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Good news for MySpace users!
Starting November, they will be able to talk on the phone through the service provided by the new partnership between MySpace and Skype, the MySpaceIM, based on VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol).



The company said that MySpace users will not have to download any additional software for using the service, and they’ll also have the possibility to set their profile to Private if they don’t want to receive Skype calls from people out of their friends lists.

They can even prescreen incoming callers and block any Skype call or user they want.

Another thing they can do is to link their MySpace profiles and avatars to their accounts on Skype.
Chris DeWolfe, cofounder and CEO of MySpace said that "Skype has the leading technology in Internet voice communications and an enormous international user base that we're thrilled to connect with our existing community.
Our network has no geographical boundaries -- Internet calling is the natural next step for how our members communicate with each other."

According to the latest statistics, MySpace has over 110 million active users monthly, while Skype has more than 220 million registered users.

Google has added YouTube videos to Google Earth to give people the opportunity to see more about the location they are interested in, like something specific to that area.



In Google Earth now you can find a section of geotagged videos through which you can easily browse for places related to specific video clips.
To access this new feature you have to download Google Earth and press on YouTube button located in Featured Content folder, in the left, and you will start to see icons appearing on the globe.



For example, I wanted videos related to Istanbul, Turkey, and I got these options: Turkish Airlines Istanbul landing, Evanescence - Call Me When You’re Sober (live in Istanbul), Marilyn Manson – Sweet Dreams in Istanbul, Shakira Istanbul Ojos Asi, Tyra Banks – Never Seen on TV, and a few others, including the one from the screenshot.
Isn’t it cool? You get info about a specific place from different angles of view.



Google Earth team promises us: “we should warn you that if you do turn on this layer, you might not get any work done today! Take our word for it.”

What impressed this year at the annual MAX conference in Chicago were Adobe’s web apps, attracting the attention of more than 4,000 web developers, who now will have the opportunity to use simplified products based on Flash, Flex, Cold Fusion, and the Adobe Integrated Runtime.

Among others, Adobe announced the purchasing of Virtual Ubiquity, the creator of the Flex-based online word processor application Buzzword.
Share is a new document sharing service that will be available for free, while the company released also the beta version of Adobe Media Player, and is to release the beta version of Moviestar 9, Flash Lite 3 and Flex Builder 3.
Flex Builder will come with advanced data visualizations, caching, and new version of Flex Profiler.

Adobe also announced that it plans the releasing of Astro, the next generation of its Flash software, in 2008.
Astro will integrate Hydra, Adobe’s new image processing programming language.
Another plan for the future is the introduction of Adobe Pacifica, a service that will allow the integration of high quality voice, presence, and video into Flex and AIR apps.

If you remember, in September, Petko D. Petkov and Aviv Raff have warned us about the QuickTime flaw which consisted in a protocol handling problem that allowed the installation of backdoors through Firefox.
At that time, Mozilla had patched the bug but its users were advised to stop using QuickTime for a while.

Now Apple has managed to fix the vulnerability in QuickTime explaining the matter:
"A command injection issue exists in QuickTime's handling of URLs in the qtnext field in files with QTL content. By enticing a user to open a specially crafted file, an attacker may cause an application to be launched with controlled command line arguments, which may lead to arbitrary code execution.”

The patch is destined for QuickTime 7.2 on Windows Vista and Windows XP SP2 and the 7MB update is available on the official Apple website.

As you probably have noticed, all grammar and spell check programs don’t have enough improved proof-reading capabilities.

WhiteSmoke fills the gap with its updated software, called WhiteSmoke 2008, designed for online text enrichment, which encompasses the largest grammar, spelling corrections and text enhancements database.
The upgrades in 2008 version include a newly added on-the-spot notification feature, an improved user-friendly GUI, updates to the British English edition and an enhanced grammar and punctuation engine.
Users can activate on-the-fly text checking option when they need a full proofreading and to receive suggestions like adjectives, adverbs or synonyms.

WhiteSmoke 2008 proofreads about one million sentences a month from a user database of 50,000 people.
Hilla Ovil-Brenner, founder of WhiteSmoke and CEO, declared that: “We have improved our interface following user feedback. The GUI is now more user-friendly with easier to navigate menus and fewer buttons.”
Now the users can paste specific part of the text into the WhiteSmoke window and work on it, while seeing the changes in the main window.

The Notifier is a new feature which highlights spelling and grammar mistakes while typing the text.
As Liran Brenner - WhiteSmoke Vice President R&D – said, “The user benefits from an on-the-spot pop-up window that alerts the writer to a mistake and suggests a correction. The user can either correct the error manually in the application or launch WhiteSmoke for automatic correction.”
Hilla Ovil-Brenner added: “As more people use the Internet, text-based communications increase (email, messaging, texting), and blog and forum communities flourish, there seems to be a growing need to improve written communications at every level. Here at WhiteSmoke we are working with top linguistics experts to help all writers produce professional English simply and cost-effectively.”

WhiteSmoke version 2008 uses artificial intelligence algorithms to scan for error detection and correction in written English.
Currently, the program is available in several forms: General Writing Version, Business Version, Legal Version, Medical Version, Creative Writing Version, Executive Version, and Dictionary + Translation, with prices ranging from $79.95 to $249.00.
No demo for download is available because you can watch a complete demonstration of its functionality directly on the official website.

The 2008 version will be available on www.whitesmoke.com starting November 2007.