Google has today started rolling out their new encrypted search feature to some chrome users, enabling them to have end-to-end encrypted searches between their computer and Google search.

The encrypted search service has been available for some time in beta by visiting a specific URL but its the first time Google has started redirecting users directly to the new secure search page. Using the new SSL search helps protect your search terms and your search results pages from being intercepted by a third parties.

Google explains:

Google has updated its Google+ app for iOS devices which include the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, and the latest version comes with a range of bug fixes as well as some minor new features.

Google+ will now lets you re-share other users content with your friends on Google+, and Google has also added a number of performance enhancements to the latest version of Google+

 

You can find out more information about the latest version of Google+ for the iPhone, iPad and ipod Touch over at iTunes.

Google has today announced via its “Data Liberation Front” team thats its now provided Google Voice users the ability to export Google Voice data from its service, using the Google Takeout service. Watch the brief presentation video announcing the new data export feature for Google Voice after the break.

 

Google Takeout has been created by Google to enable users to extract and backup data from its applications and was created by a team of Google engineers named the Data Liberation Front, who have been tasked with the mission to help create ways that users can export data from Google services.

You can find out more information regarding Google’s Data Liberation Front over on their website.

Beleaguered search engine Yahoo has today fired its CEO Carol Bartz replacing her with Timothy Morse and may now by open for sale. Its been revealed by an email written by Bartz and sent the the AllThingsD website. That Bartz was fired over the telephone, and communicated this to her employees via her last email, which can be viewed after the jump.

 

In addition to the firing of its CEO, a Yahoo insider contacted the Wall Street Journal suggesting that Yahoo maybe “open to selling itself”. Although no official statement has been made as yet by Yahoo.It will be interesting to see what now happens to search and email company and if a new leader or sale will be able to turn its fortunes around.

Carol Bartz’s final email from Yahoo:

To all,

I am very sad to tell you that I’ve just been fired over the phone by Yahoo’s Chairman of the Board. It has been my pleasure to work with all of you and I wish you only the best going forward.

Carol

Developers of the Apache open source project today warned users of the popular web server software that a denial-of-service (DoS) tool is circulating that exploits a bug in the program.

The tool, called “Apache Killer,” showed up last Friday in a post to the “Full Disclosure” security mailing list.

Today, the Apache project acknowledged the vulnerability that the attack tool exploits, and said it would release a fix for Apache 2.0 and 2.2 in the next 48 hours.

“A denial of service vulnerability has been found in the way the multiple overlapping ranges are handled by Apache,” the group said in a security advisory. According to Apache, all versions in the 1.3 and 2.0 lines are vulnerable to attack.

The group no longer supports the older Apache 1.3.

“An attack tool is circulating in the wild. Active use of this tools has been observed,” the advisory stated. “The attack can be done remotely and with a modest number of requests can cause very significant memory and CPU usage on the server.”

In lieu of a fix, Apache offered steps administrators can take to defend their web servers until a patch is available.

According to Netcraft, Apache is the most widely used web server software in the world, accounting for 65.2% of all such software currently in use. Because Apple bundles Apache with Mac OS X, and maintains the software via its operating system updates, users running a Mac-based server will have to wait for Apple to deliver a fix.

“It will be interesting to see how Apple rates the bug and how quickly they patch,” said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle.

If you are a little bored with your existing alarm clock waking you up with a standard tune or beep, you might be ready to give the new TalkO’Clock alarm clock a go. TalkO’Clock describes itself as a peer-to-peer social alarm clock that allows complete strangers to call and wake you from slumber.

Don’t worry though as the TalkO’Clock app doesn’t give out your personal number, it just stores it on the TalkO’Clock servers. Then when you then set an alarm to wake you, TalkO’Clock adds this to a public list of alarm calls. Anyone signed-up to TalkO’Clock can then view and accept to call someone to give them a cheerie wake-up call. Watch the video after the jump to see a demo.

You can now signup to TalkO’Clock and give the uniqe alarm system a try, there are also applications available for your iPhone or Android smartphone and the system will work on desktop computers as well.

New reports suggest that Facebook is setting its sights on Instagram, and looking to including Instagram style photo filters in a new update its about to roll out to its Facebook application. Facebook is apparently working on the new photo filters and hopes to release the new updates to its application over the coming months in an attempt to draw users away from Instagram.

Two Facebook engineers have disclosed the information about the new photo filters updates and explain that some of the dozen or so photo filters are similar to Instagram like old-style camera lenses and grainy film.

Since its launch less than a year ago its customer base has exploded and there have even been rumours that Facebook at one stage was even considering acquiring Instagram.

Both Instagram and Facebook have declined to comment on the new updates.

In half a decade Facebook has become one of the most successful companies on earth but also, a new survey of US consumers has found, one of the least liked.

The level of Facebook’s unpopularity uncovered by the 2011 American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) will make difficult reading for its management on a ranking that placed it 15^thfrom bottom of 227 companies across a variety of sectors.

Facebook is now at 66 on the ACSI index, two better than last year, but some way behind YouTube’s and CNN’s 74, Burger King’s 75, Microsoft’s 78 and Google’s 83. The top performers included Amazon and Unilever on 87, Apple on 86, Lexus on 85, and FoxNews on 82.

“Even with this year’s two-point increase, Facebook continues to register as one of the lowest-scoring companies measured by the ACSI,” said the report.

Below it lies a desert of traditionally-disliked companies such as airlines and mobile communications companies. The only company in a similar business to Facebook that scored as poorly was MySpace, which has plummeted so low it now no longer even registers as even being merely unpopular. It seems to have no measurable profile at all.

None of this would probably matter to Facebook or its users if it weren’t for the looming appearance of Google+, which for the first time offers consumers a competitive choice.

“Google is a company that has traditionally received ACSI scores in the 80s—it is among the highest-rated companies in terms of customer satisfaction. If Google can carry over their customer-centric ethos to Google+, Facebook could have serious competition that has the potential to very quickly erode its market share,” the authors conclude.

Facebook has had a difficult year over privacy issues culminating in an Orwellian plot to use PR firm to smear rival Google, a move that won it few admirers.

In the search engine market there seem to be two winners, Google and Bing. Ask.com, Yahoo, and AOL all appear register lower index scores, reflecting their much smaller market share.

Some of the preferences could be related to politics and image as much customer satisfaction; the more liberal HuffingtonPost.com scored a lowly 69 while the sometimes controversial FoxNews.com rated a much better 82.

Although it only measures US consumer opinion, the American Customer Satisfaction Index is calculated by ForeSee Results from 70,000 interviews carried out throughout the year.

The BearExtender n3 Wi-Fi adapter has one purpose: To extend the range of your computer’s built-in Wi-Fi radio, allowing you to send and receive wireless signals over far greater distances than the radios built into standard Macs and MacBooks. The BearExtender is cheap and it works; its only problem is a confusing software interface.

Extending your reach

Based on technology originally developed at the University of California at Berkeley (home of the Cal Bears, hence the name), the BearExtender isn’t useful on college campuses alone. Anytime you’re trying to connect over long distances, in a city hot-zone, say, or a corporate campus, the BearExtender could help.

The BearExtender’s hardware is a rather large adapter that attaches to your Mac’s USB port. That adapter can connect via a short, flexible USB cord or a longer USB cable (primarily for desktop users); with the longer cable, you can use an included clip to attach the adapter to your laptop’s display. In any case, you’ll likely want to remove and then reattach the antenna whenever you move your machine; it’s too large and unwieldy to leave connected all the time.

That adapter is large because the radio it encloses is so high-powered: The Bear Extender blasts out wireless signals with more than 20 times the raw power of the Wi-Fi radio Apple builds into its current devices.

The Bear Extender does require that you install drivers, they’re available on a USB thumb-drive, a nice touch. Once they’re installed, you’ll see a new adapter in the Network system preference pane. (In Snow Leopard, it’s named 802.11 n WLAN. Older versions of OS X show the adapter as USB Ethernet (en #), with # being the adapter’s internal number.)

In testing, I found the BearExtender a wonder. In places where a 2008 MacBook (polycarbonate plastic) couldn’t get a strong signal, the BearExtender produced nearly maximum signal strength, even when metal doors, solid concrete, four walls, and one ceiling were in the way.

I was able to receive a strong, usable signal from a 2008 AirPort Extreme Base Station that was nearly a block away, while standing outdoors and seeing at least 20 other networks. The MacBook’s built-in adapter worked only at a quarter of that distance.

Of course, there are some drawbacks. Boosting signal strength doesn’t necessary produce a cleaner signal; the BearExtender could drown out weaker devices that previously worked fine. And the BearExtender works only in the 2.4 GHz band, which is prone to interference; it doesn’t work in the cleaner 5 GHz band. But 2.4 GHz works better over distances and through objects, and it’s also less expensive to implement; the tradeoff makes sense.

The Bear Extender works with virtually all Macs, the original iBook (clamshell variety) and the 2008/2009 Mac Pro and Xserves running 10.6 in 64-bit mode are the only exceptions.

Software flaws

The BearExtender’s only serious problem is its software. BearExtender provides an off-the-shelf utility from Ralink, makers of the adapter’s chips and radio. Ralink chips have been inside many great devices that I’ve tested over the years. But the company has no idea how to create a decent software interface.

The flaws are everywhere. Look at the Wireless Utility’s tabs: Profile, Link Status, Site Survey, Statistics, Advanced, WPS and About, and guess which one you’d open to make a connection. (The answer: Site Survey.) Want to create a network profile? Open the Profile tab, but be prepared for an interface that only an engineer could love, such settings as RTS Threshold, Tx Power and others should have been hidden in an Advanced pane.

The manufacturer should have taken the time to design a simplified front-end of its own, with fewer options, leaving the Ralink utility for more advanced users or more complex configurations. Perhaps the reasoning is anyone who is technically astute enough to know he needs a Wi-Fi signal booster won’t be bothered by it. But I think average users will be.

We have featured quite a few different accessories for the iPhone 4 here at Kalovski Itim Online, I think this is the first one that is designed to let you photograph the moon and galaxy, the Astroclip.

The Astroclip was created by designer Matthew Geyster from Base One Labs in Boston, and it is an add on for your iPhone 4 that lets you hook up your iPhone to a telescope, you can then take pictures of the cosmos using the camera on your iPhone 4, you can see some photos taken with the Astroclip below.

The Astroclip will work with any telescope with a 1.25 inch eyepiece, so basically it will work with the majority of popular telescopes available, and you will then be able to takes photos of whatever you want through your telescope lens, the video below shows how the Astroclip works.

It certainly sounds like a very interesting idea, the Astroclip is a Kickstarter project, and the designer is hoping to raise $15,000 to put it into production, each Astroclip will retail for around $25.00.

You can find out full details about the Astroclip over at Kickstarter.