Ars Technica takes an in-depth look at Internet Explorer 9, the beta version of which was released last week. For a Microsoft product, it looks pretty good. The only bad news is that it doesn’t run on Windows XP, still the operating system of choice for many in Cambodia.
More evidence that Cambodia is on the fast track to the 21st century:
Cisco today announced the launch of a Cisco(R) Networking Academy(R) at the University of Management and Economics, expanding the program further into Cambodia. UME will integrate the IT Essentials course into the core curriculum for students at the provincial campus in Battambang.
Not Phnom Penh. Battambang!
In a direct assault on Facebook, Google has entered the social-networking wars with Google Buzz, a Gmail-integrated social-networking application. According to Google’s Todd Jackson, Buzz’s product manager, Buzz’s main features include:
According to a press release from Google:
The most noticeable advantage to Google Buzz is the way that e-mail comments and media, such as photos and videos, can be shared. Google Buzz automatically ‘follows’ the people who you communicate with most. Rather than broadcasting a passive “status message” like Facebook or “tweet” like Twitter, Google Buzz engages your friends by making the content that you find interesting available to them
Most of the buzz about Buzz centers around its real-time commenting features and its mobile integration, including voice recognition, which allows users to comment with voice only. No keyboard required! For developers, Google provides a Buzz API.
Not everyone, however, is enamored. And privacy issues have already been raised.
The Official Google blog has all the details.
New York Magazine blogger Gabriel Sherman says the return of the New York Times paywall is imminent.
After a year of often tumultuous debate, The Gray Lady appears settled on a metered system similar to the one used by The Financial Times. Readers are allotted a certain amount of free stories per month, and beyond that readers must subscribe.
The Times toyed with a similar pay-per-view scheme a few years ago. In 2005, the paper launched TimesSelect, which made opinion pieces and other editorial content available only by subscription. The Times discontinued TimesSelect in 2007. At the time, the paper admitted that making content free and deriving revenue from advertising was financially smarter than the subscription-based model. That is apparently no longer the case.
Closer to home, DAP News is free. The Phnom Penh Post charges for content more than 90 days old. And The Cambodia Daily makes available only a very small selection of stories.
