invite.