Google is said to be testing its new Google Music service internally, according to sources speaking to CNET. Google had originally planned to make an announcement during the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas earlier this month, but it apparently still needs to iron out some of the details with the four major record labels. It is expected that Google Music will be a cloud-based system where users can stream, buy, and store music online for access from their Android smartphones or tablets, as well as from their computers. It’s still unclear what the pricing structure will be like, but we’re definitely hyped for this to launch.

[Via Gizmodo]

Read

Microsoft on Monday announced the availability of its next-generation desktop Web browser, Internet Explorer 9. “The best experience of the Web is on Windows with Internet Explorer 9,” said Dean Hachamovitch, Microsoft’s corporate VP of Windows Internet Explorer, in a statement. “Today, the Web can unlock the power and performance of the best PC hardware through Windows and Internet Explorer 9. Websites also can act more like applications within Windows 7, with features such as Pinned Sites.” Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Web browser is one of the oldest still available, having launched in the dark ages of the Internet. Thanks to its inclusion on nearly all Windows computers sold, it is also still the most popular browser by a wide margin. Market share tracker Net Applications shows that IE’s browser market share sat at 56.77% in February. The next closest browser, Mozilla’s Firefox, owned 21.74% of the market. Hit the break for the full press release and download IE9 via the read link.

Microsoft Announces Global Availability of Internet Explorer 9

AUSTIN, Tex. — March 14, 2011 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the launch of the latest version of the world’s most-used browser with the release of Windows Internet Explorer 9 in 39 languages at an event at the SXSW Interactive conference. Internet Explorer 9 is Microsoft’s most-downloaded browser beta of all time, with more than 40 million downloads, and it has already has gained more than 2 percent usage on Windows 7. Already more than 250 top sites from around the globe are taking advantage of the capabilities in Internet Explorer 9 to deliver differentiated experiences to their customers, with many featured on http://www.BeautyoftheWeb.com. Together, these partners reach more than 1 billion active Internet users on the Web.

“The best experience of the Web is on Windows with Internet Explorer 9,” said Dean Hachamovitch, corporate vice president, Windows Internet Explorer, at Microsoft. “Today, the Web can unlock the power and performance of the best PC hardware through Windows and Internet Explorer 9. Websites also can act more like applications within Windows 7, with features such as Pinned Sites. In less than a year, Internet Explorer 9 went from early preview to final release with the help of hardware partners and the Web community.”

Top Sites and Designers Take Advantage of Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer 9 is designed to bring sites front and center through Windows 7, enabling a more immersive, more beautiful Web experience. Features such as Pinned Sites and Jump List enable people to put their websites directly on the Windows 7 Taskbar, as though they were native applications, and then to quickly and easily perform tasks related to those websites, such as check their inboxes, change the music station, accept friend invitations or see breaking news.

In addition to 250 top sites, more than 1,000 other sites and designers are taking advantage of these new features with Internet Explorer 9 and Windows 7. These sites include not only the largest sites on the Web, such as Facebook and Amazon, but also leading experiences from across the Web and the world.

• In social and information networking, Internet Explorer 9 partners include category leaders such as Facebook, Twitter and WordPress — the No. 1 global blogging platform — in addition to leading professional networks in the U.S., Europe, Russia, Korea and Latin America.
• In e-commerce, partners include not only the leading worldwide shopping site, Amazon, and the No. 1 worldwide auction site, eBay, but also the leading site in the emergent “daily deals” space, Groupon.
• Video and streaming partners include three of the top five video-on-demand sites in the U.S. — Hulu, Break.com and Dailymotion — and leading Internet radio sites Slacker, Pandora internet radio and Jango. In addition, partners include top global broadcasters CBC and CTV in Canada, Wat.tv in France, and CNN in the U.S.
• News website partners in the U.S. include the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and The Huffington Post, as well as dozens of leading news sites globally across all major geographies.

“What people care about on the Web is their sites, not their browser. That’s why Internet Explorer 9 is about making those sites shine. The browser is the theater, and the sites people visit are the play, and that is what Internet Explorer 9 makes better — your favorite sites,” said Ryan Gavin, senior director, Windows Internet Explorer, at Microsoft.

eBay is the world’s largest online marketplace and a leader in mobile commerce. With pinning and Jump List features in Internet Explorer 9, everyone’s favorite eBay experiences are just a click away. “eBay’s integration with Internet Explorer 9 is like having a storefront on your desktop,” said Robert Chatwani, senior director, eBay Internet marketing. “We’re pleased that new functionality within Internet Explorer 9 allows us to innovate and bring new experiences to our customers, making shopping and selling on eBay more engaging than ever.”

Pandora Internet radio is announcing a new dynamic Jump List for Internet Explorer 9. Tom Conrad, chief technical officer and executive vice president of product for Pandora, said, “This new feature allows our listeners to have immediate access to their personalized Pandora stations right from the taskbar with Internet Explorer 9, which will make for an easy-access listener experience.”

Partners such as Gilt Groupe are already seeing early results indicating that Internet Explorer 9 customers who pin the Gilt homepage to their taskbar show a higher purchase rate than those on other browsers. “While results are early, customers using Internet Explorer 9 appear to purchase more per order when compared to earlier versions of Internet Explorer and other browsers. Given that our business model is providing dynamic new shopping experiences online every day, the value of Internet Explorer 9 and Windows 7 is potentially very exciting to us and our customers,” said Chris Maliwat, vice president of product management, Gilt Groupe.

Many partners are announcing special offers for Internet Explorer 9 customers that will be available in the coming weeks, including the following:

• Slacker. A free monthlong subscription for customers who pin the Slacker site to their taskbars
• Groupon. $5 in Groupon Bucks when making a first purchase from the Internet Explorer 9 Jump List
• Hulu. A free month of the Hulu Plus subscription for users who pin Hulu
• eBay. Offering coupons or eBay Bucks for bids or purchases made using the Internet Explorer 9 pinning and Jump List features
• Gilt. A series of product bundles for customers who make purchases of specified amounts via the Jump List

Fast Is Now Beautiful: Internet Explorer 9 With Hardware Acceleration

The new version of Internet Explorer takes advantage of the power of modern Windows PC hardware to improve all-around Web browsing performance. It is the only browser with hardware-accelerated HTML5 spanning all graphics, text, audio and video. Internet Explorer 9 harnesses the power of the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), unlocking 90 percent of the PC’s power that went previously untapped by Web browsers.

Developers can now build faster, more immersive websites that feel like native applications using HTML5, as well as runtimes such as Adobe Flash Player and Microsoft Silverlight, both of which will take advantage of the hardware acceleration in Internet Explorer 9 in their next versions.

“Internet Explorer 9 has moved the bar in hardware acceleration, enabling Flash Player to tap into the GPU and creating a win-win situation for our mutual customers who want fast, rich content experiences,” said Paul Betlem, senior director, Flash Player Engineering at Adobe. “With Internet Explorer 9 and Flash Player taking advantage of the GPU, we continue the collaboration with Microsoft to further optimize performance. Both companies are also working closely to advance and streamline controls for managing Flash Player privacy and security settings in Internet Explorer 9.”

“The next-generation Web is here today with Internet Explorer 9, accelerated by AMD’s incredible computing platforms — our award-winning AMD Fusion Accelerated Processing Units with DirectX11-capable graphics and AMD Radeon graphics cards,” said John Taylor, director of Client Product and Software Marketing, AMD. “The next generation is defined by immersive gaming, rich video and fast, compelling, application-like experiences, validating the fact that GPU compute power and the ability to remove barriers between the CPU and GPU are highly relevant to the day-to-day computing performance that consumers expect and demand.”

“Thanks to how Internet Explorer 9 taps into the power of the GPU, the Web is now more visual, more immersive and more powerful with NVIDIA GeForce. We are incredibly excited that consumers can now experience their favorite sites re-imagined and accelerated. It’s a whole new Web,” said Drew Henry, general manager, GeForce Business Unit, NVIDIA.

Improving Privacy and Security Online

Because the Web is increasingly less secure and private, Internet Explorer 9 is designed to be a trusted browser because it contains a robust set of built-in security, privacy and reliability technologies that keep customers safer online.

In December, Microsoft introduced Tracking Protection in Internet Explorer 9, which puts people in control of what data they are sharing as they move around the Web, by enabling consumers to indicate what websites they’d prefer not to exchange information with. Consumers do this by adding Tracking Protection Lists to Internet Explorer 9, and partners such as PrivacyChoice, TRUSTe, Abine and Adblock Plus have already published these lists.

Malware is now the No. 1 risk to people’s security online, and Internet Explorer 9 provides the first Download Manager with integrated SmartScreen malware protection. The browser also introduces SmartScreen download reputation, a groundbreaking browser feature that uses reputation data to remove unnecessary warnings for well-known files and show more severe warnings when the download has a higher risk of being malicious. Studies show that Internet Explorer 9 blocks 99 percent of socially engineered malware attacks, five times more than Firefox and 33 times more than Google Chrome.

Raise Expectations for a Better Web

Partners from around the world are re-imagining their websites using the capabilities of Windows and Internet Explorer 9, creating new experiences that make the Web feel as native as PC applications. The result is a more beautiful Web experience.

“I love the Web for the kinds of joyous experiences it can create!” said Ze Frank, who is launching new features within the social gaming site, Star.Me, in coordination with the Austin event. “HTML5 is a huge step forward for the browser because it brings the Web back to a unified platform for creation. By integrating HTML5 into Internet Explorer 9 and hardware accelerating the browser, Microsoft has signaled its commitment to pushing the Web forward, and that is certainly worth celebrating.”

“HP and Microsoft have a long history of bringing meaningful innovations to our customers. Today, we celebrate with Microsoft the launch of Internet Explorer 9, a new milestone in enabling faster and more visually compelling Web experiences,” said Tony Prophet, senior vice president of operations, Personal Systems Group, HP. “Internet Explorer 9 is really an outstanding browser, and we’re pleased to make it available on most of our consumer PCs.”

“At Dell, we are focused on driving cutting-edge innovation in our consumer devices, and Internet Explorer 9 is the first browser to offer a richer, more immersive Web experience on our hardware,” said Michael Tatelman, vice president and general manager of North American Consumer sales for Dell. “We know customers will see — and experience — the difference, and we’re delighted to be working with Microsoft designers and developers around the world who are building this new, more beautiful Web.”

Read

At SXSW, Google’s VP of  Location and Local Services, Marissa Mayer, took the stage and dished out some interesting Google data, including mobile stats. During her talk, Mayer revealed the following statistics we found interesting:

• 40% of all Google Maps usage is from mobile devices, and Christmas and New Years day mobile usage surpassed desktop usage for the first time.
• 150 million mobile users on Google Maps
• Google Maps Navigation, included on Android handsets, has guided users 12 billion miles a year, and the latest version with traffic routing saves users 2 years per day in time that would have been spent in traffic.
• Google Maps could get smarter, and become contextually aware. For instance, if you were trying to catch a flight, Google Maps could see your flight schedule to see when your flight was, then look and analyze real-time traffic data and weather conditions to try and figure out the exact time you should leave
• Google would like there to be better Google Maps for iPhone. “We like being the default provider, but we’d like to get some of these updates out to a broader audience. That’s still a debate/question we’re considering.”

With Google’s Android explosion continuing, it looks like there will plenty more Google Maps and Navigation users over the next few years.

It’s the company’s first, and we’re guessing it won’t be the last. Apple is constructing a pop-up store in Austin, Texas to coincide with the launch of the iPad 2 and the ever-popular SXSW festival, which is taking place over the next week and a half. It’s being reported that Apple has rented out a 5,000 square foot, empty retail location that it will stock with Apple employees and merchandise for conference goers traveling outside of their normal stomping grounds. No word yet on whether VeriFone’s CEO will create a video demonstrating flaws with Apple’s iPod touch EasyPay system, however.

Read

After last year’s embarrassment at SXSW, AT&T is going overboard to ensure a similar wireless network meltdown does not happen again this year at the annual technology conference in Austin, Texas. To avoid a second such disaster, AT&T is throwing a ton of cash and bringing in an equal amount of equipment for the SXSW conference including:

• Installing a Distributed Antenna System (DAS) at the Austin Convention Center. The DAS is comprised of 50 antenna nodes that provide the equivalent coverage of eight cell sites.
• Improving the cell sites in the surrounding area by utilizing 30MHz of spectrum for 3G instead of the standard 10MHz and upgrading the system to include the 850MHz band and HSPA.
• Bringing in three temporary cell sites that are positioned in areas expected to see high traffic.
• Improving the backhaul by beefing up the fiber optic connections that serve the eight cell sites of the DAS and the three temporary sites. According to sources within AT&T, the backhaul capacity has seen a fourfold increase.

The stakes are high for AT&T as a network failure could wipe away any gains in consumer confidence AT&T saw following its favorable review from PC World last week. With its reputation on the line, will AT&T and its 3G network rise to the occasion or will it crumble to its knees under the strain of a mob of iPhone-toting geeks? Predictions are welcome in the comments.

Read

To accommodate unprecedented demand for mobile data and voice applications at SXSW, we are actively working this afternoon to add capacity to our cell sites serving downtown Austin.  These efforts are ongoing, but we anticipate that customers should see improved network performance this evening and for the remainder of the event.  We will continue to monitor network performance throughout the event, and will do everything possible to maximize network performance throughout.  We apologize to customers who were inconvenienced  during this surge in local network demand.

Wow. If it’s that easy, AT&T, how about doing something about the disaster your 3G/3.5G network in the New York Metro area has become?

Read