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Microsoft to buy semantic search engine Powerset for $100M plus — Microsoft, the software giant flush with billions of dollars in its warchest, has agreed to buy Silicon Valley semantic search engine Powerset, we've learned. — The purchase price is rumored to be slightly more than $100 million.
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Microsoft To Buy Powerset? Not Just Yet. — VentureBeat is reporting that Microsoft has agreed to buy semantic search engine Powerset for somewhere around $100 million, which is the price we previously reported was being offered to the company. — Our sources have been saying this deal …

Rumor: Microsoft to Acquire Powerset for $100 Million
Discussion:
BroadDev


Internet overhaul wins approval — A complete overhaul of the way in which people navigate the internet has been given the go-ahead in Paris. — The net's regulator, Icann, voted unanimously to relax the strict rules on so-called “top-level” domain names, such as .com or .uk.
Discussion:
Mark Evans, Techdirt, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Mashable!, DSLreports, CircleID, VentureBeat, Changing Way, Lockergnome, ReadWriteWeb, Digital Daily and MarketingVOX
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Biggest Expansion to Internet in Forty Years Approved for Implementation — Paris, France: The Board of ICANN today approved a recommendation that could see a whole range of new names introduced to the Internet's addressing system. — “The Board today accepted a recommendation …


More on Yahoo's Reorg: Dietzen Is Garlinghouse Replacement — As BoomTown reported last night, the Yahoo (YHOO) reorg will be unveiled later this morning, with the slate of execs that this column outlined last week in its gory-oops, I mean, glorious-detail.
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Yahoo! Announces Realignment to Support Core Strategies — Centralizes Audience Product Development; Forms New U.S. Region; — Realigns Technology Organization — SUNNYVALE, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - News), a leading global Internet company …


Yahoo Reorg Is On: New Jobs For Ash Patel, Hilary Schneider (YHOO)

MICROSOFT.COM POWERED BY HYPER-V — Hi—I am Rob Emanuel, a Technology Architect on the Microsoft.com Operations team focusing on virtualization. I wanted to share the great progress we have made rolling out Hyper-V since my first blog a month ago. In that blog I discussed our success …
Discussion:
Microsoft, TechNet Edge, BroadDev, BetaNews, Virtually Speaking, Microsoft Watch and Bink.nu
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MySpace Opens Up The Data Pipe With Full Launch Of Data Availability — MySpace was the first of the Big Three to announce tools for third party sites to integrate MySpace user data into their services (called, collectively, Data Availability). A day later Facebook announced Facebook Connect …
Discussion:
Ars Technica, The Social Web, The Social, Marc's Voice, VentureBeat, The Real McCrea and Mashable!
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Google Tests the New iGoogle — Announced in April, the new version of iGoogle that brings social applications is tested in a small number of randomly selected Google accounts. — The new iGoogle places the tabs on the left-hand side of the page and you can expand the tabs to see the list …


Bill Gates and the Greatest Tech Hack Ever — Bill Gates has pulled off one of the greatest hacks in technology and business history, by turning Microsoft's success into a force for social responsibility. Imagine imposing a tax on every corporation in the developed world …

Yahoo's Loser Board — Russ Mitchell is not surprised. One way to compare the quality of Yahoo's board of directors to Microsoft's: look at the outside directors and the other public boards they sit on and see how they've performed. Take each company and compare its stock charts …
Discussion:
Valleywag

I've Seen the Future, and It Has a Kill Switch — It used to be that just the entertainment industries wanted to control your computers — and televisions and iPods and everything else — to ensure that you didn't violate any copyright rules. But now everyone else wants to get their hooks into your gear.

Microsoft Reaches for Clouds and Deepens Mobile Possibilities With Planned MobiComp Acquisition — Company's expertise in mobile personal data protection and management to come to Microsoft. — Microsoft Corp. today announced it intends to acquire MobiComp, a company that helped pioneer …


Atom Films relaunched as Comedy Central sister site — NEW YORK—Two years after acquiring it, MTV Networks has shaped Atom Films into Atom.com, a sister site to its Comedy Central network dedicated to short-form, Web-based comedy. — Executives from the Viacom-owned MTV Networks held …
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Palm Stinks Up Q4; No Big Deal (PALM) — Palm's Q4 was even worse than analysts' low expectations, and shares will probably drop Friday morning. (They're down 7.8% after hours, to $6.03, after losing another 4.4% during Thursday trading.) — But it doesn't really matter! Why not?