Yahoo debuts SMS search

Yahoo has opened up its search engine for mobile phones through the use of SMS messages, reports VNUNET.

The service allows users on the road to quickly find services by using so-called short cuts, which include WiFi hotspots, weather forecasts, stock quotes and dictionary definitions.

The Web portal also unveiled an updated version of its existing Search on Mobile search engine that adds support for the extensible HTML format, used on WAP 2.0 handsets.

In addition to the mark-up language support, the mobile browser-based search option has been expanded with the same shortcuts that are available for the SMS search.

Microsoft`s announcement that it will ship continuous data-protection software has put storage customers and vendors on notice that it is getting increasingly serious about this market, ARNnet reports.

Microsoft`s System Centre Data Protection Manager (DPM) widens the selection in a new but fast-growing market for products that continuously backup storage and lets users retrieve files they may have lost.

"Products like DPM absolutely pose a competitive threat to pure-play storage-independent software vendors," says David Freund, an analyst for Illuminata.

DPM represents the third tenet of Microsoft`s storage strategy, says Ben Matheson, a Microsoft product manager.

A push is being made to deliver television over an Internet platform, with the potential to transform the medium into a new technology that offers more competition and programme choices, AFP reports.

The long-awaited convergence of television and the Internet is being pushed by the major regional US phone companies SBC Communications and Verizon, which plan to roll-out their first systems later this year in the US market.

Delivering television via Internet technology would give viewers access to virtually unlimited channels and programmes, because instead of pushing video through a cable with limited capacity, the viewer would access servers that store the content.

Internet Protocol television would also make the TV set and computer interchangeable and allow consumers to schedule or record programmes via other devices such as mobile phones.

Intel is gearing up to debut its first dual-core processor for servers, and CNET reports it`s a Pentium.

The chipmaker is expected to announce next week that its Pentium D can now be sold with a new chipset - the Intel E7230 - that has features best suited for entry-servers.

Code-named Mukilteo, the chipset is the follow on to Intel`s Copper River, which is commonly used in workstations and comes with the ability to handle 64-bit operating systems, advanced dynamic computer memory, faster data transfers via PCI Express and software that emulates storage through the redundant array of independent disks.

Server manufacturers such as Dell and HP are expected to sell the new Pentium D servers to run simple network server applications such as Web server or a small database.