SearchEngineUpdate with Vanessa Zamora - 02-29-2008 Part II
Abstract: 1. Google Gives All SF Homeless Power To Communicate, 2. EBay Settles Patent Dispute Over ‘Buy It Now’ Feature, 3. Goodbye Netscape Navigator
Vanessa Zamora
Video Content Producer, SearchEngineWorld
11:48 pm on Feb. 29, 2008 (utc 0)
Transcript
Friday February 29, 2008
Google Gives All SF Homeless Power To Communicate
Google announced on Wednesday a plan to partner with all the homeless shelters in San Francisco to offer free phone numbers and voice mail accounts to homeless individuals, giving them the opportunity to hopefully help improve their circumstance by more easily securing employment, giving them the ability to more easily retrieve health clinic correspondence, and creating a way for family and friends to stay in touch. By using a personal identification code, homeless people can check voice mail messages left for them from any telephone. Craig Walker, a senior product manager of voice products for Google, said he hopes to have all the homeless shelters in the city on board by the end of the year.
EBay Settles Patent Dispute Over ‘Buy It Now’ Feature
EBay and MercExchange have reached a settlement to end a 7 year patent dispute, that prompted the Supreme Court to issue a landmark ruling on intellectual property. The Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that judges do not necessarily have to block a technology from being used when a jury finds a patent violation. The parties agreed to dismiss all further actions and appeals in the case. As part of the settlement, eBay said it will purchase three patents from MercExchange needed to run its Web search, online auctions and fixed price sales, as well as other assets.
Netscape Navigator, owned by AOL, which is one of the first web browsers on the Internet will no longer be supported after March 1st. At one time during the mid-1990s the browser was used by more than 90% of people online, but has given way to new browsers such as Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Firefox. Netscape, first released in 1994 was created by Marc Andreessen who as a student had co-authored Mosaic, the first popular web browser.
11:48 pm on Feb. 29, 2008 (utc 0)