Yahoo introduced a new open location-based services (LBS) platform called Fire Eagle that helps users publish their current location to the Web, while giving them the ability to control how and where their location data is shared. Geodata are shared with authorized applications on the Internet, mobile and desktop applications. It is easily the best LBS approach we have seen so, and easily the front door to a privacy nightmare scenario for people who do not fully understand the concept of online privacy and its implications.

Google's online translation service is one of the most valuable free translation tools available today. However, it did not work very well on mobile platforms until recently, forcing travelers to bring their pocket translators along. That scenario, however, could change with a Google Translate version that is optimized for the iPhone.

This one does not come unexpected. An application that poked fun at the fact how much money people are shelling out for their iPhone and the wealth that the AppStore has created for some developers was yanked by Apple early Thursday: The $1000 “I am Rich” application that got famous through thousands of media articles published around the web is no longer available.

Considering the big news coming out of Intel this week (Larrabee) and the expected big News from Nvidia within the next two weeks (x86 CUDA), AMD is under pressure to match its rivals: AMD is making substantial changes to its GPGPU software strategy and announced at its GPG CTO Technology Day that it will ditch its Close-To-Metal platform and switch to OpenCL.  

IBM prepares a big rollout of its Lotus Symphony office suite and what better marketing to support the launch than an anti-Microsoft pitch? IBM said it has “joined forces” with big Linux distribution providers, such as Canonical and Novell, to deliver “Microsoft-free personal computing choices“ by 2009. There are always reasons why you should love to hate Microsoft, apparently.

Apple has begun to more aggressively update its Mac OS X operating system and is now patching the operating system with regular minor security updates and incremental updates pretty much one a month. The fifth update for Leopard was handed to developers last week and will be making its way as Mac OS X 10.5.5 to end-users soon.

Adobe has updated its free online image editing and sharing service Photoshop Express (PE) with new features such as drag-and-drop image uploading, tagging, one-click resizing presets, improved printing options, music tracks, refreshed web galleries and an integration with an online photo printing service.

Sun Microsystems released today a preview version of JavaFX, a set of tools to create Java-based Internet applications. The first full version of JavaFX for Desktop is set for delivery this fall. JavaFX for Mobile is expected to debut next spring.

Adobe today announced Lightroom 2.0, Adobe’s first native 64-bit application using OS X Cocoa APIs. The new version of the workflow and photo management software, is first out of the gate in this discipline, ahead of Aperture, Apple's own photography post-production application that remains at 32-bit for now.

The Microsoft CEO has Apple, Yahoo and Google in his sights and will deliver a $300 million ad campaign to address any lingering doubts about Vista. He will try to copy-cat Apple's vertically integrated approach; turn Microsoft into the leading enterprise software company in the world, and squash Linux. He will push into subscription software services and will make sure that the cloud remains an extension of desktop applications, not a replacement. He stressed that Microsoft is still after search, against Google, with or without Yahoo. To show that he means business, he let one of his key generals leave, split his division into two and reshuffled executives. This is the summary of Steve Ballmer's leaked memo aimed at boosting his troops' morale. It also offers unique insight into Steve Ballmer's new head. Still as shiny as the old one, but perhaps a little wiser, and maybe more determined. Or, have we heard it all before?

Gears is one of the lesser known technologies from Google but people who live in the cloud have found it invaluable to bridge the divide between offline and online applications. The technology enables offline functionality in Gears-enabled web applications, meaning you can continue to use both web application and your online content while you are not connected to the Internet. The search giant currently offers offline functionality in Reader and Google Docs but Gmail and Google Calendar are next.

Microsoft painted a rosy picture of increasing Windows Vista demand during its most recent quarter conference call, but the reality may look different, if the results of a survey of systems management appliance is somewhat correct: Apparently, six out of ten IT Managers have no plans to replace an older Windows operating system with Vista and almost all say that the recently released Service Pack 1 did not change their opinion and almost half of respondents said that they may be considering other operating systems as alternatives to Windows Vista. Is Microsoft gambling the huge enterprise client market away?

Last week, Apple offered customers that were hit with performance issues of the fancy new service one month of free service. This week, the company follows up and offers another free month to those affected by outrageous preauthorization charges for free trial accounts. It appears that MobileMe is finally back on track.

It took just ten days of iPhone 3G availability until the iPhone Dev Team announced the release of its PwnageTool 2.0, which enables iPhone owners to jailbreak the device’s 2.0 firmware. However, don't get too excited as the group has not yet found a way to unlock the iPhone 3G from AT&T’s network.

If you have been using the MobileMe free trial or paid membership since day one, then you know that the service did not have an exactly stellar launch. Now that the most annoying service issues have been resolved, we were able to take a closer look at what is missing, what is not working and which features we can hope to see with future service updates.

Apple's new MobileMe cloud service has been hit with a series of unexpected performance and reliability issues that spoiled the Friday launch. While the company struggles to iron out various issues it is finally stepping forward to acknowledge problems. In an email letter sent out to all MobileMe users, Apple says that the .Mac to MobileMe transition was "a lot rockier than we had hoped."

Apple’s MobileMe payment processing system is causing frustration among users as increasing number of people around the world report that they are being charged the full membership fee or  more for supposedly free trial accounts. The support team of the company appears to be overwhelmed by the problem and is delaying replies to angry emails from customers.

After initial hiccups, Apple's new online service MobileMe is now live. Dubbed "Exchange for the rest of us", the service delivers push email, contacts, calendars and bookmarks to Mac/PC and iPhone/iPod touch devices and keeps data in sync.

Yahoo is offering a re-engineered version of its search API that allows individuals and organizations to create their own search engines based on Yahoo’s technology. The new Build-your-On-Search-Service (BOSS) removes annoying limitations from the previous API and even enables developers to reconfigure the ranking of search results an change the way search results are presented. And yes, the engine is still provided free of charge.