I.N: Deal? That’s a negative for Google and Yahoo

Main Story: Earlier this year, Yahoo entered into talks with Google about search advertising deal amid U.S. Department of Justice starting investigations into this alleged bold move. It can be said that Yahoo entered into these talks to fight off an aquistion attempt from Microsoft.

According to the Official Google Blog, Concerns from advertisers and government regulators as well the risk of

“a protracted legal battle but also damage to relationships with valued partners.”

has ended this deal.

While this deal would no doubt created controversy if it have gone through, it was a better alternative than Microsoft acquiring Yahoo which would have effectively removed one more search and advertising competitor. In fact, at the web 2.0 summit, Yahoo’s CEO said that

“To this day, I have to say that the best thing for Microsoft to do is to buy Yahoo. I don’t think that is a bad idea at all…at the right price, whatever the price is, we are willing to sell the company”

In those sentence, it is clear that Yahoo wants to be bought by Microsoft, a stand which is a reversal from previously where Yahoo seemed to be trying to prevent a Microsoft buyout. This reversal may have come as a direct response to this Google-Yahoo failed deal.

If Microsoft were to really hit the negotiation tables with Yahoo right now, it is safe to say that the offer may be lower as Microsoft would be buying a slightly weaker Yahoo as compared to the Yahoo during the previous offer. However, it seems that Microsoft would not be sitting at a new negotiation table as Steve Ballmer said on Friday, at a Committee for Economic Development of Australia lunch in Sydney, that:

“We are not interested in going back and re-looking at an acquisition”
Source: Mashable!

The future of Yahoo remains on a delicately balanced weighing scale, which is, at the moment, tipping away from the side favouring Yahoo. In its aftermath, you would wonder if such a opposition would have been more muted if Google and Microsoft weren’t involved.

End of Windows 3.x: For a software made in 1990, it sure has a long and arduous life. Windows 3.1 was the first of Windows Graphical User Interface (GUI). According to BBC News:

Microsoft maintained support for Windows 3.x until the end of 2001, and it has lived on as an embedded operating system until 1 November 2008.

Its hard to find anyone still using Windows 3.x nowadays except in embedded systems where tech specs are a more limited and cannot cater for current Windows O.S. systems which can demand high capability processors and up to a minimum of 1GB Ram.

In this era where software support cycles are valid only up till at most their next major software release, a 18 year software support is commendable.

USB 3.0: Just a heads-up (From: CNET News), the USB 3.0 Specification will be introduced on Novemeber 17 at a Developer’s conference hosted by USB Implementers Forum in San Jose, Calif. The spec is expected to offer 10 times the speed of USB 2.0.

FTI: Studying won’t be the same

After watching this video, I would think that studying in the future won’t be the same. Proabably the video would get technology savvy students who are into biology (or those in related fields) drooling over their keyboard.

Studying the Gray’s Anatomy has never been so interactive…

The real capabilities of tablet computing, harnessed and put together, especially in an academic setting, is very well illustrated in this video.

I look forward to such a future… Lifestyle and habits would definitely change.

Now to wipe my keyboard clean of drool before it short-circuits…