Stories about: MSN

After enduring a two-year dip in customer satisfaction scores -- and even being bested by rival Yahoo last year -- Google came roaring back in 2008 to score the highest customer satisfaction marks ever recorded in the annual University of Michigan American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) on e-business Web sites.

Yahoo has become the latest company to abandon customers who bought tracks from its music store encoded with DRM (digital rights management), drawing fire from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

Seventy per cent of US searches in June were done on Google's search engine, according to Web measurement figures from market research company Hitwise.

Web 2.0 software developers ranked Microsoft's MSN/Live Windows developer program higher than competing programs offered by Internet leaders Google, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, Facebook and PayPal, according to results of an Evans Data report released Monday.

For many users, getting started with Linux is surprisingly easy. New, friendlier versions of the free operating system, such as Fedora and Ubuntu, feature straightforward menus and automated installations that make switching from Windows to Linux a relatively simple process.

The Internet engineering community will be eating its own dog food tonight. For one hour, the 1,250 network experts at the Internet Engineering Task Force meeting will be able to access the Internet only through IPv6. The IETF created IPv6 in the mid-1990s, but this upgrade to the Internet's main communications protocol has not yet been widely deployed -- even by the technology's biggest proponents here. Network World National Correspondent Carolyn Duffy Marsan talked with IETF Chair Russ Housley about the group's IPv6 experiment, why the transition to IPv6 is taking so long, and whether the IETF leadership is starting to panic about IPv4 addresses running out. Here are excerpts from their conversation:

Toshiba conceded the HD video disc battle this week and announced its HD-DVD formatted products were no longer going to be manufactured. It had little choice after a string of defeats, started by Warner choosing to go with Blu-Ray exclusively and concluding when the US's biggest retailer, Wal Mart, backed out of the HD DVD format.

Confirming weekend rumors, Yahoo rejected on Monday Microsoft's US$44.6 billion cash-and-stock offer, saying the unsolicited proposal substantially undervalues the company.

A recently released tool that allegedly was designed to help al-Qaeda supporters encrypt their Internet-based communications is a well-written and easily portable piece of code, according to a security researcher who has analyzed the software.

Gadgets have always taken center stage at the Consumer Electronics Show, but this year more than ever, even the coolest devices seem to be mere means to an end -- access to content and services whenever and wherever you want them.

The Cool Stuff Holiday Gift Guide is back, with tips for the very best gifts to buy for the tech lovers in your life. This year, be the one whose gifts are the biggest hits.