Jared Cohen, who until recently was employed by the U.S. Department of State, will lead the new division of Google starting in mid-October, he said in an interview with Foreign Policy magazine tweeted by Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Cohen has been known as a digital guru for the State Department, helping focus attention within the government on emerging social-media technologies like YouTube and Twitter.

Google Ideas will examine a wide range of issues, according to Cohen: “… the range of challenges that it may focus on include everything from the sort of hard challenges like counterterrorism, counterradicalization, and nonproliferation, to some of the ones people might expect it to focus on, like development and citizen empowerment.» Cohen is calling this a «think/do tank» in the sense that Google Ideas will attempt to put some of the concepts it generates into action by working with government and third-party organizations.

Google already operates Google.org as an idea factory for topics a little outside of its core business, such as Google PowerMeter and Google Flu Trends. And Schmidt is a member of the Council of Advisers on Science and Technology, which provides advice on technology issues to President Obama.

Google and the State Department bonded earlier this year over Google’s dispute with China over censored search results, leading to a policy speech on Internet freedom by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that invoked Google on several occasions. Last year, Cohen was said to be behind the government request that Twitter delay scheduled maintenance during a critical period for street protests in Iran.

Bing daddy Microsoft told The Reg it will object to Yahoo! Japan’s alliance with Google, announced this week, in a presentation to Japan’s Fair Trade Commission.

A Microsoft spokesperson said: «We plan to present evidence to the Japanese FTC explaining why we believe that this deal is substantially more harmful to competition than Google’s deal with Yahoo in 2008 that the DOJ found to be illegal.”

Microsoft told All-About-Microsoft’s Mary-Jo Foley a tie up would give Google virtually 100 per cent of all searches in the country and deliver control of all personal searches by consumers and business to the internet’s biggest search and ads company.

Earlier this week, Yahoo! Japan said it will switch to Google’s search engine from the one it had developed and would use online advertising and distribution from Google.

It’s a mirror of the agreement between Microsoft and Yahoo! elsewhere in the world, where Yahoo!’s search and ads platform is being lifted out and Microsoft’s Bing is being slotted in. The switch-over is due for completion during September and October.

Yahoo! Japan isn’t a fully owned extension of Yahoo! US. Japanese phone and internet service provider Softbank has a 40 per cent stake in the operation with Yahoo! on 30 per cent.

Yahoo! Japan has around 50 per cent of all searches in Japan, with Google on 45 per cent and Microsoft in single digits. ^®

Google had 65,8 per cent of the market, according to comScore figures, which represented a 0,4 per cent drop compared to June. Yahoo! which is in second place, seems to have taken that sliver, as it was up by the same amount to 17,1 per cent.

Bing remains in third place and retains the same percentage of searchers — 11 per cent. In June, Bing had seen greater growth. It went from 12,1 per cent of the market in May to 12,7 per cent in June.

Experian Hitwise figures show a similar overall picture. They have Google with 71,43 per cent, Yahoo! with 14,43 per cent and Bing with 9,86 per cent.

The Experian Hitwise figures are further broken down into different categories and the most interesting figure is perhaps the rise in shopping-related searches on Bing, which has seen an 84 per cent increase compared to the same period last year.

Businesses will now be able to upload longer video productions onto YouTube, it has been announced.

The website has revealed that it has increased its upload limit from ten to 15 minutes following demand from users.

YouTube said it was able to make the change thanks to the creation and improvement of numerous tools for content owners, in particular its Content ID content mangement system.

«Now, all of the major U.S. movie studios, music labels and over 1,000 other global partners use Content ID to manage their content on YouTube.,” said a YouTube blog post.

«Because of the success of these ongoing technological efforts, we are able to increase the upload limit today.”

To launch the new service, YouTube is running a competition in which users can enter a 15-minute video on the theme 15 Minutes of Fame.

Selected videos will be shown on the YouTube homepage.

Earlier this month, YouTube users were encouraged to submit videos to be made into a documentary by Ridley Scott and Kevin Macdonald entitle Life in a Day.

On its blog, the company explained:

You can get to privacy controls on mobile by going to m.facebook.com/privacy or by going to the Settings page and clicking the «Change» link next to the words «Privacy Settings.» Check it out for yourself to:

* Select who can see the content you post by setting the simple control for sharing on Facebook to friends, friends of friends or everyone,

* Fully customize your granular settings, if you want, and have them take effect instantly, and

* Read through our comprehensive privacy guide, formatted for mobile devices.

It’s a good move for Facebook to bring these privacy controls to handsets because the company knows that mobile is their future. I do think the privacy flap was a bit overblown and amplified by a vocal minority but it’s a real issue that could really hamper the company’s ambitions.

What are those ambitions? It’s simple really: they want to remake the web. Instead of going to Google to find out what you want, the company wants your friends (and its advertisers) to influence your Internet experiences and decisions.

This could be incredibly powerful on the mobile side of things because the company wants to become a platform that influences other phones, apps and even app stores. We all know location-based services are coming in a big way, but the check-in model seems kind of limited and geo-fencing coupons can still be spam-like.

If you implement a strong social-networking layer like Facebook, these location-based services could become more useful. If I walk by a deli which has received praise from many of my Facebook friends, a mobile coupon from there would be more useful than just a random store that senses I’m nearby and shoots me a discount.

I could go on and on about Facebook, privacy and mobile, but I want to hear your thoughts in the comments.

The bill for the April-June period represented a 15 percent increase from the $480,000 that lobbying cost Yahoo at the same time last year.

The latest quarter marks Yahoo’s highest lobbying tab for a three-month period since the third quarter of 2008 when it spent $570,000.

With its revenue barely growing, Yahoo has been funneling less money into political persuasion than some of its biggest rivals. Microsoft’s second-quarter lobbying expenses totaled $1,85 million while Google paid out $1,34 million.

Some of Yahoo’s concerns overlapped with its rivals. Those topics included online privacy, Internet advertising and human rights.

The company, based in Sunnyvale, also addressed proposed legislation affecting Internet security, child protection, corporate governance, executive compensation and shareholder rights, according to a disclosure statement filed Tuesday with the House of Representatives’ clerk’s office.

Yahoo also lobbied against a proposed legal settlement that would give Google the digital rights to millions of out-of-print books. Microsoft and Amazon.com Inc. are among the other companies aligned against the Google books deal, which still needs approval from a federal judge.

The various lobbying efforts were directed at Congress, the office of the president, the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Department of State, the Federal Communications Commission, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S Trade Representatives.

Among those registered to lobby for Yahoo were: Leslie Dunlap, who once worked in the 1990s for former Congressman J. Dennis Hastert before he became speaker of the House; and David Hantman, former chief of staff for Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

Google retained its 66 percent U.S. market share through June, while Yahoo and Microsoft Bing notched 16,7 percent and 11 percent, respectively, according to adjusted numbers from market researcher comScore.

Search share didn’t change much when comScore July 12 stripped away «contextually-driven searches» powered by slideshows and contextual shortcuts on Yahoo and Bing.

Google slipped a touch from 66,4 percent through May to 66,2 percent through June. Yahoo nudged up from 16,6 percent and Bing grew from 10,8 percent. HitWise also had Bing gaining for June, albeit to only 9,85 percent.

However, when comScore counts the slideshows and other shortcuts, which trigger automatic searches instead of actual physical clicks by users, the numbers tell a different story.

Viewed through that lens, Google lost share, going from 63,7 percent in May to 62,6 percent in June. Yahoo leapt up to 18,9 percent in June from 18,3 percent the month earlier. Bing jumped from 12,1 percent in May to 12,7 percent in June.

Accounting for automated search queries, it doesn’t look like anything will stop Yahoo or Bing from chomping share from Google. That is, of course, unless Google begins offering slideshows and other shortcut links.

There is no indication from Mountain View, Calif., that will happen. Moreover, comScore’s adjusted figures are the numbers that most financial analysts are looking at when they assess the U.S. search sector.

Marianne Wolk, of Susquehanna Financial Group, noted as much in her research note July 13:

«We prefer to examine Google’s share of adjusted core searches, which strips out the incremental volumes associated with contextual searches from slideshows, etc., recently included with Yahoo and Microsoft’s results.”

Jefferies and Co. analyst Youssel Squali joined Wolk in this sentiment, calling Google one of the best plays on ad recovery and a «must buy» for advertisers. He added:

«While comScore data suggests that Google lost 110 basis points (bps) m/m (month-over-month) in June and Yahoo and Bing gained 60bps each, we believe most of Yahoo and Bing’s gains came from cosmetic changes. Adjusting for these, Google lost only 20bps m/m.”

Finally, FBR Capital Markets analysts chimed in:

«comScore June data needs some adjusting. While comScore’s reported numbers may cause some confusion by suggesting that GOOG lost 110 bps m/m in June and Yahoo! and Bing gained 60 bps each, we believe that most of Yahoo’s and Bing’s gains came from incorporating automatic searches in slideshow navigation and in-text links.”

This isn’t a case of financial analysts unjustly ganging up on comScore; the research firm said in June it is altering its methodology for classifying and counting Web searches.

The research firm expects to employ them in time for its July data, slated for a mid-August release.

That may mean more good news for Google, FBR noted: «comScore appears to be finalizing the restructured measurement this week and should be on plan to provide more relevant search figures starting in 3Q. We believe this will ultimately benefit Google’s reported share figures.

Other interesting facts: 3 billion photos are uploaded to Facebook each month, of which users view more than 1 million photos of every second. In order to support this enormous volume of pageviews and updates, Facebook’s servers perform more than 50 million operations per second. While nothing was said on the number of servers that are actually deployed, Rich Miller of Data Center Knowledge spotted a PowerPoint slide showing the server footprint of Facebook over the years.

Using previously confirmed figures, Miller did a simple extrapolation and estimated that Facebook now has 60,000 or more servers.

The 88B’s 3,06GHz Intel Core i7 880 processor outpaces competing PCs that stick with slower-clocked CPUs-but not by a lot. Of course, the machine’s general performance undoubtedly reflects the heavy load it bears: 4GB of DDR3 memory, a 60GB solid-state drive for booting, and a 500GB hard-disk drive for storage. The 88B turned a score of 156 on our WorldBench 6 test suite-10 points higher than the mark of 146 earned by the HP Pavilion HPE-170t, which offers a 2,80GHz Core i7 860 processor and 8GB of DDR3 memory for just over $1400.

The 88B’s ATI Radeon HD5770 graphics board helps the system reach an average frame rate of 68,5 frames per second on our Unreal Tournament 3 benchmark run (tested at 2560 by 1600 resolution, at high quality). That’s not the best score on the charts, but it beats the HPE-170t’s average of 65,4 fps.

Where next-generation connectivity is concerned, the Microflex 88B shines. The front of the case offers three USB ports, a FireWire 400 port, and a multiformat card reader. On the rear of the system, you’ll find eight USB ports, two USB 3,0 ports, two eSATA ports, two Firewire 400 ports (one mini), two gigabit ethernet ports, SPDIF out, and integrated 7,1 surround sound. The video card offers two DVI connectors, one HDMI connector, and one DisplayPort connector. Few machines in the Performance PC category have begun to offer USB 3,0 (Polywell’s Poly X5800A3 is another example), and its presence is sure to appeal to users in need of high-speed interfaces.

Though the system’s internal wiring takes up some space, it’s relatively neat. Better yet, the chassis’s four free 5,25-inch drive bays and one free 3,5-inch bay come with screwless locking mechanisms preinstalled. Should you want to replace the system’s combined Blu-ray reader/DVD burner, you’ll be able to slide in and secure a new component in a matter of seconds.

In contrast, the system’s free PCI Express x4 slots (two), PCI slots (two), and PCI Express x16 slot (one) all use screws to lock in additional cards.We can’t complain about the upgradability, however: Should you want to fire up a CrossFire setup to boost the 88B’s gaming capabilities, you’re free to do so.

The mouse that ships with the 88B is drab and generic,. but the Microsoft-branded keyboard comes with a substantial number of extra buttons for one-touch application launching, volume adjustments, media playback control, and zooming.

You can find faster systems than the 88B, and you can find better gaming rigs than the Microflex 88B (the aforementioned Polywell PolyX5800A3, for instance, or the CyberPower Black Pearl). But the 88B’s combination of performance, gaming smarts, and low price, plus wide-ranging connection options, may be unique.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which mainly looks into anti-competitive practices, had accused Twitter of «serious lapses» in its data security that allowed hackers to access non-public user information, among other things.

In a statement on Thursday, the FTC said Twitter has agreed to settle charges that it deceived consumers and put their privacy at risk by failing to safeguard their personal information.

According to the regulator, the security lapses resulted in hackers sending out phony tweets from Twitter accounts of Barack Obama and Fox News.

As per the FTC complaint, hackers gained administrative control of Twitter twice between January and May, 2009.

«One tweet was sent from the account of then President-elect Barack Obama, offering his more than 150,000 followers a chance to win $ 500 in free gasoline. At least one phony tweet was sent from the account of Fox News,” the statement said.

Going by estimates, Twitter has over 75 million users worldwide.

As part of the settlement, Twitter must establish and maintain a comprehensive information security programme, which will be assessed by an independent auditor every other year for 10 years, the FTC noted.