Internet

After hundreds of viewers were able to watch the alleged gang-rape of a young British mother on the popular website YouTube, the mother is speaking out and hitting back at the site that allowed her ordeal to be broadcast to the world. The clip, which is three minutes long, was apparently filmed on a mobile phone.

The attack reportedly occurred on November 6, and was posted within hours of the attack. The video remained on the site for three months, and received more than 600 views before it was finally taken down.

The woman, 25, claims the video showed her being raped by three boys in front of her screaming children, age two and four. She lied there unconscious after being drugged while the attack was carried out.

The video was not removed until mid-February when a visitor to the site filed a complaint.

The woman said,

"They were really hurting me. My daughter was crying and I could not get to her. Afterwards they called me a slag and a bitch. I felt so ashamed.

"It's just crazy to think that someone would get a kick out of watching that - someone perverted, someone not right, someone sick.

"The worst thing about it is you can clearly hear my baby crying.

"The next day I found out there was a video and everybody tried to make out I did it on purpose.

The boycott of the world's most popular auction website - eBay.com - which began last week has been extended for at least another week, if not longer. Both sellers and buyers alike are boycotting the site in response to changes in eBay's feedback system and listing fees. While the boycott has been downplayed by both eBay officials and others who cite numerous failed strikes in the past, this strike is already beginning to have a major impact on the company and may force them to reconsider the changes.

According to data released by USAToday on Monday, the number of auctions on eBay have fallen 13% to just 13 million listings, down from 18 million. But there's another effect of the boycott that hasn't yet been quantified - the PayPal effect.

eBay purchased the online payment processing company in October 2002, arguably the most popular payment method for eBay auctions. So in addition to earning revenue from auctions, eBay also earns money by taking a cut of transactions processed through PayPal. With a reduction in auctions and items sold, it can be assumed that the company will also feel the effects through a reduced number of transactions at PayPal.

The original protest thread posted on eBay's discussion board is now over 209 pages long, and is growing rapidly. Scores of eBay sellers have "signed" the pledge agreeing to honor the strike, and have subsequently stopped listing new auctions, shut down their eBay stores, and have altogether ceased their activities on the site. Some have even put up virtual "closed for business" signs in their eBay stores and eBay profiles, alerting potential buyers that they will not be selling during the strike.

So where are all the sellers going? Many have relocated their listings to a site called OnlineAuction.com, which also happens to be accessible by typing in ola.com.

Offering a simple $8.00 per month flat-rate fee to list auctions, and no individual listing fees or final value assessments, OLA is a much more appealing option in light of the policy and fee changes at eBay. OLA is no small potatoes either - as of Monday, their total number of online auctions was hovering near 12 million. With eBay at 13 million and falling, the gap is closing quickly. Many eBay sellers have taken up residence here, and have begun directing buyers to their new auctions at OLA.

As far as payment processing goes, the strike also includes a boycott of PayPal. The next biggest payment processing system, which is simple to use and takes far less in fees, is Google Checkout. Users can store their payment details easily in a Google Profile, for quick and easy payments. Sellers can easily accept payments, which are directly deposited into your bank account by Google, unlike PayPal where it is held in limbo until you cash out.

Thousands of websites belonging to state and local government agencies, schools, and Fortune 500 companies have been compromised and infected with malicious code. The city of Cleveland website was no exception, and did not escape this malware attack unscathed.

Security researchers said that the destructive malware attempts to engage in click fraud and steal online game credentials from people who visit the destinations. As of today, more than 94,000 URLs had been infected by the rapidly moving exploit that redirects users to the uc8010-dot-com domain.

The state of Virginia, Boston University, and even security company Computer Associates were amongst the tens of thousands of websites affected by the malware exploit. Further sites infected by the exploit can be viewed by checking out this Google search, but make sure not to visit these sites unless your virus and security software is up-to-date. Notice how the city of Cleveland has made the first results page!

With the annual MacWorld convention coming up in just a few weeks, the Apple rumors are beginning to fly. The first rumor, which seems pretty likely, is that Apple is on the verge of launching a new online video rental service that will redefine the way that movies are rented online.

According to reports, Apple is teaming up with Fox to bring movie rentals to the iTunes Store. Consumers would theoretically then be able to watch these movies on their iPods, iPhones, and even, Apple TV. It is believed that an agreement has been reached between the two companies that will make Fox movies available for limited-time viewing through iTunes as they are released on DVD.

Rumors about an Apple iTunes movie rental service have been floating around since the middle of this year, but so far no information on prices or other details have been leaked.

Beginning this upcoming Tuesday, JetBlue airlines will make limited e-mail and instant messaging available on their flights. JetBlue has teamed up with Research in Motion (RIM), and Yahoo to make this service possible.

Passengers on the equipped planes will soon be able to use their laptops and WiFi enabled phones to access a customized version of Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Messenger. BlackBerry users will also be able to check their email, and use BlackBerry's IM client on their phones.

In the future, JetBlue is hoping to offer additional ervices beyond just e-mail and instant messaging. JetBlue is able to make these services available on their planes as they are in a unique position amongst airlines, as they have licensed spectrum from the FCC which allows it to transmit from planes to the ground. Use of the spectrum is limited to JetBlue, but if JetBlue did want to capitalize on it, they could sell a similar service to other airline carriers.

A Bay area website called Richterscales.com has come up with a humorous video predicting another tech bubble. The song is a parody of Billy Joel's song 'We Didn't Start the Fire". Richter Scales has called theirs "Here Comes Another Bubble"

Richter Scales is also known for their song "Fine Line: Sub-Prime Decline" which you can also view on Youtube or download the Mp3 on their website.

Here is the video:

Howard Stern was dubbed "The King of All Media" in the 1990's. The "King of All Online Video Media" is YouTube. In case you didn't already the Google subsidiary is dominating the market. comScore, a company that provides digital marketing intelligence to online heavyweights, released a Video Metrix report for September 2007 yesterday. The study showed that nearly 75% of Internet users watched online video for an average of three hours in the month of September. 70 million people, which accounted for 27.6 percent of the total market, viewed more than 2.5 billion videos on the Google subsidiary. When combined with Google's other video service, Google Video, the company controls 40% of the market share in online video. As you can see, Google is not just a Goliath in search.

Google is nearly 2 times ahead of the nearest competitor, Fox Interactive Media, in the online video market.

Here are the complete findings from comScore study:

For over a year, there has been a rumor that Google has been working on something called "GDrive". The rumors finally look to be becoming to fruition. This is what we wrote last summer about about the project:

Corsin Camichael stumbled across a page hosted on Google's servers, which seems to indicate that Gdrive is something that Google has already begun working on. It also suggests that the name of the service, or perhaps code name of the service, is Platypus.

The page, which was located at http://www.writely.com/index.html , has since been removed, but a screenshot of the page has been preserved for our over-analysis. (Click image below for full-size screenshot.)

The screenshot indicates that the service can be used on Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms, and allows users to store files and content online that they can access from any computer in the world.

Why would you want to store your information online? Let's see what Google has to say about that:

• Backup. If you lose your computer, grab a new one and reinstall Platypus. Your files will be on your new machine in minutes.
• Sync. Keep all your machines synchronized, even if they run different operating systems.
• VPN-less acecss. Not at a Google computer? View your files on the web at http://troutboard.com/p
• Collaborate. Create shared spaces to which multiple Googlers can write.
• Disconnected access. On the plane? VPN broken? All your files are still accessible.

The project is still clearly internal-only, but the "Find a new bug, get a free Platypus t-shirt" message also suggests that they are readying the project for a future Beta release.

So why has this rumor come back full steam ahead? Well, the Wall Street Journal has said that the project is expected to launch early next year in today's edition of the paper.

The day after Thanksgiving, known as "Black Friday", has long been the official first shopping day of the Christmas season. Stores open before the sun rises, and shoppers line up in droves hoping to snag one of those hard-to-get, deep discounted deals. But what about those of us who'd love to save money, but haven't got the willpower or lack of sanity to deal with the "Black Friday" madness? What if you just want to sleep in? That's when Cyber Monday comes in, the online equivalent of "Black Friday."

Cyber Monday is the Monday after Black Friday. The term was coined in 2005 by shop.com, and according to shop.com, in 2006 nearly 64% of retailers saw significant grown on Cyber Monday, and 1/3 of online retailers said their Cyber Monday sales were up more than 30% over 2005.

As online shopping continues to become more widespread and accepted, Cyber Monday is only likely to continue to grow in popularity for those shoppers looking to score the best deals.

For Cyber Monday 2007, shoppers can expect to find a number of specials offers, just like they had in the stores on Friday. Free shipping is one of the most popular offerings, and there will also be several early shopper discounts and some first time buyer discounts.

As you are probably aware by now, the Indianapolis Colts-Atlanta Falcons game will be broadcast on NFL Network. That could mean trouble for thousands of cable television viewers. Cable companies and the NFL have been fighting ever since the NFL Network launched last year and this is the time of year it really heats up because they start showing regular season games.

This weeks game is a bit of a snoozer featuring the Colts and Vickless Atlanta Falcons, but next week it will become a big issue as the network will feature the two powerhouses in the NFC (The Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers).

If you are starting to get antsy about not being able to view the game we have got you covered. Well, sort of at least. If you are not in the mood to go to some mangy sports bar in the area or go over a friends house their is now another option. The NFL Network has setup www.nfl.com/live which they are calling "companion live broadcast" of the game. Testing out the product, it did not work in the Firefox browser, but the quality in Internet Explorer was excellent (much like the Major League Baseball's package of showing live games).

You don't get all the live actions but snippets of the game. Talking heads in the studio go over the game details and, while I could do without such nonsense, it is nice to at least see a little of the action and if anything big happens they will go right to the highlites. You can view the site in full screen mode so you don't have to squint to see every play. As a football fan, I am very pleased that they have provided this service and would love if they expanded it to all regular season access on a subscription service if they added just the live feed of the game.