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Updated May 6, 5:50 AM PDT to reflect the actual announcement from the two companies.

Yahoo and McAfee announced a partnership Tuesday under which potentially unsafe Web sites appearing in Yahoo search results will be flagged as risky.

The deal, an exclusive for Yahoo, uses McAfee SiteAdvisor technology to label a variety of potentially dangerous Web sites with red warning text and links to McAfee information about what risks the site poses. Among the triggers for a red warning message are sites that host spyware, adware, or virus-infected downloads; sites that have links to other Web sites with dangerous material; and sites that have a track record of harvesting e-mail addresses later used to send spam, the companies said.

The McAfee service flags risky Web sites in Yahoo searches with red warning text.

(Credit:
Yahoo)

The move, along with related technology at Google and protections now built into browsers such as Internet Explorer and
Firefox, spotlights a gradual expansion of the war against computer attacks.

Mainstream computer security efforts began with antivirus software that runs on people’s personal computers, spread to corporations that screen e-mails and other network traffic for dangerous traffic, and now is being built into the online search gateways that most people use to navigate the Web. Think of it as security software as a service.

Priyank Garg, director of Yahoo search product management, has high hopes for the Yahoo service, both for user protection and for hobbling attackers who try to exploit network insecurities.

“We expect users will have more confidence when searching on the Web,” Garg said.

Deal extends beyond search results
And the multiyear partnership means the McAfee technology could be used elsewhere within Yahoo, Garg said.

“We have the ability to use their data throughout Yahoo,” Garg said. “All the teams throughout the company are excited to leverage this information.”

That could mean some changes. Yahoo currently uses Symantec’s Norton Antivirus software to check e-mail attachments sent with its Yahoo Mail service.

Yahoo is trying the move to improve the clout of its search engine. In March, Yahoo was No. 2 in U.S. search results with 20.6 percent of queries, according to research from Hitwise. And it lost share to Google, which had 67.3 percent.

The idea is that people will tilt toward a search engine that will better protect them. Everybody wants more safety in searching, and some folks–parents, and those running schools, Internet cafes, and libraries spring to mind–are more sensitive than usual.

The move, while helpful, isn’t necessarily going to mean a dramatic difference for the company, said Forrester analyst Natalie Lambert.

“I think it’s going to very much help protect Yahoo users,” she said. But when it comes to where people actually choose to search, “Fundamentally it’s going to come down to how good the search is, and I think Google will still lead.”

Google, here too, is a formidable search competitor. It’s got some protections of its own now against sites that try to install malware via browser vulnerabilities. The company uses virtual machines check for Web sites that launch attacks, and those that do are flagged in search results with the warning, “This site may harm your computer.”

Currently,Google doesn’t check for viruses in downloads, e-mail harvesting schemes for spam operations, or outgoing links that could lead to dangerous Web sites, said spokesman Michael Kirkland. However, he wouldn’t rule out that sort of possibility.

“It makes sense to assume Google has a vested interest in keeping its users safe and the Web safe overall,” he said.

Curtailing Web attacks?
The Yahoo service could make life significantly harder for those who would attack people’s computers, however.

“We see millions of clicks on some of these sites through our search engine today,” Garg said. “It is going to have a material impact in distribution of this content.”

The service will start in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and Spain. So it has broad reach.

And the red flag is only the beginning. Through the McAfee technology, Yahoo has already removed an unspecified number of pages from its search results–for example those that attempt to compromise a vulnerable Web browser with a “drive-by download” attack launched simply by visiting a Web site. “We took out the risky sites where we don’t want users to hurt themselves,” Garg said.

But beyond the deleted entries and warning labels, Yahoo decided against altering search results. “There is an element of informed use,” Garg said, likening the move to providing a city map with dangerous neighborhoods labeled as such rather than omitted altogether.

The Yahoo service isn’t likely to directly address phishing, in which users are steered toward entering usernames, passwords, or other sensitive information into fake Web sites. “Phishing is less of a concern for the search experience,” Garg said. “The Web sites that come up with phishing aren’t usually around long enough” to make it into search results, he said.

While the service could improve security for searchers, it will also lead to a new phase in the constant battle between attackers and computer security firms, Forrester’s Lambert predicted.

“At the end of the day, people are going to beat the technology,” Lambert said. “You can only get so far ahead with security.”

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Linux has been proclaiming the year of the desktop for years, to no avail. Meanwhile, quietly, insidiously, it has been taking a rising share of the mobile and embedded market. Indeed, ABI Research pegs Linux’s share of the mobile market at 20 percent by 2013. Such growth, in part driven by Google’s Android stamp of approval and Nokia’s Maemo approval, puts a serious crimp on Symbian’s and Microsoft’s ambitions in mobile.

As ABI research notes,

Linux solutions will be at the center of the drive to bring more content-rich environments to users who currently utilize mid-tier devices. More importantly, it looks increasingly likely that mobile Linux solutions will be an important building block in enabling an application domain that embraces Web-based applications and blended Web/native applications.

Mobile Linux’s rise is partly a function of its superior cost proposition, but as ABI implies, it’s also partly due to its flexibility and the
iPhone’s introduction of web-based applications. As on the desktop, the more we move applications to the web, the less necessary it is that we have Windows waiting on the client to receive them.

Over dinner last night, Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth and I talked about the industry’s (and, indeed, society’s) tendency to self-regulate. Microsoft has had its decades of dominance, but at some point technology and those that build it have decided to throw off the manacles that bind us down to old ways of thinking about computing.

I believe we’ll see this most poignantly, and in the shortest period of time, in mobile. With the server world transitioning to the power and flexibility of Linux, it’s only a matter of time before developers extend that server to the mobile devices that yearn to connect with it. If the operating system serving both is communal property (e.g., Linux), all the better.

Having the server and the client OS powered by one vendor (Microsoft) is stultifying. Having it powered by a community is liberating.

Now with Penryn: Alienware's Area-51 m15x

Elsewhere, Gateway has made its first Penryn update. The 17-inch P-171X FX is a $2,000 fixed configuration that includes the Core 2 Duo T8300. For more on this laptop, read our recent review of the $3,000 P-171XL FX model, which includes a last-generation Core 2 Extreme X7900 and a suddenly outdated HD DVD drive. Gateway tell us it will be adding Penryn to an M-series laptop “in a few weeks.”

Also with Penryn: Gateway P-171X FX

(Credit:
CNET Networks Inc.)

For more on Penryn, read our coverage from CES.

Dell updated its XPS line of laptops earlier this month with Penryn CPU offerings, and now it’s sharing Intel’s latest mobile processors with its wholly owned subsidiary, Alienware. The Area-51 m15x now offers three Penryn chips, the Core 2 Duo T9300 and the T9500 and the Core 2 Extreme X9000. Pricing starts at $2,149. If you’re scoring at home, Dell’s 13-inch and 17-inch XPS laptops have received a Penryn update, skipping over the XPS M1530. Meanwhile, Alienware’s 15-inch laptop has the Penryn and its 17-inch model does not.

(Credit:
CNET Networks Inc.)

“By then we will offer
cars without exhaust emissions,” Reuters quoted Stadler as saying. “Electric cars offer great opportunities, which we have already seized on.”

Rupert Stadler, Audi’s chairman and chief executive, said in an interview with German weekly Welt am Sonntag published Sunday that he expects battery technology to dominate in the coming five to 10 years.

Audi is joining other German automakers in the effort to eliminate exhaust emissions, promising to bring an electric model to market in the next 10 years.

Luxury German automakers are likely to be among the hardest hit by new European Commission legislation for stricter emissions and fuel efficiency standards, and consequently have been making efforts to find more efficient versions of their performance-focused lineups.

At last year’s Frankfurt auto show, Mercedes showed off a number of diesel-electric hybrid concept cars that are scheduled for production in 2010 as well as its Diesotto engine, which uses turbo charging, direct injection, and diesel-like compression to maximize power and fuel economy.

Reducing vehicle emissions is a chief concern for automakers in Germany. BMW recently showed off a hydrogen-powered 7-series sedan at the 2008 SAE World Congress in Detroit that actually emits less carbon monoxide than are found in the air around it.

(Credit:
Freescale Semiconductor)

Intel, Microsoft ready to leave Netbooks behind? As Intel continues supporting their Core 2 Duo-equivalent CULV energy-efficient mobile processors, the focus on Atom seems to be waning. That’s not the case, according to Intel, especially with new Atom processors on the horizon, but the market’s getting crowded fast. Microsoft has also said that they’d rather not use the Netbook name anymore, choosing “low cost small notebook PC” instead. As ULV and CULV processors take over the mobile Centrino space to create lower-cost, thinner laptops, and smartphone-evolved ARM processors begin to chip away at the Atom-based Netbook category, the days of Netbooks as we knew them may already be numbered.

Future technology for screens, touch pads: Regardless of whether Apple gets into the Netbook space, Windows Netbooks are heading toward MacBook-like touch pad interfaces. Synaptics’ ClickPad version of their next multitouchpad was shown off this week, being targeted mainly at future Netbooks with smaller keyboard areas. Finding a way to fit buttons into small Netbook frames has been a challenge, and going button-free would also allow the touch pad to be made even larger. Whether
Windows 7 supports the ClickPad as well as Apple supports their MacBook single-button multitouchpad remains to be seen. And, taking a page from the easy-to-read reflective e-ink screens of e-readers, Pixel Qi demonstrated a highly reflective LCD screen on an Acer Netbook that can be used in daylight with no backlighting. The hybrid screen can switch between e-readeresque and full-colored brightly backlit states for battery conservation.

Where does this leave Linux, then? In a tough place. Linux’s relatively brandless environment has been a challenge in an app-store world, although this week’s RealNetworks’ announcement of RealPlayer being preinstalled on Linux Netbooks and Instant-On OS platforms is a big step for Ubuntu being able to keep up with the easy media-playing capability of Netbook machines, and adds some brand recognition and codec consolidation. Shown at Computex were several Moblin Linux-based Netbook prototypes, as well the announcement of Ubuntu Moblin Remix, the next graphical interface evolution beyond Ubuntu and a possible candidate for an OS specifically geared towards ultramobile PCs such as Netbooks.

Regardless of the processor, companies are finally announcing the release of honest-to-goodness Android Netbooks, running a laptop-based version of the Google-created smartphone OS, later this year. Acer took the leap by confirming their release of Android Netbooks by the third quarter of this year, suddenly accelerating the “Android on Netbooks” argument we’ve been having on CNET. Is Android really a better OS solution? The point may be moot for laptop manufacturers such as Acer who are also entering the smartphone space, and are mostly likely interested in targeting Google for an across-the-board mobile OS option on their future devices. According to Acer, “a majority” of their Netbooks will run Android as an alternative to Windows.

Mobile-phone-based Netbooks are growing: “Smartbooks,” as they’re being called by companies like Qualcomm, seem to be this year’s Netbook. It’s mostly a naming convention shift: ARM processors based on smartphone chips, like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon, were demoed on Asus Eee PC Netbooks–running Android, no less. While Snapdragon competitor Freescale Semiconductor, who makes an ARM-based iMX515 processor, predicts hybrid Smartbooks that will look like tablets, others see them being even more portable Netbooks.

We have our wish list of what we’d like to see in future Netbooks, and some of those already seem to be coming true.

Smartbooks: a different beast than Netbooks? (conceptual design from Freescale)

While many eyes are on E3, Taiwan’s Computex conference is more quietly generating some interesting news on the future of Netbooks and laptops that will eventually make their way stateside. For a peek into the crystal ball of mobile computing, let’s take a look at what’s been announced in Taipei, Taiwan, this week.

I like Hulu. When I travel, I tune in to it on my laptop instead of a hotel’s TV. The service always has something dumb to watch, thanks to its relationships with network TV providers.

Surely a high point in Superbowl advertising history: GoDaddy's 2005 commercial.

Hulu is still in private beta but there are 2,000 new Hulu invites waiting for Webware readers. The Superbowl archive won’t go live until after the game, but you can nab your invite now.

I am man enough to admit that I am not a big football fan. Superbowl? Sure, I Tivo it. For the ads. This year, I’ll be checking out Hulu’s Superbowl site after the game. The site promises that all the ads will be up right after the game ends, in high-quality streams.

Developers will also be able to create “widgets” for TVs to help bring Web content onto the TV screen. Widgets are specially designed Web applications that can easily be added to consumer electronics devices.

Until now, Adobe’s Flash Player has mainly been used on computers to make animation and video from Web sites like YouTube available in a Web browser. And the company has been very successful in this market. About 80 percent of online videos worldwide are viewed using Adobe Flash technology, according to comScore.

Murarka said that Yahoo is not really competing with Adobe. He pointed out that both Adobe and Yahoo are working with Intel, and he said the Flash technology was actually complimentary to what Yahoo is doing with its Widget Channel.

“There are some products and services that offer a subset of online video for TVs,” said Anup Murarka, director of technology strategy and partner development for Adobe’s Flash Platform Business Unit. “But they don’t provide all the content. For example, a lot of devices play back YouTube content. But they can’t offer all the videos on YouTube.”

“Yahoo supports Flash on desktops and our hope is that they will support Flash in TVs as well,” he said. “We see Flash as being valuable in a number of new frame works.”

Yahoo is also offering widget technology for TVs, which it co-developed with Intel. The Yahoo Widget Channel provides access to Flickr, Yahoo News, Yahoo Weather and Yahoo Finance, USA Today, YouTube, eBay and Showtime Networks, among others. Motorola, Samsung, and Toshiba are all planning to add Yahoo Widgets on some of their new TVs.

From the PC to the TV, Adobe Systems wants to bring rich Web animation and video into consumers’ living rooms.

As part of the announcement, the company revealed a number of partners that plan to use the technology, including, Intel, Comcast, Disney Interactive, Netflix, Atlantic Records, and the New York Times Company.

The company has also adapted its technology to create a mobile version of Flash that is used on smartphones. The mobile version lets people watch Flash-enabled video on the go. Now Adobe is turning its attention to the living room and big screen HD TVs. This means that people could have full access to the entire YouTube library of video on their TVs instead of a subset that has been specially encoded for TV viewing.

A mock-up of what Adobe Flash for TVs would look like.

The company will on Monday announce its latest version of its Flash multimedia platform that will essentially put its technology in Internet connected TVs, set-top boxes, Blu-ray players, and other digital home devices. The main purpose of the TV and consumer electronics optimized Flash is to allow viewers to see high-definition video, interactive applications and new user interfaces right on their TVs.

(Credit:
Adobe)

Murarka wouldn’t say which consumer electronics makers plan to use the new version of Flash, but the technology is available to device makers and application developers now. And Flash-enabled TVs and set-tops should be out later this year.

For a full breakdown of Dish vs. DirecTV’s high-def programming, and how it currently compares with cable and Verizon Fios, check out the big chart.

For the record, I’m with most people who care: I wish all broadcasters would show all content in the original aspect ratio, and leave it to us to press the “aspect” or “zoom” or “format” keys on our remotes to fill the screen if we so desire. To date, some do (Jake 2.0 on SciFi HD, when I checked, had the proper black bars to either side of the 4:3 image) but many do not. The excellent guide to DirecTV’s channels at Digitalcaffeine.com breaks down which channels stretch and which leave the program unaltered–it applies equally to other providers, including Dish. Unfortunately, the anti-stretch-o-vision petition has been closed.

Of course, just because a channel has a big “HD” stamped next to it in the on-screen programming guide doesn’t mean you’ll be glorying in full-fledged high-def every time you turn it on. In fact, most of the new channels Dish added, and indeed most so-called HD channels on any provider, deliver a steady diet of upconverted programming that originates in standard-def–and usually doesn’t look much better when shown on an HD channel. Worse, many HD channels stretch their squarish 4:3 shows to fill the rectangular 16:9 HDTV screens, resulting in shorter, fatter people, oblong circles, and similar distortions. I flipped by something on HGTV HD and even noticed the tell-tale disproportional stretch similar to some HDTVs’ “panorama” or “Just” modes, where the sides of the screen are stretched more than the middle in an attempt to make people in the central area of the screen look less distorted.

Ever since DirecTV launched a slew of national high-definition channels last October and November, it’s been the only place most Americans can get their Cartoon Network, Sci-Fi, and Bravo networks in high-def. On Monday, Dish network caught up somewhat, announcing the activation of a total of 22 new high-def channels, including those three and many other national, high-interest channels–as well as a few lower-interest ones, including World Fishing Network HD. Twenty of the channels are supposed to go live Monday, and the last two, the regional sports networks (RSNs) Comcast Sports Network Bay Area HD and Comcast Sports Network New England HD, will be activated Wednesday, according to the company. Check out the full list of new channels on the official press release.

(Credit:
CNET)

According to our count, the new additions bring Dish’s total number of HD channels to 95, just under DirecTV’s 104. Excluding RSNs, on-demand/Pay-per-view channels, exclusives like Dish’s Voom channels, and duplicate East/West feeds, we count an even 50 national and local HD channels on Dish Network, and 60 on DirecTV. Dish is still missing some well-known networks like FX HD, MTV HD, and Nickelodeon HD, while DirecTV still doesn’t carry World Fishing Network (the nerve!) or ABC Family HD, but overall DirecTV still maintains an advantage in channels we expect more people care about.

SciFi HD is among the 22 new HD channels launched by Dish Network.

The Lone Star State is the sole holdout in MySpace.com’s comprehensive partnership with the rest of the country’s attorneys general, and now Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has come out and explained why.

Texas maverick: Greg Abbott, the only state attorney general not to sign onto MySpace’s new safety measures.

“We are concerned that our signing the joint statement would be misperceived as an endorsement of the inadequate safety measures contained therein,” Abbott’s letter to DeWolfe continued.

“In our view, the remedial measures delineated in the joint statement constitute a starting point rather than a point of conclusion. That is, the protective steps memorialized in the joint statement improve online safety and security but still fail to adequately protect child users,” Abbott continued, adding that he thinks the wording of the joint statement is too vague. “We do not believe that MySpace.com–or any social-networking site–can adequately protect minors until an age verification system is effectively developed and implemented.”

Age verification technology, as Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal stressed during a press conference Monday announcing the coalition, is a point of contention, even for those law enforcement authorities that have opted to work with MySpace. The attorneys general believe that such technology is either feasible at present or will be in the very near future; representatives from MySpace, including chief security officer Hemanshu Nigam, have stated that more research and development is necessary.

“Although we believe that MySpace.com, along with other state attorneys general, is working to protect social-network users, we cannot endorse any initiative that fails to implement a reliable age verification system. Doing so would give Texas parents and their children a false sense of security.”

But that hasn’t stopped the attorneys general from every state except Texas, in addition to the District of Columbia, from agreeing to work with the News Corp.-owned MySpace. Abbott’s office, at least for the time being, is the only dissenter.

(Credit:
Texas State Attorney General’s Office)

“We believe that social-networking sites, including MySpace.com, do not adequately protect young users,” Abbott wrote Monday in an open letter directed to MySpace co-founder and CEO Chris DeWolfe. “As a result, Texas is unable to join the ‘joint statement’ that MySpace.com and other state attorneys general issued this week.”

The reason, he said, is that he does not believe any social-networking site can be safe for minors until significant improvements in technology are achieved.

And as has been reported a number of times, if Yahoo hits the high end of its range and issues a strong forecast, it may bolster its argument that Microsoft should pony up more than its initial cash-stock bid, valued at $31 a share. (For full coverage, see “Microsoft’s big bid for Yahoo.”)

Based on a consensus of Wall Street analysts, Yahoo is expected to report net income of 9 cents a share on revenue of nearly $1.33 billion, according to Thomson Financial.

With Google blowing past Wall Street’s numbers for the quarter Thursday, expectations may rise for Yahoo, which reports its first-quarter results next week.

As he addressed a crowd of nearly 2,000 people at a Seattle technology conference Thursday, he asked the group how many relied on Yahoo as their main search engine, according to a Reuters report.

While it’s not clear whether Yahoo has taken similar action and hired lobbyists over the Microsoft bid, Google is not resting on its laurels, according to the AP story. Google has hired the Franklin Square Group to aid with “competition issues in the Internet industry,” the AP cited from a disclosure form Franklin filed with the Senate public records office.

The question on investors minds is whether Yahoo on Tuesday will report results that are on the low end of the range, or the high end. Expectations for hitting the upper end may have just increased, given Google’s performance for the quarter.

While waiting for Yahoo to decide whether it will enter into a friendly merger or tempt fate with a proxy fight, Microsoft has not been sitting idle.

When only a handful of hands went up, according to the Reuters report, Ballmer quipped: “Wow! We offered 31 bucks a share.”

Although Google’s share soared as much as 12 percent in after-hours trading to tip past the $500-a-share range, Yahoo climbed less than 1 percent to $28.26 per share. In regular market hours, Yahoo ended the day down slightly at $28.03 a share.

Microsoft has hired Bryan Cave Strategies to lobby its case with federal regulators, according to an Associated Press report. The software giant is hoping lobbyists will aid its efforts in getting regulators to give a nod to a Yahoo merger, proxy fight or no proxy fight.

Should Yahoo hit the low end of its range, especially in light of Google’s financial results, Microsoft may have a stronger argument for keeping its offer where it is, say Wall Street soothsayers.

Yahoo earlier told Wall Street that it expects to post revenue within its previously forecast range of $1.28 billion to $1.38 billion.

And as the parties next week head toward the last leg of a three-week deadline Microsoft issued to Yahoo to do a deal, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer hasn’t lost his sense of humor.