ferikoy.net

Bing, on the other hand, is enjoying a solid start in the three months since it made its debut as it gains users and will at some point be the default search experience on Yahoo’s highly trafficked pages following a long-awaited deal. It’s not clear whether Bing results will carry Wolfram’s branding (i.e., results “Powered By Wolfram Alpha”), but there will be some sort of presence.

Microsoft’s Bing search engine is getting a little help from a very smart friend.

It’s unlikely that Bing is going to turn over the bulk of its results to Alpha, however. In a blog post Friday, Wolfram founder Stephen Wolfram admitted that linguistic problems are to blame for half of the occasions when Wolfram Alpha doesn’t return a result. That percentage is changing as Wolfram refines the science behind Wolfram Alpha, but it will take some time.

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Screenshot by Tom Krazit/CNET)

Bing will start using Wolfram Alpha's data in search results following a licensing deal.

Wolfram Alpha and Bing have reached a licensing deal that allows Bing to present some of the specialized scientific and computational content that Wolfram Alpha generates, according to a source familiar with the deal. The deal was reported earlier by TechCrunch.

Representatives from Microsoft and Wolfram Research declined to comment on the deal.

Wolfram Alpha’s unique blend of computational input and curated output hasn’t taken the world by storm, but it is considered an interesting enough take on the business of Internet search to attract high-profile attention within the industry. Wolfram Alpha doesn’t return the usual list of links to pages with search keywords, instead providing answers to questions such as stock prices and complex mathematical formulas–with mixed results.

Corrected at 3:30 p.m. PDT to clarify that half the time Wolfram Alpha doesn’t understand an input query, it’s due to linguistic problems. An earlier version suggested that Wolfram Alpha didn’t understand queries half the time.

“We are aware of these reports and we are waiting to receive the iPhones from the customers,” Apple said in a statement late Tuesday afternoon. “Until we have the full details, we don’t have anything further to add.”

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Updated at 4:43 p.m. PDT with comment from Apple.

I’m on my third iPhone (having upgraded twice), and I’ve also owned an iPod Touch. I loved them all dearly, largely because they never exploded into flames, burning me and my family alive. Just saying.

Editors’ note: The damage to this iPhone was the result of someone trying to hack the device.

I do not want this in my pants.

Claims of iPhones exploding have surfaced in Britain and France, with at least one person, a teenager, sustaining an eye injury. In addition, KIRO TV in Seattle has turned up 800 pages of documents from the Consumer Product Safety Commission that include cases of burning or flaming iPods.

Apple said “these are isolated incidents,” commission spokeswoman Helen Kearns told reporters in Brussels. “They don’t consider that there’s a general problem.” Kearns said the company is seeking more information on the reported incidents and will do necessary tests.

There have been many well-documented cases of laptop batteries bursting into flames, so it’s plausible that iPhones could heat up too, given that they use the same (or similar) battery technology.

But it seems that other people might not have been so lucky. Numerous reports say the European Commission is now looking into accounts of exploding iPhones and iPod Touches–and Apple is cooperating, according to The New York Times.

“This deal is going to eliminate a competitor in search in a market that has high barriers to entry and only has three players,” Cantor said. He compared it to the reaction that would have arisen in the 1960s if two of the three major television networks had decided to merge amid a far-smaller media landscape.

After years of a largely hands-off approach toward intervening in mergers, the Justice Department is likely to increase its scrutiny of merger activity, said Donald Russell, a partner with Robbins Russell in Washington. The poor state of the economy has decreased merger activity, but things are starting to pick up and the Justice Department under President Obama could begin to assert itself more strongly than it did under the Bush administration.

The long road toward Microsoft and Yahoo’s search deal could be set to get a little longer, or fall off a cliff.

Given that Microsoft and Google have been fighting behind the scenes in Washington all year as scrutiny of Google ramps up, you might think Google had decided turnabout was fair play. Google declined to comment on the circumstances that have led to the Justice Department’s review, other than to say in a statement “there has traditionally been a lot of competition online, and our experience is that competition brings about great things for users. We’re interested to learn more about the deal.”

In this case, the Justice Department is likely looking at two different aspects of the deal. On one hand, regulators are expected to probe whether advertisers will be harmed by the loss of an outlet for their ad dollars, as well as whether Google has less incentive to compete for searchers now that there’s only two fish in the pond.

Cantor thinks the Justice Department will force Microsoft and Yahoo to put Yahoo’s search technology assets up for auction to let the deal go through. That would allow a third major player to enter the business, although that new entrant would still have the burden of attracting searchers: Yahoo has said that an overwhelming majority of the people using Yahoo search are already doing so from a Yahoo Web page, the combination of which are among the most visited pages on the Internet.

In some ways, it’s almost a reflexive action. When there are three major companies in a market, and two of them decide to join forces, that almost automatically provokes a review, said Matthew Cantor, an antitrust lawyer with Constantine Cannon in New York.

Both companies have long expected the U.S. Department of Justice to scrutinize the deal to install Microsoft as the exclusive search provider for Yahoo’s Web pages, which would also see Yahoo end its time as a search company. Microsoft and Yahoo confirmed Friday that the Justice Department has asked the two companies for more information about their deal, which is a step beyond taking a mere interest in the proceedings.

However, that might not be as appealing to Microsoft and would at least throw the deal into question. The company has spent millions on the development and launch of Bing, but it likely is interested in retaining certain aspects of Yahoo’s search technology, not to mention some of its engineers.

But the deal–years in the making–could have arrived at a time when the DOJ is more interested mergers and acquisitions than under past administrations.

This story was updated at 3:58 p.m. PDT with comment from Google.

Already, Google says it is readying a replacement for the Google Voice app that will offer exactly the same features as the rejected app–except that it will take the form of a specialized, iPhone-shaped Web page. For all intents and purposes, it will behave exactly the same as the app would have; you can even install it as an icon on your Home screen.

Google Voice is a free application that lets users assign a single number to ring their home, work, and cell phones, and also get voice mail as text transcriptions. There’s speculation that AT&T is behind the decision to block the application since Google Voice allows cheap international calls and free text messages.

It’s not clear if simply making Google Voice available as a Web app will change Apple’s mind, but there is precedent. Apple also rejected Google’s Latitude for the iPhone until it was remade as Web app.

A Google spokesperson did not say how close to completion the project might be, but reiterated a previous statement. “We will continue to work to bring our services to iPhone users, for example by taking advantage of advances in mobile browsers.”

In David Pogue’s Friday column regarding the ongoing saga of Apple and Google Voice, he reveals that Google has already found a loophole:

Even though Apple prevented it from listing Google Voice on the iPhone App Store, Google is planning on retooling the application as a Web-based app, according to The New York Times.

All drives come in either a 1.8-inch enclosure, typically used in ultraportable laptops, or a 2.5-inch housing, the standard size for mainstream laptops.

Toshiba is not alone in announcing commercial shipments of large-capacity SSDs. Micron Technology’s Crucial Technology unit has begun selling 256GB drives listed at $599, which beats Toshiba pricing at that capacity.

Drives are also offered in 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB capacities and are built on a 43-nanometer manufacturing process using multi-level cell (MLC) technology. MLC technology allows drive makers to increase capacity while keeping production costs under control.

On the performance front, Toshiba said it is using an advanced controller chip that enables a maximum sequential read speed of 230 megabytes per second and maximum sequential write speed of 180 megabytes per second. These read-write speeds are typically many times that of a hard disk drive. Toshiba did not specify random read and write speeds, which are also critical benchmarks for everyday data access.

For businesses up-front pricing may be less important. Over the lifespan of an SSD total cost of ownership may be lower, according to Gregory Wong, president, Forward Insights. Potential savings are particularly relevant to business laptop users, said Wong. And Intel recently did some in-house testing that showed that failure rates of SSDs are lower than hard disk drives.

Back in December of last year, Toshiba said sample quantities ranged from $220 for the 64GB drive to $1,652 for the 512GB drive–though these prices have likely come down, as the drives are now shipping commercially.

Toshiba has begun volume shipments of solid-state drives ranging up to 512GB in size, as these hyper-fast storage options bulk up on capacity.

But SSDs are still hobbled by a distinct price disadvantage. Toshiba’s own Web site offers vivid proof. A Toshiba Portege R600 laptop is priced at $2,099 with a 160GB hard disk drive. Adding a lower-capacity 128GB SSD hikes the price to $2,499. Add the 512GB option and this goes to $3,499.

Note: Intel has found a bug in the new SSDs cited above that affects users who set a BIOS drive password. When disabling or changing the password followed by powering off/on the computer, the SSD becomes inoperable. The root cause has been identified and a fix is under validation. Intel expects to post an end-user firmware update to fix this bug in the coming weeks.

Toshiba said in December that it would begin shipments of a 512GB drive this year. And this drive became available exclusively on Toshiba laptops in May.

SSDs typically offer higher performance–often much higher performance–than hard-disk drives and are more durable since they have no moving parts.

Intel has recently begun shipping a 160GB solid-state drive that offers improved random write performance. The chipmaker was able to get up to a 2.5X improvement over previous versions of its SSDs.

The post also warns other link shortening services that the odds continue to be “stacked” against them with Twitter using competitor Bitly as the built-in link shortener. “This is a basic reality of challenging monopolies,” it says. “This type of favoritism will become an issue for all Twitter developers.”

While Trim had a heavy following, users may not be willing to come back to it without knowing when or if another company will buy it. It’s also unclear how long parent company Nambu Network would be able to continue operating without a buyer, despite the offer to keep running it at a loss.

URL shortening service Trim is reopening its doors, restoring service to both existing Trim links and the core of the site that lets users make new ones. A company blog post that details the change of plans says that the company will continue to run Trim “indefinitely” while a trustworthy buyer is sought out.

In Tuesday’s announcement, the company reiterated that the move to shut down, then re-open was not a publicity stunt, nor will it ever change how the service handles URLs such as adding a framebar or interstitial advertising that forces users to wait, or click through an ad to get to the source link. Such options could bring in revenue, but the company says that would go against the very principals Trim was founded on.

Trim originally began experiencing problems late last week as all of its shortened links stopped working for several hours. Then, over the weekend, the company announced that it would be shutting down come the end of December, taking all of its shortened links with it.

Microsoft said it is not aware of any attacks using the vulnerability. “We will take steps to determine how customers can protect themselves, should we confirm the vulnerability.”

Once it is done with its investigation, Microsoft said, it will decide how to address the matter, which could include a security update as part of its monthly Patch Tuesday or an out-of-cycle update.

According to IDG News Service, code for exploiting the unpatched flaw was posted to the Milw0rm Web site. IDG said the exploit appears to affect primarily older versions of IIS–and only when the FTP function is enabled.

In a posting on Monday, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) suggested IT administrators “disable anonymous write access to the FTP server to help mitigate the vulnerability” but added that “a proper impact analysis should be performed prior to taking defensive measures.”

Microsoft on Monday said it is looking into a report of a flaw in some versions of its Internet Information Services product that could allow an attacker to gain control of a system.

In a statement, a Microsoft representative said the company “is investigating new public claims of a possible vulnerability in IIS 5 and IIS 6 File Transfer Protocol (FTP).”

It’s time for the next installment of CNET Conversations, and we have another terrific interview lined up: Steve Ballmer.

Click here to submit your question!

Microsoft is most obviously known for developing the operating system that runs the overwhelming majority of the world’s PCs, Windows, and its Office suite of products has helped businesses around the globe operate more efficiently. Additionally, the Xbox gaming console, Windows Mobile software, Bing search engine, and MSN Web properties are significant businesses and ripe areas for exploration.

Regardless of whether you love or hate the CEO of Microsoft, one of technology’s most polarizing companies, there’s no denying the influence that Ballmer has on the industry and, by extension, on the U.S. economy.

This time, CNET’s Ina Fried and Molly Wood will be traveling to Redmond. We’ve started crafting our list of questions to ask Ballmer on Thursday, but we want CNET’s users to be part of the process.

Leave your questions in the comments section, and we’ll select some of the more interesting ones to ask Ballmer. Leave your name, title, and company, and we’ll give you credit during the interview.

For some inquisitive inspiration, here are a few noteworthy Ballmer headlines:

Court docs: Ballmer vowed to ‘kill’ Google Steve Ballmer is a dissin’ machine Ballmer: We’re cheaper than Apple! (but not Linux) Ballmer: Google, Google, the economy, Google Ballmer on car insurance and gay rights The worst Microsoft promo videos ever! (scroll down to see Ballmer pitching Windows 1.0)

What would you ask Microsoft’s CEO?

CNET has talked with Ballmer many times over the years, and we can say he’s one of our favorites: insightful, forthright, funny, and passionate. For one interview at Microsoft’s Redmond, Wash., headquarters, he showed up bleeding from the bridge of his nose, following a rough game of basketball on the campus court. (His team won, he assured us.) During another interview at CNET’s offices, a food tray that included deviled eggs provided an opportunity for some juvenile humor.

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Corinne Schulze/CNET)

APIs are at least a good start in relation to monetization–holding the Alpha data captive within its site meant that it would never go beyond its own traffic, a recipe for disappointment and counter to the link economy that has been built around sites like Twitter.

If Microsoft is serious about taking on Google’s geek factor, and asserting its dominant position in spreadsheets and higher education as Bing grows, then the data from Wolfram adds a new dimension. From the consumer perspective, the more informed the data is, the better, but both Bing and Alpha have a long way to go to catch up to Google.

In today’s socialized Internet, APIs to your data are the barrier (or door) to getting users hooked on your data. Regardless of whether through an API that controls a cloud service like Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), or the ability to get communications in and out of Facebook, users want to consume data in the way they feel most comfortable. Any company that creates or aggregates data needs to make it available, if it expects to ever hit critical mass.

SF weather

Wolfram’s launch fanfare was followed by much confusion about what Wolfram actually is. One thing that’s clear is that the service has an impressive amount of data. What’s not clear is if and when it will ever make money.

(Credit: Screenshot by Dave Rosenberg/CNET) Wolfram Alpha, the “computational knowledge engine” developed by Mathematica, will soon allow its dynamic search results to be queried and mashed up in a variety of new ways.

CNET News’ Tom Krazit recently wrote about a licensing deal between Microsoft’s Bing “decision engine” and Wolfram Alpha (two non-search engines join up to create a super search engine?) that “allows Bing to present some of the specialized scientific and computational content that Wolfram Alpha generates.”

According to the Guardian, Wolfram will be opening its curated data to be queried via an application programming interface, or API. Currently, you can view results in a browser, export them as a PDF, or “play” them using a Mathematica plug-in. The ability to use the data on other sites and for other means, such as computations in spreadsheets, is appealing, if not earth-shattering.

Follow me on Twitter @daveofdoom.

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Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

When you first start using Harvest, I think that you’ll be impressed by what you find. After inputing all your relevant company information, creating an invoice takes just seconds. Choose a client, add its contact information, and then input all the tasks you’ve performed. Harvest tallies up the total for you.

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Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

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Chargify)

Chargify Chargify is a recurring billing system that should help you manage your invoices and collections without much trouble.

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Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

Blinksale Unlike some of the better services in this roundup, Blinksale doesn’t provide a free option for those with small companies who don’t need all the bells and whistles. That’s unfortunate, but the service is still worth checking out.

When you do so, you’ll be brought to its invoice creation page, where you can input your company’s information, as well as client data. From there, simply pick a date and a quantity, choose a description, and decide how much you want to charge. The site also lets you pick payment terms. You can even modify your invoices with your desired payment type. The process is quick and easy. I really liked it.

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Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

FreeAgent FreeAgent provides several nice features that make it more capable than some of the other services in this roundup. But that also makes it more complicated than it might need to be.

Unlike many of the other tools in this roundup, you can’t stay on the invoice creation page and input information where necessary. Whenever you click on a respective box, you’ll be brought to its respective page. When complete, you’ll go back to your invoice with that information now populated in the form. This navigation feels cumbersome.

If you’re looking for more than just invoicing, Harvest also tracks your invoices. Thanks to a built-in timer, it will track your time as you work. You can also monitor expenses to see just how well your company is performing. If you go on the road, you’ll be happy to find that Harvest has an accompanying iPhone app. Depending on the size of your business, you should expect to pay anywhere between $12 per month and $90 per month for the service.

Unlike so many of the services in this roundup, Chargify won’t cost you any money, if you’re not generating revenue. The service is even free up to your first 50 customers. Beyond that, you’ll pay anywhere between $49 per month for 500 customers, up to $2,499 per month for an unlimited number of customers. One word of caution: Chargify is ideally suited for online businesses.

Harvest Harvest is yet another well-designed service makes it quick and easy to create invoices and track your payments.

FreshBooks creates nice invoices for you.

My top 3

3. Chargify: Chargify boasts the best payment plan of any service in this roundup. If you run an online company, try it out.

Get some cash flow

FreshBooks FreshBooks is an online-billing and payment-tracking service that should appeal to any company looking for a simple, efficient tool for managing clients.

Although there aren’t any free options, Blinksale is one of the more affordable services in this roundup. Prices range from $6 per month up to $24 per month. There’s just one catch: some services charge based on the number of clients, but Blinksale charges based on the number of invoices you send. Its cheapest plan allows you to send six invoices per month.

First off, FreeAgent is designed extremely well. I was impressed by how well the menus moved me through the process of setting up my company and adding clients. But where it broke down for me was in the invoice creation tool, which requires sifting through a bevy of pages.

When you’re all set, FreshBooks gives you the option of e-mailing the invoice from the app or sending it via snail mail. From there, the site tracks your invoices, allowing you to input when you get paid. It remembers your clients, team members (and their rates), tracks your expenses, and even lets you input your time to make it easier to bill clients on hourly work you’ve performed.

FastDue.com FastDue is a unique service in this roundup. Instead of requiring you to go through the lengthy process of registering for the site and inputting your information, FastDue lets you create invoices under its “free forms” option.

1. Harvest: Harvest provides such a great slate of features, it’s ideal for anyone who owns a small business.

If you’re running a small business, you’re probably looking for tools that will make it easier for you to bill invoices, track payments, and collect your accounts receivable.

Chargify does things a little differently than many of the services in this roundup. Instead of simply allowing you to create invoices and track them until payment, Chargify lets you input all the products or services your company sells, then dynamically change prices as you offer free trial periods, promotions, or refunds. The service can also be integrated into a retail site, providing you with information on the number of sign-ups or cancellations your company is experienced.

You can always use offline standbys like Peachtree or Intuit QuickBooks, but you might be happy to know that there are some nice online tools that perform basic functions. Let’s take a look.

Chargify helps you chart your success.

One great feature FreeAgent offers is a bank-tracking service that analyzes money that goes in and out of your company’s account. It even calculates your taxes. FreeAgent provides a 30-day free trial. After that, you’ll need to pay $20 per month or $200 per year for access to the service.

Although the site’s invoice creation tool is great, as is, you can also upgrade to FastDue Plus to manage recurring billing, create invoice templates, and draft agreements. I should note that the site also makes important documents such as nondisclosure agreements, promissory notes, and consulting agreements freely available.

FastDue lets you create invoices on the site without signing up.

2. FreshBooks: With so many great tracking features, FreshBooks is a must-see.

Harvest has a nice invoice-building tool.

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Blinksale)

I was really impressed by FreshBooks. After signing up (which took about 30 seconds), I immediately had the option to create an invoice. It’s as simple as clicking on the many different boxes in the app, adding relevant information, and inputting totals. FreshBooks also lets you establish terms for your invoices. You can even input notes that are visible to the client, if you want to provide more detail than what you can fit into the invoice.

I could go on, but I think that you get the point: FreshBooks is a fantastic service. If you need to manage only up to three clients, FreshBooks is free. Prices go up to $149 per month, with up to 5,000 clients.

You can add your bank account to FreeAgent.

Perhaps Blinksale’s best feature is its design. The service makes moving around the different modules quick and easy. It creates an intuitive environment in which to work. And when you get to work, you should be happy with what you find. The site features invoice creation tools, invoice tracking, the ability to follow up with clients from within the app, and more. It’s a full-featured product that should appeal to the small-business owner who wants to do a little more than send invoices.

Blinksale lets you quickly edit your invoices.