Consumer content

While you might never become an astronaut and have the chance to ride a Mars Rover on the Red Planet, Google has now rolled out an Earth-bound alternative for the masses.

With Google Earth 5.0, which was unveiled Monday, users can now explore Mars in the same way they've been able to instantly view 3D images of much of our own home planet for several years in previous versions of the software.

The Mars project, which was implemented in conjunction with NASA, is intended both for casual investigation of our planetary next-door neighbor, as well as serious research. NASA and Google hope scientists and other researchers will use the new Google Earth Mars feature to share data about the fourth rock from the sun.

"The mode enables users to fly virtually through enormous canyons and scale huge mountains on Mars that are much larger than any found on Earth," NASA said in a statement. "Users also can explore the Red Planet through the eyes of the Mars rovers and other Mars missions, providing a unique perspective of the entire planet."

Additionally, the new Mars features allows Google Earth users to view much of the most recent satellite imagery from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, as well as other craft circling the planet. And users are able to add their own generally sharable 3D content to the larger map of Mars. … Read more

The Internet shouldn't have caught newspaper publishers by surprise. Early warnings that the Web could change their businesses cropped up as early as 1981.

A 28-year-old report from KRON-TV in San Francisco, a copy of which was found on YouTube, shows that newspapers were already experimenting with digital delivery to personal computer users.

"Imagine if you will," said a KRON female newscaster, "sitting down to your morning coffee and turning on your home computer to read the day's newspaper."

The following report is about how eight newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington … Read more

The amount of market share commanded by Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser has dropped for the seventh consecutive month.

Internet Explorer now has 67.55 percent of global browser market share, a drop of over seven percentage points in a year, according to figures from Web metrics company Net Applications, released Monday. Mozilla's Firefox browser, meanwhile, has gained market share in the same time frame, climbing over three percentage points to 21.53 percent.

Microsoft's browser has steadily lost ground to its competitors in the past year. Its share dropped sharply in both October and November 2008, when … Read more

Worldwide subscriptions to telecom-delivered TV are expected to grow threefold by 2012, according to a report released Monday.

Despite the dire economic climate, the number of such subscriptions is expected to reach 71.6 million by that time, according to market researcher In-Stat's report.

Telecom-delivered TV--offered in the United States by AT&T and Verizon Communications--includes IPTV, which is television delivered via Internet Protocol. Elsewhere in the world, France Telecom, Telefonica, Deutsche Telecom, and China Telecom are jumping aboard.

The telecommunications providers are trying to take on the giants of TV service--satellite and cable.

Key markets over the … Read more

Google tagged the Web as malware on Saturday and was rendered useless for about an hour. The search giant blamed the incident on human error.

Was the ruckus over Google's screw-up overblown? Possibly. But to many folks, Google is the window to the Internet. If folks can't google something, they are simply lost. That fact alone probably qualifies Google as a Web monoculture, although it may be a touch premature to make a definitive call. However, Google touches everything, and frankly that's a bit worrisome.

In security … Read more

Netflix, the Web's No. 1 video rental service, and Wal-Mart are being accused in a class-action lawsuit of unfairly setting prices for their rental services.

According to the Web site of Video Business, the suit was filed earlier this week in U.S. District Court, Western District of Arkansas. The lead plaintiff, Marci Badgerow, alleges that Wal-Mart agreed in 2005 to exit the online rental business in exchange for Netflix's termination of DVD sales, according to Video Business.

The plaintiffs argue that the agreement promotes unfair trade and is illegal. They assert that the pact harmed customers because … Read more

Steve Jobs is a Bob Dylan fan because the folk singer is, in the words of Apple's CEO, a "clear thinker."

Jobs' own lucid and careful contemplation of the music industry is apparent in a 2003 interview he gave to Rolling Stone magazine's Jeff Goodell. My colleague Tom Krazit pointed me to the story after stumbling on to it recently. We were bowled over by the preciseness of Jobs' assessment of what the future held for digital rights management, music subscription services, the four largest recording companies, and Apple. The interview in retrospect is a fascinating … Read more

File this under: now you tell me.

On Wednesday, I paid $30 to upgrade some of my iTunes music. That's the only way iTunes Plus allowed me to do it: swap out all the songs in my library eligible for upgrade or forget about getting any of them at the higher bitrate.

But on Thursday I read at Macworld.com that iTunes is now enabling users to upgrade on a per-song basis. What are the odds?

If I would have just waited a few hours, I wouldn't have had to pay that 30 cents for "The Shock … Read more

Correction, 12:50 p.m. PST: This story initially mischaracterized a statement made by John Challenger regarding the severity of recent tech-related job cuts. He does not expect them to be as severe as those during the dot-com bust. Also the percentage figures cited within the various sectors reflect the increase in layoffs last year compared with 2007, and not the percentage of jobs cut.

Job cuts in the tech sector increased 74.2 percent in 2008 compared with the previous year, as the industry was battered by an unrelenting wave of layoffs, according to a report released Thursday.

Last … Read more