In a press release issued by Microsoft Tuesday, the announcement of the first commercially available surface computer was made.

Expected to be released late this year, Surface will first appear in places like Casinos and hotels.

“With Surface, we are creating more intuitive ways for people to interact with technology,” Ballmer said. “We see this as a multibillion dollar category, and we envision a time when surface computing technologies will be pervasive, from tabletops and counters to the hallway mirror. Surface is the first step in realizing that vision.”

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Recently when traveling on the ferry from Nanaimo to Vancouver BC, I picked up the June 2007 issue of Discover Magazine. In this issue there was one article that I found particularly interesting. On page 42, “How Much Does the Internet Weigh”?. The article attempts to put an actual physical weight on the data being transferred over the internet on an average day.

The article in many places is far too technical and scientific for me to truly understand, but the basis for the theory is that every bit of data sent via voltages in electronic circuits has some level of mass, albeit minuscule. There is an incredible amount of data sent across the internet on any given day so there must be a measurable figure of weight. Read more…

It would appear as if both www and non-www versions of websites are no longer being treated by Google as separate pages, at least where Page Rank is concerned.

We know that the visible PR in the tool bars is only a loose indication of a site’s actual PR, but it can still be frustrating when you see a low PR for the non-www version, and a higher PR for domains with the www. Recently we have noticed that the PR displayed is now the same for both versions.

I have checked out a few sites where I know the non-www version was displaying a lower PR, and now all are equal. This is certainly a good thing as it is likely a step in the right direction where having both versions will not present any duplicate content issues.

Until such time that duplicate content is no longer a potential hazard, it is still highly recommended to use mod rewrites to permanently 301 redirect traffic to one version of your site. This will eliminate the duplicate content concerns when pertaining to www issues. If you currently use a Google Webmasters account, we also recommend you select the preferred domain to have the site displayed the way you want. For more details on how to play it safe and consolidate www and non-www links here is a tutorial published exclusively at WilsonWeb.com and written by Ross Dunn.

In virtually all situations sites which are visible with both the www and non-www versions are not attempting anything fishy, so it only makes sense that Google should treat both versions as the same URL.

In a failed attempt to grab a substantial portion of market share from auction leader eBay, Yahoo is closing its auction doors forever. Yahoo Auction will be shut down in order to “better serve our valued customers through other Yahoo properties.”

According to comScore, eBay holds roughly a 94% share for online auctions where Yahoo falls way short at 0.2 percent. Read more…

An AdWords Exploit has been put to rest recently by Google after scammers running “smarttrack.org” attempted to capture users banking details and other private information.

At Inside Adwords, the official AdWords Blog, a post was noted late last month regarding the problem. Read more…

It is interesting that a few years after Google released Google Desktop, Microsoft has come forward to release their own version of Desktop search.

As part of the MSN Search Toolbar Suite introduced earlier this year, the final version of MSN Desktop was released just this past Monday.

Yahoo and AOL also have their versions of Desktop search in the works; interesting considering an effective desktop search feature should be something that is automatically integrated into an operating system. The new Windows Vista already has Windows Desktop Search integrated out of the box, but for those looking to try it on your pre-Vista version of Windows you can find the download, along with more details on Microsoft’s site.

If you thought Google had enough data centers by now, then you thought wrong. Search giant Google, recently noted as the world’s most visited website, has announced today that it plans on spending $600 USD million on a new data center, about 50 miles from Tulsa in Pryor, Oklahoma.

Plans have the facility opening in just over a year, summer 2008, and ultimately will staff 200 new employees. Located on an 800 acre plot of land Google purchased at Mid America Industrial Park an existing warehouse will be converted along with the construction of a new building to support their future growth.

The exact economic incentives received by Google from the state have not been determined, but they will certainly be significant.

In the world of search, Google has been number one for several years now, but when it comes to overall site traffic, until recently Google was number two. Now that the latest numbers are out, we see Microsoft has dropped into the second spot as Google takes the prize of the most visited site on the internet. While the two are separated by only a million unique visits (or roughly one fifth of one percent), it is expected that this gap will continue to widen.

Based on figures taken from comScore, while Microsoft enjoyed a staggering 527 million unique visits for the month of March, Google was a hair ahead at 528 million. Yahoo takes third spot with 476 million followed by Time Warner at 272 million, and eBay rounds off the top 5 at 256 million. Read more…

Getting Google and other major search engines to spider your XML Sitemap just got a little bit easier. Although submitting through a search engine’s submission interface such as Google Webmaster Tools can offer additional valuable information, if you simply could not be bothered there is now an easier way.

Vanessa Fox posted in the Webmaster Central Blog a few recent announcements regarding sitemaps.org, including a point on XML sitemaps. Read more…

In a recent paid advertising deal to supply ads for Viacom giants including MTV.com, VH1.com, comedycentral.com, and 30 other web properties. Google has been left in the cold as Yahoo’s Panama platform was chosen. The deal could also expand in the future to include an additional 140 Viacom websites. Based on February’s figures, that could translate to around 90 million unique monthly visitors.

Back in March a lawsuit was launched against Google property YouTube over copyright infringement of Viacom owned television programs. Undoubtedly the lawsuit against Google was a large contributing factor in choosing Yahoo for the deal. As the next largest player in the game, with Google out, Yahoo is certainly the natural best choice.

The multi-year Search Marketing Deal was official announced Tuesday in a press release posted by Viacom.