This is a classic T-Mobile versus At&T battle although Starbucks is the one that is caught in the middle. T-Mobile is now suing Starbucks because of their free AT&T Wi-Fi offer. The problem is that the two companies are actually promoting free Wi-Fi in a market where T-Mobile currently has the exclusive right to “sell, market and promote its services” because the infrastructure transition to AT&T is not complete. Technically speaking, there are only 2 markets that run Death Star certified equipment in Bakersfield and San Antonio. This basically means that all the other stores are on T-Mobile so it is considered that AT&T is making money off T-Mobile’s back. The problem is that the customer is the one that will suffer and I am sure that everyone thought that the transition to AT&T was done at the Starbucks locations that allow it. It is hard to know what will happen with this in the future but it looks like the law will have to be respected and a trial is in order from the point of view of T-Mobile.

Firefox 3 will surely be one software that will be downloaded very fast but the question is: will it make history? We are talking about Mozilla trying to set a world record for the largest number of downloads done in 24 hours with the new browser. Now if they are successful it will be great although the record will be brought done eventually. Now the scoop is that they want to do this on the official launch day of Firefox 3. The problem is that the exact day is not posted, although it will surely be next month. We do hope that their servers can handle the load. Until that time, Mozilla has set up a special page where you are invited to pledge that you will download Firefox 3 on the launch day. You will probably be announced when that is and so far there are around 450 thousand people that have vowed to download the browser. In order to see how things are going you should visit the official World Record Setting Details page.

It is safe to say that the vast majority of blogs out there are built around money and the need of the owners to monetize them as much as possible. It was great to find one blog that is labeled officially as a design blog but does not fit this pattern. We can say that it is a blog that is done by a real blogger and that is exactly what a blog should be about: blogging various points of interest that the owner has. The better part of it all is that a lot of information might also be of interest to a lot of people due to the many subjects touched. We got to find out about the existence of a spyware community and the benefits of being a basic or advanced member. We also found out interesting information about user accounts control technology, something that comes with various benefits and all is basically explained very well. On the whole we could say that this is a programming blog that touches a lot of subjects from video and personal to technology and design. We recommend that you visit it, read it, comment and even pick up the articles you might have liked and link them on your blogs. Stylish Blog is really a blog that comes with a simple design and the main advantage of having a lot of good information.

Apple Inc. recently announced that Safari 3.1 will be available for both Windows and Mac users. The new version of the web browser will support most of the new web standards recently introduced including HTML 5’s newest video and audio tags and CSS animations. According to Apple, Safari 3.1 comes with a web page load time that is 1.9 times faster than Internet Explorer 7 and 1.7 times faster than Mozilla Firefox 2. To make everything even more special, it was stated that JavaScript actually runs 6 times faster on Safari than in other web browsers. Safari is offered by Apple as a free browser and to make history clear for those that are not aware, Safari 3.0 is the version that first appeared on Windows in June. If you want to run Safari 3.1 on Mac you will need to use Mac OS X Leopard or Mac OS X Tiger version 10.4.11. If you run personal computers that need Windows to work you need to go for Windows Vista or Windows XP in order to make Safari 3.1 work.

Skype made an interesting announcement in teaming up with MySpace. It seems that users of the social network will receive some sort of free Skype calls. Quite an offer! On the other hand, there is something else that Skype is proud of now. It seems that the company hit a record in 10 million users connected at the same type on Skype’s global network. In 2004 they celebrated the fact that they had 1 million users logged on at the same time and now we get to see that amount increased in just 3 years. On the other hand Skype still has some problems to deal with and 10 million users does not mean money in the mix.

The entire process that brings Internet censorship in China is filled with bureaucracy. We all know that and we also know of reports that say around 30 to 40 thousand web sites have been censored and the number is constantly rising. This definitely means that there are different individuals behind this. Well, it seems that some information was leaked concerning this topic. I was surprised to find out that there are different agencies responsible for different types of censorship. In total we have 3 agencies responsible for this: the Internet Propaganda Administrative Bureau, the Bureau of Information and Public Opinion and the Internet Bureau. We also have the Beijing Internet Information Administrative Bureau that strictly handles Internet firms in the city. It is actually very interesting to see how Internet Censorship works in China.

To read all about the Chinese Bureaucracy behind Internet Censorship click HERE

There are so many Internet radio stations that you really can not know what to look for. I just stumbled upon an interesting search engine for Internet radio stations called iHeard. Various searching capabilities are available including by genre, keyword, category, geographical location and more. You can even take a look at a Most Popular chart that will highlight what the majority are looking for. This is just in case you do not know what to chose. Search results come back with a brief description of the online radio station and a play button for you to instantly start listening to the chosen station. Quite a nice service with iHeard.

Joost recently announced that their peer to peer Joost Internet TV is now available for everybody. For those that do not know, Joost allows users to download and run their service, which makes it possible to watch free TV on your personal computer. The best part is that everything is free and all is supported through ads that are similar to TV commercials so we basically have the same experience. You can even connect your PC to a high definition TV set in order to maximize it even more.Joost’s Internet TV is still in beta and an open beta allows programmers to identify and fix the bugs that might appear. You can use the service on Microsoft Windows and on Apple OS X operating systems and according to Mike Volpi, Joost CEO, there has been a lot of interest in the service in the previous months. There are hopes that this Internet Service will be fully available on TVs in around 18 months but there are still issues to be assessed when talking about both hardware and software. There is a lot of work to be done but Joost might just become big.

Radiohead will soon launch a new album. It was rumored on many web sites but nothing official was known until know. The difference is that Radiohead will be coming with something different and special: they will give people the possibility of paying as much as they want for this album if they decide to download it. This seems to me like a very interesting and smart move as they can even end up getting more money than having a fixed price tag on the album. Thumbs up for Radiohead on following on the steps of artists like Trent Reznor, realizing that digital downloads are not as bad as big companies think they are.

There are many statements online that say productivity is lowered at work because employees surf the Internet. In most cases these statements have been used by individuals that sell Internet filters. On the other hand we also have different studies that show us that most people will not have a problem with their work results if they do personal surfing as well. My personal belief is that this “personal surfing” actually eases work and makes the individual work better. The problem appears when individuals tend to rather surf the net instead of doing their job but if they can get the job done, why attack this extra surfing?

The recent case that brought attention to the media is in UK. 9 office workers were fired after the company discovered that they spent up to 2 hours a day on eBay. OK, I totally agree, two hours per day is a long time to be spending on eBay but that “up to” stated is very circumstantial. There is no news related to whether this impacted their job performance or if the windows just remained open on eBay or they were actually browsing the web site. The defense on the other hand seems very strange. It seems that the workers are represented by a union and that union is attacking the employer for putting temptation in the way of workers. It is the employer’s fault that they did not filter out eBay. OK! That is stupid in my view! The employer will probably win, but only because of an improper defense.