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A number of people really want to use the latest in technology, but they just feel held back by a lack of understanding toward the programs. One of the best way for them to overcome this problem is to just get Microsoft Office training. Microsoft Office practically runs the world. If they get a good overview of the programs in the suite, then they will know how to build presentations, databases, and write. That should be all the basics that they really need.

This isn’t that easy for everyone though. Some people have rough schedules or face a tough drive to the local training center. They need a good way to train on their own schedule without leaving the home. This is where the Microsoft Office training CD comes into play. This is a way to teach them everything that they need to know while they are using the computer. If they can put the disc in the drive, then they are set. The CD contains lessons, examples, and simulations to walk them through all the little problems that they could face. Once it is all said and done, they should be just fine. If nothing else, it is a really great way to get them past any initial fear of technology.

In late 2006 a coalition of 23 of Japan’s biggest TV broadcasters and copyright organizations, alarmed at the uncontrolled spread of their content on the Internet, were preparing to battle YouTube. Two years on, the video-sharing site has just signed a site-wide licensing agreement for its content and is telling Japanese content owners that user-uploads of copyrighted content aren’t necessarily a threat.

Armed with a new tech toolkit to identify the owner of uploaded content, YouTube says it is committed to making money for its partners.

“We really want to focus on monetization,” said David Eun, the company’s vice president of content partnerships and one of the executives originally sent to Japan to allay industry fears. He was speaking at a Tokyo news event held to outline YouTube’s business plan for the coming year.

“We really understand that YouTube can provide a fantastic opportunity for research, reach to send content and distribute it to new audiences but we also understand that revenues are very, very important,” he said.

At the forefront of this push to make money from videos is Content ID, the system YouTube uses to scan uploaded video clips and look for matches amongst a database of reference video provided by copyright holders. It requires at least 20 seconds of video to make a match but will even catch clips of differing quality, such as those recorded off a TV screen with a camcorder.

“This technology is continuing to improve but we are already surprised at how well it is working and how accurate it is,” said Eun.

Faced with a match, content providers have three options: block the content, simply track it to get insight into who is watching it and when, or run ads around it to make money. There are roughly 300 partners using Content ID and in about 90 percent of cases they choose the latter option, said Eun.

“For our most popular videos we have more user-uploaded videos being claimed by partners than the partners themselves have uploaded,” he said. “For some partners this traffic increases by 50 times so it proves to be a fantastic way for content owners to increase their inventory and to increase their ability to target what kind of content is most interesting to users because it is the users themselves who are uploading the content.”

The company is also experimenting with in-video ads, which appear 15 seconds into videos as an overlay at the bottom of the screen. Users have the ability to switch them off but, Eun said, experience is proving them to be eight to 10 times more effective than standard display ads when measured by click-through.

YouTube’s position in Japan has strengthened in the last two years. Japan is now YouTube’s largest market outside the U.S. and is a permanent feature in the top ten Web ranking.

Consumers who rely on the user-edited Web resource Wikipedia for information on medications are putting themselves at risk of potentially harmful drug interactions and adverse effects, new research shows.

Dr. Kevin A. Clauson of Nova Southeastern University in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida and his colleagues found few factual errors in their evaluation of Wikipedia entries on 80 drugs. But these entries were often missing important information, for example the fact that the anti-inflammatory drug Arthrotec (diclofenac and misoprostol) can cause pregnant women to miscarry, or that St. John’s wort can interfere with the action of the HIV drug Prezista (darunavir).

“If people went and used this as a sole or authoritative source without contacting a health professional…those are the types of negative impacts that can occur,” Clauson told Reuters Health.

Wikipedia is an online, free encyclopedia covering millions of topics in more than 250 languages. Users add and edit content themselves. Clauson and his colleagues decided to investigate the accuracy and completeness of drug information on Wikipedia given that one third of people doing health-related Internet searches are looking for information on over-the-counter or prescription drugs, and that a Wikipedia entry is often the first to pop up with a Google search.

The researchers compared Wikipedia to Medscape Drug Reference (MDR), a peer-reviewed, free site, by looking for answers to 80 different questions covering eight categories of drug information, for example adverse drug events, dosages, and mechanism of action.

While MDR provided answers to 82.5 percent of the questions, Wikipedia could only answer 40 percent. Answers were less likely to be complete for Wikipedia, as well. Of the answers the researchers found on Wikipedia, none were factually inaccurate, while there were four inaccurate answers in MDR. But the researchers spotted 48 errors of omission in the Wikipedia entries, compared to 14 for MDR.

“I think that these errors of omission can be just as dangerous” as inaccuracies, Clauson told Reuters Health. He pointed out that drug company representatives have been caught deleting information from Wikipedia entries that make their drugs look unsafe.

The researchers did find that after 90 days, the Wikipedia entries showed a “marked improvement” in scope.

Wikipedia can be a good jumping-off point for Internet research, Clauson said, but shouldn’t be seen as the last word on any topic-and should certainly not be used as a resource by medical professionals. “You still probably want to go to medlineplus.gov or medscape.com for good quality information that you can feel confident in,” he said.

Spice Televentures recently launched its new venture Mobisoc Technology aimed at providing Internet-enabled services on all mobile phones. Dilip Modi, chief executive officer, Spice Televentures is leading this new venture as the chairman.When asked about the scope, the newly launched service Mobisoc has in the mobile world Mr Modi said looking at the 70 million GPRS consumers throughout the country, and with the number growing each passing day, Mobisoc has a big role to play in the times ahead. “Our target is to address this demand which is going to be there,” says Modi.

Answering to how the selection of the 5 partners who have tied up with Mobisoc, at the start of the venture materialised, Modi said Mobisoc has tied up with Naukri.com, Jeevansathi.com, MakeMyTrip.com, FinancialExpress.com, and Sulekha.com as its initial partners to launch their applications using Mobisoc. “All the partners are leading players in their respective verticals,” he justifies.

When asked how this new service will make a difference to the availability of Internet content on the mobiles, when so far this kind of services have not clicked with the customers , Modi said that at present 45% of the total bookings online are being done on the mobiles and it is just the starting phase.

Apple Inc is the target of a lawsuit that claims a technology the iPhone uses to surf the Web infringes on a patent filed by Los Angeles real estate developer Elliot Gottfurcht and two co-inventors.

The lawsuit was filed by EMG Technology LLC on Monday in the U.S. District Court in Tyler, Texas. EMG was founded by Gottfurcht, is based in Los Angeles with an office in Tyler, and has just one employee.

The suit alleges that the technology the iPhone uses to navigate and display some websites designed for small phone screens infringes on a patent obtained last month by Gottfurcht and his co-inventors and assigned to EMG.

Apple spokeswoman Susan Lundgren declined to comment on the lawsuit, saying that the Cupertino, California-based company does not discuss pending litigation.

EMG has not considered suing companies such as HTC Corp, maker of the G1 Google phone, and Research in Motion Ltd, maker of the BlackBerry, which also produce devices that can display mobile websites, according to Gottfurcht’s lawyer Stanley Gibson, a partner with the Los Angeles law firm Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Marmaro.

Mobile websites are essentially reformatted versions of ordinary websites, with their content manipulated to be easily viewed on tiny screens.

“We haven’t looked at anything other than the iPhone,” Gibson told Reuters. “That was the device that we looked at. Obviously it’s very popular.”

Gibson was one of several attorneys who prosecuted a recent patent infringement case against Medtronic Inc that resulted in a $570 million verdict for his clients, according to a statement issued by his law firm.

Have you got a new bundle of joy in your family? Are you proud parents of a cute little one and can’t wait to take him/her out to show them off to everyone? Hold on how do you plan to take them out? Are you planning to go for a stroll in the neighborhood with your baby put in a buggy?

Then make sure you choose a buggy that ensures your baby faces you while in it. This is so because a recently conducted research in Dundee University’s School of Psychology suggests that babies put in buggies in which they do not face their parents are prone to psychological damage.

Researchers say that lack of emotional connect due to facing away from parents is the reason why some babies interact less with their parents. This conclusive evidence comes after a research on 3000 parents and their babies.

When children face their parents while riding in a buggy, they establish a bond with the buggy-pusher. The laughs and talks of the person pushing the buggy lead to a good heart rate and lower stress levels in babies ensuring babies fall asleep while in their buggies.

Even though strolling with a kid in the buggy seems like a mundane job parents have to be careful of its after effects. They should utilize this opportunity for increasing their contact with their child by using a buggy in which their baby faces them.

The growing economic slump doesn’t appear to have fully struck Web advertising.

Internet advertising revenues for the third quarter were nearly $5.9 billion, representing an 11 percent increase over the same period last year, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

The bad news is online advertising appears to be slowing down. The third quarter in 2008 was up only two percent from the second quarter. For the first three quarters of the year, however, ad revenues totaled $17.3 billion, up from $15.2 billion for the first three quarters of 2007. The IAB said the $5.9 billion quarterly results were the second best ever.

Meanwhile, ComScore issued an ad-focus ranking for October. Platform A, AOL’s ad platform reached 173 million Americans or 91 percent of the 190.6 million American’s online. The Yahoo Network came in second by reaching 164 million people and was followed by Google’s Ad Network with 158 million.

With Jerry Yang quitting as Yahoo Inc.’s chief executive, the Internet company’s board will confront pivotal questions as it looks for a new leader.Should Yahoo swallow its pride and try to strike a buyout deal with Microsoft Corp. at a price far below Microsoft’s $47.5 billion offer from 6 1/2 months ago? Or should Yahoo still pursue a long-awaited turnaround that’s becoming more difficult to achieve as the economy tanks?

If Yahoo plays it safe and hires someone from within or someone friendly with Microsoft, it could signal the board merely wants an interim captain who can steer the ship until Microsoft, or possibly another buyer, comes to the rescue.

But should Yahoo recruit a CEO with a prestigious resume or pluck an up-and-coming technology star, it will be seen as a sign that the company is digging in to remain independent for the long haul.

Concentrating on rich Internet applications, Zend Technologies is backing Adobe’s Action Message Format (AMF) in Zend Framework 1.7.

Version 1.7 is the latest release of the company’s framework for building PHP Web applications; it is being announced at the Adobe Max 2008 conference in San Francisco on Wednesday. With AMF support, PHP developers can exchange data between PHP applications on a server and Flex and Flash applications on the client.

[ For more about Adobe Max, see "Adobe accommodates Visual Studio, Eclipse" ]

“It makes it much easier to develop [Adobe] Flex and AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) applications in PHP,” said Wil Sinclair, development manager in the advanced technologies group at Zend.

Other features in Zend Framework 1.7 include performance enhancements to increase load times by 25 to 50 percent, the company said. Also featured is a native DB2 adapter to access DB2/400 data on the IBM i platform and an update to the Dojo AJAX toolkit, including a new dijit editor. Also, Zend will offer integration with the jQuery AJAX library, although Zend has chosen Dojo as its supported JavaScript library.

Version 1.7 supports Twitter, in which Twitter can be used within a Zend-based application instead of requiring the Twitter interface.

With the upcoming Zend Framework 1.8 release due in early 2009, Zend will focus on RAD (rapid application development) to build applications more easily. Tools such as a command line interface tool will be provided.

Zend Framework 1.7 is available for download here.

Yahoo Inc. shares shot up 11 percent Tuesday as investors took the resignation of CEO Jerry Yang to mean Microsoft Corp. is more likely to make another bid for the ailing Internet company.

Yang’s emotional attachment to the company he co-founded in 1995 is one of the reasons he balked at a $47.5 billion takeover offer from Microsoft six months ago. The same devotion finally led Yang to conclude he should step aside as chief executive, as the company seeks to bolster its depressed stock price and sagging earnings in an economic downturn that might prove even more wrenching than the dot-com bust of eight years ago.

Yang’s surrendering of the CEO reins, announced Monday, won’t occur until Yahoo finds a suitable replacement. The Silicon Valley company said it is interviewing candidates inside and outside Yahoo in a search led by its chairman, Roy Bostock, and the executive recruitment firm Heidrick & Struggles.

It didn’t take long for analysts to conclude Yang’s departure will clear the way for a major overhaul that could culminate in Yahoo’s sale to Microsoft — something Yang refused to do in May, to the great irritation of shareholders.

“We still believe Microsoft will eventually own Yahoo,” UBS analyst Benjamin Schachter wrote in a research note late Monday. “Jerry moving out of the CEO role may accelerate this.”

Microsoft declined to comment Monday.

Although Yang, 40, had publicly expressed his desire to remain at the helm, Yahoo’s board faced intensifying pressure to cast him aside as the company’s shares plunged to their lowest levels since early 2003.

The shares were trading Tuesday morning at $11.80, up $1.17 on the day, but still well below Microsoft’s last bid of $33 per share in early May.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer huffily withdrew the offer after Yang sought $37 per share. The negotiating breakdown triggered a shareholder revolt led by billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who called for Yang’s ouster in July.

Icahn reached a truce that put him and two allies on Yahoo’s 11-member board, but he still has been lobbying for Yahoo to pursue a deal with Microsoft that would either involve selling the company in its entirety or just its search engine, which ranks a distant second to Google Inc. An Icahn spokeswoman said the financier had no comment Monday.

Monday’s shake-up comes as no surprise, given the challenges facing Yahoo.

“The shareholders were ready to pick up pitchforks and torches,” said technology analyst Rob Enderle. “If Jerry wasn’t a founder, he already would have been gone” months ago.

Bostock made it sound as if the change in command had been in the works for some time. “Jerry and the board have had an ongoing dialogue about succession timing, and we all agree that now is the right time to make the transition to a new CEO who can take the company to the next level,” he said.

Yang, who started working on Yahoo with Stanford University classmate David Filo in 1994, will revert to “Chief Yahoo,” a titular role he filled before replacing former movie studio boss Terry Semel as CEO in June 2007. He will also remain on Yahoo’s board of directors.

“All of you know that I have always, and will always bleed purple,” Yang wrote Monday memo to employees, referring to the company’s official color.

Sue Decker, Yahoo’s president, is expected to be among the candidates to succeed Yang, although she has been an integral part of the management team that has exasperated shareholders.

Dan Rosensweig, who resigned as Yahoo’s chief operating officer, also could be lured back as CEO, or the board could turn to one of its own directors, such as former Viacom Inc. CEO Frank Biondi or former Nextel CEO John Chapple.

Yang had been pursuing a strategy that he thought would prove Yahoo was worth more than Microsoft was willing to pay, but the rapidly deteriorating economy made a comeback seem increasingly unlikely.

After squandering the opportunity to sell to Microsoft, Yang tried to boost Yahoo’s profit by forging an advertising partnership with Google.

But that backup plan fell through two weeks ago when Google walked away from the deal to avoid a court battle with the U.S. Justice Department, which had concluded the partnership would have throttled competition in the online advertising market.

Just a few hours after the Google partnership collapsed, Yang publicly said he thought Microsoft should hook up with Yahoo. But Ballmer threw cold water on the idea the next day by declaring he doubted a deal could be worked out.

Yang had also been exploring a possible acquisition of another fading Internet star, AOL, but most analysts panned the idea as a desperation move that threatened to hurt Yahoo more than it would help.

Although Yang’s tenure as CEO is unlikely to be remembered fondly by shareholders, his legacy as an Internet visionary remains secure.

Yahoo’s remarkable rise began in 1994 when Yang and Filo began compiling a directory of their favorite Web links while working on their engineering doctorates in a trailer at Stanford University. They initially called their site “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web,” only to later decide to switch to an acronym for “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle.”

Yang and Filo became two of the Internet’s first billionaires not long after Yahoo went public in 1996 with fewer than 50 employees on the payroll. At the height of the dot-com boom, Yahoo’s market value stood at $130 billion. It was around $16 billion Tuesday.