Microsoft challenges Google

Microsoft is to release a test version of its Live Search Books in the US today to take on rival Google's Book Search, reports IT Wire.

Live Search Books is a digital archive that will include books from the collections of the British Library, the University of California and the University of Toronto. Books from three other institutions will be added in January.

Unlike Google Book Search, all the books will be non-copyrighted initially, but later Microsoft will also add copyrighted work with permission from publishers. Live Search Books features a search facility that will enable users to search the full text of books.

Passengers at London's Heathrow airport are being invited to sign up for a trial of the most advanced screening equipment in the world, reports BBC News.

When implemented, passengers willing to have their fingerprints, eyes and faces biometrically scanned will be fast-tracked past queues through security and boarding controls. Only fingerprints will be scanned at check-in during the test phase.

According to UK immigration minister Liam Byrne, the new system is crucial for security. He says biometric ID systems are fundamental to securing borders in a more mobile age.

The reorganisation process under way at Yahoo will mean more user-generated content and less entertainment programming, say analysts.

The predictions follow Yahoo's announcement earlier this week that it will abandon its product-aligned structure in favour of one focused on users and another on advertising customers and partners.

News.com says the audience group is expected to build social media environments across the Yahoo network and further extend into mobile and IPTV. A merge of overlapping products like Delicious and MyWeb, or Yahoo Photos and Flickr is also expected.

IBM and a Netherlands-based astronomical research foundation are to design microchips that will be used in thousands of antennas to look for evolving galaxies, dark matter, and possibly the origins of the universe, reports InformationWeek.

The collaboration is part of the Astron research foundation's project to build a new type of distributed radio space telescope to peer into the farthest reaches of the universe.

Microchips resulting from the collaboration between IBM and Astron will be used in pilot antennas for a prototype telescope to filter useful information from the radio signals.

A US spam filtering company says spammers appear to be gaining the upper hand, with spam accounting for nine out of every 10 e-mail messages, reports UPI.

According to Ironport, spammers are outrunning most of the technology companies are trying to use against them. The anti-spam company says the culprit is a new breed of junk message called image spam, which is eluding traditional text-reading spam detectors.

The report says image spam increased four-fold from last year and now represents nearly half of all junk e-mail messages.