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For those wondering how long Yahoo may take to respond to Microsoft’s unsolicited $44.6 billion takeover bid, Yahoo says don’t hold your breath.

In a brief FAQ posted to its Web site, Yahoo says it is “undertaking a deliberate review process” and warns it could “take quite a bit of time.”

Yahoo said its process “will include evaluating all of the Company’s strategic alternatives–including maintaining Yahoo as an independent company.”

That could include pursuing bids from other companies, Yahoo said. “That process will take some time, but the Board will ultimately pursue the option that it believes can best maximize value for our shareholders,” Yahoo said.

The FAQ marks the company’s most substantive comment thus far on the bid. The company issued a brief statement on Friday morning, but said only that it was reviewing Microsoft’s offer and the company declined all further comment.

Of course, it’s unclear how much of Yahoo’s statement is reality and how much is bravado. The Wall Street Journal noted that while Yahoo may seek other bidders, none immediately emerged. Some say Microsoft’s big wallet and determination may deter others from pursuing Yahoo.

Meanwhile, Silicon Alley Insider blogger Henry Blodget on Friday wrote that at least one New York-based private equity firm was said to have been preparing an offer for Yahoo when Microsoft announced its bid. And on Saturday TechCrunch blogger Michael Arrignton cited rumors that News Corp., which had considered merging its MySpace social-networking site with Yahoo, was trying to assemble a group of investors to challenge Microsoft’s offer.

This week, however, each of these independent efforts was put on notice by industry heavyweights VMware, Citrix, and Virtual Iron: We’re joining the fray.

Once upon a time a cottage industry of platform-as-a-service (PaaS) vendors emerged to proclaim the next generation of application development. Bungee Labs (which I advise), Coghead, 3tera, and a range of others each stepped up to provide cloud-based platforms for developing cloud-based applications.

Either way, the nascent cloud-computing industry just became a lot more interesting.

Indeed. No one is yet making any real money as a cloud infrastructure provider, but already the market is heating up to a boiling point. The entry of VMware and Citrix, in particular, may toll the bell for the independents, or perhaps it will encourage a round of consolidation.

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The long and the short of it is that we have entered into a new era, in which data centers will no longer simply be collections of servers, but will actually be computing units in and of themselves–often made up of similar computing units (e.g. containers) in a sort of fractal arrangement. Virtualization is key to make this happen (though server virtualization itself is not technically absolutely necessary). So are powerful management tools, policy and workflow automation, data and compute load portability, and utility-type monitoring and metering systems.

James Urquhart calls out the significance of of their entries into the cloud platform market:

The Writers Guild of America went out on strike for about four months in hopes of negotiating a better compensation package for Internet downloads of writers’ works. That forced the television-watching public to miss its daily dose of digitally delivered drugs and watch reruns and reality TV instead. The strike ended last month.

The Hollywood writers’ strike might have shortened the television season, but iTunes customers will get some compensation for their losses.

Apple is also promising to provide partial refunds for shows that won’t be delivered as a result of the strike. For example, if 20 episodes were promised when the season pass was purchased, but only 17 wind up getting made this year, it sounds like Apple will issue a credit for the missing three episodes. It’s not clear whether the two-episode credit applies to that difference.

iLounge noticed that Apple has started sending notices to iTunes Store season pass subscribers with good news: they’ll be getting a two-episode credit from Apple to make up for the writers’ strike.

Buying a season pass to a particular show over the Internet is a relatively new way to watch TV, and this is a relatively interesting way of dealing with the strike. So far, my cable company has not offered me anything back for forcing everyone to watch The Moment of Truth.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

But what about these new noise-cancelling and inner ear-canal headphones that are starting to pervade the industry? I wonder if those particular types of monitor earphones pose a greater danger than the over the ear style? Either way, my future doesn’t look very bright. Are there any Millennials out there who have already started to experience hearing loss? I’d love to hear other opinions on how these listening trends will affect our health down the line.

“Justin…Justin…JUSTIN!!!”

A recent report out of Australia titled “Is Australia Listening?” reported 70 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 34 experience a constant ringing in their ears, which can be a symptom of permanent damage to the ear canal. The report goes on to claim that 76 percent of young adults in Australia listen to music through headphones on portable MP3 players, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a higher number in relation to the United States.

This happens at least once a day…I’m at my desk, typing up a review or blog post on my computer, when all of a sudden someone sneaks up behind me and unintentionally make me jump 10 feet in the air with a simple tap on the back. How do I allow this to happen? Am I deaf? Well, not right now, but it’s quite possible that I might be if I continue to constantly blast music out of my Princess Leia headphones.

At 24, I represent the first generation to see the rise of portable music players. I remember when the headphones to my first Sony Walkman cassette player might as well have been glued to my ears. Since then, I’ve been addicted to personal, portable audio and I fear that I, along with the rest of my generation, will soon experience severe hearing loss due to years and years of listening to loud music through headphones. Professor Harvey Dillon of the Hearing Australia program says his general rule of thumb is if “people have to raise their voice or actually shout at you to make themselves understood while you are listening to music in your ears, then that is loud enough to be potentially damaging.” As a self-professed audiophile, I take every opportunity to listen to my music. It moves along a boring work day, drowns out crazies on the subway, and helps put me to sleep at night. Some days, I feel like I spend more time with my headphones in than out. I also listen to a lot of different kinds of music, from hip-hop to metal to classical to Disney, but no matter what the genre, I must admit that I crank up the volume to the highest possible level to experience the bliss of surround sound. It sounds like my days of listening to music might be numbered…

Delicious Bookmarks (download): If you’re a bookmarking fanatic like I am, you won’t want to use Firefox without the Delicious Bookmarks add-on. Simply install it and whenever you surf to a page, you can click the Delicious button on your address bar to save it to your Delicious profile with a tag of your choosing. It’s simple and a must-have for any Firefox user.

Surf Canyon (downlload): Surf Canyon is a simple add-on that finds relevant information contained in search results on Google, Yahoo, Live Search, Lexis Web, and Craigslist. While it’s running in your browser, you can search as you normally would, but Surf Canyon analyzes your query and finds good results as deep as page 100.

Google Scholar search bar: Since most students are required to use scholarly publications for research, having a Google Scholar search bar installed in their Firefox installation will certainly come in handy. Instead of going to the Google Scholar page, the add-on lets students search regardless of where they are on the Web. Results pop up in a new tab.

Stock Pilot (download): Sometimes going to Google Finance is too time consuming to get quick public company info. Try using Stock Pilot instead. The add-on allows you to switch between financial sites to research a particular stock. It also boasts RSS alerts to update you when news breaks about a company you’re tracking. Ready access to SEC filings makes it a handy tool for anyone who wants to see a company’s quarterly or annual financial data.

Dictionary: What good would a Firefox add-on list be for students if it didn’t include a dictionary? With the help of the Dictionary add-on, students won’t need to go elsewhere to find the definitions for words. Simply input the word you’re looking to define and the add-on will deliver the result.

If you’re a
Firefox user, chances are you’ve been using add-ons to extend its functionality. But if you haven’t, or if you’re looking for new add-ons, I’ve found 20 for you to try. But since installing all 20 will probably slow your browser to a crawl, I’ve broken them into four categories. I have grouped the add-ons into “packs” for business professionals, shoppers, social-network fanatics, and students.

WOT (download): WOT, short for Web of Trust, is designed to ensure security and privacy are maintained while you’re browsing. Once installed, the add-on warns you about risky Web sites. It also alerts you to sites that deliver malware or send spam. The add-on shows you safety ratings on over 21 million sites.

(Credit:
Don Reisinger/CNET)

(Credit:
Don Reisinger/CNET)

The shopper

Facebook Toolbar (download): A simple, yet highly useful add-on, the Facebook Toolbar allows you to view friends’ statuses, search for people on the popular social network, and interact with friend profiles. It even alerts you when you receive a poke, message, or notification. But perhaps the add-on’s most useful feature is the option to share a page you’re currently browsing with friends on Facebook. You can either send it to them or add it to your own profile in a few clicks.

The business professional

Xmarks (download): If you’re running a business and want everyone in the office to have the same resources available to them, Xmarks is the way to do it. Simply download it into your browser, create an account, and install it on all the browsers in the office. Once configured, every Xmarks instance connected to that account will be automatically updated whenever a user adds a bookmark. In other words, if one employee adds Webware to their bookmarks, every other person in the office who’s running Xmarks will have it installed, as well.

GoogleTube: When you use Google Search, it sometimes displays links directing you to a YouTube video that’s relevant to your query. But instead of going to the YouTube page, installing GoogleTube gives you the option to watch the video in the Google results page. After installation, the add-on adds a YouTube button next to every YouTube result in Google. When you click it, it plays the respective video next to the results.

eBayBuddy (download): If you’re obsessed with eBay, there’s a great add-on you might want to consider. Dubbed eBayBuddy, the tool is available in the right-click menu in Firefox and allows you to have full access to eBay’s site map, search, and more. It’s a great way to quickly and easily find products on eBay without being forced to deal with the site itself.

Stock Pilot makes it simple to find quotes.

TripSync: Once you install the TripSync travel manager add-on, you’ll be blown away by its functionality. You can book and hold reservations to places across the world, receive travel alerts, and place your itineraries on Outlook and Google Calendar. TripSync is designed specifically for the business professional, so it’s a bit more useful than using a site like Expedia.

Power Twitter (download): If you want Twitter to be more powerful, use Power Twitter. Whether you want to automatically add hashtags to a tweet, expand URLs, add in-line YouTube, Flickr, and TwitPic content, or see a person’s status history with a simple mouseover, Power Twitter will do it. Twitter is fun and addicting by itself, but it’s much better with Power Twitter installed.

The student

(Credit:
Don Reisinger/CNET)

GoogleTube puts the videos next to your results.

The social networker

TwitterBar: For those times when you want to update your Twitter profile, but you don’t feel like going to your profile page to do it, use TwitterBar. The add-on allows you to update Twitter from Firefox’s address bar by typing your message out and clicking a small Twitter icon placed alongside the address bar. If you’re worried about the number of characters you have left, you can hover your mouse over the tweet to find out.

Buy it online lets you find the best deals.

1 Stop travel and retail shopping engine: If you want to find the best deals across the U.S., Europe, or Canada, the 1 Stop travel and retail shopping engine add-on is a good place to start. While you’re browsing, it allows you to search for flights on more than 40 airlines. It also lets you search for deals on more than 20 sites, including Amazon, eBay, and Wal-Mart. Once you start searching in the add-on, it finds the desired page and automatically opens it in a separate tab.

PriceAdvance (download): When you run PriceAdvance and surf to a retail site to research a product, the add-on will tell you its price on a handful of other prominent sites across the Web. For instance, if you’re on Amazon looking to buy an
Xbox 360, the site will automatically search for other retailers selling the console and display their pricing, so you can be sure that you’re getting the best price.

Zotero (download): Once students perform their research, they’re usually required to cite their sources. And that’s where Zotero comes in. The add-on stores PDFs, files, images, and other content for later use. But its best feature is automatic citation exporting, which creates a proper citation for a source that can be sent to a Word or OpenOffice document.

Buy it online (download): If you’ve ever been on a Web site and found a product you’d like to buy, but were forced to go to Amazon.com to search for it, you’ll be happy to know that there’s an add-on designed specifically for you. Dubbed “Buy it online,” the add-on adds another option when you right-click on a product title on any Web page. If you click the “Buy it online!” button, you’ll be shown a listing of all the stores on the Web that are currently selling the product. All the retailers listed are well-known and trustworthy.

Zotero does all the caption work for you.

KeepCash Coupon Notifier (download): As someone who frequents coupon sites and goes to a retailer’s page with the discount ready to be used, I found KeepCash Coupon Notifier to be an extremely useful add-on. Whenever you go to a retail site, it automatically searches its database to find any coupons currently available for the site you’re on. If there are, it will list them for you to be used while you’re shopping.

Jigsaw Contact and Company Search: Most business professionals need to have easy access to a company’s contact information. If you’re one of those people, consider using the Jigsaw Contact and Company Search. Jigsaw, a global online business directory, features millions of contacts and company profiles that can be searched by title, geography, and business.

(Credit:
Don Reisinger/CNET)

FacePAD: Just because students are expected to be studying all the time doesn’t mean they are. In fact, many of them are on Facebook to check out their friends’ pictures. If you’re one of those people, install FacePAD. It lets you download anyone’s Facebook album or all your friends’ albums in just one click.

The move will allow Microsoft to fulfill its pledge of releasing Hyper-V within 180 days of the release of Windows Server 2008, which launched in February. The company issued a near-final “release candidate” version in March.

Hyper-V will compete with a number of existing virtualization technologies, including a range of products from industry leader VMware.

ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley reported Tuesday that Microsoft is expected tomorrow to say it has released the product.

Microsoft is expected this week to announce that it has completed work on Hyper-V, a virtualization technology that allows a single server to act as many separate servers.

To make its target, however, Microsoft was forced last year to strip out several features from the product, including Live Migration.

The news will be announced at the RSA 2009 security conference which starts on Monday.

AVG LinkScanner also offers safety rankings for all organic search results on Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Safe pages in searches will have green check marks next to them and unsafe ones will have red “X”es and pop up windows offer more explanation.

(Credit:
AVG)

AVG LinkScanner scans bookmarks as well as links in e-mails and instant messages before they are opened. Individual pages are scanned separately, so that if one page on a site like Facebook are spreading malware that page will prompt a warning and other pages on the site won’t.

AVG on Monday will begin offering a free version of its LinkScanner software, which offers real-time scanning of Web pages while surfing or doing Web searches.

LinkScanner, which is currently part of the AVG Free Edition suite, scans a Web page before a surfer visits the page and warns if the page appears to be unsafe.

There is other software that flags malicious sites in searches. McAfee SiteAdvisor works with Yahoo search results and more than 20 other search engines and Symantec offers ratings on Ask while Google serves up its own warnings in its search results.

AVG LinkScanner puts marks by search results that are unsafe and displays a pop up box with more information when the cursor hovers over the mark.

It manages to do all this by adding a small toolbar over the iPhone’s onscreen keyboard. Using the small loop magnifier you can highlight strings of text, then copy them into a virtual clipboard. From there it can be pasted into other notes, then sent off. Unfortunately you can’t carry the clipboard to other applications, which is what most people are hoping Apple will provide.

Posted after the break is a video of the yet-to-be-released application in action, which was made by AppleiPhoneNotes.com. One thing that might keep MagicPad from making it onto the device is if it does not meet Apple’s stringent human interface guidelines, which protect things like the keyboard configuration to keep the end user from getting confused.

If you’re one of the many waiting for Apple to get its act together and offer a copy/paste feature on the
iPhone, there’s a promising development called MagicPad from software creator Proximi. It’s an application similar to the notes tool that ships with the iPhone. The big difference is that it’s got support for multiple fonts; rich text elements like underlining, italics, and strikethroughs; and the much-wanted copy/paste.

Write notes, and use rich text elements including copy and paste, with MagicPad.

(Via Macrumors)

(Credit:
Proximi)

First Look - MagicPad from Apple iPhone Apps on Vimeo.

(Credit:
Netcraft)

A YouTube user named “Zennie62″ posted a video clip showing him being redirected from Obama’s site to Clinton’s.

Purported hacker says other vulnerabilities exist on Obama's Web site.

The redirect has been fixed, but “Mox” says similar vulnerabilities remain on the site.

Basically, visitors to the community blogs section of Obama’s site on Saturday night were sent to Clinton’s site. Someone using the alias “Mox” claimed credit for the hack on Obama’s site late on Sunday.

An e-mail sent to CNET News.com late on Monday from “mox xss” said: “this exploit was not at all politically motivated, and it was simply an immature prank meant purely for fun. Senator Clinton had no hand whatsoever.”

Updated 10 a.m. PDT Tuesday with comment from “Mox.”

Someone exploited a weakness in Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s Web site and redirected visitors to rival Hillary Clinton’s site over the weekend, according to a posting on the blog of security firm NetCraft.

The writer downplayed the act, saying: “All I did was exploit some poorly written HTML code.” Basically, the hack was possible because of a cross-site scripting vulnerability, which is a common hole in Web sites.

Ever optimists, more than 80 percent of investors in the survey said they believe that merger-and-acquisition activity will increase. Only 26 percent of respondents think that the number of initial public offerings will increase this year.

The results of a KPMG survey project continued investment in the
green-tech sector this year and a wave of acquisitions.

Competition among investors is also going up as private-equity firms enter the field typically occupied by VCs, according to a statement by Brian Hughes, a KPMG partner and co-leader of the venture capital practice.

Investing in Asia is also projected to increase over the next two years, with China and India being the most attractive destinations.

With so much money going into green tech, observers are expecting that there might be an uptake in mergers and acquisitions, something that investors and entrepreneurs are certainly hoping for as well. Investing in Asia is also projected to increase over the next two years, with China and it being the most attractive destinations.

KPMG is scheduled to publish the results of its annual venture capital survey on Thursday, which show that green-tech investing, already a torrent, will keep flowing.

Twenty-four percent of respondents to the survey said the green tech, or clean tech, area will receive the most capital over the next two years, followed by biotech and pharmaceuticals, attracting 15 percent of respondents. Thirteen percent picked Internet services, and 11 percent said mobile technology.

The results seem to reflect the move by traditional IT and biotech venture capital firms into the clean-tech area over the past three years. The bulk of the respondents said they expect that the level of investment to be the same as 2007 or higher.